Online poll: Most not confident about economy

More than 60 per cent of the respondents of last week’s cayCompass.com online poll said they are either not too confident or not confident at all that Cayman’s economy will rebound in 2012. 

Of the 581 total respondents, the largest segment – 180 people or 31 per cent – said they were not too confident of a 2012 economic recovery in the Cayman Islands, while 170 people – 29.2 per cent – said they weren’t confident at all. 

“Cayman’s economy won’t improve until the global economy improves and that won’t happen until … ?” said one person. 

“There won’t be a rebound in the economic situation until legislation is put in place for the banks to loosen their purse strings for entrepreneurs to circulate the money and create jobs,” said someone else. “And not until there is domestic consumption on a larger scale and … money is put into the hands of the residents so they can support local businesses.” 

“With the economy worldwide bad, a economic rebound cannot happen at this time,” said another respondent. “Big changes needed by government to make this work; all talk and no action.” 

“Not until they build new cruise ship docks,” commented one person. 

“Need to change the government first,” said another. 

Another large segment of respondents – 147 people or 25.3 per cent – said they were somewhat confident Cayman’s economy would rebound in 2012. 

“More hopeful than confident really,” said one person. “But we all must take a step in the dark at some point if we really are to get out of trouble. Maybe small business should be promoted some.” 

“If everything starts that is supposed to, Cayman should bounce back this year,” said someone else. 

“I hope so,” said another person. 

Sixty-two respondents – 10.7 per cent – said they were very confident of a 2012 economic rebound. 

“Pre-bookings for 2012 are amazing,” said one person. “Better than 2002, which was a record year for us.” 

“Despite all the efforts to undermine progress by the CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) people and the anti-UDPers, good times are coming again,” said someone else. 

“The chaos in Europe is unsettling, but things are shaping up in the US,” said another respondent. “Now if we can just get a couple of these big projects going here so we can grow the population back to what is was pre-meltdown, we’ll be in good shape.” 

“We need to stop building our way out of trouble,” said commented one person. “A sustainable economy must have an inner force not outside props.” 

Twenty-two people – 3.8 per cent – responded ‘I don’t know’ to the question. 

The poll results showed some improvement in confidence levels from August 2011, when respondents were asked “How confident are you that Cayman’s economy is rebounding?” 

At that time, more than 71 per cent of the 496 respondents said they were not so confident or not confident at all the economy was rebounding. Only 7.7 per cent of respondents said they were very confident, while 18.7 said they were somewhat confident. 

Next week’s poll question 

How important do you think cruise ship tourism is to Cayman’s economy? 

Vitally important 

Somewhat important 

Not too important 

Not important at all 

I don’t know