The NMI a decade later

On the wall was a poster inscribed, “We make our tomorrows by what we dream of today.” Perhaps my daughter left it there to remind good old dad that there’s still a window of opportunity to rebuild our tomorrows even in the worst of economic times. Yes, I’m a believer that “hope springs eternal” and that even in bad times, there’s room to maneuver though a dollar short and a day late.

Investments: Major foreign investment in this pearly archipelago is basically history. If investment ever returns then it would be woefully small and passive. The last two proposals for hotels in the northern part of Saipan has just sizzled, if not, fizzled, a tale of the global economic recession that torches even small venues like the NMI. It’s time to trump our cards in order to clearly see why we must define our future with critical lenses.

In view of this condition, largely triggered by the prohibitive cost of fossil fuel, the NMI is hit viciously as the airline industry did restructuring, eliminating non-profitable routes that includes these isles. We ponder the imponderable amidst the usual notion that the airline industry must be an organ of the local government. It is not and it is simply, like other business ventures, a business that finds its livelihood in profits.

The prohibitively high cost and regressive effects of utilities will continue battering the lifeblood of this archipelago-business community-costly fuel sending it closer to sputtering to death than revival. It isn’t an easy beast to domesticate but herein rest our reliance on leadership to do something about it. And in the midst of sending every family to the sea of abject poverty, the least you could do is rebuild our tomorrows not with the usual attitude of inconsequence and insensitivity but with real dreams and conviction we could all share.

Manufacturing: To answer this issue is to resolve the grinding and economically fatal effects of the imposition or federally mandated minimum wage. This effect, damaging all the way around, is inconsequential for proponents in Washington. Here it’s the lifeblood of our economic engine.

On the flip side, we too were negligent in instituting a decent wage system. I mean, for years I saw classified ads for engineers at $3.50 an hour requiring graduates be products of an accredited U.S. engineering school. Kidding me?

For years too, we’ve suppressed giving the trades and technical jobs decent salaries and wages to keep the cost of housing down. Good thinking, but why embrace another policy completely the opposite of the previous policy? Need we consistently hammer our toes with a sledgehammer before we find out they are contradictory and counterproductive? Halo? Anybody home, lai?

A lot remains to be done to critically and soberly address policies involving the trades. No wonder everybody wants to be governor. Hold on folks, let’s do reality check on this score for once in our lifetime. This and other relevant issues and agencies’ roles must be brought together under a single page so we all trump our cards simultaneously. Otherwise, our economy is dead fish in the water!

Let’s plan FOR the future 

The NMI must humbly return to the drawing board to begin drafting its socio-economic plans with a set of goals and objectives. You have to have a guideline to Plan For the future of the islands. It’s a better paradigm over “Plan By” where ad hoc undertakings are dictated haphazardly by eventualities. Definitely, it’s the consequence of disorientation fast-forwarding our demise into nihilism!

Indeed, our neighbor to the south has had her share of bad setbacks prompted by the global recession. But it has a plan to review and refine amidst the quick shifts in paradigms to save economies of scale, including developing economies. This is the comparative advantage it has over the NMI. Guam has seriously shifted markets from Japan to China and elsewhere. We’re still pondering the deafening effects of airline shortage to prop up the tourism industry.

Redundancy of Commission

Some 33 years ago was established the Commission on Federal Laws comprised of members from both the NMI and federal government. Its purported purpose was to review refinement of the agreement every 10 years, including applicability of federal laws.

Somehow the commission fizzled out and has never been revived since. Perhaps this is the appropriate time to revive it by asking the feds to step in. It is vital that we do so by promoting synergistic working relationships on issues of mutual interest.

The purpose and tenor of the proposed commission is out of place. I say irrelevant in that there’s the obvious need for the NMI to critically review its performance in the institution and strengthening of self-government over the last three decades. It’s good to begin by knowing our rate of success or failure on this score.

It’s useless to do it for purposes of grandstanding rehashing old and tired arguments about neo-colonialism and paternalism. It’s best that we seek revival of the Commission on Federal Laws with the view to fostering synergistic working relationship with our benefactors in Washington to rebuild the local economy. Let’s see our performance rating that includes the now imperiled Retirement Fund. Good start?