Bermuda is bracing itself for a long-overdue piece of the international business pie. It finally comes to pass this year, having been mooted as a topic for decades.

Mooted because if the subject of taxing international business came up, there would be concern that the reinsurance industry that was thriving in Bermuda would leave and go to the welcoming arms of the Cayman Islands.

There is no loyalty in money; it flows wherever it feels safe and faces the least amount of tax.

We were the beneficiaries of that phenomenon in the early days when the Bahamas, the birthplace of the industry, lost many of its captive-insurance oil clients, along with other industries, which subsequently became managed by American International owing to instability in and around 1967. That captive business flight remains a poignant reminder to the Bermuda reinsurance sector.

Many chief executives were embarrassed by the scandalous amount of money the businesses made at the expense of the host countries but were fiscally driven by their shareholders and investors to get every drop of profit available.

It took international pressure and not political maverick to change the tax dynamic preventing companies from roaming jurisdictions around the world looking for the spot to pay nothing except the raw cost of doing business.

In the true national spirit of “Quo Fata Ferunt”, Bermuda reaps the benefit of the by-product of international law — a move that at first might have been an attempt to stem the tide of large corporations escaping the major global jurisdictions to hide their revenues in offshore jurisdictions. We repeatedly heard the calls in pre-election debates in the United States and Europe, along with Britain, to stop what they deemed as tax evasion. Countries were blacklisted and Bermuda several times was on record as trying to get off that list.

So, what are we going to do with this new form of revenue which at some point in the near future could swell government coffers to about $1 billion annually?

Does this opportunity turn into a political toy, gifting the electorate with trinkets while benefiting the few through capital projects? Or will we be frugal, recognising a rainy day is always possible no matter how bright the sky looks today?

There are some fundamentals, such as fixing education — meaning growth in learning skills, not new buildings. We need educating of our minds, not bricks and mortar. We need to eliminate the national debt as soon as practical because the interest alone is sucking our vitality. Our roads and critical infrastructure need attention. It will be truly a manifest crime, after the next election cycle, if the country is not in a better overall situation.

There is every indication that the existing government will be with us for the foreseeable future — not because of any “brilliance”, but rather the state of our political society. The Bermuda electorate must become more vocal to provide the kind of mirror the leadership sees and requires. The leadership cannot fail us unless we remain silent or fail to be vigilant.