December 16, 2004

Dear Sir,

The rent control legislation should be considered unconstitutional. It is very wrong that only one sector of the community has to go to court before they can withdraw a service when the recipient does not to pay. While both Belco and BTC have to go before a commission for a rate increase, they do not need to go before a judge to terminate their service in the event of non-payment. A judge can deny the rent control landlord's request for eviction, which makes rent control properties technically the Government's.

There is no relief in the legislation for the rent control homeowner. There is no price control in respect to maintenance supplies and services provided by electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc. Why not put a price control on them for rent control premises? Repairs can be costly and eliminate income. There is no mortgage relief package or other assistance if you have a non-paying tenant while you're still responsible for the land tax for that period.

What is required of the tenant? Nothing! They can buy the biggest and nicest car and take numerous trips, as long as they get around to paying rent sometimes in the month. Mr. Peugeot, Mr. Mitsubishi and Mr. Toyota can raise the price of their product without any restriction and the bank can repossess the vehicle without warning. Rent control Landlords you're being forced to subsidise the economy. There is no insistence that these tenants upgrade educational skill or save fastidiously towards owning a house. It's easier through legislation to steal your property.

This government is out of control, out of touch and out to lunch!

(P)LEASE (L)EAVE (P)OLITICS

Devonshire

December 14, 2004

Dear Sir,

The proposed legislation that would compel employers to pay mandatory overtime is based on a huge fallacy. That fallacy is the belief that rates of pay, including overtime, are determined solely on the whim of employers, that Scrooge-like bosses establish wage rates and can blithely ignore the fact that they are subject to daily orders given by their customers, the public. The customers are sovereign, and employers are their servants.

Wages are simply what employers pay to employees in their capacity as agents of the buying public. The PLP government wrongly assumes that greedy employers with unlimited funds call the shots, and the customers jump on command.

It is the customer that determines that accountants get paid more than short-order cooks, or that teachers get paid less than construction workers. All acts of business are directed toward meeting the wishes of the public, especially on price, and any employer who neglects that fundamental principle will soon find himself in bankruptcy court. Because wages have a major impact on prices, disputes about wages are not really between wage earners and employers, but between wage earners and the public with employers cast in the role of agents of customers.

In the make-believe world of the PLP and BIU, employers are wealthy unprincipled scoundrels who conspire to cheat workers, the public are gullible fools, and this state of affairs can only be remedied by laws and regulations. Nothing could be further from the truth. If passing a law could increase wages, why doesn't the PLP pass a law making the minimum wage $5,000 a week, or even $10,000 a week? Let's not be cheap about this; pass a law and make everyone a millionaire so no one has to work overtime. If this is done, those who oppose overtime will not, in the words of Randy Horton need "to look deep into their consciences and question their 'profit is king' mentality". Then we could pass laws to make us live longer, outlaw ill-health, and make everyone beautiful. Now why did we not think of that earlier?

What realistically can be done to raise wage rates and thereby improve the standard of living of workers? The answer is simple and difficult at the same time: make employees more productive through continued innovation, improved methods of working and the acquisition of greater knowledge and higher qualifications by employees. There is no other way ? it is certainly not achieved by union action or by government-sponsored laws.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to raise wage rates by coercive methods, be it strikes, new laws or progressive regulations without bringing about unemployment and job destruction as we have seen all too clearly in our tourism industry. Fortunately, most members of the Senate understand this principle, and the government's fruitcake legislation has been put on the back burner.

ROBERT STEWART

Smith's Parish

December 14, 2004

Dear Sir,

Mr. Philip Butterfield has recently been reported as calling for improved "customer service". The decline in customer service both in Government and in the private sector is so widespread that I find myself expressing gratitude and real appreciation on those occasions, and there are some, when I do receive gracious or appropriate service.

