est. 2007

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The Grenville Phillips Column – BLP Administration’s Grade

What grade does the BLP deserve after their first year in Government?  Solutions Barbados compared their achievements with those of the last DLP administration. The BLP administration continued the DLP’s poor practises of: giving corrupting no-bid contracts, increasing taxes, laying off public workers, making commuters wait hours for public transportation, and rejecting the international management…

What grade does the BLP deserve after their first year in Government?  Solutions Barbados compared their achievements with those of the last DLP administration.

The BLP administration continued the DLP’s poor practises of: giving corrupting no-bid contracts, increasing taxes, laying off public workers, making commuters wait hours for public transportation, and rejecting the international management standard that could have significantly improved the general poor management of public services.

The BLP has also continued the DLP practise of only listening to the economic advice of their most partisan supporters.  The BLP has addressed the sewerage problem which the DLP seemed incapable of doing; but they also defaulted on paying our foreign debt, something that the DLP, and no previous BLP administration, has ever done.

The DLP deservedly attracted the bad press, criticism, and public marches for their gross mismanagement of the economy and public services.  The BLP administration has not provided better management.  But their effective public relations exercises make it seem that they have.

The decision to default on our foreign debt is something that would have attracted near-riots if done by the last DLP administration.  Instead, such a failure has been met with understanding or applause.  Shockingly, rather than try to be discreet about this unprecedented failure, we are wiping our foreign creditors’ faces in it, as we boast about the amount of foreign reserves we have – by not paying them.

For the management of their business, the BLP administration deserves an A.  For their management of our business, they deserve, at best, the same grade that we would give the DLP for their gross mismanagement.

Grenville Phillips II is the President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com

61 responses to “The Grenville Phillips Column – BLP Administration’s Grade”

  1. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Freedom Crier
    This is muddled nonsense. While the claim is that the welfare state is responsible for our current predicament, we ignore the rampant growth of capitalism and what the so-called free market has done to the poorest countries on the globe.
    You or nobody else can bring any empirical evidence that the welfare state is responsible for the corruption and mismanagement of the BLPDLP.
    Your futile attempts to blame the poor for our current predicament is most disingenuous.
    Bring all the posters you want. Next time bring some of the villas on the west coast and some of the workers who were recently laid off.

  2. Freedom Crier Avatar
    Freedom Crier

    STATISM IS WHAT PRODUCES A WELFARE STATE.

    Statism is the concentration of power in the state at the expense of individual freedom. Free market Capitalism is the only system which protects individual rights and freedom. Nonetheless the variety of political systems which violate individual freedom are numerous: Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, absolute Monarchies, Military Dictatorships, Theocracies, or the Welfare State are all systems which infringe upon individual rights, which means they institutionalize the initiation of force against their citizens by way of Excessive Taxation.

    It must be realized that there are only two fundamental political philosophies: those who are for freedom and individual rights and those who are against them. The types of political systems who are against freedom and individual rights are numerous, for there are many ways to violate the rights of man, but there is only one political-economic philosophy which upholds that the rights of man are absolute and immutable—Capitalism.

    Peace and Security are better established through the means of economic liberty. It is only when a people are Individually and Economically Free can a society establishing a self-respecting and self-governing citizen. Free Enterprise (Capitalism) = Free Markets
    Capitalism, which is a Communist word removing the (Free Enterprise aspect of it), + Governments =Crony Capitalism/Corporations (Not a Free Market)

    The Foundation for ALL Tyrannies is the Removal of Free Agency. The means to accomplish this has always been Big Government that takes from everyone to create a System that the Elitist controls. This is in direct opposition to Free Enterprise that is not shackled by burdensome regulation.

    Freedom Crier always tend to talk on the Root Cause of our ills, which produces all the issues we debate (weather intentionally or not). When we recognize the Culprit the Mirage becomes Clear and we are no longer baffled and entangled in issues of their making leaving us puzzled. Socialism/Collectivism is Serfdom; it only benefits the Elitist resulting in Tyranny and Chaos as witnessed by what is ensuing in Venezuela under Full Blown Socialism! There are different Degrees of Socialism, but it is All Socialism with guaranteed results of failure. “To say a Little Socialism is Okay is like saying A little cancer is Okay”.

    Why in the first place did it get so out of hand? Eventually the System Rots and Every Kind of Corruption Emerge. I am sympathetic to suffering but we have to come to grips with the Root Cause…SOCIALISM.

