Crazy Power, Crazy Economy

Saipan is located in the center of the Pacific Ocean. As like the other small islands, Saipan suffers lots of difficulty with supplying materials, because this island can't be self- sufficient. Especially the lack of oil creates problems. The biggest problem is endless of power outages. I have living almost one and half years on Saipan, and I have experienced innumerous power outages. When it occurred again and again, CUC always said it is a temporary phenomenon, but as time has passed by, people raised their voices and expressed their dissatisfactions about the management of CUC and the power outages.

In addition, the power outage brought crazy gas and electric prices. The reason was also CUC. They set the price high for fuel, because they don't have enough money to pay for gas. For now, it's almost $5 per one gallon. Increasing the oil price is affecting our economy; finally our worse economy is getting worse than ever. Our economy has slowly fallen into a deep slump. Citizens are having more and more worries because of a wrong judgment and deportment from our government.

Also the power outage influenced at tourism. The tourist industry is Saipan's main source of revenue; therefore it is closely related to our economy. However, if the power outage often occurs, it can harm the image to tourists. As a result, it will influences in number of tourists and even our economy.

Since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, it has made people live more easy and safety. We do not need candles in darkness because, with just a touch of finger tip, we can get bright, visible sites. However, this safety life is threatened by the dark shadow of the power outage. Recently, the lack of power often occurs on Saipan. On this difficult situation, I think we need to gather our power to find the cautious answer because we have to escape from this deep, painful swamp of the situation.