Tan: On economic recovery

It is said that leaders don’t fly with the flock. They usually fly alone. It grants them the opportunity to engage in critical intellectual pursuits by taking an overview of everything below. It’s a wonderful time to think through issues in solitude.

Jerry Tan has trail-blazed the leadership sphere that’s solely the domain for people with real leadership qualities. It’s a place where others simply refuse to venture for realistic answers. He’s diagnosed the issue, understands it thoroughly, then came back and offered “Saipan Air.” It would soon begin providing direly needed air services from several large Japanese cities to the business center here.

Tan’s visionary pursuit focuses on tourism recovery. It’s the first step toward the larger goal to revive an entire economy. He knows that the water that once lifted our boat could lift it once more if we allow tidal shift or positive change to return to our shores. We must lift the heavy sheet metal from our port of entry and allow tidal shift to fill our hospitable harbor once more.

Obviously, he isn’t passing the baton of leadership to others but reasonably expect key players to pitch in so the new business venture is soundly complimented during its initial years of operation. I am also in agreement that funds given to MVA must be viewed as an investment rather than just another expenditure. It supplies the blood veins of the industry with sustenance to pump life into our tourism sector.

Dazed as the elected elite may be, the least they could do is look intelligent as they mull policies and decisions to augment real time economic recovery.

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The vehicle that would have refined misgivings spewing out of the incipiency of NMI/feds relationship, Commission on Federal Laws, died a silent death. Both sides abandoned the gate altogether. That was the beginning of the dysfunctional relationship that has taken a turn for the worse: crusty fighting words and litigation.

The CNMI wasn’t derailed by the parting of the ways. It was a beneficiary of the quota and tax fee provision under the Covenant Agreement on finished apparel products destined for the West Coast. It became a thriving industry that raked in some $2.1 billion annually at its peak.

But the World Trade Organization made a decision that freed Asian apparel producing countries from quotas. It turned our apparel industry’s comparative advantage into grains of sand cascading down a once powerful pedestal. It brought down hundreds of collateral businesses with it. Slowly, the economy sputters to death as we watch tourism—the other economic pillar—take a nosedive when major airlines stopped services from big cities in Japan.

The implications of the double whammy left inept politicians dazed at the turn of events beyond their provincial views. None of them could unravel the huge loss in revenues by countering it with a fully thought-out recovery plan. They know not what to do and were reduced to inaction, still dazed at the magnitude of economic tsunami.

As the economy breaks down, it turns a once thriving community into ghost towns. Revenues have plunged, deficit spending skyrockets, feud intensifies over how meager revenues are divvied up to pay for bloated payroll, among others, coupled by an intensifying community dissatisfaction edging toward volcanic-like eruption. It seems every enthusiastic vision takes a complete reversion to lamaña. The elected elite guards its “Do Nothing” trophy, hoping its plated gold color sticks from village salt spray.

I have no solid answer other than to suggest that we return to square one. We may disagree and stay disagreeable with the feds, but donning adolescency isn’t the appropriate paradigm either. To hasten recovery is to rebuild our dysfunctional relationship with the feds. Let’s begin by extending the olive branch to them while staying steadfast in our belief in the essence of self-government.

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It’s a vicious public relations race between proponents and opponents of introducing the casino industry into Japan. Pro-casinos tout the revenue while the opposition explains the costlier and heavy social cost of the addictive nature of gambling.

Powerful gaming moguls are all from without, i.e., Macau and Las Vegas. As the addictive behavior forms and solidifies into irreversible habits among Japanese players, money made would be collected and repatriated to the two places while Japan deals with extensive social problems born and ruined by gambling. Is it really right to say we made money by draining our people of their last lifetime savings?

The casino industry does not lend to helping other sectors of the economy, according to an op-ed piece in the Japan Times. In fact, money collected is sent first to owners off-island, a drain against the local economy. Jobs created “do not necessarily result in a larger stimulation of the entire economy, nor do they prime the pump of consumer spending or contribute substantially to other industries. The amount of money spent on other leisure, consumption or recreation activities may also suffer a downturn when personal budgets are spent on gambling,” the JT editorial said.

It also asserts that the “benefit weigh much more heavily than the short-term income of tax revenue. Casino gambling will not solve a country’s long-term economic problems, which demand more reasoned and productive solutions.” It beats logic why then would legislators want to drain what’s left in an already disastrously ruined economy? Or has someone cloned St. Thomas?