    Socialism Never, Ever Works, it Impoverishes, Dehumanizes and Kills people. Socialist Never Learn from History. They Say They Are All Different… Communism, Leninism, Stalin-ism, Maoism, Leftism, Progressive-ism or “Democratic Socialism”, They Aren’t, Names Only Change to Suit the Times!

    https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840×2160/2449107-Fr-d-ric-Bastiat-Quote-Everyone-wants-to-live-at-the-expense-of.jpg

  3. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ FreedomCrier

    This is muddled nonsense. Next time send posters of the villas on the west coast and the laid off workers.
    Stop blaming poor people for the duopoly’s failures.

  4. Freedom Crier Avatar
    Freedom Crier

    @ William Skinner

    WHAT DOES THE PEOPLE ON THE WEST COAST OR EX-PATS HAVE TO THEY TO DO WITH THE LAID OFF PEOPLE?

    WASN’T THE CAUSE OF THE LAYOFF’S BECAUSE OF BURDENSOME TAXATION’S AND DIMINISHING RETURNS?

    IF OVER TAXATION HELPS EVERYBODY WHY WOULD YOU WORK IF YOUR MONEY WENT IN TAXES?

    http://www.quotemaster.org/images/56/565df2ddcfb75b7dc72ad5a91c4b1f16.jpg

  5. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Freedom Crier
    You chose to show pictures defending capitalism. Show both sides. Are you now saying that we are in the IMF because of high taxes?
    Are you saying that high taxes are a result of a welfare state?
    Once again you seem in an ocean of confusion.
    We are in the IMF because of poor management by the BLPDLP. You and others are saying looking after the poor is the cause of our economic failures. It’s a bogus argument steeped in economic classism.
    You have no evidence that providing services to the less fortunate brought us to this sorry point.
    I wish you and others all the best in 2033 when this mess is supposed to be finally cleaned up.

    Duopoly Rules.

  6. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Barbados has reached the end of its rope
    After fifty years of independence the country has yet to find policies which are worthwhile and beneficial to the empowerment of its people
    Have to agree with Hal Barbados is a failed state not because of the people but govt insistence on being beggars at the Captalist front door
    A warning from Barrow which should have resonated in the minds of those the people choose to govt
    As if present govt has not learned from the failures present govt has once again taken the same path of mire borrowing while hooting in pretentiuos mode what savings we have
    An untruth which the future generation would be economically punished for

  7. David Avatar
    David

    And your DLP borrowed more from the capitalists than all others.

  8. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    This is the logic of the convert. A refugee from Soviet terror sees everything through the prism of Marxism/communism and capitalism. Yankee capitalism has been the saviour, so we must preach its gospel. But if historically it is that capitalism that oppressed you, then it is a different logic.
    By the way, as a young man we used to laugh at Thomas Sowell, now he is being resurrected as a prince of light. Sowell is a buffoon.

  9. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    David May 30, 2019 8:03 AM

    And your DLP borrowed more from the capitalists than all others.
    —-””’”””””,,,,
    Did i say they didn’t

    What is your problem

  10. Freedom Crier Avatar
    Freedom Crier

    SOME HAVE THEIR NUTS A BIT TWISTED… Hal’s ENVIOUS Hatred for the brilliant economist Thomas Sowell who was once a Marxist like Halxist but who come to his senses the late fifties and embraced the Free Market, which yes was the Result of Prosperity in America in earlier times and is now returning with the Freer Market Policies that Donald Trump, is putting in place.

    WHAT ARE YA, BLIND AS BATS? NO NEED TO ANSWER THAT, IT HAS CLEARLY BEEN DEMONSTRATED HERE SEVERAL TIMES!!

    THIS ONE IS FOR THE CLOSET MARXIST/SOCIALIST AND HIS ILK. “Socialism is a Philosophy of Failure, the Creed of Ignorance, and the Gospel of Envy, its Inherent Virtue is the Equal Sharing of Misery”. –Winston Churchill

    Firstly Socialism is a Highly Authoritarian Creed based on Envy and Class Warfare.

    So it seeks to extort as much money as possible from those who have worked hard and been successful and from businesses that have succeeded by looking after their customers. The maximum that they can extort is never enough to support their dogma so they borrow even more, with no plan or intention of ever paying back and leaving it for the next people coming after them.

    Socialists are so corruptible that they will enforce extortionate tax rates on successful people, to punish them, even when they know that this will bring in less government revenue. Labour in the 1970s had a top rate of income tax of 98% in England.

    Socialism exercises its authoritarianism by the government seeking to control everything in society. The state owns you and everyone else and issues vast number of commands that you must obey. Socialists in government think that they know better than the people themselves do about absolutely everything.

