It strikes me that the average Joe Public does not understand the way our economy works. In this regard, I will attempt to explain some of the challenges we are experiencing, what happens, and how it works, to some degree. More on this after the top 20.Holding at #1 is Rolling In The Deep by Adele. This track grew on me. I didn't really like it at first but all those other versions/remixes did it for me. You cannot deny her soulful voice. Up to #2 Chris Brown's hit entitled She Ain't You. Down to #3 I'm Into You by Jennifer Lopez featuring L'il Wayne.Improving to # 4 is Put Your Hands Up (If You …) by Kylie Minogue. Falling to #5 is a former essential new tune, I Wanna Go, from Britney Spears. Slipping to #6 is the hottest anthem on the planet, Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock. This song just kicks. It's simply a banger.Now some reggae. Way up to #7 is Fly Away by Mavado. Improving to #8 is another hit by Mavado, Pepper. Motivation by Kelly Rowland featuring L'il Wayne falls to #9 this week. Tumbling to #10 is Last Friday (TGIF) by Katy Perry. Dropping into the #11 slot is Give Me Everything by Pitbull, Neo, AfroJack & Nayer.Tumbling to #12 is Enrique Iglesias' current hit Tonight I'm Loving You, a dance anthem that gets people dancing.Down to #13 is Wotless by Kes The Band and falling to #14 is Bend Over by Machel Montano. Tumbling to #15 is the Latin/soca anthem Danza Kuduro, by Don Omar; Pit Bull; Lucenzo; DJ Laz and Qwote. I'm happy I've been hearing this one played more in Bermuda. Kudos to the Captain at Mix 106, who is a veteran DJ completely on top of his game.Improving to # 16 is She Will by Lil Wayne featuring Drake. Climbing to #17 is Party by Beyonce featuring Andre 3000. Falling to #18 is Run the World (Girls) by Beyonce.Now a bangin' dance track, this week's essential new tune, Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera, entering at #19. This song is catchy and has a banging beat. You will find yourself singing along with it. Hot track.Tumbling to #20 is Just Can't Get Enough by the Black Eyed Peas.Now back to this week's topic, the economy. Former Premier Sir John Swan had a nice article in the Bermuda Sun last week. Other learned persons have also written on the subject. Gil Tucker, from the Bermuda First think tank, has made some highly intelligent and well reasoned comments of late. This guy is really switched on and is clearly one of the brightest minds we have in Bermuda. He just makes a lot of sense.Bermudians have to accept that in order to make our economy work, we need a certain number of jobs filled. That number is around 40,000. We only have some 27,000 Bermudians who are really eligible to work, want to work, who can do some of the 40,000 jobs. Simple elementary school arithmetic tells us that we are some 13,000 people short. Therefore, we are usually and consistently going to need 13,000 workers from somewhere other than Bermuda, to fill and do those jobs. By simple numbers alone we don't have enough people.So let's start from the position that we are always going to need guest workers. Guest workers are here to stay people. We are always going to need them. We are not making more Bermudians; our birth rate continues to decline. So get over it, get used to it and let's, for Heaven's sake, get over our own xenophobia, which for those who don't know means the fear of anything and/or anyone foreign.We must protect Bermudians, who should be given the first right to have any job for which they are qualified. We must ensure that Bermudians are trained and qualified for various jobs but we must be honest, we are only going to be able to produce so many qualified Bermudians and therefore, we will always need guest workers for jobs at all levels.A big piece of the equation is education. If Bermudians are not trained and educated to a higher level than seems to be the case at the moment, we cannot compete for many of the jobs that are out there, but here is what happens often in International Business. A certain company decides that it wants to set up an office in Bermuda. The owner of that company has a person he knows can set up and run this company profitably, so he decides to send this person to Bermuda. If we are not friendly and inviting, to make the guy feel that we want his business, by making the set-up in Bermuda attractive, he will set up his company somewhere else, like Cayman, British Virgin Islands, Dublin, for example, where the policies are presently far more attractive, seamless and efficient than in ours.So what often happens is that instead of coming to Bermuda, as companies did many years ago, not only are some companies choosing other places to set up, but some of the companies that have been here for many years, have left to go to one of those competing destinations, simply because the word, in some international circles, is that Bermuda is not open for business. We need to change that message and tell the world that Bermuda is open for business.Because when that CEO or asset manager leaves Bermuda, he no longer rents a house at $6,000 to $10,000 per month that some Bermudian needs for their mortgage. Also, that person doesn't buy a car. They don't buy groceries, they don't send their kids to private schools and pay those high fees without blinking an eye.They don't eat at restaurants and buy expensive business dinners any more, meaning business is slow in restaurants. Their business clients don't come to Bermuda anymore, which means that the Fairmont Hamilton Princess gets fewer corporate visitors and business declines at the hotel.These people make huge financial contributions to the Bermuda economy and now that too many have left, we are finding serious gaps, such as more vacant residential and commercial real estate than any of us can remember, rental prices coming down significantly, restaurants are slower than ever, nearly every sector can demonstrate significant declines that we can tie back to the departure of so many guest workers.And when that executive leaves, he no longer needs his Bermudian secretary, administrative assistants, support staff, middle managers and technical staff, many of whom were Bermudians. You see, when his job relocates to Connecticut (yes they are even sending them back to the US in some instances), or BVI or Cayman, the support staffs' jobs go also. And this, my fellow Bermudians, is why so many educated Bermudians, who previously had great jobs, are unemployed. It's like we killed the goose that laid the golden egg.And it's not just the high-end guest worker who contributes. Bar and nightclub owners will tell you that many of the guest worker construction workers and technical staff frequent their establishments, are good customers, regular patrons, and contribute significantly to the bottom line of their business. The exodus of many of those workers has meant a decline in revenue in those restaurants, bars and nightclubs and numerous other businesses where these folks spend their money.The net effect of this is that many Bermudians who had jobs no longer have those jobs because the businesses that were sustained by so many guest workers in a thriving economy, have left and no longer spend that money. And although some businesses are still coming to Bermuda, it is nowhere near enough to compensate for those we have lost and all the money they used to spend here.Hopefully we get it. We have to educate and train Bermudians to take as many of the 40,000 jobs that exist, but we are always going to need guest workers. So we need to make Bermuda an attractive place to do business without inefficient, cumbersome and/or complicated rules/laws for set-up and relocation of key personnel and businesses.So let's protect ourselves but at the same time, understand that guest workers are here to stay, we're always going to need them. So we should treat them the way in which we would like to be treated if we were a guest worker in another country. Don't give the shop away, but basically, treat them fairly.If we want to create jobs, which is what we have to do, we must work with the job creators, create conditions that cause them to want to set up here, stay here, spend here, invest here, live here, work here, hire more Bermudians and get our economy going again. This is the right and sensible thing to do. Otherwise we will soon become a banana republic.The other piece is our habit of spending overseas. I'm told that Bermuda residents spent some $29 million overseas in the past year and that's in a bad economy. Whilst we would like to encourage them to spend that money in Bermuda, to sustain local businesses and the local economy, prices are too high in Bermuda so Bermudian businesses must also make pricing attractive so that people cannot save so much money by shopping overseas.In many cases, it is cheaper for a person to incur the expenses of travelling to purchase things, including paying duty and shipping, than it is to ‘Buy Bermuda'. This is simple economics and people will shop overseas if this trend continues. So it's a balancing act. We all have to give a little to get our economy back on track. Peace…..DJLT