“King Duncan (Macbeth) said of the Thane of Cawdor: “There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.”

Then he bestowed the honour of being Thane of Cawdor on his trusted General, Macbeth, who was already Thane of Glamis.

The world changed on 5th November 2024.  The Americans voted on familiarity, taxes and national sovereignty.  We expect they will be more aggressive about illegals drifting across their borders.  

‘Their pets will now be safe’ even if their fields go unattended and their factories remain closed.

Since they do not officially believe in climate change, we will have to find other means to explain the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes that visit the heartland, not to mention the Caribbean.

And we will have to figure out, independently, why the jet stream is threatening collapse; Why the heat is so prolonged and punishing; Why nature is slowly drifting out of control.

If Tim Alberta (The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory) is anyone to go by, the church is, once again, adopting a central and pivotal role in politics.  We may be heading to a place, again, where there is no separation between church and state.

Forgive me for remembering the darkness of earth’s day when Papal Rome ruled the world, but you do not have to forgive John Irving, in his, ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany,’ in which he offered an opinion about memory.

“Your memory is a monster; you forget-it doesn’t.  It simply files things away.  It keeps things for you or hides things from you-and summons them to your recall with a will of its own.  You think you have a memory; but it has you.”

Of course, some right sizing will be done.  Since WWII Americans have been taxing their citizens to death to pay the world’s bills but that was never sustainable.  

Their gross federal debt is just shy of $36 trillion; a number that might as well approximate the mathematical number, infinity, for the incomprehensible number of zeros involved.

We will see what comes out of the geopolitical argy-bargy this time around.  We will look on to see how the Americans align in the global space and whether a working peace will return to the world; whether old allies will be discarded for new and if certain unions will be re-established.

We feel assured that, this time, democracy will not be threatened in the US.  The transfer of power will be peaceful as expected and no January 06th attack upon the United States Capitol will take place since there is no ‘steal’ to stop.

And in the end, if two terms mean two consecutive terms, the Supreme Court will opine.  So, if women must now take their own lives in their hands or trust those lives to questionable quacks in dark alleys or unsanitary places, at least these are choices they made with eyes wide open.

But money spoke up by the morning of 6th November.  The stock market soared and the dollar strengthened against some major currencies.

And at home, we hope our leaders capitalize on the confidence of the Americans in their economy to help to build ours.

“No ill wind blows.”

This may mean positioning tourism in the correct space.  And it must mean having a road map to do this. 

Of course, security is the pillar that holds up prosperity.  But in the BVI, we are frequently reminded that lawlessness is having an unchecked field day.

So, like Macbeth, the Republicans may have it all; King (the Presidency); Cawdor (the Senate); Glamis (the House; still only a teardrop away)

Let the games begin! And we will be committed spectators on Fridays.

Happy Friday!”