In a letter to the editor in today’s issue, one of our readers - L.T. Pennington - has suggested we should explain to “true Caymanians” our open invitation to President-elect Barack Obama to visit the Cayman Islands.

Reader Pennington further suggests that our invitation in question is a colour ‘thang’ so far as we are concerned.

Notwithstanding the wave of Obamamania that seems to be sweeping through the Caribbean and the wider world…our invitation is not an Obama ‘thang’, still less a colour ‘thang’ - something that this publisher has frequently encountered during his forty years of publishing in the Cayman Islands.
In the words of then presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Yes, Mr Obama is the first African-American to be elected president of the United States but, far more important to our economic health, in our opinion, is that he is the first United States president or president-elect to our knowledge to indicate an intention to “shut down” the Cayman Islands.

Therefore, “colour” does not enter into this at all. Once again, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Surely, a visit by Mr Obama to the Cayman Islands to see for himself that we are not the tax-free villain that many portray us to be could be nothing less than a positive step.

Or, if we are to eschew a spirit of constructive engagement with those that would seek to close us down, what should our approach be?

An attitude of “They can’t touch we, because we is true Caymanians,” is not going to get us very far.

As we have previously remarked, the current situation is going to take some imaginative and constructive measures, not denial, passivity or complaining. The forces aligned against us are such that we have never before seen.

Regrettably, however, the election of Mr Obama seems to have failed in the Cayman Islands to “ignite hope and action” in the measure described by the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda.

If the US Government Accountability Office can come here to look at the same Ugland House that was frequently pointed to by Mr Obama himself while on the campaign trail, and found nothing especially devious or offensive going on, then why shouldn’t Mr Obama do the same thing and reach the same conclusion?

Indeed, perhaps he should visit along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also inevitably refers to the Cayman Islands when giving examples of the so-called tax havens that to his mind should be closed down.

With trillion dollar numbers being routinely bandied around in the context of the government funding required to bail the world out of the current financial crisis, and even though apparently a billion dollars “ain’t what it used to be”, there will be increasing focus on the fifty or hundred billion dollars that is often reported as being siphoned from national economies by the “tax havens”, one of which is, of course, the Cayman islands.

Much of this attention will be the same political histrionics as recently exhibited in the US Senate, but the fact remains that politicians will be desperate to be seen to be taking some action that resonates with their respective electorates, even if that action is in reality ineffectual and mere lip service to the real problem. The crucial political ingredient will be public perception.

Unfortunately, pandering to public perception by politicians in other countries is likely to produce a very real problem for us here in the Cayman Islands.

Our government claims that is working behind the scenes to formulate a response to the current economic threats, but also complains when anything is said by those who are accused of being uninformed about the financial services industry.

However, instead of keeping everything it is doing in this respect a state secret, perhaps the government would be better served by keeping everyone informed. That would have the dual benefit of alleviating the public fear that the government itself is in fact equally uniformed and incapable of doing anything at all about the current situation.

The economic news is getting worse every day, and it is going to take an extraordinary effort, not to mention a great deal of good fortune, for the Cayman Islands to weather this particular storm.

We can hope that the economic hurricane changes direction at the last minute and somehow misses us, but don’t count on it.

And lest we forget...there are many ‘L. T. Penningtons’ around - here in Cayman and elsewhere - who refuse to accept that change is indeed good, irrespective of the colour of one’s skin. And, when we bleed – whether economically or physically – we all still see red.