21 Square

Changes

Just a bit of forward notice prior to the December 18th election that there will be some changes coming to my site.

Largely this election has turned me off of politics and like others, I feel like I'm in need of a break from it all.  While I do intend to keep writing, I've been giving a lot of thought to taking a bit of a step back from Bermuda politics and delving into many other topics on which I'd like to write.  While I haven't decided to quit writing about Bermuda politics, it is likely I shall write less frequently on it as I am frankly very tired of the present political climate and very disappointed and disillusioned by the lack of character displayed by many of our politicians.

In order not to mix my writings about Bermuda with my writings on other topics I've decided that in the next few weeks I shall be launching a number of other blogs on a variety of topics.   Likely changes to the layout of this site and various domains that point to it will be apparent, so please bear with me during these times of construction.

It is my aim to keep www.21square.com about Bermuda politics while creating other streams on things such a finance, technology, nutrition, life and whatever else sparks my fancy.  All of these blogs will likely be syndicated onto www.dpitcher.com so that if you'd like to read all of them, you can, but if you're only interested in my musings of Bermuda politics you'll be free to stick with 21 Square.

Thank you to all of you who have been supportive of my efforts to make Bermuda better.

Denis

Open government linkfest

After coming across Ethan Zuckerman's blog post about tools for open government I felt inspired to find more examples of open governance and document them for later review of how similar can be implemented here in Bermuda.

TheyWorkForYou, a non-partisan website run by a charity which aims to make it easy for people in the UK to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament, and other assemblies.  You can view data such as voting records, details tracking their communications, interests, expenses and more.  (note:  Source Code to the website is available)

FixMyStreet where you can report, view, or discuss local problems
(like graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting)  (note:  The source code to this website is available)

Police Act Review Wiki - The New Zealand government launched a collaboration website to solicit feedback on a proposed police act.

OpenCongress.org brings together official US government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill.  It brings  together information on the status of US federal legislation, voting records and other congressional data from official sources and turns it into a free information resource for everyday citizens. 

USASpending.gov is a site built to implement  The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act) which requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free that provides detailed information about federal spending.  (also take a look at fedspending.org)

OpenSecrets.org which tracks US campaign contributions according to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA)

TheCouch - A website in New Zealand created by The Families Commission to open up communications with families to hear their views and study how they can promote the interests of all families and promote a better understanding of family issues and needs amongst government agencies and the wider community.

PledgeBank - a website created for creating, tracking and sharing pledges.

Road Safety Discussion - An online discussion forum created by the New Zealand government to discuss how to improve road safety as well as gain feedback from road safety workshops.

GovernmentDocs.org gives the public an unprecedented level of access to US government documents by allowing users to browse, search, and review hundreds of thousands of pages acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public disclosure, or “sunshine,” laws. (laws we were promised, but never received)

Punch Clock Campaign asks all candidates for congressional office - challengers and incumbents - to promise, if elected, to post their daily schedules on the Internet. Lawmakers who agree to share their schedules, including who they’ve met with and why, show that they are responsive, open, transparent and above all accountable, leading to greater public trust.

Earmark Watch brings citizen oversight into congressional spending by encouraging everyday citizens to research into who is receiving grant money tacked onto bills.

Congresspedia – a project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Media & Democracy – is an online wiki-based citizens’ encyclopedia on Congress hosted on the Center for Media & Democracy’s SourceWatch wiki. This resource includes individual pages for every member of Congress, as well as information on congressional committees, specific legislative topic areas, congressional rules and practices and individual bills. As a wiki, its content can be drafted and edited by anyone.

SourceWatch is a collaborative project to track people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda.

LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources), an effort to illuminate the workings of the US federal government with the ultimate goal being to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government.

Contractor Misconduct Database – The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations. In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data about the top 50 contractors.

The DOJ Documents search engine – a project created by users of Daily Kos – provides a search function for the massive number of e-mails released by the Department of Justice to the House Committee on the Judiciary in response to the recent firings of U.S. Attorneys. The e-mails, previously only available in a large PDF file, are presented in text format and are searchable by name. The user can also designate whether they want to see e-mails that are “From,” “To,” or “CC.”

The National Institute on Money in State Politics operates a searchable database of all campaign contributions to political campaigns at the state level. The database allows users to search for contributions to candidates for office at all levels of state government and for contributions spent on supporting and opposing ballot initiatives across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Institute has made available several APIs so programmers can access and display the Institute’s data in their own applications. (The National Institute on Money in State Politics is a Sunlight grantee.)

GovTrack.us centralizes information on the legislative process into a Web site Users can search through member of Congress profiles, bills, votes, and committee action. Users can also create their own Congress-tracker by subscribing to email updates or by creating RSS feeds to keep informed on the latest developments related to bills, issues, members of Congress and committees.

Legistorm provides two unique sets of congressional information. Their congressional staffer salary information can be searched or browsed, giving a revealing view into the working of member, committee, leadership, and administrative offices. Legistorm also presents congressional travel data, offering a robust search feature and rankings among members, staff, sponsors, and destination.

MAPLight.org provides a detailed analysis of legislation by tracking bills, the support and opposition bills garner from interest groups and the campaign contributions given by those interest groups to members of Congress and for the state of California. The site lets users tracks the day by day, vote by vote, impact of political contributions at the federal level. This analysis is based on databases available from the Center for Responsive Politics at www.opensecrets.org and from official records of the Library of Congress via GovTrack.us. The resulting database of bills, voting records, and campaign contributions powers the search engine at MAPLight.org and enables people to see the links between dollars spent and votes cast in Congress. The site allows users to search by bill, interest group or by legislators, and also allows similar searches of the California legislature and state Senate. (MAPLight.org is a Sunlight grantee.)

