Avalanche: Costs slam families

As families juggle numbers on their pocketbooks, an announcement was issued this week that health premiums and deductibles (insurance) will increase by some 35-40 percent on the first of year. It’s another heavy blow against family pocketbooks!

I knew this was coming down the pike after the Obamacare fiasco displaced more people into hardship land, though I wasn’t sure how much it would be here.

The increase would paralyze some 3,000 retirees and their families further after being slammed with a 25-percent cut in pension pay. So far, it adds up 60 percent in additional cost to the family purse for retirees and those caught in the underemployed category. The family budget or purchasing power is torpedoed as everything spikes and choices narrow!

Furthermore, everybody must face the impending increase in the cost of basic goods after Matson announced an increase per container of some $325. This added cost against the family purse would definitely reduce the purchasing power of more families.

As though these increases aren’t enough, the Scrooge of Christmas—CUC—is crowing to increase power bills beyond what they are today.

Up ahead, taxpayers must pay for the repayment of pension obligation bonds of between $60 million–$80 million that would be tagged with higher interest rate.

Moreover, families must still endure paying for the first family real estate loan, auto loan, real estate insurance; life insurance; cost of catastrophic illnesses; money sent to kids abroad going to school, in addition to the high cost of potent medication.

So no matter where families turn, it’s the avalanche of cost that skyrockets beyond their ability to pay for more increases while their income stays zero or stagnant. Is there hope ahead for some respite of help to ease the myriad of costs being leveled against families all over the archipelago?

Isn’t pushing the poor further into hopelessness and destitution instruments that could lead into a huge social implosion in the near-term?

Disintegration of paradise

We seem to be languishing in the dark, ignoring that a lot has gone wrong in these isles. Even more troubling is the demeanor of people at the helm who treat the deepening economic malaise with “business as usual.”

Appalling that the hardship of the people they represent doesn’t seem to jolt the wits of our governmental institutions. Conscious leadership is nonexistent. Our government is bankrupt, a fiscal colossus that retards economic growth. It’s economic dystopia—where nothing works—and keep intoning “que sera, sera.”

We’ve yet to see plans to attract durable investments. Instead, there’s determination to pile more debts to the current deficit of some $369 million. It’s a rolling disaster with no light in sight.

Stunned by grand neglect of recent past, we quiz and struggle to answer the non-directional query, “What’s north?” It’s zero-sum up that alley, right? With self-denial in perpetuity, folks all over ask: Is there any hope in our future? Maybe! Even this query is pensive in every sense. Can’t ably put a finger on it.

There’s the appalling disconnect with issues that simply boggles the mind. It is further suffocated by the lack of any sense of urgency to do anything decisively. The seeming apathy and mediocrity grandly ignores the hardship our people struggle with daily to make ends meet. Doing nothing only exacerbates miserable conditions.

Indeed, there’s also the obvious: The global village is changing faster than leaders can reinvent themselves, leading to a growing gap between them and those they lead. Perhaps herein lies the greater problem of leadership on the islands where most have been overtaken by issues and events, somewhat left dangling in disorientation struggling to figure out “what’s north.”

Robert Rosen, author and business consultant on leadership, asserts that it isn’t what you do that drives who you are but that successful leaders have a sense of who they are and have great character.

Said he: “The one dimension…that is most highly predictive of success is spiritual health. Leaders who score well in this area have a sense of higher purpose and a generosity of spirit and so see themselves as part of something bigger.” Accordingly, while looking upwards, they are also “grounded,” a term that kept coming up in the research, says Rosen.

Other dimensions of leadership in his book included such prerequisites as health—how you live, emotions—how you feel; intellect—how you think; social—how you interact; vocation—how you perform; and, spiritual—how you view the world.

Now do you have an inkling why the deepening mess at home? We’d continue probing the leadership issue in hopes of understanding what it takes to make decisive changes from economic misery to prosperity in the near-term.

SNAP Isles of the NMI

In one of the long haul trips I took to Washington, it was winter and so everything downstairs was plain white from snow. It’s all white landscape well into Dulles Airport.

The other trip was in autumn and I saw huge farmlands like pictures I’ve seen in reading books in grammar school. Huge!

Indeed, the wealth of country entered my tiny mindset and all its potential most capable of turning despair into one of opportunities. But it wasn’t the wealth of natural resources that grabbed my attention as much as the mantra of rugged individualism. It paved the way for the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world.

Conversely, the Land of the Rising Sun isn’t blessed with huge landmass like the U.S. or Australia. But it’s the second richest country in the world. It succeeded grandly morphing from backwater into a global economic power.

We should salute our illustrious and esteemed Washington delegate for crafting, escorting, fostering, and cementing the new Marianas reputation: SNAP Isles. At least we would be transitioning from one humiliating reputation of Islas De Las Ladrones (Island of Thieves) to another. Call it a monumental achievement in humiliation!