St. Croix is a healthy place to live

There has been a lot of media coverage concerning the arguments in front of the Supreme Court this week that review the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act.

i've been reading up on the issue and have been struck by comments coming from right wing spokespersons and ordinary citizens speaking their minds in different venues.

One conservative politician seemed to think that American lives would be shorter if the Affordable Care Act remains in place. He claimed that Canadians and English that want to live longer come to the US for care. So i decided to look it up and as it turns out Canada is number 12 for long life and England is 30. All the top ten have some sort of Universal Health Care that is paid for out of taxes while the US languishes at 50^th place.

The idea that the US is the best nation in the world for health care really needs addressing. If being best has to do with longevity then we are far, far, far from being even in the top ten. i looked this up first by Googling and found reference to a study looking at the years 2005-2010 for all the countries of the world. During my examination i was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the statistics but wanted more info. So i went to the CIA's World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html and found the nation had dropped down more slots from the first study i looked at.

Amazingly, and this was completely new to me, i found that the US Virgin Islands are a better place to live for longevity than in the United States. The VI is 39^th and Puerto Rico is 44^th . Wouldn't this be a great marketing asset? Come and live in the Virgin Islands because according to the CIA's world wide analysis you may live longer.

Personally i've always thought life here is healthier than in the states but after reading the list i now have proof.

There were 9 Magnificent Frigates but I missed one

Regarding the court case, i have never been in favor of the Individual Mandate preferring a nation wide single payer system where everyone contributes through taxes. If you look at the top ten on the list they are living years longer than we are with some form of single payer or universal health care. Why we continue to believe we are number one when the evidence goes against it and even our own agency publishes the fact that we aren't just boggles the mind.

The idea of being forced to buy insurance is not what is disagreeable as we already do that here with automobile insurance. Its the fact that health care is different from every other commodity and insurance companies making money off our illness puts an added cost burden on all of us. If you took out the profit motive for insurance companies we would probably be paying less in overall taxes than we do in insurance and taxes combined. Doctors would have less stress filling out one form instead of multiple forms and hospitals could collect the money they need to operate instead of arguing with insurance companies over payouts. We have the highest health costs in the world and rank 50^th. You would think with the highest costs we would be number one. Well we aren't and we continue to slide downward.

Today is the last day of arguments at the Supreme Court and everyone that cares about health care is watching. The Affordable Care Act is just the beginning of trying to get more Americans covered. There are aspects that all of us can love and hate in this bill but i think most of us would agree the insurance companies have a strangle hold over all of us that does not make the nation healthier.

See ya next week.

Bananaquit caught in a Hurricane Lamp (saved by me)

Social Security is not broke

Social Security is not broke. i'll say it again Social Security is not broke. It has never been broke and will be fully funded for another 25 years at which point it faces a gap. If you have a gap at the end of the month but know more revenue will be coming in the next month you don't view yourself as broke unless there is no revenue stream at all. In fact most of us perceiving a gap will try to close it by bringing in more revenue.

Pundits on the other side don't want you to ever consider closing the Social Security gap by requiring an elevation in the amount of income that is subject to Social Security deductions. Today you only have to deduct for any income you make under $108,000 per year. This means all those people making over $108,000 per year don't have to make deductions on the excess.

So while the little guy making $20,000 a year sees 7.5% of his income deducted, the guy making $350,000 per year only sees 2.3% of his income deducted if their employers are paying the other half. Anyone out there think this is “fair”? It is very easy to fix the gap by raising the income level. After the past two stock market blowouts i think most people realize they have one income stream they can always count on and that is Social Security. Lets fix it not destroy it.

On another note i was reading a piece the other day that is a review of a book written by Dave Grossman a Special Forces Colonel at West Point. His book called “On Killing” provides an abundance of evidence to show that most men and women are reluctant to kill a fellow human being. According to his research human beings are not natural warriors and that it is war itself that brings out aggressiveness. He says that even during actual battles many soldiers will not shoot at their enemies and will fire into the air.

Since that massacre last week by one of our own in Afghanistan i have been wondering why we aren't out of there yet, especially since polling shows a majority of Americans want us to leave. We spend 2 billion a week, i'll say that again, 2 billion a week in Afghanistan. Ralph Lopez says spending 2 billion a week to buy hatred is too much. i tend to agree with him.

