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CSA
CSA's 38th Annual Conference looks at
implications of the US financial crisis...
2008,
October 5: Bailout; mergers; overnight acquisitions, plummeting stock prices
– the world waits and investors, with furrowed brow, try to peer into the
future. It’s now okay to use the C word. Still, no one wants to use the P word.
‘Crisis’ we can now say; ‘panic’ is still off limits.
The
fragility of an under-regulated, under-supervised capital market has been
exposed and the US government has had to throw a rescue line to its private
sector in the form the largest financial intervention in history. Meanwhile, the
behaviour of capital markets in Europe and Asia has exposed investors on the
other side of the planet to the same uncertainties and financial losses as their
American counterparts.
“What in
Heaven name’s happ’ning?” asked my neighbour as worry (I will not use the P
word) about his modest life savings and the security of his retirement years got
the better of him.
“It is
the worst thing that has happened to the US since the Great Depression,” said
Sir Courtney Blackman.
 The
Former President of the Barbados Central Bank, Sir Courtney Blackman will
take a close at this crisis and address related issues and concerns when he
presents the topic “Wall Street Financial Crisis - Likely Impact on National
Economies of the Region and the Maritime industry” at the upcoming Caribbean
Shipping Association (CSA) conference in Port of Spain. The CSA’s 38th Annual
General Meeting, Conference and Exhibition will be held October 13, 14 and 15 at
the Hyatt Regency Trinidad hotel.
In fact,
Sir Courtney is more than “former President’ of the country’s Central Bank, he
is its Founding Governor. He holds a BA (Hons.) degree from the London
University College of the West Indies and a Ph.D. from the Columbia Business
School (1969). He has been Ambassador to the United Nations, an Ambassador to
the United States; Barbados’ Alternate Governor to the IMF from June 1972 and a
Permanent Representative for Barbados to the OAS. He has lectured at major
universities around the world, and has published numerous learned papers and
three books: The Practice of Persuasion, (1982), Central Banking in Theory and
Practice: a Small State Perspective (1995), and The Practice of Economic
Management: a Caribbean Perspective (2005). A consultant to several governments,
central banks and multinational institutions and a Board member of several
corporations, he is currently Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of
Stanford International Bank and a member of the International Advisory Board of
Stanford Financial Group. He received his country’s Gold Crown of Merit in 1982,
and was elevated to the Knighthood in 1998.
An
outspoken man with a depth of knowledge about the Caribbean and its national
economies, Sir Courtney recently cautioned that the current economic crisis in
the United States will undoubtedly have an impact on Barbados. In September
last, in delivering the 4th Tom Adams memorial lecture, Sir Courtney raised the
spectre of the ‘contagiousness’ (my coinage) of the crisis . He commented that
if it is true that whenever the USA sneezes Barbados gets pneumonia than what
happens if the USA gets pneumonia’?
Clearly,
Caribbean nations need to study the current crisis and the CSA has provided a
perfect platform in Port of Spain to launch these region-wide discussions.
Sir
Courtney’s presentation, Paper 1 of nine major presentations over the three-day
conference, will describe in layman's terms events leading up to the current
financial crisis in the USA. He will then analyze and discuss the likely effects
of the crisis on the global economy as well as on Caribbean national economies.
He will then lead conference participants from more than 20 countries across the
four language groups of the Caribbean, South, Central and North America and
Europe in exploring strategies by the Caribbean Shipping Association for
alleviating the effect of the crisis on the Caribbean shipping industry.
Sir
Courtney’s presentation will be at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday October 14.
- Mike Jarrett
MORE ABOUT CONFERENCE
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AGENDA *
KEYNOTE SPEAKER *
IMMIGRATION REQUIREMENTS *
SPOUSES PROGRAMME
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