It's difficult to judge whether the "grey-listing" of Bermuda in the list of tax havens released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development last week is merely bad news, or if it is the best the Island could have hoped for.

At best, Bermuda finds itself in reasonable company; if a severe crackdown on the countries cited is really being contemplated by the G20, then it would likely throw the global economy even further into reverse.

Association of Bermuda International Companies president David Ezekiel raised a valid point when last week he pointed out that the definition of a tax haven appears to have shifted from a low tax jurisdiction to a jurisdiction that supported secrecy.

That's mostly good news, as the OECD's declaration that the days of "banking secrecy" are over, since the offshore banking sector is not large – another reason to give credit to the founding fathers of international companies business in Bermuda.

This might be the place to point out again that the current recession and collapse of the financial markets was not caused by tax havens, but by the stunning greed and recklessness of people sitting on Wall Street and in the City of London and the politicians who enabled them, but it likely would be a waste of breath.

Instead, Bermuda needs to face reality. We need to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

The first thing to do, as Finance Minister Paula Cox pointed out, is to continue to sign Tax Information Exchange Agreements with relevant countries in order to meet whatever standard the OECD has now settled on as an acceptable standard of transparency.

The second point is to take a hard look at just what businesses Bermuda is accepting. To some extent, this is now a moot point, because many have left or are in the process of doing so, but it is in Bermuda's interests not to accept companies in Bermuda that relocate for no reason other than tax.

Third, Bermuda needs to accelerate its lobbying efforts to differentiate itself from jurisdictions that exist for just that reason. Bermuda is not Antigua, at least not yet, although it is all too easy to imagine the reception the current Government would have given if Allen Stanford had shown up here instead of there.

As Shadow Finance Minister E.T. (Bob) Richards noted, it defies reason that Barbados, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands dependencies are on the so-called white list and Bermuda is not. Mr. Richards is also right to wonder if TIEAs are all that matters; clearly they are not.

But reason has very little to do with this debate. This is about western governments, having enjoyed a decade or more of profligacy fuelled by debt, now desperately trying to claw back whatever tax revenue they can find to pay back the further debt they are now taking on to stimulate their economies.

Finally, and the Bermuda First initiative is useful in this regard, Bermuda needs to remain alert to other opportunities to diversify the economy.

The world is entering an era where markets will be less free and more heavily regulated, and regulators tend to be sceptical about small jurisdictions, so it will be less easy for Bermuda to make its case than has hitherto been the case.