Imagine what 2 billion a week here at home could do. It could fix those deteriorating roads and bridges, make mass transit more affordable, bring back some of those laid off teachers, firemen and policemen. i'm sure we could think of lots to do with 2 billion a week.

And on a final note. The rise in gasoline prices has nothing to do with President Obama. Demand is down and in fact we have been exporting some of our product overseas. When demand is down Wall Street bets on higher gas prices in the future which is what is causing the price to rise at the pump. Speculators account for 64% of all contracts where as in the past they only accounted for about 30%.

“Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—the federal agency that regulates trading in oil futures, among other commodities—warns that too few financial players control too much of the oil market. This allows them to push oil prices higher and higher—not only on the basis of their expectations about the future but also expectations about how high other speculators will drive the price.

In other words a relatively few players with very deep pockets are placing huge bets on oil and you are paying.” Robert Reich

Wall Street has gone to court to stop aspects of the Dodd Frank law that would protect consumers against these type of practices, if you want your gas price to continue to rise please don't support repeal of this important legislation.

See ya next week

St. Croix can change

Change will not come from the Virgin Islands government. Our government is too imbeded in its bureaucracy to help the island through this economic crisis. In fact it is creating more hardship by following the austerity programs that seems to be the idea du jour all over the world.

Change will come from within the community. It will come from those citizens that use digital technology, social media and the airwaves to wake up residents, visitors and investors alike to the idea that St. Croix is ripe for a new identity. Only we, those of us that live and work here, can create the vision that new jobs and opportunities are just waiting for us to discover and reap the benefits.

i'm sure there are lots of areas we could look into and last week i talked about legalizing marijuana. Here are 8 sub categories that have already been talked about but need repeating.

1. Energy...the end of June the gasoline market will open up. No longer will we be dependent upon the oil refinery to supply our energy needs. Entrepreneur's that have the backing of wealthy investors have an opportunity right now to corner the importing of gasoline to St. Croix and maybe the other two islands. Something like a cooperative could work where business owners pool their resources and create an entity that would benefit all of them. The government is not going to arrange any importer but will work with anyone that sees a future in that commodity. Lots of talk has revolved around the rack problem but remember Texaco used to bring it in over by the airport. Is there another rack there?
2. Alternative Energy...the island is ripe for becoming a testing laboratory for universities and companies that need to test their products before making them available commercially. Just recently i wrote to Professor Sadoway at MIT who has developed a liquid metal battery. One battery the size of a freight container could power 200 houses from the sun and wind power. If this becomes commercially available our island could solve its energy needs. i had no qualms asking him to use us as a testing ground, maybe others have their own ideas about who to approach. He did respond positively.
3. Retirement communities, nursing homes and assisted living facilities...If we could beef up our hospital St. Croix would be a perfect place for African American boomers to retire. Instead of bleeding residents back to the states to retire because of a lack of medical options we could keep everyone here and bring in more which would create jobs.
4. Sports venues...we don't have to build a stadium to get athletes to the island. All we need is better maintained roads. Local enthusiasts have volunteered to go to conventions and set up booths touting the fact that you can bike, run, and swim every day of the year. Biking races, running races, long distance swims, marathons, triathlons, biathlons all these bring in hundreds of competitors and their families that spend at least three or four days on island filling hotels, restaurants, car rental agencies and taxi cabs. We could spread out these competitions to bring in people every month of the year.
5. Technology... the technology park at the University that is trying to get companies to re-locate here and use the facilities as incubators for new companies that are on the cutting edge of the digital universe. Maybe you know someone that needs a place that will have world wide connectivity. Talk to them, get them excited about the island, put them in touch with the University.
6. Eco-tourism...we are one of the few islands left in the Caribbean that is not over-developed. Because of this we can continue to market St. Croix as a place to come that values and preserves its open spaces. A place that doesn't have high-rises blocking views of the ocean and is not so over-crowded that finding paradise just can't happen. We have beaches, hiking trails, parks for birding and boating opportunities. We could highlight its history and use this to our advantage. Already the National Park Service is renovating the properties in Christiansted and trying to create a museum that will tell more of the sordid history of slavery.
7. Entertainment...we have wonderful musicians right here, we have talented actors and their support crews. Someone could set up sound studios, filming venues, animation terminals etc. Make this into a place that draws in the huge revenues that go into making films. Don't say we can't do any of the above...we can all it takes is vision and a commitment to working together, networking and talking the place up.
8. Food Products...Everyone knows that Tabasco comes from Louisiana and we already have our signature Rums...what we need is a world renowned food product that we could export, maybe that's Ms. Anna's but maybe someone out there can come up with a new idea that puts us on the food map.

