Archive for May 21st, 2012

Woe is me

CNS' recent opinion piece which focuses on the role of Dart Management's vulture fund in Greece and the implications for Dart's activities in the Cayman Islands was a valuable commentary but only for what it revealed in the blogs that followed. The article itself carried some major flaws and certainly smacks of the entitlement/woe is me culture that encourages people to find someone else to blame for their standard of living.

Regretfully, there is this overwhelming need among many to always conclude that if someone and in particular a business person or investor is making a profit then they surely must be inflicting harm on others to get that result.

It's a common folly for this group that when everything else fails or frankly luck runs against them, they can always find some reason and ideally someone to blame for their "woes".

This cultural position basically says that Dart for example, is doing no more than to inflict harm on the Cayman Islands on his way to yet further profits. It's the kind of thinking and lack of understanding of how the real world operates that continues to serve as one of the major stumbling blocks towards an improved standard of living for too many people.

And anyone who dares raise this issue is quickly thrown into the ugly basket of evil persons who want nothing but to become more wealthy while refusing to give some of their hard earned wealth to the "needy".

Seriously?

Most investors are risk takers. Little is known of the failures of entrepreneurs globally or locally. When they take a risk, some of us assume that "they can afford to do so". Truth is very often they cannot, but their appetite for risk is greater than the average person. They can, and often do, lose their shirts on deals more times than one imagines. But ironically, it is this very risk taking/entrepreneurialnature that drives the local and global economy.

When they gain, we then say they must have hurt people in the process and are doing nothing or not enough (by our own self serving standards) for the country/community.

This hugely flawed position stems partially from a comparison of the magnitude of profits reaped by the investor against what that investor gives back to the community.

If a business donates say an average of 1 million each year to charitable causes and employs 300 to 400 Caymanians, the absolute size of its profits, assuming this is substantial, should not water down the true impact of that contribution to the community and employment. The fact that the investor may incur a profit of 100 million does not all of a sudden mean that those 300 jobs are not important, or that the millions donated to charitable causes has not helped literally hundreds of needy persons within the community.

And neither does it matter if said investor did this "out of the kindness of his heart" or as a result of pressure to be a good corporate citizen. All that matters is whether the investment was carried out in an environmentally sustainable manner, within the laws and if it has been of benefit to the country or community in question.

The CNS viewpoint on Dart's vulture fund not only encouraged this type of "woe is me and people that make money are obviously harming others" thinking, but it also made a huge leap in logic in implying that we must now also be cautious of Dart's investment in this country.

Dart has not loaned money to this country, which is essentially what the organisation did indirectly in Greece and Argentina.

Instead its investment is what's regarded and welcomed as 'real investment' in the Cayman Islands, bricks and mortar type stuff which lead to true employment of hundreds of individuals who get real salaries and purchase physical goods or services in the country.

And yet I heard someone say a few months ago on a local talk show: "If Dart cared so much about this country, why then doesn't he just give some of his wealth to the country. He has made enough money; he doesn't need to make anymore."

There is so much wrong with that way of thinking that there is not enough space here to elaborate further.

However, one thing worth considering is the impact of this way of thinking on the youth of the Cayman Islands.

We teach the youth to pursue an education and that this is essential to a successful career path, and that they should try to enjoy what they do for a living. At the same time they are brought up a country where there is a prevalent culture of pointing at the expat, foreign or investor as their glass ceiling, the reason for a lack of opportunity. There is no denying that some of these so-styled glass ceiling issues exist, but the extent of this blame game is sold at such an incredibly ludicrous level to the youth that there is little point arming them with a good education when their minds and attitudes have been so severely poisoned with this nonsense.

It's time promote the true realities: that the Cayman Islands are part of a global and competitive economy, that the really great opportunities are there only for those who work both hard and smart, that if our youth are not prepared to survive globally they will certainly not survive locally (because global standards are already here and in practice), and that most of these 'bogeyman investors' that mean no good to our country are just law abiding entrepreneurs seeking the highest possible reward for the risks that they take.

There seems to be an increasing culture of blaming everyone else, and if Caymanians continue to swim in this "woe is me culture" they will most certainly never secure the control over this economy that they desire.

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