So what’s in your package?
Having woken this morning full of the excitement and glee I once had on Christmas mornings anticipating the arrival of Santa, excited to read the premier’s stimulus package, imagine my disappointment. Feeling so dejected I looked up the word stimulus in the dictionary to make sure it was not my poor education that had led me to believe that ‘stimulus’ meant something a little exciting that would get us all going — a little incentive, but I was not wrong.
While it will be nice for my Chinese friends to come and visit this New Year and for my tight fisted, mean and rather distant 93-year-old great uncle to come live here for 25 years, I don’t feel terribly stimulated by the news. And, of course, having my mortgage principle payments frozen for a few months would be nice if I banked with Cayman National, but as I don’t I’ll just have to settle for the month’s grace we usually get over Christmas anyway.
I did for the minute feel a twinge of stimulation at the mention of duty reductions but sadly I’m not sure what the premier intends to offer in his duty free package so I don’t know what to go out and buy. And to be honest, now I know there might just be a bit of a discount coming soon I shan’t bother going shopping again until I know what it is. I mean, I would hate to go out and buy a new flat screen TV next week only to find I could have got 27% off if I’d waited. I do loathe missing a bargain, don’t you?
And, of course, my cousin is delighted to be working on the clean-up programme, but he said that he was hoping there might be something indoors after Christmas because, being an accountant, his hands get terribly chapped when he does yard work.
Oh, and possibly, maybe, perhaps, the reduction in stamp duty might help things for my niece who’s getting married soon and would like to move out of the tent she is living in with her boyfriend because his feet smell (which is not so bad because they do stick out the end of the tent) but she’ll just have to wait and see.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t think Mr Premier tried his best but I think maybe the 250 suggestions from the dozen or so organisations must have all been a bit rubbish and he’s picked the best that they had to offer. I mean, what can he do if no one’s got any good ideas?
And he has offered another exciting countdown for us when he said that in the first quarter of 2011 a “promotional strategy” to bring in that financial “physical presence” which means we can now start counting down to 30 March (110 days this time — a bit longer than the last one). How exciting!
The big one, though, really does appear to be how under the premier’s “stewardship” the new high schools project will be starting again. Now that was truly stimulating! Hundreds of jobs and business opportunities. A little Keynesian perhaps — government spending money to get the economy going — but crikey, imagine how stimulated we’d all feel now if that had happened a year ago. But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?
Let’s face it, we are all different and one man’s stimulus package could be another man’s damp squib. But hey! Who am I to criticize …?
Happy Christmas, bloggers.
Category: Viewpoint
Politricks!
coals
Very good Menta! If you find the meaning of stimulus confusing in this instance you might want to check out a speech given to the Washington Press Club by George Carlin. In it he explains what politicians mean by some of the words they use: YouTube: Lying Politicians and Words. Have a laugh.
John Maynard Keynes; On CNS, we do not discriminate against you for your openly homosexual character. It is common among us Cambridge chaps of your generation. But Cayman is a rather conservative jurisdiction and we would rather you did not refer to a wish for someone to "tweak my modle".
The Keynesian economic model, however, is always worth of our discussion.
Aaarrhhgg….shiver me timbers.
I gots mines….just wait there for more promises to come….including appliances.
So I’m waiting. Wendy, is there more to report? There must be a part 2 and 3. Or was this a re hash of older news working up to the real story?
CNS Note: Not sure what you mean Lachlan, this was written by a Mr Menta but the premier’s full stimulus package is attached to the news story …
My apologies Wendy, I was thinking about your separate"news" piece about the stimulus package when you said there would be "more" on the subject at a later date. Poor attempt at humor although there is a lot of humor in what the proposed package will do for the country.
very good…
Don’t knock the Chinese, you just have to remember that there are more than a billion of them.
Chinese tourist could stimulate the economy with mom and pop businesses offering bed & breakfast with fishing trips to Key West.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23smuggle.html
The Chinese don’t want to come here for the Sun and water. They want to gamble and buy designer products, proper designer, not the crap that we have here. Alot needs to be done before we’ll ever see any of the $ they have. Oh and we’ll need to have a "proper" chinese food restaurant for them to dine at too.
Begging you please, any and all who believe or even think that the Premier (and by extension "his" government) listens to you, please be sure to make him read – and reread – and digest the above news link – and beg him to try to understand the ramifications of his proposal to ease certain visa/immigration requirements for the purpose of attracting "investors".
While God knows whether or not ones heart is in the right place, one must never forget that "…the love of money is the root of all evil…"
I am hoping that he will tweak my modle slightly with those school contracts, given his experience with the cost overruns that came from dividing the Boatswain’s Beach project into smaller contracts.