10-21-2008, 03:17 AM
quote:
Originally posted by james weatherford
Angel Pilago has committed to a diversified local economy, that expands to include agriculture -- an economy for, by, and of the local community.
Agriculture? This is a joke correct? Hawaii can not sustain an economy based on agriculture no matter what people want to believe.
The only option Hawaii has is to use the only real resource that it can rely upon, and that's the fact that it is a tropical island with certain features. It's Hawaii's beauty and location that is its only selling point because facts are facts, Hawaii can not compete financially with any product of service that is not tied to Hawaii as Hawaii.
Right now Hawaii has only 4 industries that comprise the vast majority of its sustainable economic position.
1. Tourism. If the entire tourism industry collapses, you can kiss off Hawaii.
2. Military. We may talk all we want about the military but without it, Hawaii is dead.
3. Government. Yep the State and County governments are #3 in scale, but remove 1 & 2 and this will shrink.
4. Made in Hawaii. If it wasn't for that phrase, nothing produced on Hawaii is worth the cost over something from Hong Kong. Hawaii's only value in agriculture is the "product of Hawaii" label.
Everything else depends on one of the four!
So, we can talk about sustainability, green this or that, aloha, holding hands and singing Kum-by-ya, but face the music, Hawaii can not survive without tourism and the military. Take those two away and this place will become just another third world tropical island with people abandoning it like rats from a sinking ship. Creating a job here and there on some farm or research project is not going to employ the people who need jobs.
So, unless we have a leader who's willing to look beyond the land and look into the boardrooms of corporate America to attract their business of conventions, meetings and travel, unless you have a leader willing to work with developers to attract the rich home owners who pump real dollars into a community versus trading papayas, unless you have a real leader willing to fight for the Big Island's share of the tourist trade and the military dollars; unless you have a leader like Billy, this island will become just another Haiti.