The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

Wait. Did I just see what I think I saw?

Well coming home … Just when I thought my country’s leaders could no longer shock me. Laugh or cry, I can’t decide.

I guess the Attorney General, Prime Minister’s wife and Senate president were there to represent for the benefit of all who thought Junkanoo Carnival was only meant for the young and the vulgar. Not sure how many other professional women over 50 would choose to be there because these three were, but maybe there really are only 16 people left in The Bahamas who won’t fall for a gimmick. (Note to self: must know target audience.)

If you’re vulnerable enough to receive that message, then I guess that would be the message you get from the three ladies holding on for dear life on the big truck. Others, however, might see it as a desperate attempt to endorse something controversial by displaying three women representatives of the governing party.

I love soca music. I like Machel. He will catch me every time with his “boss” self. I have no issues with people having fun. Listen, I want to have some, too, you know? Maybe not like the masses, but to each her/his own, I suppose.

The measure of how good or clean fun is will always be relative, depending on who you’re talking to about it. Some people think fully clothed is clean and some think bald naked is clean. I’m not about to discuss that. Suffice to say, I am not modest, but neither am I immodest.

What my concern is, as a student of economics and a citizen of The Bahamas, is that this event is being billed as a success. And my very serious question is: by what measure? The number of people in attendance? The number of costumes sold? The ticket sales for the headliner?

I thought, when Junkanoo Carnival was first presented, it was marked as an event that was targeted towards and would be predominantly attended by non-Bahamians or visitors to The Bahamas. Is that number – the non-Bahamians/visitors in attendance at Junkanoo Carnival – available?

I have heard and have seen that quite a few visitors came to The Bahamas for this event, and that’s magnificent. But what are their numbers? What’s the ratio of tourists to Bahamians at all the Junkanoo Carnival events?

And what about this talk of GDP (Gross Domestic Product)? In a half of a day, the Junkanoo Carnival committee and governing representatives decided that the contribution to GDP would in fact be doubled? Who is measuring that? I should ask, who has measured that? In a half of a day, they can decide the economic impact of a whole festival of events for which there are no real economic indicators established to use as measurements of success?

Further, do the people who throw the acronym around so loosely even understand what GDP is? A measure of what a country produces is not equivalent to a shift in the same income from one group to another.

GDP is often measured by an equation that considers all that is spent in an economy, because it is assumed that what is spent is spent on what is made. But that’s not the case if nothing is actually made, is it? If you don’t make anything or produce anything (much) of real value, what is the value of GDP ascribed to?

In the process of Junkanoo Carnival, what exactly is it that’s been made (besides some costumes that have no resale value)? What is it that has been made that will add value to our economy and replicate itself multiple times for what you can call a real impact on GDP?

The money to pay the costume makers and materials suppliers had to come from the same place it already existed; that’s not an injection of new capital or new money. If the government printed more money to spend in the economy, to the exclusion of new business investment, that would be the only way that a new injection of capital could occur from the inside? Is that what happened?

The money earned from ticket sales, I can agree, could consist of money spent by tourists or visitors patronising concert events at Junkanoo Carnival. That’s an injection of new money. And any money our visitors spend while here in a hotel (that doesn’t get repatriated elsewhere), on some conch fritters and conch salad from a vendor at the Fish Fry or roadside to the events, that’s new money that wasn’t here before by just shifting from one hand to the next.

And that, I believe, was the essence of the idea behind Junkanoo Carnival. That – to draw in visitors with money to spend – was the rationale for having it. That was how the committee and the requisite government spokespersons presented it to the people.

But did that actually happen?

Because, if the ratio of Bahamians to visitors at the festival was an overwhelming 7:1 (maybe more, I’m guessing), then who was this festival really for? And if it was meant to be for visitors to inject new money into the economy, but there weren’t many visitors in comparison to natives, then how do you measure that as a success?

Turnout by Bahamians was amazing (seriously, I was amazed), but you never achieved what you set out to achieve, the original goal. So unless you changed the goal along the way, to fit the revised, anticipated outcome, then how can you call it a success?

And then, if it wasn’t subscribed to by the many visitors you’d hoped for, and the injection of new money into the economy didn’t actually happen, how can you say the impact on GDP would double? Do members of the committee and government understand what GDP is and how it works? Or are they hoping the people on the big trucks would stay ignorant?

GDP is consumption by consumers (C), investment by businesses (I), spending by government (G) and net exports: Y = C+I+G+NX, where Y = GDP and NX = Net Exports (Exports-Imports).

Using this equation, in this circumstance, the only two potentially new sources of money that would serve to legitimately increase production/GDP includes one that is inflationary (new money from the government) and the other that is derived from foreign sources.

The only real way to increase production is to create and sell something of value that is newly produced, and, because of its inherent value, it has a domino effect on income as it passes through the economy.

And that takes us back to the question “what is it that we really produce in The Bahamas?” Do we produce most, or, gee, any of the crap that we consume on a daily basis?

If you want to do something for the economy, you have to encourage the external sources of capital (or government resources only when extremely necessary, like during wartime) into local business, into local factories, into local production. By nature of what we sell most of in The Bahamas, hotel visits and bank accounts, we’re not producing anything of real, intrinsic value. We’re certainly not producing anything that stays around for long.

Funds earned in hotels get repatriated to their foreign owners. Funds earned in banks get repatriated to their foreign owners. What significant portion of the proceeds of either tourism or banking actually remains in The Bahamas? Some may say it’s something, and something is better than nothing, but I’ll bet that it works out better every time for the hotel and bank owners than it does for Bahamians.

And all the while Bahamians slave away in hotels and banks, the only difference between the cotton plantation of 1840 and the resort of 2015 is that the slaves get to go home at the end of the day, never learning to produce anything of real value, never understanding or appreciating what it really means to innovate, to add real value to the world.

But I guess it doesn’t matter, when, at the end of the day, your leaders are quite fine with keeping you distracted with “fun” at the Junkanoo Carnival. As we’ve seen, they’ll even “jump in da line” to sell their case. As long as you limin’, as long as you eating cheap and indulgently, as long as you all liquored up, creating real value in life means nothing to you.

And, at the end of the day, the leadership gets exactly what it hoped for to elect them into government: an electorate that is ignorant, cheaply and easily bought, lazy, lascivious and irresponsible.

Everyone should be able to party to their heart’s content. But party when the job is done, man. Party all out when the hard work is finished, when you have a country that is worth something, that is as beautiful on the inside as it is (or mostly is) on the outside.

Our lives have to be about more than “jump up” and “whine up”. As good as it feels, once you’re sober, what value has it added to your existence?

When you go back to work after the fete, what real value are you taking back to the drawing board? Back to the economy? Back to the country? Back to the world?