Metavid is a project that captures, streams, archives and facilitates real-time collective remediation of federal legislative proceedings. Metavid opens up video source footage of House and Senate proceedings for permanent reusable online access, allowing citizens to remix, investigate, and track their representatives in a participant-driven open source archive. (Metavid is a Sunlight grantee.)

Open Hearings is a mini-site of schedules of current and future Senate committee hearings which includes links to live audio and video of hearings in progress. Users can subscribe to receive updates for all committees and hearings via RSS feed or iCalendar. The site also provides users the ability to import the "Live Hearing" view into a personalized Google homepage.

The Open Secrets Lobbying Database – a project of the Center for Responsive Politics – collects information from lobbyist disclosure forms and provides it the user in a number of searchable ways dating back to 1998. Among many options the user can search by client name, lobbyist name, bill ID number, lobbying firms, and issue area. The site allows the user to search through lobbying firms, top lobbying contracts, individual lobbyists, and the top lobbying industries. (The Center for Responsive Politics is a Sunlight grantee.)

The Open Secrets Personal Financial Disclosure Database – a project of the Center for Responsive Politics – has information from the personal financial disclosures filed by every member of Congress and every executive branch official since 2005 and presents it all in a searchable format. The user can search through member’s net worth, stock holdings, assets, and outside income. (The Center for Responsive Politics is a Sunlight grantee.)

The Open Secrets Revolving Door Database – a project of the Center for Responsive Politics – aggregates all information related to those leaving work on Capitol Hill to go to work on K Street and vice versa. The Center for Responsive Politics’ Revolving Door database tracks anyone whose résumé includes positions of influence in both the private and public sectors since 1998. Users can search for members of Congress and congressional staffers turned lobbyists by looking at the congressional offices and committees with the most people spinning through the revolving door. Top agencies, members, congressional committees, and organizations are all available search options. (The Center for Responsive Politics is a Sunlight grantee.)

The Open Secrets Travel Database – a project of the Center for Responsive Politics – a search engine of aggregated privately sponsored congressional travel information compiled from reports filed by members of Congress with the House Legislative Resource Center and Senate Office of Public Records since 2005. Users can search by member, staff, sponsor, country, city and industry to see who is funding their travel. The site also provides maps showing where each individual member of Congress and their staff have traveled. (The Center for Responsive Politics is a Sunlight grantee.)

Project Vote Smart provides detailed information – biographical information, campaign finances, interest groups ratings, issue positions, and public statements – on elected officials including the President, members of Congress, state officials and leadership in state legislatures.

Taxpayers for Common Sense provides reports on pork barrel projects and earmarks in Congress analyzing bills in real-time and providing databases of information. Its mission is to reduce wasteful government spending. (Taxpayers for Common Sense is a Sunlight grantee.)

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a giant collection of databases of information from various agencies of the federal government. TRAC contains reports and lists of links to data from the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Immigration Customs Enforcement.

WashingtonWatch determines the average cost, or savings, per individual of each bill introduced in Congress by performing calculations on government estimates compared to the US population. The Web site provides users with pro and con arguments for each bill, allows comments on each bill, allows users to vote “yes” or “no” on the bills and provides a “write your rep” function. WashingtonWatch also provides a wiki that allows users to add content to each bill. (WashingtonWatch is a Sunlight grantee.)

The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.

Sources

http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/resources

Lack of structure

Ok, I'm genuinely annoyed that the PLP Platform does not have a table of contents, that the opening bullets don't match the layout of the sections of the document and that the topics aren't grouped together.

It's making review and comparison with the UBP's platform on specific points difficult.

Thinking of the future of 'Future Care'

Limey in Bermuda has picked up on the PLP's intentions to fund their "Future care" health care improvements for seniors plan by creating a new tax.    How would the scheme work?  What about the future?  Who's going to pay for it?

Under their scheme, working Bermudians will have to contribute to a health style pension plan where a portion of your income is siphoned to create a fund to cover the health care of seniors.  While it's hard to argue against better care of seniors, extra taxation is less than ideal.  What will be offered by Future Care, what will it cost and how much tax will have to be collected?

Then there are the problems such as how age demographics will impact the fund itself.  According to the Department of Statistics' Population Projections 2000-2030, the proportion of seniors (65 years and older) will double from 11% in 2000 to 22% by 2030.  When discussing old age dependency it suggests:

Prolonged life of the elderly equates to increased responsibility for the Bermudian working population in general and their children in particular. A shrinking Bermudian workforce and aging population, also means a smaller tax base for government revenue at a time when the number of pension payments will increase.

If we're already facing potential problems with regards to the pension pool, what problems will we face with a health style pension plan?  Does the doubling of old age dependency and the decreasing workforce suggest that this plan will be doomed to create spiralling tax costs as it struggles to match the growing senior population against the shrinking workforce?

Thinking beyond this year, how will we continue to pay for this program especially in the face of the poor general health of a large number of Bermudians?  Indeed, we are sadly one of the fattest peoples on the planet at very high risk for disorders such as diabetes.  How do we cope with the potential costs?

It also opens up the questions of the lack of preventative medicine which may bring this whole system to it's knees by the time the current mass of Bermudians with poor nutritional habits hit old age.  Why is preventative medicine still so low on the priority list?

