Ambrose M. Bennett
THE TRUTH of the matter is that it is OUR Economy falling off a cliff and this Governor and the next Governor will continue to be faced with stewardship rebuilding our Economy. The stewardship over the need to rebuild our Economy, that has obviously been decimated by nature & Ralph, is critical to making sure all the moving parts are functioning properly but that is not the case with Managaha. There has been entirely tooooo much left up to the Secretaries & Directors to “do the Right & BEST thing FOR the People they represent, yet the Managaha fiasco is just another reason WHY the People “don’t like and don’t TRUST OUR Government to DO the People’s bidding,” not their personal desires & belief. It should be duly noted that Managaha was the MOST productive when the operations were “INDIVIDUALS,” it was the very concept of “exclusive operator” that KILLED Local Operators and the diversity for Tourists and the future growth of Managaha is still in limbo. At least our Governor has interceded like he is doing with Star Marianas and CPA to try and resolve the problem and pray he will think about “his people are FIRST” — the first law of nature self-preservation.
But first and foremost, if WE didn’t learn our lesson on “exclusive economic ventures with the Casino/Hotel, then WE are DOOMED to repeat the very SAME mistake, which is what is happening with Managaha and the exclusive rights. Speaking as a qualified Economist, I can tell readers that “any time you grant exclusive powers over an Economic operation, WE will have created a MONOPOLY, and monopolies were outlawed decades ago on the mainland. There is also the economic FACT that when a monopoly fails it brings others down with it, as WE can see how IPI’s failure cast clouds of severe weather over our entire economy and Garapan figuratively & literally. Anyone who knows anything about Economics can tell you that granting exclusive rights to Managaha is a VERY BAD idea. It is this monopoly idea that is at the very CORE of the Local People’s complaint, especially when Managaha belongs to the Local People, not a single business. I don’t blame the Local People for complaining and fighting for “inclusion” in their OWN island’s operations.
The individual Local operators, small people, are being pushed-out by big business into the ocean with no ownership nor stewardship in the Managaha Operations. The idea of BIG Business will NEVER work on these small and limited populated islands, as the numbers may never exist for there to be enough for everyone like states that have millions of people that require Big Business. For me as an Economist, the very idea of turning over the Managaha operations to one big-business operator stinks and you can smell it as far away as the Pegasus Galaxy.
Every first-year student in economics learn about “the economic fact that competition breeds quality and even lowers costs for consumers.” Well, this exclusive operation of Managaha goes against these economic FACTS because the quality of the experiences for Tourists will DIMINISH not improve, as there will be fewer attractions with one operator and surely the average cost per tourists for each attraction will also go up without competition. I also saw this same phenomenon take place with the Tour Guides who were once all Locals and they were pushed out with over 90% of the Tour Guides being Chinese telling the Local’s Story, something Mexico has a law against as you must be Mexican to tell the Mexican Story as a Tour Guide. Instead of protecting & serving the Local People the local people are being abused in their denial of their Free Enterprise Rights that are being violated by a Monopoly — and that’s a fact Jack!!! Check out the history of monopolies in America to learn this lesson. But I could go on and on but I think it is clear, the Local People are being squeezed out of their OWN Island’s operations, which is wrong economically and morally and it needs to STOP!!!
One People, One Direction.
Ambrose M. Bennett is an Economist who minored in Sociology, a Political Scientist, a retired teacher & former CNMI Board of Education Member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays & lifetime Humanities Scholar who resides in Kagman III in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
