On the Recession, the Humanities, and the 21st Century

I'm not going to say I told you so.For one thing, it wouldn't be strictly true. This is something I learned in 1992, when, after eleven years of boring my friends and family with dire warnings about When The Big Hurricane Comes, Andrew did come and slapped the northern Bahamas silly. Even though I was right (eventually) you can't say someone predicts something if they make it a mantra for a decade or so. Even though I knew that the economics of the 1990s couldn't last, weren't sustainable, would eventually crash, I can't claim prescience or anything like that.The economy was going to crash sooner or later.But I'm going to make a prediction now. It's not an awfully fun one, either. The Bahamian economy is very likely to crash, and hard. And soon. Why? Well, it has occurred to me (why I was so silly I don't know) that our extended period of prosperity has lasted pretty well as long as the Cuban Revolution has lasted -- the revolution and the attendant embargo. Quite simply, because Americans couldn't go to Cuba, they came here.That time is conceivably going to end in the foreseeable future. If you were paying attention to Obama's state of the union address, you might be like me, and seeing it coming sooner or later.But more on that later.