While it's easy to "let the youth pay for it", there is only so much that the youth shall be able to bear.  In reality, should taxation spiral out of control it may well come to pass that more of our talented and most capable youth will pick up and leave for greener pastures (especially considering the high cost of home ownership) leaving even smaller tax revenues for our elder generations.

Sadly this scheme isn't convincing in it's present state.  While the intentions are honourable, it raises far too many unanswered questions that must be asked and subsequently entered with well thought out planning.  Unfortunately a "Whatever it costs we will do it" attitude won't cut it because as Sir Issac Newton once suggested, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Also not impressed with discrimination

Today's royal gazette covers a number of topics not getting aired.  One such topic revolves around the review of discrimination based upon sexual orientation. 

Regardless of whether you are for or against a chance in the human rights legislation, what is abundantly clear is that our leadership on both sides are incapable and incompetent when it comes to making a decision on this issue.

Mrs. Louise Jackson has it half right and half wrong

"We believe it is a matter for a conscience vote in Parliament."

Parliament has demonstrated it's ineffectiveness in this matter already.

"We believe it is a matter for each individual to decide how to vote on this matter."

This however, has merit.  Don't leave it up to the politicians, put it to the people in a plebiscite (which is a vote requested of the people by government and differs from a referendum which is a vote requested by the people via a petition) and let the people choose whether we support this change or not.

Not impressed with conscription stance

The UBP's platform states

We will carry out a broad review of the Bermuda Regiment, including its operations and conscription policy to ensure that it is meeting the current social and security needs of our community.

In my opinion, this offers nothing to those who are or will be conscripted. The above statement suggests that dialog will occur from the community perspective, not that of conscripts.

What should be occur is a review to ensure that there is fairness in the practice of conscription and a solid review of why so few choose to volunteer.

Number one.  Conscription is biased and sexist.  If there is to be conscription, it should not be pseudo-random.  Either all are conscripted or non are.  It should also not be sexist, if women are eligible to volunteer they are eligible to be conscripted.

Number two.  Despite the pay increases and new bonus structure, conscripts are still underpaid in comparison to just about any part time job.  This significantly reduces any individual's willingness to volunteer.  This should be considered alongside other factors to make regiment more attractive to volunteers, enough so to eliminate the need for conscription altogether.

Number three, if a community review is to be conducted while sexist conscription exists, women should not be allowed to have a say.  Equality should be a two way street.

The UBP's proposal offers nothing to conscripts. 

Reward bad behavior, punish good

Premier Brown's remarks with regards to tax cuts are disappointing.  While I have my criticisms of the UBP's plan, the PLP's position lacks sense and employs very sad rhetoric.

"We came to the conclusion that blanket, across-the-board payroll tax relief for everyone is a bad idea."

Right, tax cuts are 'unwise' in the face of more useful initiatives such as fancy trips abroad, un-hindered expense accounts and GP cars.

"Considering the current plight of our families, it is impractical, unaffordable, and unwise to give the same tax cut to a 19-year-old making $40,000 while living with her wealthy parents, as we give to a Bermudian mother-of-four making $40,000 living in a rental apartment."

Here's the thing.  Life is about making choices, good and bad choices.  I love how "wealthy parents" is used to describe someone with no children still living with their parents and "Bermudian" is applied to the mother-of-four.

Very easily, both could come from the same family, rich or poor, and both could be Bermudian. 

The 19 year old is an example of someone making good life choices.  Rather than running out, getting her own place and getting pregnant under an income in which she couldn't sustain children, she's living with her parents and likely saving her money before starting a family.

Contrast that to the mother-of-four who made the decision to have four more children than she could afford, who is living in a rental apartment. 

So here we have two people, one who is making good life choices, another who has made some poor life choices, repeatedly.  Since both are under the reasonable income level, should both be rewarded with a tax cut or just one?

Premier Brown's suggestion is that we should reward the bad behavior and punish the good, because the 19 year old doesn't deserve a tax cut because she has made good life choices.  Even though she may well be Bermudian, may not have wealthy parents and may be reasonably saving all she can to one day afford a home, she doesn't deserve a break despite the fact that she's also earning a less than reasonable income.  The mother-of-four is the one who deserves all the breaks despite not having learned that she cannot afford anymore children after the first or even the second child.

Perhaps Premier Brown should think of that Bermudian mother-of-four struggling to sustain herself the next time he jets off to some exotic destination like Dubai or China on the public dollar.

Is education the root cause?

When we last left off we looked at the Gross Annual Income expected by occupation and it's implications for the income disparities between blacks and whites.  This raised a larger question of whether education or race is a factor in which occupation a person pursues.

In order to delve into discovering the answer to this question, we had to go back to the 2000 Census, which while not recent should give us a rough idea of the impact of education on occupation. 

From the 2000 Census numbers on Working Population 16 years and Over by Highest Examination Passed, Major Occupation Group we have been able to produce the following charts to give a visual answer to our question.

These were the hard numbers used which produced the charts below.

Here we have the breakdown of Education Level by Major Occupational Group.  Already we can see the impact a Bachelors (not college/associate) has on attaining a Professional/Technical related job.  In order to gain a better picture, lets look at the percentages.

Here we can note the direct and undeniable correlation between education level and professional jobs while also noting that there is less of a correlation between education level and Admin & Management jobs.  We can also note how there is a stark correlation between lower levels of education and the clerical, service and production/transport related jobs.

This tells us quite a bit.  Education leads to a better paying occupation.  Thus, if there is a racial disparity in education, that carries right up to career and subsequently earning potential.

