Bermuda has a unique economy worthy of study, said Transport Minister Ewart Brown.

"We have the kind of economic problem that I am not sure has been faced by any other society on the planet," Dr. Brown said at this week's "Black Agenda 2003" town meeting, held Thursday night.

"Where else in the world has the taxi driver who is driving the tourist travelled more than the tourist? Not a trivial point. Because unless that taxi operator is still in the art of carrying out that hospitality role he may slip into a conversation that makes his passenger feel that he may not be well off enough to be in this environment."

The Minister said he was concerned about Bermuda's "overheated economy" which has left many locals totally uninterested in menial jobs.

"In an economy where you can no longer fill the rungs of entry level jobs - you have a heavy weight economic issue."

Added to that was the Island's "emerging and growing class of unemployables", he said. "You can't take our people and dump them somewhere because they can no longer participate in the game. We are not a state or county where you can go to the next city to find a job - we are locked in. So we need to have an urgent economic analysis to see how we fix this that is becoming dangerous. You think we are having problems now, you let that sector become larger than it is."

He said he would urging his colleagues to conduct a deeper analysis of economic issues that are "primarily Bermudian".

"We have to study our economic predicament which is different from any other I have seen."

Dr. Brown said that Bermudians were no longer satisfied with materialistic accumulation.

"The time has come when our people are no longer satisfied in extracting from the economy a house, a car, a trip to Florida and a trip to New York. I think that is an artificial economy - it doesn't satisfy the spirit of people and that's not enough. And then you need something else."

Some people had thought that a Progressive Labour Party (PLP) government was that "something else", but they were wrong, he said.

"Anyone who thought that the election of my party in 1998 meant that all things would be fixed and corrected in five years didn't have a hold on reality," the Minister said to applause.

More from Black Agenda 2003, Page 2