The Trouble with Paradise

If businesses are uneconomic, let them fail on their own merits -- and not because the trust fund babies of the world only want a pristine paradise where people never need concern themselves with sustainable enterprises -- and can surf all day.

The value of these enterprises is that they create and develop the human ingenuity for overcoming all the challenges they will undoubtedly face. So even a Superferry, brings organizational and logistical skill for planning and running a business -- rather than just relying on Senator Dan to secure more than the state's fair share of federal money so the people can grow up to be good for nothings in guaranteed lifetime make-work (government) jobs.

Island states are prone to failures -- rather than becoming overwhelming successes; there are more Haitis and Nauru Republics than there are Singapores. Presently, many people realize Hawaii has already overstretched its economic capacity -- because there are no promising businesses. You have to begin to create and develop them -- as the next step in the evolution of that statehood, rather than reminiscing about the good old days of the first day of becoming organized and recognized as one.

Things are not "automatic" from thereon -- but one has to keep progressing and evolving to the next level of challenge, rather than being stunted at a certain point and time forevermore. That doesn't work for any place, and any society.

For any time and place, one has natural strengths as well as weaknesses. Obviously, the mass model of the world doesn't favor doing business in Hawaii, because it wouldn't be cost-economic to do so. That requires a certain critical mass that is inherently limited by its geography. Plentiful, cheap products, are likely to be at transportation and freight crossroads -- and not out of the way, to ship virtually everything to the most distant location from the population and production centers.

Given those challenges, one needs to find and develop their niches -- and not hope to out-New York, New York, London, Paris, or Tokyo. Even if one can hire all the public relations liars and lawyers to say so, Honolulu, is not the same as downtown Manhattan -- and will be hard pressed to justify that kind of infrastructure. But the mega-mass model for the future of world economies, has likely passed for everyone and every place -- and the custom designer reality is possible for those who simply are aware of the choices, and choose to exercise them.

That's what even the political discussions are all about. Whether government becomes the only provider, or ensures, many options provided by private enterprises trying to figure out a better way.