---

Dear Sir,

Your lead story of July 14 about the Habitat Study displays an astonishing misunderstanding of how an economy works.

For example, the study is reported to say "in other countries the economic forces of supply and demand would control costs for renters and landlords. In Bermuda, the opposite has happened".

Does that mean that the principles of supply and demand have no place in Bermuda?

Of course it doesn't - that is why much of what is contained in the report appears to be gibberish.

Six years ago, on January 19, 2000 the Royal Gazette reported that "We (the PLP) do have a plan for affordable housing and we have been moving forward but like Rome, a house is not built in a day".

And clearly not in six years either. There is alas no such thing as affordable housing. If there was there would be affordable swimming pools, affordable diamonds, and affordable everything else.

What we do is run stories about how bad things are for some people, make sympathetic statements about feeling their pain, and pretend that something will be done.

Of course, nothing will ever be done by the gang that cannot build a school on time or anywhere near its budgeted price. The shocking truth will continue to shock for the next 50 years.

Robert Stewart

Flatts[[In-content Ad]]

---