Living In An Offshore Tax-Haven

People usually expect “offshore” tax-havens to be wonderfully exotic places. But in reality, they’re not. Linda and I have lived in three different ones during our marriage – Bahamas 1967-70, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) 1972-75, and Cayman 1978 to date – mostly in apartments no different from those we lived in in Canada and Spain.Nassau … Read more

A Trip To The Supermarket In Cayman

I’ve been making the same trip to the supermarket the whole thirty-seven years we’ve lived in Cayman. Well, pretty much. Until 1997 we lived just over the road from a mini-market, which meant there wasn’t much need to patronize the bigger shops. That mini-market was wiped out in the hurricane of 2004, and has never … Read more

Fifty Shades Of Green In The Cayman Islands

The poinciana trees are starting to flower now, and Cayman is transformed. I’ve never considered this a pretty island, except at this time of year. The purple and pink bougainvillea shrubs, the “Pride of Barbados” plant, and fifty shades of Green, all make for a pleasant and soothing sight, but it’s all much of a … Read more

Unemployment in Cayman

Despite its large Public Revenue – US$700 million for a population of 50,000 – Cayman has generally low educational standards – the consequence of a poor educational strategy. Two generations ago, the Islands’ political representatives seem to have been persuaded by the British Colonial Office (now the FCO) not to bother about the standards of … Read more

Censorship In The Cayman Islands

It’s an axiom of human-rights theory, that without freedom of speech, no other freedoms can be guaranteed. As an English colony since 1670 (British since 1707, to be pernickety), the Cayman Islands ought to be a model of free speech. But they’re not. As noted in my earlier columns, we have a wonderful variety of … Read more

When Gross Salary Equalled Net Salary In The Caymans

For the first 25 years or so after we left Canada in 1967, Linda & I received our respective salaries free of all deductions. It was a very comfortable feeling, to be so self-reliant. In the three Offshore tax havens we lived in during those years, there was no Income Tax, no contributions towards our … Read more

Leaving Home

Cayman’s earliest settlers would have come by boat – some time in the early 1600s – from Jamaica or Cuba. There is no evidence of any aboriginal inhabitants, so the first comers would have been European and African refugees from one sort of slavery or another. They were either adventurous or desperate, or both – … Read more

Trouble In Paradise

Our Islands are in trouble, following the latest political upheaval. It seems likely that our most charismatic politician, our recently dismissed Premier, will now push for independence from Britain. He will have his work cut out for him, because all our voters know that our prosperity might not survive the change; but quite a few … Read more

Blogging For Fun And Non-Profit

We who have our own blogsites know how fascinating it is to read the statistics section. Mine is a blogspot.com freebie (a Google service, I think), whose stats are brief, basic and misleading, but even so… All my posts are written for residents of Cayman – or at least with them in mind – but … Read more

Shelter From The Storm

The more we (Linda and I) think about an emergency bolthole to escape a worldwide economic collapse, the more we wonder if we’re not already living in it. (The bolthole, that is: not the collapse!) One’s home is always familiar territory, isn’t it? We know who to go to for goods and services of every … Read more