Divorced: Fact and reality

Appalling how policymakers have persistently second-guessed their way through issues of substance without employing “due diligence” to ensure they understand the larger picture.

Unfortunately, this unseemly patch-up job shows how they’ve divorced themselves from fact and reality that turns their prematurity into fodder for comedy. Must have learned to parrot Nancy Pelosi on Obamacare, “…let’s approve it now and find out what’s in it later.” The later is here and it’s an ugly failure all the way around.

It used servility to push its casino law. It later realized that it lacked the benefits of a comprehensive plan that should have involved realistic impact assessment of water, power, sewer and roads upon the immediate community. So the tiptoe isn’t as stealthy and sturdy as originally thought. They accidentally kicked the hornet’s nest.

In delayed fashion, it begins to realize that its reckless casino law isn’t the savior to resolving persistent financial crisis of the Fund and other obligations of the local government. It has gone for a homerun over the better game plan of placing more runners on base.

This as we nervously ponder how they would navigate our steadily sinking fiscal canoe out of the deep and violent bottom of bankruptcy. The three projects need upwards of $250 million for basic infrastructure emplacement. Our annual revenue is a measly $135 million today. Hell has to freeze over before we could defray any portion of the project requirements.

There’s nothing up that alley and so we descend into despair. Do we allow this to go on in perpetuity or shall we take charge now?

The arrogated miscalculation is buffered by apathy and insensitivity, what with salaries of between $60K and $90K per year. It shields the men of wisdom from the hardship the simple folks have to endure daily in the villages, Marianas-wide. Hardly any of them has any sense of percipiency that the hardship is tied to their failure to move the needle of growth forward.

The history of disengagement or disconnection with issues of significance is taller than the infamous Puerto Rico dump. The unintended consequences of ignorance and lack of percipiency of impending fiscal disasters are so devastating it’s humiliating. Does vision mean anything to our men of wisdom?

Next came the exodus of Japanese investments including termination of JAL flights and the sale of Nikko Hotel and departure of other big investments from the Land of the Rising Sun. We tried our hands only to end up fast tracking their exodus. How do you mitigate loss of trust?

Indeed, I find it appalling a challenge watching huge investments deploy elsewhere, as it is the mindset that never buckled down to figuring out the ultimate consequence of such exodus for a fragile island economy. It was the usual “ke sera.”

Here we are literally drowning in a huge storm at sea of deep red ink where everything we look at spirals downward, broke! Didn’t know leadership and vision are a scarcity in these critically painful times.

Island peeves
CUC’s CEO Alan Fletcher was caught tiptoeing at the power plant in Lower Base peeping at the three downed generators, one of which is back online, the other ready for scrap work (totaled) while the last one awaits parts (if the bankrupt utility agency could find money for it).

But the man at the helm has likely schemed two options when the federal district court decides to declare CUC incapable of meeting court orders: 1). Let the issue slide given the utility agency’s bankruptcy and hopefully turn it over to a receiver of its choice. 2). Force geothermal as the savior of his grand excuse to confirm the epitome of competency in incompetency.

Employees who scrounge up parts from broken generators at the plant have lost confidence what CUC could do within the confines of common decency to keep the generators operating. Don’t be surprised if within the next six months the island goes on power rationing or constant brown outs. Again, we would have confirmed that we don’t “plan for” but “plan by” eventualities. It’s all about competency, isn’t it?

CUC is also in violation of current law mandating it to work on alternative power beyond the convenient number of 10 percent. Limiting it to this number is an admission of incompetence or a finger-crossing scheme to slip by, hoping nobody catches its solar RFP that definitely requires rebidding given that the price of this technology has decreased significantly. Goes to show what happens when the politics of grand incompetency rule over fully thought-out policies. Embarrassing!

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The craze to live up to 100 is everywhere! I honestly had to probe whether there’s any merit living after 75? I mean you could be a healthy 100 but what good is it when you no longer could reach the john on time or even make a pot of coffee at dawn or walk steadily? No thanks!

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Government isn’t in the business of turning in a profit at day’s end. All it does is spend hard-earned taxpayers money the way it sees fit that sometime crashes in wasteland. While we dole out our contributions for royal misfits in government, no wonder the guys walk around with aura of indispensability. No sir! This attitude must change forthwith! Show us the taxpayers that you deserve your biweekly loot that hails from our pockets! Eh, we don’t born for yesterday, braddah.