There is no doubt that the country is facing an unprecedented economic situation just as harmful in its own way as the physical damage caused to Grand Cayman by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and to Cayman Brac by Hurricane Paloma in 2008.

On those previous occasions of adversity, there was a sense on each Island affected that everyone was effectively in the same boat and all worked together to survive.

A natural disaster is no respecter of persons and indeed we coined the phrase at the time that Ivan was the “Great Leveler.” In the current situation, however, there is a sense that not only has the financial crisis had a markedly different impact on different levels of society, there has been an equally marked reluctance on the part of the privileged ‘high net worth’ few to get involved in any practical way to help the country out of the economic mire.

In fact, instead of blurring distinctions of financial status in the same way that Ivan did, “Hurricane Lehman” as the Guardian newspaper in Britain dubbed the economic crisis to hit the Cayman Islands has in fact tended to sharpen such distinctions.

So, instead of rich and poor alike wondering where their next meal or drink of water was coming from in September 2004, the high net worth living and in many cases doing business here are, in our opinion, to a very great extent holding themselves aloof from the current situation for the simple reason that they can afford to do so.

The focus of the privileged classes right now seems to be more on how to preserve their existing wealth and/or their substantial sources of income.

Regrettably, the government is not helping in this situation by taxing the poor while allowing the rich a free ride. In the absence of a modern day Robin Hood, we hope that some … somewhere will see the blatant inequity and potential for further economic damage in last week’s budget and take steps to rethink and correct it.

A letter to the editor from one of our readers in today’s issue reminds us of something we have said on several occasions, namely, that the government of the Cayman Islands needs astute legislators with business sense to run it.

We are not an independent nation (not yet, anyway) and, as one of Britain’s dependent territories, our government does not have to concern itself with things such as foreign policy and defence. Thus relieved of these pre-occupations, the government of the day should be free to concentrate of managing the business affairs of the territory.

Regrettably, over the past several years there has been a notable failure to do so – which seems to be persisting into the current economic slump.

What the Cayman Islands needs running the territory is a group of astute businessmen and women, and not a collection of out-of-their-depth politicians that apparently have no clue – because of their limitations -- how to preserve and stimulate business activity in the country.

The sound bite, “Let’s run government like a business,” is heard in many countries and in a lot of those countries the practicalities of so doing are much greater than here, for the colonial constitutional reasons mentioned earlier.

Good businessmen and women know that it’s wise to reduce overheads and other costs in tough times – something that up to now has apparently escaped the government and its “managers”.

How something so pressing and necessary can just be paid lip service only escapes us. Even the civil service as a group of private individuals recognises that sacrifices must be made and are apparently willing to do so.

Other practical decisions to ease the anomalies resulting from the failure on the part of government to pay its bills to local suppliers are being taken on an ad hoc basis and we applaud those civil servants that are willing to adopt a pragmatic approach in these unusual times.

In the meantime, we would like to see a whole lot more of the post-Ivan and Paloma co-operative spirit where rich and poor, Caymanian and foreigner join together to do whatever is necessary to extricate ourselves from the financial mire.

It happens all the time in community efforts such as beach clean-ups; why is it so difficult to motivate the country as a whole to join together to figure out and implement a path forward out of the current situation?