Of issues near and far

It’s good to read, analyze and critically question issues of interest that may have immediate or future implications in the islands in one form or another. Otherwise, it would be to our detriment if events hit the NMI in stealth fashion where we ask, out of ignorance, what happened? Briefly, here are issues you might find interesting:

Biggy: Japan is building its $40-billion casino industry and would move on without high rollers. The decision is to protect its pachinko gaming industry. Plus, it has over 26 million wealthy folks who could take home vacations in posh and fully furnished integrated resorts in various areas of the country.

Two issues emerge in mind as Japan prepares to open its casino industry in the next decade: the superb competition it would inflict against the casino here and its effects upon mandating its people to stay home. Japanese are nationalists and would follow constructive policy decisions to support their own industry.

China: For most folks it’s just another day in paradise. Personally, behind such contentment lurks the query: what’s in our future as China expands her military capabilities in war fighting domain: land, sea, air, outer space, and information space?

“The Chinese are clearly intent upon dominating the Western Pacific in order to secure their own environment,” according to Dean Cheng, senior research fellow, Asian Studies, Heritage Foundation. “This will affect not only U.S. allies, but the United States itself.”

Would a $13-billion naval expansion help our country and wouldn’t technology compromise such plan? How about more missiles?

PR debt: An average of 14 families lose homes to foreclosure in Puerto Rico every day, more than double the rate a decade ago as the island faces a real-estate crash worse than the one that sparked the Great Recession in the U.S. mainland, according to a recent AP report.

“Families across Puerto Rico are moving in with relatives, becoming homeless or simply fleeing to the U.S. mainland with destroyed credit records as the island’s government struggles to restructure a portion of its $73-billion public debt and help the economy emerge from a decade-long recession.

“It’s the crisis no one is talking about,” said Ricardo Ramos, a professor at the Legal Assistance Clinic of the University of Puerto Rico. “This has so, so many consequences.”

“In this U.S. territory of 3.4 million people, local courts oversaw foreclosures on nearly 33,000 homes from 2009 to 2016, according to government statistics. A record 5,424 homes were foreclosed last year, up 130 percent from nearly a decade ago, when the government first began tracking those numbers.” Is the NMI trailing behind?

Salaries: Local Republicans have ensured that salaries remain the same for over 20 years. It couldn’t care less how hardworking folks weather increases in the prices of basic goods throughout the period. What sterling performance, keeping a lot of employees drowning in abject poverty!

Now a plan is brewing to raise salaries for the government sector. Once more, it conveniently bypasses the needs of employees in private industries.

It’s a perennial scheme, rewarding unproductive workers using taxes paid by the more productive sector. It’s the politically attractive thing to do to ensure re-election, pandering to voters in the public sector. It’s half-cocked plan!

Taxpayers’ dime: Former president Barack Hussein Obama has been vacationing in places visited only by the “rich and famous.”

“Judicial Watch, the independent organization that tracks government corruption, has cataloged the previous president’s penchant for travel. His 2013 vacations cost over $7 million for that year alone,” according to the Conservative Daily Post.

“The total price for repeated trips to Hawaii, China, Europe, and other places around the world while he was in office amounted to just over $70 million. That number is all that can be tracked through the Freedom of Information Act. It doesn’t include security.”

Since leaving office, Obama has visited Marlon Brando’s private island and Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island that has a price tag of $80,000 per night. He splurges while 46 million Americans are drowning in the swamp of abject poverty.

Obama’s socialistic views inherent under his signature Obamacare aims to ensure that the 73 million folks now under Medicaid would have their medical bills paid fully by taxpayers. What if the number of health payers sees significant reduction? Who then picks up the tab, sir?

It’s good intention gone the other way, while you wine and dine in the most expensive destinations as people in abject poverty seek basic medical attention on a program destined for ruination under your signature healthcare program. How about descending to our level so you see what we look like standing shoulder to shoulder?

Disappointing the trust I had in his humble beginning to see that his best bet is to stay the course improving the lot of the destitute. Like my Kanaka bruddahs would ask, “Has he gotten too big for his pants?”

Leadership: Is our country retiring from global leadership? A recent Bloomberg story says it appears China and Germany are moving in to fill the void in what’s dubbed as a Trump vacuum at the G-20 meeting.

“The two industrial powerhouses of Asia and Europe are being nudged into an informal alliance to pick up the leadership baton that the U.S. is accused of having dropped since President Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year,” according to diplomats and officials from several Group of 20 members.

The situation has crystallized ahead of this year’s annual G20 meeting, which will be held in Germany’s busiest commercial port. “That’s in part because, for the first time since the group’s founding, the U.S. will be represented by a president who embraces protectionism, abandoning decades of American cheer-leading for free trade.” It’s one tough geopolitical issue!