Does occupation affect pay?

In our last piece we reviewed Gross Annual Income numbers to determine the disparity in incomes between whites and blacks.  Interestingly, aside from the $156,000 or more category, the earnings levels of non-Bermudians and Bermudians were comparatively similar when looking at racial breakdowns. 

In order to get a better idea of why lets look at types of jobs by race from the 2006 Employment Survey Tabulation Set from the Bermuda Statistics department to get a better idea of why whites earn more than blacks.  Lets note that unfortunately the breakdown of Bermudian vs. non-Bermudian by race was not provided.

Above we can note the gross annual income by race from the CURE Annual Review of the Workforce Survey Report 2006.  Of considerable mention are the high percentages of whites when compared to blacks in the upper categories.  In order to get a better idea of the causes for such disparity lets take a look at the racial breakdowns of filled jobs by major occupation.

In the above chart we can note the dominance of blacks in the clerical, services and production/transport occupational groups.  However, as was the case for gross annual income, it is hard to gain a solid understanding of the representative numbers when the number of blacks and whites are not equal.

We can note from the above chart how the majority of whites fill Professional/Technical and Administrative/Managerial roles while the majority of blacks fill Clerical, Services and Production/Transport roles.  It must also be noted that the above charts are not representative of only Bermudians and instead represent jobs overall in the workforce due to the unavailability of breakdowns by Bermudians status.

In order to understand how occupations translate into earnings, lets take a look at Table 20 of the 2006 Employment Survey Tabulation Set which tabulated Business Establishments with 10 or more Jobs by Annual Salary and Major Occupation Group, 2006

Hmm, that's a bit tough to pull meaning from as it's a lot of numbers.  Let's take a look at it in chart form, percentage wise to equalize the numbers across occupations and put it under the same income brackets as noted in the Gross Annual Income chart.  Again lets note that this is all jobs and not Bermudian specific.  Also note that this is not broken down by race.  Neither breakdown was available.

Hmm, this is helpful, but not incredibly.  It shows how the bulk of jobs lie in the $24,000 to $59,999 pay bracket but unfortunately not much else.  In order to get a better picture, let's equalize the numbers in each bracket so we can understand the breakdowns better.

Ah, very telling.  Professional/Technical and Administration/Management jobs dominate the top 3 income brackets while Service, Clerical and Production/Transport dominate the bottom two.  So, this offers a much clearer explanation as to why it may be that whites typically earn more than blacks when considering that the majority of whites fulfill Professional/Technical and Administration/Management jobs  while the majority of blacks fill Service, Clerical and Production/Transport jobs.  The next question that arises is why whites fill the jobs they do and blacks fill the jobs they do, could it be tied to education disparities amongst the races?

Height of the election

It's the height of the election, the papers are abuzz with platform announcements and what are the best and brightest of the PLP's youth wing busy analyzing and evaluating? 

Well, if you thought the issues, or the flaws in the UBP's platform, you'd be slightly off base.  Instead, they're busy detecting flaws in the blackness of UBP rallies.

Condemning threats

The recent announcement of an alleged bullet and threatening letter sent to Premier Brown is a disappointing and concerning turn of events.  Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with how Premier Brown runs this country, he still deserves the respect as the leader of this country and any such threats should be condemned.

A bullet is a severe threat that should be taken seriously as anyone familiar with gun laws in Bermuda (ie, you were or are conscripted), you'll know how guns are strictly controlled and access to bullets are extremely locked down.  The mailing of a bullet itself is an extreme message likely sent to suggest that access to smuggled guns and ammunition are readily available.  At which, where I once held the position that the Premier does not need a police officer for security, due to this recent threat I can now admit that the measure is now necessary and garners my support.

The sheer fact that this has occurred is a very sad indication of the state of division within our society.  Hopefully this will not trigger further division and those involved recognize that disagreements with the leaders of this country should be solved through traditional democratic processes, not extreme threats.  Extreme measures do nothing to ensure the success of democracy in our country and only ensure anarchy which assists no one.

100% not voting for Lovitta Foggo

Ms. Foggo's comments made at last nights rally are ignorant, racist and stupid. 

"We must hasten to employ measures which ensure that our people and our children know that a UBP vote is a vote back to the plantation. It is a vote that will return the shackles to our feet!"

"It is a vote that will keep us as slaves because the UBP has one aim; to ensure we, the working class, the underprivileged, never get our fair share of that economic pie!  For the UBP, money and wealth is meant only for those that control the economy when slavery was alive and kicking and for the descendants that controls the economy today. Emancipate yourselves!"

Rather than addressing the issues (which I never received a response on) she has resorted to the despicable practice of calling up hatred and racially based ploys to try to rally support.

While I had ultimately decided to reserve my final decision of who I would vote for after firmly reviewing each parties platforms (especially after knowing each party would release them in a semi-reasonable time frame this time around), there is one thing that Ms. Foggo has guaranteed through her comments.

No matter what, I will not be supporting Ms. Foggo on December 18th.  While I have not yet decided if the UBP deserves my support, I would rather spoil my ballot than support such vitriol.

A quick review of UBP Tech

The UBP has proposed a number of initiatives with regards to Telecommunications and e-Commerce.

Bolster information technology training and education in our schools

Good, but I'd like to see great use of technology potentially through pilot programs of online tutoring, one laptop per child and game consoles as interactive teaching tools.

Develop an overall plan with the inclusion of a national Bermuda hotspot, which will provide free public Internet in public parks and playgrounds.

