Maureen N. Maratita
Publisher
publisher@glimpsesofguam.com
“Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds 19 shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery.”
That was Mr. Micawber’s advice to David Copperfield, the young man in the book of the same name by Charles Dickens.
Today that’s not necessarily true as rolling credit is a fact of life, but falling into serious debt remains a pitfall for some.
Applying for a personal credit card some 30-plus years in Guam was an adventure. Newly arrived from the ex-pat circuit to live in a U.S. territory, I was told locally I had no credit history despite holding credit cards from outside the U.S.
I certainly did have a credit history, but you had to get an international credit check to find out what my credit history was (not too shabby, actually).
A letter from my bank in England, and tax filings brought suspicion. I remember having to explain why the financial year in the U.K. was different from the U.S. You can blame Julius Caesar and the Romans.
And it took 11 days for a check from me to me to clear. I worked hard with the bank to get checks credited immediately.
The only business willing to give me a U.S. credit card straight away was a national retailer. And then I was on my way. Mortgage, car loan, I never looked back.
These days getting credit is also a necessity to build up that all important credit history.
For businesses, loans are equally important to get them on their way or expand.
Read on for our banking and finance story to see the up-to-date picture of debt and how institutions manage clients falling by the wayside.
For the shipping story in this issue, we mostly looked forward at what ports in the Mariana Islands can expect from their governments, the port’s stakeholders and from all of us who are the end users of the port. It’s our discretionary spending and the needs of businesses that dictate the flow of goods into the islands.
Ways to improve infrastructure in the Mariana Islands are top of mind at ports, as they should be while we are not only dealing with the ramifications of a military buildup, but also waiting for tourism to fully return to the islands.
With memories of Typhoon Mawar in May last year still fresh, Charles Emsley, APL’s senior operations manager; told me how the U.S. Coast Guard handed out radios when the telecom infrastructure in Guam was damaged.
Without the phone support, it was hard to communicate with the vessels bringing gas for the gas stations to Guam.
On the plus side, he said, “The experiences that we encountered in Mawar … within the port itself, I believe we should be well prepared for the next typhoon.”
