Dear Sir,

We are trying to raise ourselves by our own bootstraps given that our community generally lacks capital. Credit is a privilege associated with wealth. Black people have generally had fewer assets, lower incomes, variable income and less job security, which makes them inherently riskier borrowers. Risk makes it difficult to plan. We are trying to stay out of the big man’s black book!

Poverty is defined as an insufficient quantity of financial resources (money) to cover the cost of basic needs to live — shelter, food, water and clothing. Poverty also implies that you have no assets, no financial cushion in the event of hardship. Poverty causes stress, depression and poor health, all of which threaten stability. Poverty leads to social decay, crime and family deterioration. Children who grow up in an environment of scarcity, fear or social disorder are exposed to stress that significantly hinders their social and academic capacity.

In the circular flow of the economy, households contribute financial resources to industries and industries, in turn, create products and provide services. Industries also employ labour and provide wages to households. Groups that have no money to invest into industries are seen as takers and are of little value. In our community, our lawyers are being disbarred because they are stealing their clients money held in escrow. The busiest lawyers in our community are criminal lawyers. Poverty begets more poverty.

In a free-market, capitalist economic system, disparities in wealth are usually attributable to an unfair advantage. The primary source of an unfair economic advantage can be traced usually to having been bestowed by the Government in the form of direct economic assistance — policies or discriminatory laws that favour one group over another.

Capitalism advocates for the private ownership of land, machines, money and control of labour. Capitalism, free markets and education have been responsible for raising millions of people out of poverty. Entrepreneurs — those who imagine a business, start a business and run the business — have delivered consumer products that have made our lives easier and richer. Electricity, lights, radio, telephones, cars, internet, computers, food, aircraft, and so on. Entrepreneurial businesses that have consistently solved problems with the provision of products and services have endured. Free and fair markets have led to the destruction of inferior products, services and inefficient business models.

Free markets, controlled only by the invisible hand, say we can copy success! Deprivation of the tools of capitalism, entrepreneurship and the rule of law leads to exploitation and an unequal distribution of wealth.

Our organisation, Bentley Mutual Insurance, has been denied access to free-market capitalism and reliance on the rule of law. The evidence can be found at www.4wals.com Homepage-Bentley Docs and on the Hansard. Our right to assume premium associated with third-party auto insurance risks was arbitrarily taken away from us without due process of law. Two of Bermuda’s banks refuse to allow their mortgagors to insure their homes with us — this is peonage. Successive Progressive Labour Party and One Bermuda Alliance governments have failed to remedy this injustice, thus perpetuating an economic injustice.

The Edmund Gibbons group is allowed to sell cars, finance cars, repair cars and insure cars. We have assisted individuals and businesses in acquiring cars, boats, trucks, etc, but we are not allowed to insure those vehicles. This is an example of an unfair advantage and the interference of the Government and the Civil Service in free markets.

The original Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company’s financial statements were deemed to be unreliable in 1998 — they were bankrupt. The Bermuda Government and Bermuda’s insurance regulator looked away while a new company, BF&M, was created and funded with the remaining assets of the failed company. Butterfield Bank was given a $200 million government guarantee on its debt instruments to encourage investors to save the bank after its management had destroyed more than 100 years of value — this is what government assistance looks like for the benefit of a few. Bermuda’s financial regulator did not warn the public in a press release to avoid conducting business with BF&M, although the company’s auditors had issued a qualified audit opinion. I believed that the qualified audit opinion was issued by the audit firm that employed BF&M’s present-day chairman of the board.

The PLP’s leaders have missed the point that more people voted for someone other than them in the February 2025 General Election because they have failed to address the root causes of poverty and inequality in this country — unfair advantage extended to one group at the expense of the others. We do not seek an unfair advantage; we want the rule of law and the human right to compete. The British and US governments have a history of supporting institutions such as ours because we help our community. Bermuda was successful in defeating inequality of the vote; now we need to defeat inequality in business opportunities.

Rates of poverty will remain with us as long as the Government extends unfair advantages to one group at the expense of another.

CRAIG WALLS

St George’s