Gusty headwinds of 2014

We’ve been floored by the gusty headwinds of the deepening fiscal impotence at home. This disastrous phenomenon is not only felt in government but most critically among households struggling to endure mind-numbing increases in the cost of living. The added costs have significantly reduced the buying power of families by more than 105 percent.

With livelihood of the multitude slated to deteriorate further, appalling that people at the helm are seemingly oblivious to the deepening mess. Its inaction exacerbates the mess by effectively shackling economic growth, destroying the economic freedom of our children.

Leadership suffers from some weird paralysis, seemingly clueless on what needs to be done and dead stuck in irrelevant village level provincialism. Some pretend to know what you’re discussing or palm you off with weak-kneed views or otherwise evasive of substantive issues as he/she circles the car, looking for the key lodged in the ignition since time immemorial.

Did anybody recognize the exodus of foreign capital (about $7 billion) in recent past and its ultimate negative consequence against the local economy? How do we replace it and isn’t this grand negligence the very reason the CNMI’s 2013 revenue was a paltry $126 million?

Why is Kilili congratulating retiring chief architect of the CNMI’s economic annihilation, Rep. George Miller, for exiting Congress? Where has Kilili parked his sense of history and how Miller completely destroyed a fragile island economy? Is the vicious labor champion and ruinous liberal progressive worthy of indigenous praise after sinking the livelihood of our people to subterranean abject poverty? Nothing can be further from the truth.

CUC’s unstable power rates have forced a good many small marginal businesses to put on shutters. Ratepayers in the villages cringe amidst other hefty increases that have robbed them of more than100 percent of their buying power. Has anyone burned the midnight oil to address and resolve the economic mess? It’s all in the combined pile of incompetence!

Simple villagers hang on to “hope versus hope.” One leans on guarded optimism that leadership would quickly resolve to resetting buttons on policy decisions to rein in fresh batch of investments.

We thirst for better days whenever the term “investment” enters our mind or daily conversations. After all, investment is the lifeblood of economic growth. The value of tomorrow’s output is a function of today’s investments in infrastructure, establishment of research center, strengthening of our educational system with definition; strong legal system; manufacturing; training and lasting alternative energy.

The purpose of investment is to create value and wealth, a process that fosters higher standard of living. Economic prosperity leads to opportunities for more jobs and revenue generation. We could talk ad nauseam what a healthy economy brings to a country or the adversity devastating the poor in a very anemic or sickly economy.

The latter scenario is where the CNMI is situated today. Appalling that here at home suspect measures have been introduced to address the symptom rather than the underlying cause of economic dystopia—where nothing works. Do we have the courage to begin rebuilding the economic foundation and pillars of the CNMI or do we don the role of an ostrich, burying our heads in the sand once more that results in the persistent deepening of the hardship and destruction of the livelihood of “we the people”? Hasn’t the cost of living quadrupled this year?

The local government’s cumulative deficit is about $561 million. Revenue collection last fiscal year was a meager $126 million. We need not analyze what it means for it’s a clear tale of financial disaster at home. Let’s exit the appalling corrosive attitude of neglect that only sinks the demise of families Marianas-wide. Are policymakers (both sides of the street on the hill) ready to make a difference or simply waltz lazily on the dance floor of fatal mañana?

You the taxpayer could easily add up the pile of increases against your wallet in obligations that kicked in this year. It amounts to more than 105 percent against your income that remains the same all these years. It isn’t very encouraging, is it?

How do we ease the economic hardship families and private industries have to endure since recent past? A major policy decision—the quickest exit if you will—rests with alternative energy.

CUC’s foot-dragging fancy for more studies into solar and geothermal energy is the perfect bureaucratic tool to prolonging the hardship and agony in the villages. Isn’t CUC’s utility cost a major deterrent to investment? The exodus of some $7 billion in foreign capital would attest to this.

To follow CUC’s usual bureaucratic paradigm to engage more studies on alternative energy is to prolong the agony of a myriad of increases from power bills to recent spikes in health premiums, impending spikes in food cost while enduring stagnant salaries and other costs. Indeed, incompetent bureaucrats get their hefty fill while the 99.9 percent in the villages yearn for some respite to ease the deepening filial hardship all over. The issue requires leadership!

Is it hard understanding that there hasn’t been any major investments here since 2005? A lot has gone wrong in our tiny paradise. Incomprehensible the lack of urgency to work on measures that address the economic and fiscal disaster at home. Lest we forget, even empires crumble.

The emplacement of a certain alternative energy plan would set the stage for lasting investments and place the CNMI on the permanent road to economic recovery.

The Department of the Interior recently awarded the State of Maryland $7 million to buy some 80,000 acres of land for an offshore wind farm. Two areas in the Texas panhandle are building wind turbine farms in addition to other states that have found this form of alternative energy as the thing of the future. We should guide its introduction and permanent installation on the islands.