Something like the following conversation played out all across St. Croix yesterday and demonstrates a a totally different yet logical, honest and very desperate perspective. The Diageo Deal supporters accepts that Kenny Mapp and Bert Brian can both read, are intelligent enough to understand what they read and are not lying. Moreover, they accept that the Governor, Adam Christian and Nathan Simmons are totally lying about the contract and their point is “Who is stupid enough to care? The deal brings in $100 million a year and is the only source of funds in sight to solve our economic problems.
Ok, but what about them invoking a Force Majeure after a hurricane and earning a bigger profit than they are actually entitled to at the expense of the suffering people? His answer was simply who really cares, “It’s only a couple of million, they have already collected the money and their corporate public relations group would be so embarrassed they would donate more than that back to hurricane recovery just to keep their good image.”
OK, but what about the molasses subsidy being used to make rum for foreign sales at the expense of the territory with no benefit. His answer was simplistic; “As long as Captain Morgan is selling in America, they would never do that because they make more money from the Rum Rebates than the do from selling rum.
OK, but wat about the size of the Marketing subsidy? The answer, Of course it’s too much. They never spent more than $20 million on media for Captain Morgan in a year and even if the brought Virgin Islands bulk rum and created a new rum, it’s still too much money so the only logical solution is to allow them to spend it on their other Caribbean brands and the contract says they can do it.
Doesn’t it bother you that all Government Officials are lying about the content of the contract, slandering those that oppose it and deceiving the people of the Virgin Islands? – No thats politics and business – everybody always lies.
Won’t this piss off Puerto Rico? The answer: “Diageo will only piss off Puerto Rico if they are a total success and we are getting over $100 million a year so who cares. Congress doest care about Puerto Rico or us and are not likely to get involved with a pissing contest between the two islands even if Diageo is using Rum Rebates to promote Myers and screwing Bacardi, Ronrico and Don Q.”
The point is this is $100 million a year and we need it so it’s worth a few risks.
Tags: Captain Morgan, Cruzan, Diageo, St. Croix, Virgin Islands
July 23, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Not so fast. If we stay within the four corners of the agreement: 1)Diageo is only obligated to produce 1.5m gallons year;2) The gov’t will purchase approximately 70 acres and build a state of the art facility, which Diageo gets to keep (no strings atached); 3)the Gov’t will note begin earning $100m until the year 2020.
I agree that if the parties act in good faith, Diageo meets its projections and the economy does not suffer a final whiplash…..all will be well for the VI.