THERE are times when this island resembles nothing less than a 20-square mile fantasy camp for aspiring demagogues. After a decade or more of boomtown economics, we have produced a generation of political and corporate leaders with egos that have swollen in direct proportion to the amount of tax-free dollars warehoused in this mid-Atlantic entrepot. But in more than a few instances these epically-scaled egos are in directly inverse proportion to the meagre talents and intellects of those who possess them.

Yet the Lilliputian swagger and bombast and grandiosity remain as conspicuous as ever, as do the self-dramatising airs. Frankly, Bermudians would do well to question their judgement on something as inconsequential as where to find the best fish chowder on the island given the increasingly illogical ways in which they argue over crucial issues like the global credit crunch, the contracting Bermudian economy and the Premier's need to add a private chef to his retinue.

Despite the global economic crisis - and bear in mind some individuals and entities operating out of Bermuda are in no small measure responsible for throwing the world off its economic axis - and the unavoidable impact it will have on the island, our lay-Messiahs continue to insist they are delivering us to a recession-proof Promised Land.

They demand unquestioning adherence to to their increasingly questionable directives: they subscribe to the "One Folk, One Realm, One Leader" philosophy and ask for unswerving allegiance based on the unthinking unity of an insect swarm or a herd of sheep.

They have lived for so long off what has been called "the fatted soul of things" they can scarcely imagine any alternatives. Let alone adequately prepare for them.

With events now moving at a breakneck pace, with financial conditions in a seemingly permanent state of flux around the globe, our political and corporate leaders continue to demonstrate on an almost daily basis they are entirely unequal to the vast scale of these events.

They brook no disagreement, tolerate no naysayers and demonstrate to anyone not as airily detached from day-to-day realities as themselves that they have a fixed focus view of what is a dynamic and everchanging scene. They have few core convictions other than the unquenchable thirst for power and, frankly, possess all of the style, virtue and integrity of a pack of jackals with expense-account lifestyles.

That hyperinflationary 30 per cent pay hikes for MPs could be openly mulled just weeks after thousands of Government employees (including, for the first time ever, policemen) took to the streets in a mass protest because of foot-dragging over an added percentage point or two in their pay packets illustrates the disconnect between our politicians and the people they nominally serve.

And that CEOS of off-shore entities, those who continue to rationalise compensation packages God couldn't possibly have afforded to pay himself after He completed Creation, should begin publicly lecturing Government on ecomonic management isn't just effrontery. It's effrontery on a par with the Captain of The Titanic dispensing advice on ice-free routes across the North Atlantic to the masters of other vessels.

For years the emperors of Bermuda's financial services sector have argued their unique initiative and resourcefulness has bestowed hitherto unimaginable benefits upon not only this little island but the global economy.

Now the emperors have been revealed to be buck nekkid.

The absolute monarchs of some Bermuda-based risk management operations not only did not know how to manage risk at all but their actions actually exacerbated risk a thousandfold.

Unimaginable amounts of capital were squandered, hundreds of billions of dollars disappearing in what amounted to a pyramid scheme based around the American housing market.

They have, in some instances, demonstrated degrees of inefficiency, ineptitude and incompetence on a macroeconomic level that entirely dwarf anything the fiscally maladept Bermuda Government is capable of doing on even its most wreckless day on this minute microeconomic stage.

Yet despite bankrupting their companies and pushing the world to the brink of an economic abyss, these same moguls continue to pay themselves astronomical salaries (or equally astronomical severance packages) beyond the wildest dreams of avarice as Bermudian taxpayers, workers and the economy as a whole are increasingly being asked to pick up the bill for their folly. International economies - including Bermuda's - are even now preparing for potential death-grapples with the elemental financial forces their greed and short-sightedness have unleashed.

And yet they would lecture us about what constitutes prudent economic policy.

The more unsavoury members of our political and corporate elites seem entirely oblivious to the fact they no longer have anyone's respect to lose, any credibility to endanger, any image to tarnish. Their posturing and antics can't even be considered risible anymore. They are simply pathetic. And they do nothing, of course, to prepare us for the economic upheavals ahead.

They have presided over the creation of not just budget and investment deficits in both the public and private sectors but credibility shortfalls that will take years to remove from the balance sheets. Yet you still have a somewhat better chance coming between a Great White Shark and its dinner than you do of denting their self-regard. And, distressingly, there are going to be severe and longterm real-world consequences as a result. Because appearances sometimes notwithstanding, fragile Bermuda isn't actually a fantasy camp for those afflicted with delusions of grandeur. - Tim Hodgson