Ethical Business is probably an oxymoron but I’m not sure that anyone can be as cynical as our mistrusting Crucians whether born here or not. Seems the molasses subsidy had a logical beginning. Give our rum factory a competitive edge and subsidize their rum production. When it’s shipped to America, we get more rum rebates. The little bit of rum sold elsewhere didn’t matter and besides the cap on the subsidy could be lowered to reflect the gallons of molasses used and the gallons which was the foundation for the rum rebates.
Now Diageo changed this simplistic view or should have. In theory there contract superceeds all existing laws including limits on the total gallons and regardless of price. Now its a well know fact that Brazil is using rum based alcohol as a gasoline substitute and up to 10% can be included in gasoline without damaging the quality.
It’s conceivable that the Virgin Islands subsidy would allow Diageo to make rum for a variable cost as low as 50 cents per gallon which could be sold to Great Britain as rum, be refined as a fuel additive and subsidized by the people of the Virgin Islands to help stabilize the energy market of much larger and richer Great Britain.
While this might never happen, as I reread the contract it is probably legal – but then big business would never be that Machiavellian.
RIGHT!!
Tags: Captain Morgan, Cruzan, Diageo, St. Croix, Virgin Islands
