Vol. 2001, No.3

Highlights from this issue

Financial Legislation.

The imposition of financial legislation in the Bahamas late last year evidences that the Government is losing control of the country to a growing number of competing supranational agencies.

These supra-national initiatives – if they are successful – will mean that a handful of nations will have developed an official means of policing nation s around the world…Despite its “sovereign nation” rhetoric; the objective of the UN Ad Hoc Committee of Experts is to abolish Offshore Financial Centres and to end all tax competition.

The desire of a nation to be taken seriously is directly proportional to the strength of its national vision and the basis of its sovereign law and legal tradition. And this above all points to the fact that a failure of this vision and this sovereignty are the surest signs we know of imminent national decline.

The IMF Verdict.

The International Monetary Fund in its 1999 and 2001 Consultations observed that hotel operating costs in the Bahamas were “among the highest in the region and there was a need to remain competitive”; and, referring to the five labour bills circulated in 2000, it warned against increasing labour costs.

Labour Legislation.

The labour legislation proposed by Government creates a “vicious cycle of higher direct labour costs, more spending on government bureaucracies, a costly diversion of managerial resources, higher prices, less employment, an institutional resistance to change and finally an alarming capital flight. These are the unintended consequences of such legislation.

The Minimum Wage.

The economic “law of Supply and Demand” as applied in this case states that if a government mandates an increase in wages paid by private enterprise, then the number of workers employed declines…The Bahamas in Government, in effect, recognizes this…namely, that is minimum wage will increase unemployment. And so it gives blanket exclusions from the minimum to the employees of small businesses, students in summer employment, students working and studying and gas station attendants and under certain conditions the physically impaired.

1. The Loss of Sovereignty and the Offshore Financial Business by Dr. Gilbert NMO Morris

2. The IMF Verdict on the Labour Bills by Ralph J. Massey

3. The Minimum Wages Act 2001 by Ralph J. Massey

4. The Fourth Hammer Blow by Ralph J. Massey

5. The Elusive Quest for Growth by William Easterly