'Stainable' Bermuda

February 25, 2010

Dear Sir,

The Bermuda Annual Exhibition 2010 is upon us and I recently collected a copy of the catalogue from the Department of Parks. I followed the instructions on the inside first page of the catalogue and read it carefully to ensure that my child follows all instructions and enters honestly.

As the date to submit entries for the Junior Art Competition is March 5, 2010 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., I thought I might point out that under that section on page 69 it states: "Senior Schools: Using the theme "Stainable Bermuda" create a picture – What dose (sic) it mean to you or how do you envision a "Stainable Bermuda". The front cover, however, reads "Sustainable Bermuda". Is that what they meant to say? Do they not proof read documents before they go to print or did they forget to do a spell check?

JUS WONDERIN'

Devonshire

More information, please

February 24, 2010

Dear Sir,

Belco has teams on the road that repair storm damage. Brilliant! They can only predict where the teams will be on a given day "the day before". Understandable. They put you through to answering services of fellow employees when you call in the night before, to find out where they will be the next day. Is that called service? They have a beautiful website, and they even have a section for scheduled work. But nothing is on it about the scheduled work that has been announced so extensively on the radio. How stupid and annoying is that?

When we then finally get through to an operator, he simply states, he cannot help us "I wouldn't know" and puts us on hold. We find out he puts us through to just another answering service. We call back, tell him how "helpful" that was and he acts surprised. "I will try again" and the line goes dead again. Only to end up with another answering service. Sigh of frustration! Does Belco not know that there are a lot of people who run their small time businesses from home? We do not qualify for personal warnings by phone. We understand this. We also applaud the storm repairs, but we find the level of service about outages from Belco shockingly low. Come one, Belco, you have a website. Use it!

IRRITATED

Sandys

Highway to debt

February 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

"The Road to Recovery". What a fantastic slogan for this year's annual Budget! Perhaps someone can explain to me how we're actually on this road and not a highway to more borrowing and spending? Now that we're going to break through the debt ceiling we have come to the most logical of answers, we'll just increase the ceiling. Instead of pretending this ceiling exists, why don't we just remove the concept altogether? It is clear that this limit was not taken seriously and the concept should be removed from our minds as when the limit of $1.25 billion is reached it will be increased again. What does surprise me however is level of the increase, surely it would have been easier to increase it to $2 billion and save the hassle of having to go through this all over again in two or three years.

What will it take for the majority of my fellow Bermudians to stand up and say enough is enough? Will we have to be under a mountain of debt so immense that we are unable to service that debt? Delaying cut backs now will only make the future more bleak, instead of using cut backs to pay down the level of debt now and actually trying to recover from this we will have to use cutbacks in the future to make interest payments and won't even be able to touch the principle of the debt. Action needs to be taken now before we are pinned under this debt forever. Make no mistake about it, cutbacks will have to come at some point in the future but by then it may be too late. Stop delaying the inevitable and trying to make it another administration's problem.

AARON W. BURROWS

Sandys

The financial die is cast

February 26, 2010

Dear Sir

I will scream and scream as loudly as I can until I'm sick, as Violet Elizabeth Bott often threatened (I've left out the lisp), if I hear again that the Budget proposal raises Payroll Tax by two percent and the individual contribution by one percent. It does not! Payroll Tax goes from 14 percent to 16 percent, which is a 14.3 percent increase, while the individual contribution increases from 4.75 percent to 5.75 percent, which is a 21.1 percent increase. Even I can work that out! These changes add a very considerable cost to the running of any business or household. Raising the payroll tax cap also targets the international business movers and shakers resident here. The child in the street may think that these people can afford it, and that may well be true, but many of these individuals (especially US citizens) have very complex tax liability situations: this additional tax burden may be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back in the light of the other problems we've been reading about recently that these executives have leading normal lives here. Their departure would be a complete catastrophe for Bermuda.

