{"id":59905,"date":"2014-04-11T09:18:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T13:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/target\/from-numbers-banquet-table-plp-to-give-scraps-to-the-poor"},"modified":"2014-04-11T09:18:55","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T13:18:55","slug":"from-numbers-banquet-table-plp-to-give-scraps-to-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2014\/04\/from-numbers-banquet-table-plp-to-give-scraps-to-the-poor","title":{"rendered":"From Numbers Banquet Table PLP to Give Scraps to the Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gambling-lottery\"We appear on the verge of an extraordinary betrayal of the Bahamian people, made\u00a0even more heart-wrenching because it is at the hands of our very own, not those of\u00a0slave masters and colonial rulers.<\/p>\n

It is a betrayal of various core principles of the Second Emancipation of majority\u00a0rule, of a certain promise of independence, and a betrayal of the poor and the middle\u00a0class.<\/div>\n
\nInstead of a national or public lottery benefitting significantly more Bahamians, the\u00a0incumbent government seems hell-bent on regularizing\/legalizing a privately-owned\u00a0lottery system in which the majority of the profits accrue to already wealthy\u00a0numbers barons, with the government receiving some funds from taxing the private\u00a0lottery.<\/div>\n
\nRegularizing a private lottery will be one of the greatest legalized mass transfers of\u00a0wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy in an independent Bahamas.<\/div>\n

Imagine if the Old Guard had concocted a scheme pre-1967 to establish a private\u00a0lottery in which the overwhelming bulk of the proceeds went to certain benefactors\u00a0and fat cats at the expense of poorer and middle class Bahamians.<\/p>\n

\nOne can imagine the progressives in the PLP of that day pressing hard for a national\u00a0lottery in order to benefit the mass of Bahamians.<\/div>\n
\nSadly, the New Guard in the PLP are now acting like the Old Guard.\u00a0\u00a0The poor and\u00a0middle class are secondary at best.\u00a0\u00a0Clearly the PLP oligarchy is more committed to\u00a0serving their own greedy economic interests at the expense of the Bahamian people.<\/div>\n
\nIf the PLP proceeds with its private lottery scheme, history will record that this\u00a0betrayal of the common good by private greed was led by Perry Gladstone Christie\u00a0and the New Guard oligarchs.<\/div>\n
\nThe betrayal is breathtaking given our history and the great needs of our still\u00a0developing country 40 years after independence.\u00a0\u00a0We will have come full circle with\u00a0the PLP becoming the face of the very thing it fought against in the struggle for\u00a0majority rule.\u00a0\u00a0The very party which preached social justice seems set to turn its\u00a0back on the poor, handing wealthy numbers barons millions more.<\/div>\n
\nA private lottery is good old right wing economics which might find favour in the\u00a0US Republican Party, not something one might expect of a party which bills itself as\u00a0progressive and liberal.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
To understand the moment is to appreciate our Bahamian journey and narrative as\u00a0well as to be seized by the possibilities of a national lottery for national\u00a0development.<\/div>\n
\nEnduring slavery and colonial rule the mass of Bahamians enjoyed scant political\u00a0and economic freedom.\u00a0\u00a0Still, the descendants of slaves struggled for both, creating\u00a0civic, economic, religious and eventually political organizations as a means of\u00a0empowerment and expression.<\/div>\n
\nThe struggle for economic survival and advancement was hard and fraught for the\u00a0majority of black Bahamians.\u00a0\u00a0With little access to financial capital they leveraged\u00a0the capital they possessed such as ingenuity, hard work and communal ties.<\/div>\n
\nEarly on, this involved institutions like the asue or sou-sou, an informal savings\u00a0arrangement derived from an African-based system of cooperation.<\/div>\n
\nThe story of the flowering of black entrepreneurship, especially Over-the-Hill, is still\u00a0to be written in greater detail.\u00a0\u00a0These stories of risk-taking and ingenuity contradict\u00a0the lie by some that black Bahamians were not possessed of various entrepreneurial\u00a0gifts.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Since majority rule and independence there has been a flourishing of the middle\u00a0class, especially of black Bahamians.\u00a0\u00a0In 40 years of independence the country has\u00a0made great strides in terms of economic empowerment for scores of Bahamians.<\/div>\n
\nStill, there remains much to be done to empower more Bahamians economically\u00a0including greater access to capital for entrepreneurs to help stimulate domestic and\u00a0home-grown investment.\u00a0\u00a0A national lottery would be a source of significant capital\u00a0to help stimulate domestic development.<\/div>\n
\nToday, many in the middle class are struggling with the proverbial Bahamian Dream\u00a0especially after the Great Recession of 2008 and the resulting new normal of an\u00a0economic landscape marked by slower growth and significant challenges in the\u00a0tourism sector.<\/div>\n
\nEMPOWERMENT<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nAmidst these economic challenges the wealth derived from the numbers business in\u00a0the form of a national lottery can be utilized to broaden economic development and\u00a0empowerment.<\/div>\n
\nUnlike other economic enterprises, those who run the numbers houses produce\u00a0nothing of economic value in terms of the numbers business itself.<\/div>\n
\nInstead of allowing these barons to hoard our money for themselves, we should have\u00a0our money collected into a public lottery with the bulk of the proceeds being\u00a0returned to the Bahamian people.<\/div>\n
\nMoney pours out of poorer neighborhoods and many Family Island communities\u00a0into the bank accounts of a relative few, with next to nothing returning to these\u00a0communities, often leaving them even more impoverished.<\/div>\n
\nThese communities do not need Christmas parties and giveaways.\u00a0\u00a0They need\u00a0concentrated economic and social investments partly derived from a national lottery\u00a0in which money is reinvested in these communities.<\/div>\n
\nThe idea of allowing Bahamians a few shares in the numbers business was meant to\u00a0sweeten the pot and drum up support for the Yes Vote in the gaming\u00a0referendum\/opinion poll.<\/div>\n
\nInstead of a few shares, a few tokens to the masses, the Bahamian people should be\u00a0the majority shareholders and owners of a legalized lottery system, a sort of modern\u00a0asue that can be used to advance national development, more of which next week.<\/div>\n
\nIn days of old, slave masters, colonialists and the Old Guard hoarded wealth and\u00a0rigged the economy to benefit their private interests at the expense of the public\u00a0good.<\/div>\n
\nHow shameful that a New Guard which came into being to fight such entrenched\u00a0greed at the expense of the mass of Bahamians now seems set to\u00a0\u00a0turn its back on the\u00a0majority of Bahamians in thrall to a wealthy minority interest, making a mockery of\u00a0much of the struggle for majority rule.<\/div>\n

Bahamians do not need scraps from the numbers banquet table.\u00a0\u00a0The table and the\u00a0full meal belong to the people, not to a selfish oligarchy and its benefactors.<\/p>\n

By: Simon<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the PLP proceeds with its private lottery scheme, history will record that this betrayal of the common good by private greed was led by Perry Gladstone Christie and the New Guard oligarchs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":31113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[93,137,40,142,60,1942],"class_list":["post-59905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-corruption","tag-gambling","tag-government","tag-incompetence","tag-plp","tag-selfish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}