"Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand."

- Alfred Behan

FOR many, the great appeal of understanding money - even if you don't have much of it - is that it provides easy answers to complicated questions. If you ask yourself what is the smart thing to do financially, you then know what is the smart thing to do, period.

Take, for instance, the vexed issue of teachers' pay in Bermuda. Those who approach this topic emotionally, or from a political aspect, are unable to come to a solution and must end up either enforcing the law or breaking it. Neither approach solves the root cause of the problem.

A simple financial analysis, however, would solve the problem in a flash and, as a side-effect, would solve the traffic problem, the housing crisis, the crime wave, the growing incidence of income taxes, the need for Government borrowing, wall sitters, and, in due course, the problems associated with foreigners on work permits. Almost all Bermuda's social ills would also vanish in a second were strict cost/benefit analysis be brought to bear. Sadly, it very rarely is.

Here it is. It's very simple. Follow closely.

The Finance Minister estimated the budget for the Education Ministry for the year ending March 31, 2003 at $94 million. Let us take out of that number, say, $14 million (a preposterously large amount) for the costs of Bermuda College and all other items not associated with schooling Bermuda's primary and secondary students. That leaves $80 million.

Bermuda has 8,000 public school students, give or take. (Some of those students are in private schools in Bermuda, which strengthens my argument, but we'll ignore that.) See where this is going?Those two figures mean that Bermuda is spending $10,000 per year per child for education. Why not send every Bermuda public school student to a first-class English boarding school, bussing them this way and that on government-sponsored charter planes? The cost per student would be no more than $10,000 per year per child. It might be less.

The net result would be children educated to a much higher standard than is possible in Bermuda's public schools. Discipline problems would be a thing of the past. Bermudian parents, who appear not very interested in their children - a law is to be passed to change this, so it must be so - could go about the greater part of their lives unburdened by their disinterest.

The traffic problem would evaporate immediately: 16,000 fewer journeys every weekday. In due course, all those highly-educated children could become lawyers and accountants, hotel managers or financial analysts, replacing the 8,000 foreigners on work permits. That would end the housing problem. Schools could be turned into museums, nightclubs, what have you.

In the interim, Bermuda's 800 disaffected teachers and countless Ministry of Education employees could be retrained as accountants, lawyers and hotel managers to fill the slots the children would inherit when the teachers and administrators retired early. Hey presto: teachers receive giant pay increases, plus they would not need to buy office supplies out of their own pockets.

Solutions, solutions, solutions. No more stabbings at CedarBridge, for example. No more CedarBridge, for that matter. No Berkeley Institute, nor the $70 million Bermuda will have to borrow to pay for it - nor the interest charges the schoolchildren will carry to their graves. It's a win-win situation. It's so brilliant that I wish I'd thought of it myself.

Bermudian public school students would become the envy of the world, which they are not at present. Bermudian politicians would win Nobel prizes by the score. The political party that introduced it would need never fear losing another election as long as there were elections. There are no practical grounds on which this proposal could possibly be considered a bad idea. It wouldn't cost more. It would yield far more than the present system, and all those social problems would disappear in its wake. Knighthoods all round. That insurance company - I forget which one - could have its money back for trying to come up with new ways of educating Bermuda schoolchildren.

Its dividend would be a steady stream of bright, well-educated Bermudian students who, in due time, could become the world force in insurance, or anything else to which they turned their minds.

What are the chances of this happening? Zero. Why? Because it would mean a loss of Bermudian culture? Because we've never done it that way? Because someone else thought of it? Because, because, because . . .

Because it would mean a loss of Bermudian culture? If you think Bermudian culture still exists (other than in a historical sense) you must be smoking crack, which English private school students are not allowed to do, by the way.

Because we've never done it that way? Yes, well, look at the way we do it now, and then sit down.

Because someone else thought of it? Actually, it was a Bermudian who thought of it.

When money takes charge, things get solved. Politicians, parents, people - none of them has a clue, apparently.

So there you are. All the island's problems solved in a heartbeat. Don't get me started on several of the other Government departments and Ministries. Similar solutions are equally apparent once you put your money hat on, and think dollars and sense.

At a speech at the National Careers Day earlier this year, Premier Jennifer Smith told students who were in attendance that businesses think only of profit. It is right for them to do so, she said, but Government has a greater responsibility. So it does, but unlike money, governments (of whatever stripe) often fail to achieve their greater goals. Money rarely does. Money could solve the Middle East crisis faster than a team comprised of Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, Hizbollah, George Bush and Jesse Jackson ever could.

Money may be the root of all evil, but it is also the end of all inefficiency. In rejecting my Bermuda students argument, see if you can come up with one logical ground on which to base your rebuttal.

I'll bet you $80 million a year plus interest charges that you can't.