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Honesty - the quality of being honest - free of deceit, truthful, sincere.  That's how Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary define it. Given some political realities, this global economic meltdown, and the aptly named Bernie Madoff, perhaps a more precise and modern definition would be: Honesty - the lack of an opportunity to steal or deceive.

      We have Allen Stanford of 20/20 fame and oh-mi-goodness - I'm connected to Stanford! I watched a 20/20 cricket match at Bermuda's Prospect Oval. Oh-mi-goodness! I hope the Feds and the SEC and Commissioner Jackson's guys won't be after me too! But if they come after me, I'm consoled by the fact that they'll come after you too - if you went to the game. Maybe we can run and hide together. [Hey Omari Gordon....got any advice for us?]

      Along with that conniving lot, there are all those highflying 'masters of the universe' who, wielding immense corporate power, made basic as well as grandiose corporate mistakes. Mistakes that we are just beginning to understand and pay for.

There's 'ol Hank Greenberg still insisting - it seems - that if he were still at the helm of AIG, all would still be well. Rick Wagoner was busting his guts for his $1 per year as he tried to keep GMC from going belly-up. Edward Liddy, with Obama breathing down his neck, is still trying to claw back the $165m that he gave away to those AIG execs.

      I don't pretend to know what 'ol Hank professes to know. I don't have cricket-loving Allen's financial smarts. I don't have Bernie's chutzpah.

I'm just poor me from Pond Hill.  Ploddingly honest - most of the time - as most of us are - I think!

     Every time I walk or drive past the slow-growing Courts of Justice building at the corners of Church, Victoria, and Court Streets, I ruminate on things like honesty and truth and credibility.

       In 2009, I do believe that the modern definition of honesty as an absence of opportunity is the correct one. Certainly, in the past, in Bermuda, black Bermudians seemed to be more victimized and stolen from, than stealers themselves. That's if the 'old people's stories' are anything to go by.

      Now, in 2009, based on known and irrefutable facts and with the benefit of hindsight, things seemed to have changed. Certainly, there are more black fingers dipping into honey-pots than used to be.

Fewer blacks in jail

Certainly, a hundred years ago in 1909, there were far fewer - as well as proportionately fewer - blacks in jail than now. In fact, in those bad old days when blacks were so heavily disadvantaged and immensely put upon, Bermuda's jails actually had a population that was majority WHITE.

      Social and political change has brought greater opportunity. Greater opportunity has brought greater temptation. Greater temptation has tempted more people. Fewer people are as strongly resistant to temptation - or as scared - as those black stalwarts of a hundred years ago.

     More opportunity = less honesty.

      It got really bad in T&C. There, it seems, opportunity flowed like a raging river. It also seems that T&C's raging river of opportunity was un-dammed by high dikes and strong levees in the form of an observant and open press, a professional and determined Auditor, and a questioning and insistent public.

      Up here at 32N64W, we seem to have segments of our leader and policy-making community still mumbling and grumbling about the existence of those kinds of dykes and levees. All the while us lot - with our political leaders acting as our mouthpieces - are telling the rest of the world that we are an honest and open global Financial Centre that the G20 ought not tamper with.

     How odd! How very odd!

     With all the fuss surrounding the slow-building Courts of Justice, and out of deep respect for the good Dame, we should seriously consider re-naming that building. She died with a good and untarnished name. Let's not tarnish her name in death.[[In-content Ad]]

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