Jack Nicholson Economics on Saipan

In the movie A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise is a lawyer who runs up against Jack Nicholson who commands the military base. In one of the greatest movie scenes, Nicholson in frustration yells at Cruise who is cross-examining him: “You can’t handle the truth.”

Jack Nicholson Economics states first that to succeed in business you must be constantly assessing the market realities and be able to objectively and coldly “handle the “truth” for your business, or, as in an elected official’s case, your government and society’s affairs. A business or government must answer a need and solve a problem that the market actually truly has, and be able to “handle the truth” when they got it wrong like the CNMI has. No time for saving face.

The second painful truth follows right on those heels: Do we even have an economic right to exist in the market with our new product, or current social structure and revenue model? Are we relevant anymore? For example, Borders, the big retail book chain in the mainland, just filed for bankruptcy as the online and ebook market stripped them of any unique value in the retail book market. The problem wasn’t the digital shift in the way consumers are starting to read books; it was sadly that the company management never saw it coming, or were not prepared to change their model. They’re now toast and part of history.

This “are we still relevant” includes governments also accessing their operational models and mission statements to their community and the direction they are leading or, in the CNMI’s case, failing to lead. And then “handling the truth” and the new norm that now exists for their people, like it or not.

The inconvenient truth nobody wants to handle is that the CNMI must now hit the reset button for a new life plan and cultural business model to lead their people into a new era. I believe the way forward is based on a moral question of “giving” and seeing yourselves as contributors to humanity, and not “taking” and collectively singing in hushed whispers up on Capital Hill, “Oh where oh where can Tom Delay be, the feds took him away from me, he’s gone to prison so he’s gotta be good..dadadada.” Y’all know that dark song all too well up on Capital Hill.

The island of Saipan as a God-fearing community should be asking serious ethical questions of the Bud and Barbecue Boys Club that they constantly incestuously re-elect to park their butts in government jobs. But all the cousins and aunties of these elected characters “can’t handle the truth” that their extended family politics is literally destroying the lives of a next generation of islanders and their right to have a meaningful life here.

Here’s another truth question: What strategic role can our island, people, culture, and available resources, play in the new world economic model? Where is our value to serve mankind? The islands’ answer to its future and solving their broken business model lies in adopting a new paradigm in seeing their positive value to the planet, and embracing themselves as valuable contributors, not crybabies looking for handouts. You must first see yourselves as dynamic contributors to the Pacific economy, not the worst performing island economy of all the U.S. territories. The collective low self-image that Saipan has of itself must change first before any lasting or meaningful shift can begin to evolve. Saipan is now like a women desperately looking for Mr. Right, and she’ll never find him. Why? Coz Mr. Right doesn’t exist, and the key to happiness is in her becoming “right” first before anyone “right” for her will even notice her. It’s the same for your collective island and social self-image, and the right economic solution will never emerge until you do some serious house cleaning first. Stop voting for your relatives and get rid of the ice. Now!

Jack Nicholson Economics offers these solutions for saving the CNMI:

1) Quit voting for your damn relatives and wake up. Rome is burning.

2) Get rid of that stupid Article 12 debate and move forward with investor confidence in the islands and that valuable long-term investments won’t get screwed by local politics

3) China tourism. This is the single biggest local business initiative that can shift the tide on the CNMI’s tourism future. Forget relying on the Japanese; they’re now part of ’80s and ’90s history that’s never to return. Make the CNMI family-friendly to the Chinese and be the main competitor to China’s Hainan island and Sanya.

4) Local agriculture. Get off your butts on Capital Hill and go smoke the peace pipe and have a good betel nut chew with your Chammoro brothers in Guam and make a deal! Start bending over and dropping some of God’s powerful life giving seeds into the ground and work that land, brothers. That’s a moral, and a God-fearing just way of providing good sacred food to humanity, and something be proud of! Sadly, too many locals now are in a dazed and confused dream state that tells them they have evolved now to only work in air-conditioned offices and shuffle paper. This mindset will 100 percent doom you into becoming an Indian reservation in the Pacific that resembles more a Devil’s Island prison where nobody can escape from.

5) Reunification with Guam. It’s the only macroeconomic solution that has any scalable and long-term benefit to the CNMI. Your current system has failed. Accept it, get over it, and move forward. It’s the only path that will lead you to better long term future.

6) Stop chasing well-intentioned smart Americans and other haoles away and embrace their value. Some actually love the island and want it to succeed

7) You need some off-islanders elected to government—a Chinese, a white man from California, a Japanese businessman, whoever. You must start on the road to replacing the governor with a qualified person who is not local, not an islander, and comes from an experienced background with real business acumen that is needed to strategically reshape the island’s model to a new century, and is not tainted by local family special interests and short-term greed. It’s highly doubtful that any local at this critical stage is truly qualified to lead the CNMI and evolve a new economic model to save your people.

In summary, Jack Nicholson Economics says get to the truth and handle it now. Rome is burning fast. Do some planting, design your tourism to attract the Chinese en masse, inspire the world to invest on Saipan by dumping that cancerous Article 12, allow an outsider to take a run at leading your government, and get back in bed with Guam. Then smile with your big island hearts and look at the world in terms of not what you can get out of it, but by what we as a proud good people can contribute! Do this and you will survive, and then Mr. Right’s economic lifesaver will emerge organically to also reshape your lives in profound ways, not just increase your government treasury.