Chapter One – Barbados (4/25)
April 25, 2025
The question is not, “ How do you pay for it?”
The question is, “ What do you want to pay for?”
We finally boarded the ship in Barbados 4/7/25.
After 6 months of preparation we were pleased to see that the ship really existed! Who would ever think of providing an opportunity to buy a cabin and cruise around the World? And, do it every 3 and ½ years for 15 years?
I want to use this trip to get new insights into the World economy.
During our short time in Barbados there was a lot of waiting. Turns out Barbados Time is even slower than Southern Time in the US. Lots of sitting while warm breezes softly blow and shift the vegetation. A monkey walked along the ledge of the roof, peered into a window then strode off, its absurdly long tail swaying like a flagpole. Finally the taxi that would take us to the boat arrived.
Society here is less equal than when Jeff visited 30 years ago. Very rich then the majority much less so and then, very poor. Some developments to please tourists.
I took a walk along the dock before the boat disembarked and looked into the water. It washes light turquoise and grey over and back on the coral boulders. Bright blue fish swim in and out of the crevices, schools of minnows, yellow fish and zebra striped too.
“ This is your captain speaking, from the bridge, of course. Leaving Barbados in the morning. Have a good evening.” 4/8/25
At sea.
Tabago, 4/9/25
Walk into town. Frigate birds circle overhead. I read that they eat flying fish.
Seven local currencies to one dollar here. Barbados was two to one. The resulting total is the same as in the US. You just pay more of their currency.
We visited a drug store. The many young female employees are watching every move of the customers. On the sidewalk again, chickens with their chicks weave among the people.
We found a bench and sat near a park by the water. A taxi driver approaches us to offer a ride.
“ Why is the park closed? (chain link fence and barbed wire surround it).
“They were doing drugs there, had to close it.”
“Why are they doing drugs?”
“They want to be happy.”
“They are not happy?”
“They want to be happier.”
“ What are the rocks called out there?”
“ The red rocks. The coast used to curve all the way out there but over the last 40 years it has eroded back. They had to move the coast road in.”
Trinidad 4/10/25 This Island is larger, more mountainous and from a distance an emerald surrounded by bright turquoise water.
We take a taxi, our driver's name is Ambrose. He is full of information.
Again, 7 to one currency ratio. Economy is not thriving for the majority of people. Good for multinational companies, BP, ( there is oil and natural gas on the island) a Hilton, and a few wealthy. Many locals have set up small vending sheds everywhere. A young man tows a rolling garbage pail between the lanes of traffic filled with cold sodas to sell. Yet, Trinidad provides free education from 3 years old through 4 years of college, free medical and a pension at age 65. (Into which they have paid through compulsory insurance when they start work) Trinidad provides more social assistance than the US.
The question is; “What do you want to pay for?” Here, they have answered in favor of the people
Unfortunately the drug trade is too much for this island country. Trinidad is a conduit for drugs from S. America to the US and Worldwide. When we drive up a steep mountain we see nice homes then many more sagging metal and wood enclosures with garbage all around where people live. Back in town a man sleeps on the sidewalk in front of a store, his dirty grey clothing blending into the surface.
In colonial times they protested injustice with Calypso, the original rap music. Now they use drugs to forget. And their protests, Carnival, have become entertainment.
At sea
The deep grinding of the anchor being pulled vibrates under the bow as evening comes. Random throbs of electric orange light the night sky, following the departure of a late afternoon thunderstorm. The dark makes Pukette, Thailand insubstantial; losing density and becoming like glass through which points and bands of light flash, transforming the coast into a rash of gleaming color. We have been informed that our ship will move from its anchorage near Pukette and arrive at another anchorage, to bunker in the morning. There are rumors that this maneuver is because there is a chance the ship will be impounded by the primary lender (a bank) and Columbia Services, who provides the hospitality and technical crew onboard. The ship has to keep moving; they have not paid their bills so ownership may default to the people they owe money to.
We are hanging with the ‘Big Dogs,’ oil tankers, bulk loaders and container ships, in the Anchorage outside the port of Kampong Som, Cambodia. The completion of our bunkering that was started at the dock, will now happen while we are at anchor. During this time a much anticipated visit by an investor and possible new owner will occur. The original owners are having financial problems and want to cut their losses.
