Financial Reality is here. We have seen the Bermuda Government budget for 2013*2014.We, the people, represented by our politically-ruled Government, know what we can’t spend.We know how much revenue we need to generate just to break even on our bare, bare bones budget.The surplus revenue each year, estimated at 35% to 40% more than the projected revenue of $871 million, needed to reduce our onerous foreign debt in an orderly fashion over the next five-seven years is a collective national liability.Revenue regeneration and repayment will require significant Island-wide collaborative effort from all participating residents.We, the people, are heading into a phase of national soul-searching in order to reinvigorate our national brand, upgrade the focus of our country’s economic structure and in the process, revisit what we always considered to be our national identity.What we thought we were as a country (and a people) with absolute conviction and more than a share of overconfidence (some would even classify as arrogance) as a most desirable place to be, to work, to conduct business and to live, we have found may no longer be relevant. We may even be expendable.This, too, is a time for sober national reflection, a regrouping of collective effort for what can be an opportunity to rebuild what we assumed was our national birthright as a premier international finance centre!It was never a right as we now painfully experience the heavy blows to our national confidence and the loss of meaningful employment to so many residents.We must begin to regain the full respect of our business partners, revitalise the enchantment felt by our wonderful visitors, re-educate ourselves and learn to use to our advantage, the experienced skills of our guest workers.We need to dramatically change how we view ourselves, brand ourselves, and market our biggest only asset, our country’s reputation.How are we going to do this? We Bermudians hate change, but in today’s global industrial and financial environment, change is the only certainty you can count on.We will be challenged to reinvent ourselves, given our long-standing mindset that we all we had to do was just be here — to generate those envy of the world lifestyles.It was so easy to just be — almost accepting the delusion that somehow our jobs, our families, our very financial successes fell from the sky, or were carried in on waves from the sea. How great we thought we were.Why, we didn’t need to do every single thing possible to compete at the highest level in the new global environment. We just had to be here.What is needed to re-establish our National identity in this ever-evolving global economic landscape.According to the article entitled, Gear Shift Jars Nation’s Identity in the Sidney Morning Herald, “How people regard themselves is shaped, in part, by their perceptions of their nation.And those perceptions are shaped largely by views of the national economy.”We have seen recent divisive debates regarding class structure and questions of whether xenophobia exists in our society.Whether it does or does not exist, let us consider our individual resident situations (there are many) and how we tend to opinionate and classify each other, even subliminally, with these categories.* Real Bermudians — do any of us know what this category really means, born in Bermuda, long-term resident of Bermuda, descendant from the first settlers? You tell me?* Paper Bermudians — residents who have acquired Bermuda status by meeting various requirements, including spouse of a Bermudian, or possibly, Bermuda parent.* Bermuda status Bermudians — same as paper Bermudians above.* Spouses of Bermudians — individuals hoping to attain Bermuda status after a long successful marriage.* PRCs — Permanent Resident Certificate holders, who really don’t have much status at all in spite of long commitments to this country’s economy.* Guest workers — who contribute significantly to Bermuda’s Gross Domestic Product.In our national identity, Bermuda’s residents also all have multiple nationalities of origin, who depending upon the derivation of their mother country, are treated with varying degrees of deference, condescension, derision and sometimes downright contempt depending upon the individual and circumstances of contact.There is another category imposed by virtue of financial success: the very, very rich, the very rich, the hoping to be rich, and the ordinary classes composed of the rest of us resident or working here.Certainly, let’s not forget the subtle treatment of subcategories of Bermudians who have worked overseas, Bermudians who have been very successful, Bermudians who came here recently from somewhere else — Ah, didn’t we all, Bermudians with a “name” and those without, and Bermudians with multicultural multiethnic backgrounds.The guest worker who walks into this Atlantic beehive of busy worker bees arranging stratifications of the hive, soon must figure out where he or she stands in the subliminal and attitudinal classification order of this society.There are those who certainly may suggest that these subjective societal elements really don’t exist.Or, that this exercise is a complete waste of time. Whether you agree or disagree, it is evident that returning our country to fiscal sanity and financial success.We are all in this economic downturn together. We need everyone’s collaborative effort to turn our financial future to positive territory.The Minister of Finance stated in the presentation of the Bermuda budget 2013-2014, last Friday, February 22, 2013, “those who still harp on the struggle between “Them and Us”, should realise there is no longer them and us.There is only Us and Us.”Next: rebuilding our national self-esteem, our brand and understanding the changes in our principal revenue generator, International Business.(Source: Gear shift jars nation’s identity, March 3, 2012, by David Humphries, Matt Wade, Jessica Irvine. Read more: www.smh.com.au/national/gear-shift-jars-nations-identity-20120302-1u892.html#ixzz2MIxkN3FH)Martha Harris Myron CPA PFS CFP (USA) TEP is a multinational Bermudian citizen, and an international financial columnist who focuses on the particular financial challenges of residents (pondstraddlers) residing in the North Atlantic Quadrangle. E: martha.myron@gmail.com.