Poor and indifferent customer service is just one of the many manifestations of the serious deterioration in the traditional and cultural values of a disintegrating black community. While there are some young black men who are committed to the struggle of hard work and professional service, there are too many others who are not and as a result too many struggling young black entrepreneurs find that to their frustration and despite their many efforts to hire and even train other young blacks they must eventually do as their competitors are doing and bring in foreign labour.

The tragedy is that a significant aspect of our black oppression has been to see qualified black Bermudians bypassed for white foreigners as a matter of racial policy, a policy of rejection of black Bermudians by black decision-makers who often seem to believe that even any black semi-qualified or unqualified black American is to be preferred to a black Bermudian.

This deterioration and disintegration of the black community did not suddenly happen overnight. At one time everyone in the black community knew that they had to struggle and sacrifice in the face of overt racism. Gradually, and it was evident as long ago as the early Eighties, we began to be told that racial barriers no longer existed as blacks were given highly paid Civil Service jobs. This was certainly true for a carefully selected few blacks.

As a result young blacks were no longer drilled with the concept that struggle and hard work were essential. As these high profile blacks began to believe that their success was due to the white community who appointed them rather than to those blacks who had challenged the racist society and as some were chosen and others, similarly qualified, were not, older blacks and their values were rejected and thus the black Community began to disintegrate. The onslaught of drugs, the TV and Internet, the decline in Sunday School attendance have all hastened the decline, but there were blacks themselves who turned their backs on the older generation and their values.

The pursuit of money and "integration" replaced those traditional values which has been so important to the black community and their sense of community struggle. The disillusion which has followed the PLP 1998 victory has made the disintegration and alienation of the black community worse rather than better.

In the Eighties I believed that trying to recapture the values of the black community would save us, but even if I had been heard and taken seriously by the high profile black decision makers it may already have been too late. But now one thing seems certain, without integrity, commitment and the willingness for self-sacrifice on the part of our high profile black leadership, Deuteronomy 28:43-45 will be completely true, just as it is already partly true.

If we were once taught, as young people, that we had to struggle and work harder just because overt racism existed, our young people need to be told that they must work equally as hard, and the material rewards may be just as uncertain.

While overt racism may no longer be obvious, not only are there other forms of racism but there are many other obstacles in their way including both because black people themselves are no longer supporting each other as they once did and the need for importing foreigners is both more essential and more acceptable.

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

December 17, 2004

Dear Sir,

What were Santa's little helpers doing on the front page of the paper running around in black balaclavas with doubled magazines after one simple fool with a handgun? Police and media seem to be going out of their way lately to make crime romantic, high drama, something really exciting and rewarding. Clue: the ERT should never be seen public, let alone in the paper. Those vests are, like, way too Versace. And do regular cops really need the slimming version on Reid street at 11 o'clock in the morning?

We love the PSU's Diesel look: flight-suits and combat boots, wall-sitting and lounging against car hoods wowing everybody on Front Street on a Friday night. It really impresses the tourists, little girls and already pale accountants, and sets a solid example to the youth. Why don't the PSU just pre-empt public disorder altogether by surrounding the dance-floor at Blue Juice and strategically occupying all the bar stools upstairs at Flanagan's?

That is, if Training Company hasn't already done so, loitering about the joint in combats, just begging for the RPs to lock 'em up. They say that officers and NCOs appear in combats at Pickled Onion, but Sousa's Landscaping was there at the same time and, well, uniforms can be so confusing.

So where are the regular P.c. uniforms? Off-duty policemen now run around town doing their shopping with T-shirts over their uniform thinking it makes them transparent. Guess what ? you're not, and we aren't impressed.

"Ooh look ? he's off-duty, shhh ? mustn't bother him!" School children used to be reported for less!

Karadzic & Mladic's nouvel vague influence is not improving Bermuda's image as a genteel tourist destination. Maybe regular uniforms would be treated with respect if officers wore them with respect.

If the Officers' Mess and Police brass can't get a grip, then perhaps the Governor should speak to the fellows' mothers.