Some impressions, as our shuttle takes us from the port to the closest city, Sihanoukville. A feral dog is eating scraps from a bowl placed next to a pile of garbage. A yellow plastic gas can has been cut length wise in half to make a planter. The papaya tree is planted in it. Two men dressed in black squat on their haunches and collect rocks into their buckets. A family is living in the green space between the roads. They have strung hammocks. The young child is swinging in one as she watches the traffic. Block after block of small open shops, about ten feet deep, all their merchandise visible, fruits, vegetables, clothes, housewares, tools, fishing gear, a drink stand, a cafe, repeating, over and over. Owners lounge in chairs inside the shops, staring at their cell phones. Many gutted apartment buildings, black skeletal structures, brood between those that have been more recently built.
There are probably three Nations USA, Russia, and China that are presently referred to as Hegemons. Some include India. I suggest that there is another one, the “Human Hegemon.” The Human Hegemon has become more powerful since the Internet. People have been learning from and about each other faster than any time in history. AI has accelerated this even more. The Internet's reach into societies everywhere preceded the ability of most people to have the things they saw and heard about on their cell phones. The phones got there before socio/economic conditions improved. But people were still choosing what they wanted and also what they thought was true. Time and distance no longer formed a barrier. Like the dynamic along the Silk Road thousands of years ago, the Internet has become a ‘Virtual Strait’ of economics. Goods are sold but also life changing information is exchanged. A result is that the Human Hegemon cannot be taken for granted and depended upon to align with homeland Nationalism. We are now exposed to and are recognizing the repeating dysfunctions of governments and don't trust some of the intentions behind national decisions. Too often these decisions lead to war. Which no normal person wakes up choosing. Our human choices form a true Democracy. Individual ‘votes’ that influence each other. We don't know where we are going, but we are all participating and that is the point. Like the cellular motion of photosenthesis, the Human Hegemon is busy choosing and interacting to make something that may hold us all. We asked AI for a formula for World Peace. AI has some good advice on the subject. A big part of it is providing basic needs Worldwide. Then we asked how to set up and protect a Parallel Currency dedicated to providing basic human needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare. Its advice is worth trying.
We have returned to Ha Long, Vietnam after leaving Hong Kong. Once we were out of Chinese territorial waters the internet came back. It is still spotty but doesn't completely fail. We are tied on at the dock we were at before. It leads to the terminal which opens to a Ghost Town, that is Ha Long. Apartments and high-rise business offices, an amusement park, funicular and ferris wheel are part of a speculative business opportunity that has not yet been realized.
The rhythmic gestures of the wind generators on the far shore cheer us along. They may be waving us away or welcoming us, it is hard to say. We are not allowed to take pictures as our ship goes through the Qiongzhou Strait heading for Hong Kong. This will be for about an eight hour period. A line of about a dozen cargo ships is keeping pace with us. They are perfectly spaced from each other. Maybe there is a required speed for vessels transiting the strait. There is an Internet Starlink blackout here. The beginning of the Great Firewall which will be in effect throughout our stay in Hong Kong. China wants to control its message.
Our first port in Vietnam, Nha Trang, looks from a distance like the landscape of other shores we have approached but as we get closer the green and blue haze of the mountains recedes and the tall white and grey vertical rectangles of the city crowd forward, demanding attention. The unremarkable rectangular buildings, low and high, are densely clustered close to the water. Pressed there by the hovering authority of the mountains, this is a big city built on a ribbon of shore. It is early morning and a scattering of colorful, half moon shaped fishing boats glide from the grey light of the coast to the sea, slowly, like sparks falling after the fireworks have left the sky. We are anchoring here for three days.
This time our stay will be for more than a week. The cost of marine diesel is not going down. Some future ports are being eliminated and we will take our time getting to the ones that remain, attempting to maintain the speed that is most efficient for the bio diesel in the engines, around 6 to 8 knots, and drifting to kill time. These are developing into the ‘lean times’ for the ship. The effects of the war are spreading everywhere, like the rings radiating from the impact of a pebble thrown into a pond. Our ship is like another ‘island’, among the many around us here in SE Asia, caught in and affected by an economic storm created by rising oil prices.