Most of us here have great skills that could be put to use re-creating St. Croix. We have so much untapped potential that i look upon this economic crisis as a challenge for all of us.

i have a sign up over my computer that says “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not FAIL? So i ask all of us...What would you do?

See ya next week.

Legalize Marijuana on St. Croix

i was sitting in the Dr. office Monday and almost every other person had lost their jobs or would be loosing their jobs. One woman walked out from her exam and hearing us discussing jobs started railing about the injustice of being the only person working in Mental Health at Charles Harwood and she had been let go. How were her patients needs going to be looked after and why were senators relatives and friends who had just been hired in the summer and had no experience not let go first? She had been there eighteen years and was close to retirement. This place is going to contract economically faster than we can absorb she cried and then who will we blame?

She was a dynamo, capturing the entire room in her travails but leaving undefeated for she was fighting back. She was not going to roll over and accept her job firing. She was going to start discussions with everyone she could and still find space to laugh about her situation.

Most of us there were discussing new ideas to help move the island into a better place for everyone. The mood was not defeatist at all in fact it was very optimistic. All of us recognized the need for an economy built upon demand that could be self sustaining. But the form that was going to take eluded us. We needed someone like her to go out and fight for a new identity.

For too long we have been known as the industrial island not a vacation mecca like St. Thomas or St. John. This has hurt us commercially and financially because we really aren't well known, we are off the vacation radar.

Everyone, i don't care if you are rich, poor or in-between wants to live in a peaceful place. They want to live their lives unencumbered by fear of home invasion, robbery or unintended death. Unfortunately St. Croix has its problems that are brought on by a lack of jobs, lack of education and a thriving drug industry.

Eight indicators reflect a peaceful society according to research that has been done by the Institute for Economics and Peace, you need:

• Well-functioning government
  

• Sound business environment
  

• Equitable distribution of resources
  

• Acceptance of the rights of others
  

• Good relations with neighbors
  

• Free flow of information
  

• High levels of education
  

• Low levels of corruption
  

These are items that we as an island nation could easily work on and market to the world. St. Croix needs an identity and one such identity could be that unlike the tourist islands we are a residential island that seeks residents that want to transform the island into a place that we can all live on peacefully.

Our society is involved in self defeating thinking and behaviors that continue to depress living standards. “Peace is statistically related to better business environments, higher per capita income, higher educational attainment and stronger social cohesion,” says the Institute for Economics and Peace.
In order to create that environment for all of us it means that we as a community have to work at building structures that can contain violence, or get rid of structures that encourage violence.

With the economic turmoil that has wracked the island over the past few months we are looking at the very real potential for increased criminal activity and all its assorted negative impacts upon us.

We as a community can either sit back and let it happen or try to deflect those repercusions.
i think one method of deflection is to legalize marijuana. Make St. Croix, just like we did the casinos, the only island where marijuana can be grown and sold legally. We all know where to buy it even if we don't partake. We have lots of people that are hustling every day making a living off illegal drugs because they have no other options. If we legalize marijuana all these young men and women would have instant jobs. We could create a new economy, generate new taxes and cut down on some of the senseless killing that takes them out. Maybe we could even see our crime rates plummet bringing on that peaceful environment.

i know this may be a rather radical suggestion, others have made it before me and California has tried passing laws that have failed so far. NORML works all over the country trying to legalize it and Hawaii is trying to decriminalize along with over two dozen other states that have various forms of laws they are trying to pass. It is coming, some state will pass a law legalizing it and start gobbling up the money. Why shouldn't we be first, reaping the economic benefits instead of always being last. Think about it.

See ya next week.