From the time slavery in the Caribbean was over, the overwhelming matter of employment has become a see saw of minimum wage and dry statistics that do not reflect the human tragedy that lies beneath it all. As we have moved from the plantation to the post colonial patriarchy, we finally landed on some form of worker’s rights, unsatisfactory to both employer and employee.
There is only the residue of the unanswered question: whither goest thou?
At one end of the spectrum is the Universal Basic Wage of Finland that provided a basic payment to a test group without employment, which is unresolved in that outcome. Then there is the old Indian protection of minimum annual hours for some agricultural workers that is on the cusp of revision.
There is also the hybrid method most recently adopted by the indecisive head of the Cayman Islands that invokes the bloated bureaucracy of imaginary job self deception, namely financial oversight, while the Cayman name is dragged through the mud in yacht seizures and Ponzi schemes.
The entire Cayman Islands financial industry teeters on the recent announcement of a worldwide corporate flat tax rate, designed to destroy every Caribbean tax haven.
The simple indigestible fact is that the greatest part of the unemployment enigma are young people who also just happenstance to be the main driver of criminal activity by the disenfranchised. Someday, somewhere, someone, will connect the dots.
The worst part in the Caribbean is that increased efficiency, AI, government revenue measures and social spending demands are driving up the unemployment rate with the sector referred to as salary men by the Japanese, the older demographic, who can no longer depend on a job for life. Still, we are not yet at the Argentine model that would see minimal government pensions in jeopardy.
The over reliance on the old chestnuts: tourism, a few remaining minerals, tax havens and remittances have left the voters with a barren future. One Caribbean island is even trying to develop military assistance as a new part of their economy, just like the Philippines. Good luck with that.
Worse, some, once independent Caribbean countries, are to become hosts and prison wardens on behalf of the USA. Shame has no limit in the new world order of authority by exercise of military and diplomatic power.
The dependence on remittances are in danger from the American tax and the Caribbean outsourcing sector is also under attack by the US government.
So what now?
In 2026 the Caribbean leadership will come up with the answers on diversification of the economy and sovereign funds for those who can afford it.
Otherwise the future is more misery and more press releases
Otherwise it will be spin for every man, woman and child.
The ball is in their court
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
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I read this article and I am in agreement, BUT diversify all we want and it won’t make a difference.
The so called powers that be will never think that the Caribbean should ever be able to exist independently. We are still in modern day slavery. To the rest of the world we are to be nothing but a holiday destination where we serve others.
They do not want us to be independent. They want us reliant, begging, and dependant on them.
It’s sad but it’s true.
And they have to take skilled refugees and criminal deportees from other nations.
@Sad, but true Stop blaming the World about our internal situation. We have the power in our hand to be rich, but we elect corrupt people to handle the financial of our government. We allow the jeopardy of our income, with lack of commitment to spend it wisely, without creating thousands of useless government positions that are part of a payroll, without purchasing thousands of vehicles and assets to be handled by those in our government, a government that was elected by us. We allow our governments to have hundreds of buildings, we allow government to keep growing and spend more.
No industries can be successful with the type of greedy members of our governments. Corruption is the Main reason we still behind. When nobody steal, money is enough.
@Smith.
Preach my brother, preach.
” If we can’t take the beam out of our own eye, how can we see to take the beam out of someone’s else”.
Many things ring true today as to why we are where we are as island nation.
I have said that Antigua should have been 15-25 years ahead of where we are today, and some people only listen to that and think it’s hate speach.
For the amount of money that came into this island, and was subsequently spent by the residents and citizens of the diaspora over the last 10-12 years or so, Antigua should have been running at around a 40-45% debt to GDP ratio if there was proper oversight of the spending and the expansive government that is ran in such a small Island.
Investment came in through the roof, and what Antigua has to show for it today?
Yes COVID came, but where were we before COVID, we were in the high 70’s-80’s on that scale before covid.
Yes there were some world crisis, and some little set back with hurricanes, but plenty aide came, but what they did with that aide, they stole it from the people of Barbuda and instead built their mansions on the hill and set up their cronies.
So speak it, because it’s corruption that has crippled our growth even more.
And now we are still here in 2026 begging for trinkets for other nations to keep afloat.
Germany is the most fiscal country in the entire world, so maybe these politicians should have a sit down with the germans and get some advice.
Our debt cannot sit at 65-85% of GDP if we are expected to service.
Many of us grow up hand to mouth, so we know how to save..not that we should starve ourselves, but we know how to be conservative
Too much greed just running rampant in our government, just too much.
And I’m talking about Antigua, no one else.
Well said @Smith and @Islanman26. According to several leading economists nations are poor because of weak (corrupt) government institutions.
Instead of demanding proper accountability and fiscal discipline from our government we blame the US and everyone else.