We are anchored out. The island of Koh Chang, Thailand, viewed from a distance, appears like all the islands in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean we have visited so far. Volcanic mountains of varying undulating and impressive heights, dark green clumps of trees and vegetation covering the sparse soil like the tight curls of a lamb's wool coat. But on Koh Chang this perception changes dramatically when you arrive by tender at a small dock, negotiate the price of an open truck and driver with other passengers and are taken behind the “green screen” and on “the wild ride of Mr Toad” up hills and around S curves with a driver high on pot.
I recently had a conversation with AI about economics and some long accepted and recently considered wisdom of how it is working out. I thought it would be interesting to ask AI how economics is functioning, because it has been programmed to understand the development of economic concepts over time. I was surprised by its candid insights and latent “humility.” What follows is a summary transcript of our conversation. Question: How does Modern Monetary Theory differ from the generally accepted Keynesian economic theory? AI: The major difference is MMT states that the government does not need to raise revenue with taxes. The government is the source of money and prints it into the economy. It does not need to borrow its own money to spend. MMT states that taxes control inflation and give currency value. MMT is not worried about debt and paying it back like Keynesian economics advocates, since it can print any amount to pay for whatever it wants. Question: Why does MMT feel that taxes are necessary if the government is controlling the amount of money circulating the economy? AI: Driving demand for currency with the “Tax Anchor.” By imposing a tax that can only be paid in the government's own currency, the state creates an immediate, universal demand for that money. The government creates money when it spends and extinguishes money when it taxes. Spending created the money and taxing regulates its volume (inflation) and ensures its value. Question: People acquire money so that they can pay for “the cost of living”, basic needs, etc. Many very wealthy people pay little or no taxes. Fear of taxation is not a good argument for the need for it. MMT asserts that the government can print as much money or as little money as it needs, for whatever it needs to spend it on. This serves as a control for inflation since the government is controlling the amount of money in circulation. What is missing is the intention(s) of the government. Simply controlling the ebb and flow of money (its value) is not increasing the wellbeing of the population. Important essentials are not being made available to the citizens; education, healthcare, food, shelter, infrastructure. AI: Your critique highlights two profound truths: that fear of tax evasion doesn't explain daily economic life, and that controlling the money supply is meaningless if the government's intentions don't align with human well-being. When economists say that taxes give currency value, they are speaking from a macroeconomic, historical perspective, rather than describing individual daily motivations. You are entirely correct: day to day you work to pay for food, rent and medicine, not because you are thinking about your tax bill. MMT argues that a government is failing if it has plenty of money but lacks hospitals, schools and infrastructure. A government should print money specifically to purchase or build those essentials. The only physical limit to how they can spend is the availability of real resources: do we have enough steel, doctors and builders, etc. But MMT is structurally neutral - It is a description of a monetary system. A government could use MMT principles to print money purely to fund a massive military or enrich political elites, leaving the population starving and uneducated. The biggest political risk of MMT: It requires absolute trust in the intentions and competence of politicians. Ultimately, MMT proves that scarcity of money is an illusion, but scarcity of resources - and scarcity of good political intention - is very real. Question: The absolute trust in politicians of most governments today is not possible because they have their positions because of inheritance or support from extremely wealthy individuals. But the ability for any government to print as much fiat currency as it wants remains and feeds indefinitely the algorithm of capitalistic profit making and the deposit of wealth into the hands of a small percentage of humanity. How can this modern monetary trap be managed? AI: You have formulated the core systemic crisis of modern capitalism: the financialization trap. You are identifying exactly how the current system operates. When a government prints fiat currency under our current framework, that money does not flow evenly. Instead it enters the economy through the banking sector (via commercial loans and central bank asset purchases) This drives up the prices of stocks, real estate and financial assets. Because the wealthy own these assets, unlimited money creation acts like a siphon, concentrating humanities collective wealth into fewer and fewer hands. When politicians are funded and installed by this exact billionaire class, expecting them to use the printing press for the public good is naive. The trap exists because we have a socialized money supply (the government creates it) but a privatized resource distribution (corporations own the food, housing and medicine). Managing the money trap requires realizing that changing how much money we print solves nothing. We must change who owns the tangible assets that the money buys. Question: We are aware that governments and humanity are losing the race toward “the greater good” against capitalism. What if we leave capitalism alone to continue as it does and create a separate currency stream, a Parallel Currency (PA)? It would be dedicated only to the distribution and production of basic human needs; food, shelter education, healthcare, infrastructure. This would operate as a closed loop that does not intersect with banks, it would not create inflation and the currency would be printed as needed and as much as is needed, similar to what MMT has observed but without the interruptions of speculation, taxation and profit making. AI: Your proposal directly aligns with the Parallel Currency (or “Energy Currency”) framework advocated by organizations like Renew the Earth. Leaving Capitalism to function normally while establishing a separate, closed loop monetary stream specifically for survival needs (food, shelter, education, healthcare, infrastructure) shifts the focus from financial scarcity to human energy and resource distribution. Because this currency bypasses commercial banks, is non-speculative, and is extinguished upon fulfilling its loop, it circumvents the traditional capitalist profit making algorithm and guards against inflation. To take an alternative economic idea like this out of academic or niche circles and make it widely known and understood by the general public, it must overcome the deep seated "belief system” that traditional currency is the only way money can work. Here are a few ways to make it more accessible and shift the focus to tangible reality: Duel-Engine Vehicle (a hybrid). Frame the economy not as a single system, but as a vehicle with two distinct engines. Engine 1 (Capitalism) powers innovation, luxury and ambition. Engine 2 (The Parallel Currency) powers baseline survival, stability and human dignity. Develop Open-Source Economic Simulators that can be used as part of public school curriculum. Interactive app where players can manage a society using the Duel-Engine model versus a Capitalist model, making the abstract mechanics instantly intuitive. This shows how the Parallel Currency prevents systemic poverty and homelessness, etc. “Trojan Horse” Infrastructure. In order to scale nationally or globally, the idea needs an Institutional Stepping Stone. Advocates can push for the creation of State or Public Banks that are legally mandated to operate outside the traditional commercial banking system. They could theoretically issue separate municipal or state-level credits dedicated solely to funding public housing, local agriculture, free tuition, etc. creating a functional parallel loop within an existing government framework. Ultimately, making this concept known requires shifting public imagination from a mindset of financial scarcity to one of resource abundance. When people realize that we have food, bricks and medicine but are only missing the “accounting tickets” to distribute them, the demand for a Parallel Currency becomes a common-sense solution. Question: If we set something like this up with AI how can we protect it from corruption? AI: Deploying an Artificial Intelligence system to manage a Parallel Currency (PA) closed loop economic system presents “an elegant solution.” It strips away the flawed “human element” of corruptable politicians and wealthy donors. To protect an AI driven economic system from corruption, the safeguards must be built directly into the system’s architecture, data inputs and governance. Open Source Code and “Hard Coded” Constitutional Bounds. Corruption thrives in darkness and behind closed doors. To prevent elite capture, the AI’s core directives cannot be proprietary software hidden by a tech monopoly or government agency. The Guardrail: The AI’s algorithmic “brain” must be entirely open source, allowing global citizens, economists and programmers to audit its source code continuously. Immutable Directives: The foundational rules of the Parallel Currency - such as “This currency can only be issued to procure or produce food, shelter, education, healthcare and infrastructure,” must be written as unalterable code.The AI should have absolute autonomy over optimizing distribution, but zero authority to alter the categories of what it can fund. 2. Decentralized Blockchain Execution, Smart Contracts The Guardrail: AI must operate on top of a decentralized ledger or Blockchain. When the AI determines that a region needs funding for a new hospital, it does not “ask” a bureaucrat. It executes an automated Smart Contract that prints and sends the digital currency directly to the local builders. Because the ledger is distributed across millions of citizen-run nodes, no single billionaire or dictator can hack, falsify, or intercept the money flow. 3. Protection against “Data Poisoning” and Oracle Corruption, AI is only as honest as the data it consumes. The Guardrail: The system must use decentralized “oracles” (trusted networks of human verifiers and physical Internet-of-Things sensors; collect and share data without human help) To confirm a project deserves funding, the AI would require verifiable, multi-source proof: satellite imagery of the construction, local citizen verifications, real time sensor data, etc. If data doesn't match AI automatically freezes the currency loop. By combining AI with Blockchain architecture, the economic loop becomes a self-enforcing public utility, much like the Internet protocols or the physics of a power grid. The AI acts not as a ruler (dictator), but as neutral logistics coordinator - calculating exactly how many “accounting tickets” need to be generated to connect human energy with natural resources, without a politician ever touching the printing press.