Does Cayman need a comprehensive contingency plan?
On November 5, Bermuda residents became stunningly aware of the radical vulnerability of our island’s economic success.
For more than 30 years, international business has poured billions into the local money supply, infrastructure (buildings), government tax coffers, businesses, households, events, education, and charities. As a result, Bermuda has had an enormously enviable standard of living — for most of us, but not all. We’ve grown used to having what we want when we want it.
We’ve touted our monoline-focused business model smugly, some would say. We relied complacently on our sterling reputation as a premier international financial centre.
Then it happened.
While not a single “black swan event” — the outlier that everyone hopes never happens, such that no one plans for such an outcome, as described in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s black swan theory — the cumulative effect of a series of events facing Bermuda have the potential for major consequences.
Each of the five events below can singularly deliver a significant economic body blow to our reputation, but taken together, no one wants to contemplate the outcome.
Democracy & Good Governance 