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This year is ending. GMC and Chrysler may be ending. Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, Zoom Airlines have ended. The island nation of Iceland is up-ended by national banking failures. I'm wondering about Bermuda in 2009 and beyond.

In 2008, from 3,500 miles away, an independent journalist saw: "Bermuda is becoming increasingly crowded, and some observers question whether its infrastructure would be able to withstand another onslaught of new entrants to the reinsurance market." [Andrea Felsted - Financial Times(UK) - 18 Dec 08]

Here at home and through 2007 and 2008, a Bermuda-based foreign official and a bevy of Bermuda-based CEO's saw: "Some Bermudians lack a global perspective... many... lack a perspective on how Bermuda fits in with the rest of the world..." [ACE CEO Evan Greenberg - Royal Gazette 07 March 07]

"There is a point at which we will get stretched beyond breaking point, although we're not there yet. How much more can the Island take?" [XL-Re CEO Greg Hendrick - Royal Gazette 13 June 08]

"...companies can feel that their capital is not really welcome, not their financial capital, but their intellectual capital." [U.S Consul Gregory Slayton - Royal Gazette 20 June 08]

"The main problem that the sector faces is a potential lack of suitably skilled personnel." [Brad Kading, Pres ABIR - Bermuda Insurance Report - 29 August 08]

Within Bermuda, there is a concern about Bermuda and Bermuda's ability to grow or sustain growth. Digging deeper uncovers this underlying corpus.

Does Bermuda want to grow? Do ordinary Bermudians want further growth? Does the current political concept of 'sustainable development' carry within it a policy particle saying "Bermuda Wants To Stop Growing!" ?

If it does, then I wonder, has someone - anyone? - considered the consequences?

I wonder if the team or person or politician who is wielding that 'Stop' sign will tell every other Bermudian exactly what those consequences are likely to be.

Bermuda has the world's highest Gross Domestic Product per capita [WH/GDP].  Right now, Bermuda and Bermudians perch and preen on this global pinnacle. However, this WH/GDP isn't derived from the use of only Bermudian intellectual capital; only Bermudian financial capital; or only Bermudian 'niceness', Bermudian beaches, and Bermudian sunshine and snow-free weather.

In fact, Bermuda's natural environment and Bermuda's Bermudian people are not centrally critical to the process that delivers over eighty per cent of that WH/GDP.

The entire range of Bermuda's WH/GDP-producing 'business' currently being done in Bermuda, can be also be done - just as well - in Barbados, Dublin, Switzerland;  or a number of other places. Bermuda's legal, administrative, and political environment creates the infrastructure and ambience that - so far - has kept those businesses at critical business mass within Bermuda.

A 20-year-old trade off

The existence, in Bermuda, of this critical mass of businesses enables us Bermudians to enjoy the WH/GDP. But, do ordinary Bermudians really want to continue with this 20-year-old successful trade-off?

Are ordinary Bermudians so satisfied that they'd now like to see no further growth of International Business in Bermuda? Do ordinary Bermudians want the 'next' International company to go someplace else; because one more 'foreign' company will mean more 'foreign' workers, more cars, more crowding, and so on...?  

Do Bermudians want a limit or cap on the critical business mass of Bermuda's existing business?

In 1986/87, Bermudians got fed up because Bermuda was being over-run by more than 600,000 Tourists. In 2008, were Bermudians as fed-up with International  Business as they had been twenty years before? Is Bermuda history repeating?

Which way are ordinary Bermudians leaning? What general messages are ordinary Bermudians and their political mouthpieces giving, sending, communicating?

The government push for 'sustainable development' suggests a desire to have less growth. The oft-voiced community complaints about over-crowding suggest a community desire to have fewer non-Bermudian workers as island residents. Frequent grumbling about the pervasiveness of the existing non-Bermudian presence suggests a desire to see that presence lessen, or not grow any further.

So what does the national entity Bermuda - and ordinary Bermudians - really want?

Growth?  And hang on to that World's Highest GDP per capita?  Stop growth? And accept a deliberate consequential drop in GDP per capita so that Bermuda's WH/GDP falls to world 10th?  Or 20th? Or 40th?  

And, along with that GDP drop, the value of ordinary individual Bermudian incomes starts dropping and begins equalling individual incomes in countries like the U.S. (8th), Iceland (used to be 9th), Barbados (49th), maybe even Jamaica (93rd)?  If Bermudians drop from WH/GDP, will Bermuda drop into a "socially dangerous space"?

What does the island of Bermuda want? What does Mr and Mrs and Ms Bermuda want? What message is Bermuda's government-of-the-day sending?

Going into 2009, what is Bermuda's single message?

*Iceland: pop = 305,000. In 2007, the CIA placed Iceland 9th in world GDP per capita. In 2008, Iceland's GDP per capita plummeted. In 2009, when GDP figures for 2008 are published, Iceland will have dropped to world twentieth or lower.  Dropping is easier and faster than rising or staying up.[[In-content Ad]]

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