A national Bermuda hotspot is interesting, though island wide wi-fi should have been an initiative undertaken 2-3 years ago and is a bit late now.  As for providing "hotspots" (free public Internet) in public parks and playgrounds the value is questionable considering that most digital devices have poor visibility in sunlight.

A better alternative would be to launch island wide WiMax or HSDPA high speed, long distance, network connectivity while providing localized wi-fi in specific areas around the island, especially on ferries to encourage more individuals to choose to commute via ferry rather than via car or bike?

Develop a fully functioning technology park and IT economic zone at Southside

What is this tech park supposed to achieve exactly?  This isn't exactly clear with the one line mention.  Bermuda is unfortunately a pricey destination with regards to e-commerce viability, however I have always thought we could be heavily pursing the online gaming markets as our niche (video games, not gambling) due to our natural tax advantages.

Regulate service standards and enforce consequences for poor service

If this means number portability then hallelujah.  Poor service is encouraged because customers who choose to take their business elsewhere lose their phone number, thus customers are discouraged to switch and thus competition between providers is hindered.  Shaking things up by changing this would make a great deal of difference though it is doubtful that this is the intention of the above.

Interest free loans

Due to the wealth of info to sift through with regards to both parties platforms it's likely I'll be making brief remarks with regards to questions and thoughts I have on each point with no guarantees of the heavy analysis in which I typically like to partake.

A couple things strike me with regards to the interest free down payment proposal.  Beyond the remarks already made at the proposal's first announcement back in the throne speech, concerns lie with the adverse impacts that may occur on the housing supply. 

While it is honourable to attempt to provide more affordable down payments loans to those who couldn't otherwise afford them, it does raise the question of what impacts it'll have.  Is it possible that by affording loans to people who could not otherwise afford them you increase the number of buyers overall on the market?  What happens when there is an increase in demand and continually limited supply?  Does it drive prices up?

Is it possible that this policy could have the adverse unintended affect of driving prices higher which would subsequently penalize all new buyers and would it possibly be a better course of action to use money allocated for interest free down payments to instead offer greater incentives for the creation of further housing stock?

While this may not be a vote getter and would have less short term impact, would it have better overall affects for the long term viability and affordability of our housing market?

Questioning Child Care Plans

When it comes to child care it's real easy to say, hey, whatever it costs we'll do it, but when it comes down to it, childcare is no simple undertaking.  What assurances do we have that the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) intends to provide safe and quality child care?  Does the PLP intend to follow commonly accepted practices with regards to child care?

When asked about the cost of a scheme planned to introduce means-tested child care that would use existing facilities and churches Dr. Brown said:

"We do not have a figure but guess what? Whatever it costs we will do it."

It's great that cost is not an issue, but what assurances do we have of the plans quality and safety?  Will special needs children get consideration?  Will we be assured qualified child-care facilitators to ensure there is limited potential for abuse or neglect?  Will the facilities used be safe and adequate for caring for children?

The American National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) provides a helpful checklist of 38 questions that should be asked to ensure high quality health care.  Such as:

Will my child be supervised?

• Are children watched at all times, including when they are sleeping?
• Are the caregiver/teacher-to-child ratios appropriate and do they follow the recommended guidelines:
  • One caregiver per 3 or 4 infants
  • One caregiver per 3 or 4 young toddlers
  • One caregiver per 4 to 6 older toddlers
  • One caregiver per 6 to 9 preschoolers

 

Have the adults been trained to care for children?

• If a center,
  • Does the director have a degree and some experience in caring for children?
  • Do the teachers have a credential or Associate’s degree and experience in caring for children?
• Is there always someone present who has current CPR and first aid training?
• Have the adults been trained on child abuse prevention and how to report suspected cases?

 

Is this a safe and healthy place for my child?

• Are adults trained to give medicines and keep records of medications?
• Is there a plan to follow if a child is injured, sick or lost?
• Have all the adults who are left alone with children had background and criminal screenings?
• Is the outdoor play area a safe place for children to play?
• Is the number of children in each group limited to no more than
  • 6-8 infants
  • 6-12 younger toddlers
  • 8-12 older toddlers
  • 12-20 preschoolers
  • 20-24 school-agers

 

These questions are based on research about child care performed by the NACCRRA and likely should be questions asked of the PLP with regards to their proposed free daycare initiative.  We should be assured of safe and quality care for our children before we go to vote on December 18th.

Gross Annual Income - 2006

 

It's really easy to take one look at the above chart of data from the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality's (CURE) Annual Review of the Workforce Survey 2006 (ARWS) and deduce that whites earn more than blacks, but does such a conclusion tell the whole story?  In reality, the above chart may well be an accurate representation of white earnings vs black earnings, but what of Bermudian vs. non Bermudian and the impact of non-Bermudian demographics on the racial makeup of Bermuda's workforce? 

The first thing we can recognize as a discrepancy in the above chart is that the numbers of blacks, whites and mixed/other are not equal.  In order to gain a better insight into the disparities by race we'd really need to see the data in terms of the percentage of each race in each earnings bracket.

 

Ok, so that's a little better.  We can now see the percentage breakdown of each race amongst each earnings bracket.  What we can note is that nearly 68% of blacks were in the $24,000 to $59,999 bracket while whites were more evenly distributed.  However, this still doesn't consider the Bermudian vs. non-Bermudian factor, so lets take a look at that now, but rather than using hard numbers, lets again use percentages to give an equalized breakdown.

