6 August 2014

Dear Sir,

I refer to the recent opinion expressing concern about a perceived wealth gap in Bermuda. I have previously seen the same sentiments expressed by politicians who I can only assume are looking to stir up resentment in our community. Mr Editor, I would like to say that not only is the assertion flat out misleading but also counter to the best interests of all Bermudians.

For as long as Bermuda has no tangible exports then the only thing we have to sell are our services. Historically this has been in the form of tourism and as a host to international business. Both sectors provide jobs for Bermudians who wouldn’t have those jobs without tourism and international business. It is self evident that as tourism has been on the wane hotels and jobs for Bermudians in them have been lost. At the same time, as international business began to scale back so did the jobs for Bermudians.

For Bermudians to get back to work we need more tourists, hopefully wealthy ones who spend lots of money. More importantly we need international business to return and with them highly paid senior executive staff that will bring further jobs for Bermudians and opportunities to provide them local services, home rental, office rental, buy groceries, etc, in our local economy providing further employment to Bermudians.

As a result we need to look at the ‘wealth gap’ in a different light; if Bermuda and Bermudians are going to raise our standard of living then we need more wealthy foreigners. The converse is also true, if tourists stop arriving and international business goes away then the wealth gap will close as we will all be poor. I vote for jobs resulting from increased tourism and international business.

NICHOLAS WEARE