Disconcerting vacuum

Earlier in the year, there was a state of mourning dovetailed by the dawn of mind-bending morning. The former was purposeful, the latter a vacuum of appalling disorientation!

We sit discouraged and hopeless quizzing if more of the same mind numbing hardship is in store for families all over the archipelago. The mess is deepening, daily!

The deafening vacuum reminds many of the two-three day silence from imperial Capital Hill after Soudelor recedes into the horizon. No leadership as people decided to start rebuilding on their own. Was this a tale of what’s ahead? It’s happening now!

While we sit around listening for some respite of hope in our future we’re told to spend time with our children. It’s purely intramural stuff. Then came tidings of the Fiji trip relating to power generation. Isn’t CUC now working on an integrated energy resource proposal? Would Uncle Sam approve of federal dollars going to a firm in Fiji? It demonstrates what happens when the chief navigator hasn’t a clue what a canoe looks like. It’s a junket to avoid fiduciary duty!

We’ve kept our ears to the ground on likely cabinet appointees. There’s suspicion that it would be nepotistic. Understood! It’s a sly way to amassing something in an indirect fashion. We wouldn’t guard it but watch as the scheme crumbles of its own weight. What’s in our future?

Demise of the Fund: When the NMI piled negligence atop other negligence and grandly ignores fixing the mounting fiscal mess it eventually crash land in bankruptcy. This is the history of the NMI Retirement Program.

Retirees were generously given their 30 percent bonus, 3-percent increase for legislators for every year served for their retirement, inclusion of others who didn’t contribute. It included a decision that allowed a parade of governors to skip paying the employer’s contribution of over a million dollars per month. It started out (contribution owed) with $23 million, $72 million, $100 million, and other subsequent huge amounts.

Pension obligation fund was floated as though to pay off the debt but this is illegal in the sense that it’s basically a loan owed retirees paid for by retirees. Asinine!

Then some genius came along with a competing program, Defined Contribution plan that eventually allowed Defined Benefit plan members to withdraw their money. This sent the program limping for money in that the DB members who are supposed to be paying are gone! An initiative was moved to salvage the program but was defeated out of ignorance.

Then came the receivership in what’s now the Settlement Fund. I think the administration must fork out some $45 million for this or next fiscal year. Could it pay for it amidst a cumulative deficit of $510 million?

The Fund is owed some $789 million in unfunded liability (employer’s contribution) destined to deplete all its money by 2018 or two and-a-half years from now. Has anyone done anything concrete to restore the insolvency of the program? Do we blame Uncle Sam for this fiscal mess and demand renegotiation of the agreement because we’ve failed self-government royally? The Fund is now sputtering struggling for air and would soon drown and die!

What happens to retirees when every penny is spent? We’re dead fish in the water, right? When do we begin owning up to our responsibilities to put real teeth into self-government?

Smiling Cove: The finger of the Smiling Cove Marina is getting ticklish. Former politicians are brokering to run the outer cove to pave the way for Best Sunshine’s yacht. They’re waltzing to the classic “Heaven” and wanted to begin a business partnership as servile affluenza.

Sleek move by former politicians hooked with moneyed people. Would they still be pulling the collar of their old office? Wow, this is strangely illuminating and enlightening!

Moreover, the inner cove is under U.S. Fish and Wildlife though under the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Fees for boats using it are charged by size per a decision by the former. The secretary of DLNR wants it changed to a per passenger basis. Definitely, this needs clearance from US Fish and Wildlife and the secretary can’t whimsically do so to accommodate his “we few” friends.

Use it or otherwise is up to the boat owner levied by size not number of passengers. The current arrangement cuts costly administrative expenses. How about a plan that also accommodates small boat owners who once used the slips or finger to tie their boats?

Calming shores of home: We have been battered by poor family economics, the golden trophy of the ineptitude cabal upstairs, but we muddle along biting our lower lips. Our last hope of making it to the next day is being home in the islands. It grants us some respite of calm to push through our daily task.

Our religious cultural tradition has been and still is the golden backstop for many of our people. It is founded on values, vision, respect, sharing and helping the less fortunate in our community. It has pulled us together and leaves us reasonably calm and collected at day’s end no matter our situation.

The combined benefits of education and traditional values at home have given us an illuminated view of our north star to follow. We sailed the open sea of life confident we would get to our destination in calm or storm. And we’ve made it however delayed our journey may be on occasion.

Yes, I’m equally aware that we have shifted into a more permissive society. I’m not sure this is the right path to instilling the strength of our religious and traditional values. If we don’t revive it at home then it means it would slowly disappear.

Our culture was and still is the golden backstop that gives us time to retreat and reset buttons as we move forward. We need to revive it. It has that strong element of consistency and stability.