    Socialism wastes money by throwing it at the indolent and feckless who have not succeeded so as to ensure their votes. It thinks it knows more about business than businesspersons so they wastes unbelievable amounts of money. From the 1946 Groundnut Scheme, through British Leyland and British Steel to Gordon Brown’s “rescue” of the banks. So in the end they always run out of other people’s money.

    EXTORTION, ENVY, AUTHORITARIANISM AND WASTE HAVE ITS CONSEQUENCES:

    It destroys the quality of life of everyone in the country. As when Attlee extended wartime rationing to potatoes and bread and turned off the electricity. As when Gordon Brown trashed the British economy with his fiscal incontinence. As in Cuba where most people live in poverty in what was once a rich country. As in oil rich Venezuela where the shelves in the shops are bare even of basic necessities.

    BY PUNISHING SUCCESS AND REWARDING FAILURE, THE RESULTS ARE ALWAYS INEVITABLE.

    THE FOLLOWING MEMES ARE FOR HALXIST AND HIS MARXIST/SOCIALIST COMRADES IN ARMS.

    http://www.rdcopperr.us/wp-content/uploads/images/frederic-bastiat-quote-if-philanthropy-is-not-voluntary-it-quotes-about-philanthropy.jpg

    https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840×2160/2449107-Fr-d-ric-Bastiat-Quote-Everyone-wants-to-live-at-the-expense-of.jpg

    http://quoteparrot.com/images/quote/it-takes-considerable-knowledge-just-to-realize-the-extent-of-your-own-ignorance-366579.jpg

  11. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Would barbados be soon hauled into the World financial Debtors court for not reaching an agreement with its international creditors

    .

    Talks with foreign creditors have dragged on since last June, when Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she would restructure the island’s “unsustainably high” debt burden. While both sides said they are open to continued negotiation, they appear far from consensus.

    A committee of creditors, who hold 55% of outstanding dollar debt, said Wednesday that they plan to unanimously reject a government proposal to exchange defaulted bonds for new debt unless the two sides negotiate together.

    “The committee strongly believes that the launch of a unilateral exchange offer by the government of Barbados without the support of the committee will be highly detrimental to the country’s economic stability,” they said in a statement.

    Both sides agree the country of 300,000 people needs to cut debt levels. Yet talks have soured in recent weeks over how much of the burden should be borne by creditors in the form of deep haircuts or other terms. For its part, the government said it isn’t willing to negotiate targets established when it took a bailout from the International Monetary Fund last year.

    No Compromise
    At that time, the government estimated debt had ballooned to about 175% of gross domestic product, meaning it owed around $9 billion. That would have made it one of the world’s most-indebted countries, trailing only a handful of others, including Greece, according to IMF figures. Mottley said she “will not compromise” on the goal of bringing that ratio down to 60% by 2033.

    “We leave it to creditors to decide whether this is achieved through a par deal with long tenors and low interest rates, or face value haircuts with shorter tenors and higher interest rates. But the targets must be met in full,” she said in a written response to questions.

    Mottley inherited a troubled $5 billion economy when she took office last May. The island known for its white sand beaches had been struggling for years amid competition from less-pricey Caribbean tourism destinations, crumbling infrastructure, and a currency that’s pegged to the U.S. dollar. She quickly struck a $290 million deal with the IMF and restructured about $6 billion in local currency debt.

    The government owes around $700 million in dollar bonds, plus bank loans and other foreign debts, according to a spreadsheet posted to a website for creditors in January. Bonds maturing in 2035 have rarely traded in recent months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    The creditors committee said it put forth an offer two weeks ago “based on terms that aim to support the government’s debt and reform objectives while creating restructured instruments with broad market acceptance.” The committee said it is made up of long-term investors, regional central banks, individual bondholders and financial institutions and represented by advisers Newstate Partners and Washington-based law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.

    The creditors contend that their offer would have allowed the government to reach its debt target a year later than it wants, according to people familiar with the committee’s negotiations. The committee’s position is that the government’s estimates fail to take into account certain revenue variables and that it is trying force severe restructuring terms on creditors to meet its debt targets, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

    White Oak Advisory, which is representing the government in negotiations, said the creditors’ offer “fails to meet IMF test for debt sustainability, and by quite some margin,” according to an email statement. “It is disappointing that Barbados continues to be faced with this kind of position after almost a year of negotiations.”

    Barbados Clashes With Creditors in Talks to Cut Greece-Like Debt

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