June 15, 2012Dear Sir,To Mr Walton Brown, I felt compelled to write to you after reading a few articles of yours in The Royal Gazette about Bermuda’s national debt. I have read many of your pieces in The Royal Gazette with interest but after your recent comments I have lost a lot of respect for you and your “opinion”. The lack of concern for the state of the economy of the average person on the street is extremely worrying and I believe you did an injustice to yourself and the public of Bermuda by writing these misguided opinions. You state in one article: “One key issue here is the ability to service that debt. On this front, Bermuda has an excellent track record, making all its payments in a timely manner with no hint of trouble in this respect on the horizon. The bankers, then, are pleased and our credit ratings remain high, in sharp contrast to most European countries” and “we have no problem meeting our debt obligations”.Your statement “no hint of trouble in this respect on the horizon” shows, in my opinion, a total lack of understanding of where Bermuda is financially. Just in the 2009/2010 fiscal year — “Government anticipated it would spend $966 million that year but Auditor General Mrs Heather Jacobs Matthews said it actually spent $1.176 billion. In addition to spending $204 million more than planned, Government also received $52 million less in revenues than they predicted. If this trend continues, our National Debt will be out of control. How can you or anyone else believe these International Credit agencies when Bermuda’s credit ratings are almost the same as they were in 1995 when we had a vibrant tourism industry, large growth in International business and a tenth of the National Debt?Today, in the paper, you state : “At least this is the view of people who rate countries everyday and we have not suffered from any material downgrade by any ratings agency”. These credit agencies are the ones that rated Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac as ‘AAA’ ratings and the next day, they were out of business.In one of your recent articles you claim the current debt is manageable. Bermuda’s tourism product is in shambles, International business is floundering and with Government budget deficits coming in at $250 million annually, how do you propose we pay off the National Debt?To compare us to other countries in debt, who have large industries, natural resources, a greater economic diversity and a large tax base, is once again totally short sighted. I find it egocentric and demonstrating a total lack of conscience to be able to saddle our children and grand children with a large national debt, never seen before in Bermuda. Are you an economist, an accountant, a CEO of a large successful company to make these sweeping financial public statements? Finally, the people expect better, they deserve better, they will be listening and hopefully have the wisdom to ignore political commentators who have little understanding of the financial situation that Bermuda is currently in.STUART M SMITHPaget