About Mike, Bankers and the New World Order

By Bill Lindo

Belize City, May 5^th 2024: On March 9^th my second daughter, Stephanie was killed, and then, on April 22^nd Steve called me to inform that my cuz, friend and political colleague, Mike Espat had died.

Both deaths hit me hard. Stephy’s death still seems unreal … like I am in a daze.  Stephanie was the City Administrator at the Belize City Council where she helped engineer a massive political victory for the PUP on March 6^th, 2024.  The leader of the massive PUP victory was Hon. Cordel Hyde.  Then Hon. Mike Espat’s sudden death has me thinking what future does Belize have?  Mike was no ordinary politician. He was the last of the George Price Mixed-Economy advocates who was still active in politics. Most Belizeans, especially the young voters have no idea about George Price’s Mixed-Economy. I will again recount the eight principles of Price’s ideas for Belize based on a mixed economy. These are,

1. Exploiting nature rather than men.  Most important for a Christian nation-state, that the use of technology is used to exploit nature rather than men.
2. Tariff Protection of local agriculture and manufacturing as free trade should not benefit the strong at the expense of the weak.
3. High wages to workers, because as E. Peshine Smith (the American behind Japan’s economic miracle), wrote “in order to make labour-cheap, the labourer must be well-fed, well-clothed, well-lodged, well-instructed…”
4. Money creation is a public utility and should be under the control of elected representatives of the people, not controlled by private individuals for private gain and control.
5. The theory of Diminishing Returns is not valid to physical reality. Technology and innovation always causes new methods to enter production and thus profits and wages don’t diminish but instead lead to higher productivity and thus higher wages to workers.
6. A view of soil fertility and agricultural productivity as a product of capital investment. British “Ricardian rent and trade theory” assumed that the addition of chemical fertilizers to stop the “mining” of the soil by plantation agriculture was of no consequence.  As a note of history, it was not the farming sector that supported the creation of a Department of Agriculture in United States of America.  Rather, it was industrial protectionists who argued that the dominant form of market crop production being done in the United States – plantation export agriculture – was economically destructive. The new Department of Agriculture reached its high point under Abe Lincoln and Henry Carey, and again under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry A. Wallace.
7. Public infrastructure as a means to lower costs in an industrial society by introducing new methods of production, and the public support for research and development.
8. Government intervention in the economy. Government must put a bridle on corporate bodies, and must establish the pursuit of happiness as a natural right of citizens. In Belize this principle is enshrined in the PUP Constitution as a sacred duty of government to create full employment and completely end poverty.

Yes, Hon Mike Espat was a firm believer in George Price’s eight principles of the Mixed -Economy.  This is evidenced in his firm support of the banana workers, his insistence of free-hold title for lands for the less fortunate, his determination that all his villages in Toledo East must have access roads, electricity and potable water, and his fight to the end the balkanization of Belize over the “Mayan land rights issue”.  Hon. Mike Espat was the first to organize the PUP Southern Caucus to oppose the ICJ Referendum in May of 2019 and later led the opposition within the PUP eventually getting the PUP to oppose Belize going to the ICJ, since Belize cannot gain, but may lose land or sea or both to Guatemala.  Mike organized the back benchers because he knew that as elected officials they too had a responsibility to the voters.

Few Belizeans know or remember that Mike Espat was a firm supporter of money as a public utility. He was right there when the PUP in 2010 (under the Leadership of John Briceno) amended its Constitution to include the following clauses:

(e)        Further that policies of state must promote the economic independence of Belize by pursuing strategies and programmes of self-reliance, greater production and innovation; which stimulate a dynamic partnership between the government, the private sector and all the social partners, so that the ownership and control of our natural resources and national treasures are so managed as to secure maximum ownership and benefit for the Belizean people;

(f)        That the creation of money and control thereof in all its form, including the national currency is, and remains the sole responsibility of the people through their duly elected representatives;

(g)        That it is the sacred duty of government to intervene actively in the economic life of the nation in order to achieve full employment and the eradication of poverty and secure a better life for all Belizeans

But the big boys/elites who own most of the politicians has not allowed a change in policy in Belize regardless of the philosophy of the Party.  There will be no local manufacturing unless it’s done by foreigners, what the former PM Esquivel used to call roots Belizeans will never be allowed to do any substantial local manufacturing because it will lead to independence and end inflation.  No roots Belizean will be allowed to be independent of the big boys. No heavy industry will be established by roots Belizeans. Belize is owned by the foreigners.

I need to remind those politicians, that Rome fell because of inflation, Hitler came to power because of inflation, and both Mao and Fidel came to power because of inflation. Do not let history repeat itself in Belize.

Let’s put it another way. In 2000 in Belize a worker had to give 200 weeks of his time to own a pickup truck like the Mitsubishi L200. Today to own the same truck, he must work 380 weeks, even though his wages have increased. And a three-bedroom concrete house in the city used to cost him 345 weeks or 6.6 years of time. Today, 24 years later, the same house will cost him 750 weeks or 14.4 years of his time. This is the evil of inflation.  Mike spent his life fighting these injustices.

On the subject of money, we are mostly brainwashed by the elites – the big boys. First, there are no depositors. When you put money in a commercial bank you have loaned your money to the bank. You are an un-secured creditor. There is no security from the bank so they do NOT have to repay you. Secondly when you borrow from the commercial bank the bank purchases a security from you – your promissory note.  And they put in their books an entry that they either owe you or you owe them.  In other words, money which is a debt, is created from the thin air when they purchase your promissory note and is credited to your account in their books.

And remember if this fictitious money-creation is used for productive purposes such as building highways, dams, machinery purchases and production, the existing stock of goods are increased, and citizens thrive and become happy citizens.  But when commercial banks create money out of thin-air for speculation, to purchase existing assets, the result is inflation — stealing by the rich from the poor – the worker must work more hours to obtain the same house or goods. Note: Credit Unions do not work this way.

The good thing in all of this is that those who come to exploit us (today in the form of investors) have not changed in 500 years.  Witness what they are doing in Gaza to obtain a small strip of land.  Interestingly, this land is supposed to have large petroleum deposits under the sea some 4 miles offshore.  In some 6 months over 37,000 Palestinian peoples have been murdered, mainly women and children so that the Zionists can have free access to someone else’s land.

Meanwhile, Iran showed on April 13^th that it can completely destroy Israel if it wants, while both Russia and China have warned the United States of America that if tries to destroy Iran there will be war as they will protect Iran. The world has changed. BRICS are the leading nation-states today. The glory days of the G7 are over.  In fact, the IMF a few weeks ago published a report which states that in the next 4 years or so, both France and the United Kingdom will be out of the top ten nation-states globally while the USA will be relocated to second-place behind China.  India will be fourth and both Brazil and  Saudi Arabia will be in the top ten.  Therefore, my Belizean politicians please get with the times; BRICS is in. The government should be buying from BRICS and stop wasting time with the past, with the people who colonized you and made you slaves and subjects.  We can now break-out of the colonial mindset and start to make Belize’s economy the envy of the region if we institute George Price’s eight principles of Political Economy.  

Both Stephanie and Mike lived their lives in pursuit of a better Belize. Belize’s true independence is the only way to rightfully honor them.

Long Live Free Independent Belize!

Stephanie Nicole Merle Lindo, CA Belize City Council — A Good PUP

Hon. Mike Espat, Toledo East Representative — the last of an era

Rt Hon George Cadle Price, Founder of Belize