 

By this chart we can note how some 64% of Bermudians represent the $24,000 to $59,000 bracket while only 2% represent the $156,000+ bracket.  Compare this to the non-Bermudians who 11% of whom make up the $96,000 to $155,999 bracket while another 10% make up the $156,000+ bracket.  So we now can see how Bermudians compare to non-Bermudians.

 

Ok, so now we have an idea of the various earnings brackets of Bermudians by race which gives us a much better idea of what we're dealing with.  We can now note how white Bermudians have much higher representations in the upper brackets than black Bermudians do.  Questions that arise from these revelations are what causes this disparity and how much of a factor do education level and employment level play in these numbers?  On top of that, how do earnings in different industries and their subsequent racial representation skew the statistics?

Sound Economic Management

While composing an article looking back at highlights from the 1998 PLP platform, it was interesting to come across the section on sound economic management.  Here are a few points that sparked attention

 

• Strengthen the Office of the Government Auditor
  
  
• Ensure that public funds are disbursed only when properly authorized and accounted for in accordance with the appropriate Parliamentary processes
  
  
• We will be a facilitator and regulator, who will not compete with private business
  
  
• We will introduce new standards of revenue management and will root out waste and inefficiency.

 

Highlighted in a nice green box:  "Accountability and Transparency will be the underlying credo for the priorities, principles and policies of a PLP Government"

e-government for transparent governance

Could the level of feedback provided to government be improved?

Expansion of e-government to include sections or pages dedicated to announcing and gathering feedback on recent projects.

Example, could government pre-announce where roadworks are to take place. Subsequently, it would then give timelines for completion. Upon completion, it would take photos, place them online and request feedback from the public on the project in terms of comments and ratings. Perhaps the bonuses and pay of government employees could be tied to how well the project is rated.

We're a 'virtual' specialist jurisdiction

Lets go back to June 14th 2007 when Finance Minister Paula Cox defended Bermuda against US anti tax-shelter legislation in a visit to Capitol Hill in Washington:

“Bermuda always relishes the opportunity to state its case and—our footprint is that we offer real services on the ground. (We are) not a brass plate jurisdiction.”

Today's paper:

Although it has 5,500 employees in 19 countries, in the near-term Invesco is likely to have only a 'virtual' presence on the Island, without an office or employees.

Is Invesco a good investment for Bermuda?

Those who hold high hopes for the transition of Invesco from London to Bermuda should recognize what it may mean for our economy and our island.  Should we really be looking to continue growing or slow down so we can get a handle on our infrastructure first?  What does the move of Invesco mean for Bermuda?  Will this ultimately yield good or bad things for our economy and our people?  Should Bermudians have had more of a say?

Frequent readers of this blog will note that this isn't the first time that it has been mentioned that we need to slow down growth.   Inflation is high, housing isn't affordable, affordable rents are impossible to find, traffic is abysmal and our infrastructure is overstretched.  How can we be considering the introduction of a firm that manages $520 billion in assets when we really should be trying to get a grasp on our growth by closing to new business?

In management there's an old adage that suggests "You can't manage what you don't measure", one which holds application to the management of our islands economy.  The questions must be asked, if we already have over-employment, how many jobs will Invesco be adding?  How many of those jobs will be for Bermudians and how many will require more foreigners?  Where will we house these new foreigners?  Will they require cars and how will that impact traffic?  Are we measuring the impact of the addition of this new business?

Should we be asking ourselves the larger question of what tangible value does our people gain from the introduction of yet another company?  If we don't need more jobs, we're already overstretched on housing and we suffer from too much traffic as is, what do we gain?  The only thing we really gain is more payroll taxes for those workers that are imported (at which point we should asking what the point of 7 year term limits is) and the limited flat corporate taxes.

Bermudians should really be asking themselves where we will gain from having another large firm domiciled in Bermuda.  How will it benefit you, Mr. Joe Average Bermudian to have this firm here?  Will it impact your ability to own or rent housing?  Will it give you more traffic?  Will you really benefit from the increase in taxes due to even more foreign workers?  The really incredible thing is that every shareholder of Invesco had the chance to decide whether or not it should re-domicile in Bermuda and the average Bermudian shareholder was given no say.

It just doesn't add up.

Where does Bermuda Network News(BNN)  get their numbers from?  In a recent article it suggests:

According to the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, black Bermudians hold more BA degrees than their white counterparts.

Nine hundred and forty four (944) BA degrees where held by black Bermudian female, 718 by black Bermudian males, 586 by white Bermudian males and 447 by white Bermudian females in 2000.

On what page in the 2000 Census of Population and Housing does this information exist?  The only information available for Bermudians by race and education level suggests University level education (a degree), not a 'BA'.  Some of us busted our butts for Bachelor's of Engineering Science, not Bachelor's of Arts, a little recognition would be appreciated.

Anyway, the numbers suggested for a 'university' education place black Bermudians at 1752 for black males and 1541 for white males.  As for females, they're pegged at 2697 for black and 1570 for white.  All this can be found on page 130 of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing.  Where the above numbers from BNN came from is unknown.

Then they quote a mysterious government press release (we know how we feel about those) that apparently was only released to BNN as it hasn't been published on the government website.  The report is suggested to have stated:

“It has long been an erroneous perception that blacks in Bermuda did not possess the same educational qualifications as whites. That perception was used to explain the apparent lack of progress of blacks into senior and executive managerial positions in the workplace.”

Again, a BA is not the same as a BESc.  Let's be certain what we're talking about here.

Statistics for Masters Degree follow a similar pattern, with 479 held by black women, 201 by black men, 108 by white women and 105 by white men.

