Let job creators know they are wanted
September 17, 2012Dear Sir,There will always be the two extremes in life where there are those that sit on the throne and those that clean it. Neither extreme determines who the better person is, but circumstances of birth are not the deciding factor. Life choices dictate who does what and those who choose not to better themselves will be doing the throne cleaning for minimum wage. Thousands of Bermudians with a “can-do” attitude have become highly successful in their chosen endeavours, be that carpentry, accounting or a hundred other trades or professions including parenthood.Before term limits were introduced and shortly after they were, the Progressive Labour Party Government were warned of the potential dangers. Like most sound business advice offered, the PLP ignored it to the extent that a world wide recession that should hardly have touched us has almost destroyed us financially. Term limits were not introduced by the PLP to protect jobs that should rightly be awarded to Bermudians who have the quality qualifications, experience and the right attitude for their personal and the business owners’ success. They were introduced to prevent long term expatriates from expecting permanent residency or status. Term limits were a PLP protectionist policy that has had dire consequences for every sector of private employment. There were and still are safeguards within long existing legislation to protect Bermudian workers.Were there injustices in the awarding of jobs in Bermuda prior to the introduction of term limits? Yes, most definitely, but only in a tiny minority of cases that impacted both black and white Bermudians. Guess what, those exact same injustices still occur today, a decade after term limits were introduced, but the number of jobs now available is vastly reduced. Many job creators have left Bermuda and unless Government acknowledges that the term limit policy is flawed and gets rid of it, the remainder of the job creators will also leave. Many of those remaining love Bermuda and are waiting to find out what the majority of Bermudians want. Decisions will be made shortly. Bermuda is hurting and the cause is home grown, but only Bermudian voters can let our job creators know if they are wanted.OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISTPembrokePs Next Royal Gazette poll? Should gambling be a choice on the ballot of the next general election?
Comments on term limits from www.royalgazette.com:Cranberry: All PRC’s or Long Term Residents (or whatever you wish to call them) should be given full Bermuda Status — the vote, the right to purchase property, the right that their children will be Bermudian too etc ... It’s the only civilised thing to do.
Franktalk: The elephant in the room could be that our dependence on external capital and expertise has the impact of overheating the local economy and lifting it out of reach from the vast majority of locals and that this has been going on for so long that we view this as the norm. So rather than trying to get back to previously overheated levels we need to find a (new) sustainable level. We need to “allow” GDP per capita prices and, yes, income to fall.
