Ambrose M. Bennett
THE TRUTH of the matter is the CNMI has been losing vital “American landmark businesses” in Tony Roma’s and now the Hayatt which tells me that our economic decisions are NOT sitting well with American Investors. Rep. Propst is right to be concerned that the government was not informed about Hyatt’s departure, but I doubt if it would have made a difference, as our government didn’t ask nor inform Hyatt before diving head-on into China. Ever since my arrival in the CNMI I have been very aware of the struggle between “east v west” to dominate in the CNMI, as this phenomenon is evident in nearly all of our economic activities from the groceries we buy & use to the type of cars and now the obvious economic interest in China to be our predominant tourist’s market. Mr. BC Cook and I have both written about China’s methodology of extending their interest in the Pacific through their “salami-slicing” technique of “buying-up their ownership.” Just think back not even 20 years ago all the stores and businesses were predominantly Local, Japanese and Korean with a few Chinese but the business landscape is shifting to become predominantly Chinese in many businesses. Inside the CNMI is starting to look more & more like S. E. Asia instead of America, and the only real noticeable progress is the roads.
There is a lot of optimism over the Hong Kong flights and the belief that the Chinese tourists will be the source of prosperity for the CNMI. But for the sake of the People and our Commonwealth I pray this does not backfire, as the CNMI is literally rolling the dice on this one. My concern is that there seems to be “NO Plan-B and absolutely no interest in Japan” like what happened when I warned about the demise of the Garment Industry five years in advance, but no body listened and took steps to prepare. Embrace the efforts to build the Chinese Market but also be working on plan B a strategy taught as early as Elementary School — what’s our new tourism model!!!
There is just tooooo much at stake to just relax and hope that the flights from Hong Kong are going to be our saving grace, like the casino was supposed to be. But these flights are just a start but its where WE (the CNMI) finishes that I’m concerned about. The application of “critical & analytical thinking” has been missing in a lot of our decision making which is evident in how the casino issue has floundered into being “an act-of-futility” given the Bankruptcy filing by IPI. For me, I Told readers So two years ago that the Casino Commission was stalling and watching everyone else collect from IPI but not doing anything to collect FOR the Government or the people. Our Casino Commission was not worth the tens of thousands WE paid them to let IPI get off the hook Scott-free figuratively. They (the CC nor the Government) NEVER collect a single penny FOR our government nor People. WE didn’t even get any stock or anything to show FOR the government’s estimated 64-million and the People’s 77-million that I was yelling about for the past two years — it is PATHETIC! I TOLD YOU SO it would happen because I could see the CC was stalling for time and more paychecks but who listens to an Economist on these economic matters!
For TRUE, the CNMI is in a state of “optimistic limbo” in anticipation of the Chinese market coming online but I hope and pray that our leaders are not just going to stop working on other potential means to build our Tourists Industry like “advertising our Cannabis Tourism Industry,” in some way shape, form or fashion and fix the laws. It is very obvious that the CNMI’s leaders and businesses are not on the same page with the Cannabis Tourism Industry, as I’ve even been told that some Hotels are against cannabis usage and are even “preventing the use of marijuana” instead of embracing the industry and providing a place at the Hotel for cannabis usage, as there is technically no place for tourists to use cannabis if hotels are preventing it — that’s our law, HELLER! The CNMI is being its own biggest inhibiting-enemy to growing the Hemp and Cannabis Industries that are on the books but neither industry is delivering new revenues, and WE are losing money, duh! There is reason for optimism but there is also a need to pause and fix what is broken with our economic model that needs to be rebuilt away from gambling and WWII, as time has changed the world leaving us in the wake of Covid and WE need to adapt and catch-up! 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.