Right, but this is only masters degrees and your comparing numbers provided today with ones from the 2000 census.  How about a little consistency?   While you're at it, how about breakdowns of doctorates, bachelors and even types of bachelors.  It then goes to use this as a basis of comparing median incomes which is completely uncorrelated.

There is, however, a significant difference between the races regarding  education and income.

The press release said: “What is evident from the chart is that at either level of education, the white and other race employees recorded the higher level of median monthly income than black employees with the same level of education.  At the college degree level, white and other employees took home a median monthly wage of $4,111 while black employees reported a take-home wage of $2,964.

First, how do we jump from quoting a statistic for Master's Degrees to one for college degree's?  Are we comparing college (Associate's) degree's to university (bachelors) or college to college?  Is this comparing black vs. white Bermudians or blacks vs. whites overall.   This mistake has been made in the past so it'd be helpful to know we're comparing apples to apples here.

“Ironically, the chart also demonstrates that white employees with no formal certificates were earning a higher median income than black college degree holders at $3,147.  Black employees with no formal certificate made a median monthly income of $2,333.”

Could this press release be forwarded to the general public please, perhaps with supporting statistics?  It'd be great to know where these median incomes by degree level are calculated.  Again, black vs. white alone isn't helpful, we need to know if this is Bermudian only or encompassing all workers with the reasoning being that if the median incomes for Bermudians overall at the degree level (specific type of degree that is) are lower than non-Bermudians regardless of whether race is considered could point to a much larger problem beyond simply race.

Finally, the article uses these discrepancies as justifications for the Racial Equity Law.

The proposed Workforce Equity Legislation would make employers accountable for establishing work equity plans in an effort to address systemic discrimination.

However, nowhere in the draft Workforce Equity Act are income disparities mentioned nor accounted for.  It only states that employers must create plans to rectify under-representation of Black Bermudians, not under-compensation, so how can the draft act be used as justification against unfair income levels?

It just doesn't add up.

Click-a-thon

In honour of the PLP's dirty tactics as outlined over at Vexed Bermoothes, please join me in a PLP click-a-thon.

What's a 'click-a-thon' you ask?   A click-a-thon is when you reward dirty google-ad based tactics with as many clicks as possible to either rack up the charges to whoever paid for the ad or force it to meet it's daily maximum and no longer appear.

For example, should you enter "Michael Dunkley" into google and see the following ad:

 

Click on it as many times as you can!

 

Should you enter "UBP" into google and see this ad:

Click on it as many times as you can!

Make sure you show the PLP how supportive you are of their campaigning methods by giving them as many ad-charged clicks as possible. 

Solar powered road studs

 

Gizmag has a great article outlining the launch of new solar powered road studs that use Light Emitting Diodes and stored solar power to provide a 10-fold improvement in visibility.

Offering considerable improvements in visibility over traditional reflective road studs, these would likely be a great addition for Bermuda's dark and winding roads to help improve safety and hopefully prevent late night accidents.

Black executives: The education factor

When we last left off, we'd examined in greater depth the hard numbers for how well represented blacks are in the various levels of the workforce when compared to Bermudian demographics.  In order to gain a better understanding of the causes of such disparities, lets examine levels of educational achievement and their likely impacts on advancement.

Here once again is the percentage breakdown of levels of employment by race from the Annual Review of the Workforce Survey (ARWS) Report of 2006.

 

Now, by comparison, lets look at the level of education achieved by Bermudians aged 16 and older by race.

 

Note how the degree category has a much larger representation from whites than any other category, 41% of degree holders were white to be more exact.

Now lets look at the hard numbers of the level of education achieved by Bermudians over 16 years of age broken down by race.

Here we can again note how a disproportionate number of whites that whites dominate the upper level of of the education spectrum.  

Now, here's the most telling detail of this analysis.  For all levels of employment above professional and even a large proportion of professional jobs, it is very likely that a degree is a requirement.   So, if whites dominate in terms of level of education, is it really all that surprising that whites dominate in terms of higher levels of employment?

Thus, this brings us to the question of how much of a difference education does make as a factor of advancement in the workforce?  Further, how does the type of degree and level of further education impact advancement?  How about the institution from which the degree was acquired?  These are all considerations that should be factored into any further analysis into the causes of racial disparities in our workforce.  Unfortunately, the statistics to answer such questions may not be available, though they should be if we're to give a fair review of the causes for racial disparity in our workforce.

Black Executives: A Bermudian Disparity

When we last examined the hard numbers for Black Executives in the Bermudian workforce, we noted how statistics of Black Executives were wildly skewed by the largely white non-Bermudian workforce.  This led us to examine in greater depth Bermudians only in the analysis of levels of employment data so that we could get a more representative picture.  This  subsequently left us with the questions of how well represented blacks are in various levels of the Bermudian workforce when compared to Bermudian demographics.

So we left off by looking at the levels of employment by Race and Bermudian Status from the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality's Annual Review of the Workforce Survey (ARWS) Report of 2006.

This gives us a good picture of present representation of blacks and whites in the workforce at various levels of employment.  In order to better compare this to present Bermudian demographics, lets again review data from the ARWS Report which suggests that, in 2006, 72% of the Bermudian workforce was black, 21% was white and 7% was Mixed/Other.

Initially, just by looking at these numbers we can note how blacks are over-represented in the non-professional category and underrepresented in all others.  Yet this doesn't give a clear picture without a better understanding of the actual hard numbers in each category so lets look at the actual numbers of Bermudians for each level of the workforce.

Here's the dame data as above, simply represented in another way so we get a clear idea of the representation in percentages.