There is a huge elephant in the room gross, uncontrolled Government spending and the Government and the Civil Service continue blithely to ignore its presence. They should not it is the biggest threat Bermuda has ever faced. The debt being run up is staggering, and the burden of paying it off will be left to the employed of Bermuda for the rest of their working lifetimes. When I grow up I'll be contributing my share until I draw my pension (if there is one for me by that time). Please, folks, open your eyes and understand why. It is so that the today's crop of political hacks can get re-elected spending more and more money is the only way they can see to accomplish this, as the Government is completely discredited in the public eye; a laughing stock; distracting the public with bread and circuses is the only way they can see to ensure that they continue to hold the reins of power.

That same public, though, still shrugs its collective apathetic shoulders and believes that there's no chance of reality returning until after October when the Great Big Spender (alias The Magnificent Illusionist) will move on to his retirement Valhalla, and then everything will revert to the fiscal normality we had prospered under until around 2005. Alas, it won't; the die is cast. Ms. Cox surely has blown any chance she had of being Premier. The events of the last six months have completely undermined any reputation she might have had as a prudent custodian of the public purse, and this Budget is final proof of her complete inability to stand up to the profligate tax and spend ways of her desperate cabinet colleagues. In short, she has no leadership skills. Then one looks at the remaining "talent" on the PLP bench and cannot but think "God help Bermuda"!

EIGHTH GRADER

Paget

Time for PLP to go

February 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

The other day I heard a man on a talk show say that it was OK for a country to have a deficit, and that if things went bad in Bermuda then the government would draw on its "reserves" and make jobs for us. Maybe not the job you want, but a job anyway. Well, that guy is an idiot, and there are many Bermudians like him. This letter is not for those. This letter is for you if you understand that a country has to pay back money that it borrows.

Banana Republic Bermuda is not a clothing store, but it was a prosperous place now plagued with fiscal mismanagement. However much the PLP will blame the world economy for our problems, the fact remains that they have poorly managed our financial affairs even during the boom years of the early 2000s. Now we will have a debt of 125 percent of our revenues, and a current deficit of 12 percent or our revenues. To put that in perspective, if you earned $80,000 a year, it would be like spending $90,000 a year, and owing $100,000, with no prospect of ever paying it back. Add to that the fact that you may also be losing the $80,000 a year job. If I was doing my personal budget and saw these numbers, I would take a hard look at cancelling my vacation, not buying that new car and possibly getting a second job.

I am filled with sympathy for our children who will struggle to find jobs; and even if they do have an income, they will also have a debt that they will not be able to repay. The future of Bermuda is one of default on our national debt and devaluation of our dollar. No problem with cancelling my vacation, I do not need to go to Jamaica it has come here. This can be laid fairly at the feet of the PLP government. It is too late to dwell on who is to blame. If you supported the PLP in the last election then take a good look at the person you see in the mirror, and your savings account, and decide that now is the time to save both. Your representatives in the House and Cabinet have not been looking after you. It is time for them to go. It is time for you to kick them out.

PETER CARD

City of Hamilton

Appalled by Budget

February 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

I am appalled at the Budget this year. We have never had a Budget this size and more importantly, I have a problem with the way this Government plans to pay for it after they have spent without restraint. We have always been proud that our taxes have been so low, but now we are almost on par with the US, and I should know, I lived there for over 20 years. I believe that it is the Premier who has lived in the States for so long that he brought that sort of mentality to these shores whereby we can spend, spend, spend because all we have to do is raise taxes. Further, at a time like this when we are in an economic crisis this government wants to increase payroll taxes which in essence decreases the amount that a person has left in their pockets. This at the same time this Government is proposing salary increases for members of Parliament. They must remember, it is the "taxpayers" who foot the bill. Secondly, how can they propose an increase for themselves? No one else in Bermuda can go to their bosses and say I am going to increase my salary and you must pay for it. In essence that is what these members of Parliament are doing. I think that if they are going to get an increase then is should be their employers (the public) who should vote whether or not they deserve an increase based on their performance and what they have accomplished for the benefit of the public as a whole, not those who they favour.

SICK AND TIRED

Pembroke