Percentages, however, don't tell the whole picture.  The whole picture is much better represented when you start comparing the hard numbers to get an idea of how many non-professionals there are vs. the other levels of employment.

 

Suddenly it becomes much more clear how a 5% difference from the Bermudian demographic of 72% of blacks in the workforce can add up to such wide ranging disparities in the other categories.  Indeed, in order for the various levels of employment to match Bermudian workforce demographics, 680 of the 13033 non-professionals would need to be white instead of black, 209 of the 3479 non-managerial would need to be black instead of white, as with 103 of the 940 middle managers, 285 of the 1186 senior managers and 109 of the 350 executives who would each also need to be black instead of white. 

However, let's not be racist by pretending that the mixed/other category doesn't matter and recognize that there is a 2% under-representation in the executive category equating to some 7 whites that should be mixed/other.

So now that we've identified the hard numbers with regards to the racial disparities between Bermudians in the various levels of the workforce we're now prepared to pursue our next question:  what is the cause of these disparities?

Discrimination is ok?

Gender discrimination when it's against men is perfectly ok?  I think not.

I stand by my position that if women are fit to volunteer for the Regiment, they're fit to be conscripted as long as conscription exists.

Power to the people

Perhaps unknowingly, the United Bermuda Party is promising the greatest possible tool for the people to ensure responsible governance, the power for the people to call an election at any time.  This has incredible implications as it means the politicians will face an ongoing risk of being removed from power.

Hidden near the end of the UBP's Agenda for Change is a section on good governance which contains the following line:

Give people the right to initiate a referendum on any issue of national importance, such as independence, where 20% of registered voters request a national vote by way of a petition.

Give the people to initiate a vote on any issue of national importance by way of a petition.  Though they are not playing it up and likely should be, one issue of national importance could well be that our leadership is not living up to their promises, we don't want to wait for the next fixed election date and have decided to petition for an election to be called.

The true power of this isn't just the ability to call an election, it's the ability to hold the threat of an election at any time over the heads of both our leadership and the opposition.  This means that rather than the lacklustre approach to leadership we've witnessed in the past, where leaders only care about the people during election time, politicians will always have to bring their A-game because the power of calling an election would no longer lie in the hands of the Premier, instead lying in the hands of the people. 

It's the greatest possible power that the people could wield, one that could guarantee true accountability and responsible governance from our leadership.

Black Executives: The ex-factor

Before we got sidetracked with some weak humour, we were exploring the hard numbers for black executives.  When we last left off, we were asking the question of how non-Bermudians impact the statistics that measure the level of employment on a racial level.

Here's what we examined, the stat for Level of Employment by Race in 2006 from the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality's Annual Review of the Workforce Survey Report of 2006.

 

As suggested, it's a startling stat, up until you realize that this isn't a Bermudian only statistic because non-Bermudian racial demographics are included.

Thankfully, CURE has also been tracking and publishing statistics of Levels of Employment by Race since 2004 so a more telling picture is available.  So, what is the real picture of Level of Employment by Race amongst Bermudians alone?

Ah, does this give a better picture?    Suddenly whites no longer dominate Senior and Executive management and the numbers make a bit more sense as the disparities between the race are less drastic and closer to Bermudian demographics.  While there is much more to be explored in this chart such as it's implications of racial equality amongst Bermudians in the workforce and the causes thereof, let's not get sidetracked just yet.

So, now lets look at the demographics of non-Bermudians in the workforce by Level of Employment.

Woah!  Whites dominate every level of non-Bermudian employment.  But wait, is that really shocking?  Let's take a rough guess at the countries that are most likely to contribute non-Bermudian workers to Bermuda.  Are they most likely to be Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom?  Lets run with this assumption and subsequently examine their racial demographics.

According to the 2001 Canadian Census, 83% of the total population of Canada claimed they are white and only 2% claiming black.

According to the 2006 American Community Survey, 73% of American's are white and 12.4% are Black.

According to the 2001 UK Census, 92.2% of UK citizens are white and only 2% are black.

So, if the most likely places that our International Businesses are to pull workers from are countries with white majorities is it really surprising that non-Bermudian level's of employment are white dominated?  This when non-Bermudian demographics actually already appear to be representative of the racial demographics of the countries from which non-Bermudians originate?

Is it then right that we spend our time focusing on levels of employment by race overall when they are inherently skewed by non-Bermudian demographics?  Perhaps we shouldn't be allowing the expatriate factor to skew our statistics when our focus should be on two core goals:

• achieving racial equality amongst Bermudians
• gradually decreasing our reliance on foreign workers

 

This raises new questions:

• How representative are levels of employment by race of Bermudian demographics when only looking at Bermudians? 
• What are the likely causes for present disparities between the Bermudian races and what potential solutions are there?
• Does the draft workforce equity legislation adequately address the two core goals stated above?

Jumping on the bandwagon

Building on the comments made over at A Limey in Bermuda and Vexed Bermoothes, former Premier Alex Scott's comments requesting support despite Brown are quite ridiculous. 

After the election we will have the benefit of hindsight. We can say: ‘Well, we survived, but we must now, if we are going to be a meaningful administration, and a successful Government, we should probably rethink this issue here… Afterwards the party will conduct the postmortem and will listen to the people and will make the changes necessary.

Right.  Re-elect you and then you'll start listening to the people.  This coming from 'They didn't know what they were signing' Scott. Perhaps Mr. Scott and his successor should have spent more time actually listening to the people rather then treating them like they're stupid?