Impact of astronomy on Big Island's economy (Hilo: buying, schools)

[bus man]

I would imagine that the Big Island, like the State of Hawaii as a whole, is taking a massive financial hit from the virtual disappearance of tourism due to coronavirus. In the case of the Big Island, I was trying to think of what else there might be to soften the economic blow. There's government spending (including the university), of course, but that's probably going to be scaled back in light of decreased tax revenues. And there's agriculture, which I think of as consisting primarily of orchids, macadamia nuts, and coffee. Plus, there's the Parker Ranch. But aside from those things, the only other thing I could think of was astronomy.

So that got me wondering -- just how big of a deal, or not big of a deal, is astronomy in the scope of the Big Island's overall economy? I'm thinking of everything: the astronomers themselves, the support staff, the tourism draw of the telescopes, the Onizuka Center, Imiloa Astronomy Center, UH-Hilo's astronomy program . . . the whole ball of wax. What share of the Big Island's economy is accounted for by all of this? And how resistant is this sector to the overall economic shocks that are surely reverberating through the economy right now?

And in a related question . . . are people desperate enough now for any kind of economic activity that TMT could get built?

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Originally Posted by bus man

And in a related question . . . are people desperate enough now for any kind of economic activity that TMT could get built?

No. The people who are protesting TMT are doing so because they are tired of their cultural heritage being trampled in the name of progress. I don't know for sure, but I would suspect that none of the protestors have jobs that would in any way be related to the telescopes. And they don't really care about the millions of dollars that the TMT owners pledged to pour into donations to schools and other entities bettering the lives of people on the island.

[hotzcatz]

IMHO, we don't need one big economic driver to replace tourism. That would just be replacing one big basket of eggs with another. What we need is a diversified economy and astronomy would be a huge plus towards that.

We did this 40% economic drop once before here on Hawaii Island. That's when sugar died back in 1996. I think it was NAFTA but I wasn't paying much attention to politics at the time, in any case the economic supports for sugar vanished with some sort of political maneuvering. Hawaii sugar couldn't compete with international sugar since Hawaii provided housing, medical and basically an entire village for the workers. Since the economic support was an instantaneous event (not like a cane disease or blight or anything) everything collapsed immediately. There were also some welfare cuts that year which didn't help.

Things got pretty dire. Folks couldn't drive because they couldn't afford gas so there weren't people out and about. Things weren't maintained so things got pretty dingy. However, a lot of folks were able to go to Oahu and get work there. That's not going to be an option this time.

Everyone was looking for the 'new sugar' to fill in the huge economic hole created by the demise of the sugar companies. Somebody thought growing eucalyptus trees for paper pulp would be a good idea so acres of acres were planted in eucalyptus trees. No paper mill was ever built and the trees are still there. Some have been cleared, but there's still acres and acres of non-edible trees covering up prime cropland.

However, since then a lot of little businesses have popped up and been creating jobs. We've got diversified ag crops such as vanilla, quail, tomatoes, tea, yarn, lamb, etc. etc. There were some folks doing pasture raised chickens for awhile, although not at the moment. Because the islands don't have the economy of scale to compete with big ag, we need to scale it down to family and hui sized enterprises and only need to support a family or hui and not a whole village. If enough families are making their money by growing or producing something we will have a very strong economy. Most likely it would be smaller than the tourist economy, but with everyone doing something different, no one thing can break and ruin everything.

These are all pretty much low tech enterprises, astronomy would be great for a high tech option. High tech would be a great thing for Hawaii since IT folks living in Hawaii could remotely work on systems on the continental U.S. in their down time since we're in a different time zone.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

The people who are protesting TMT are doing so because they are tired of their cultural heritage being trampled in the name of progress.

I and many others don't buy that at all. There are groups of people in Hawaii who protest just for the sake of protesting. If anything they were protesting their own cultural heritage - exploration and discovery.

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

I don't know for sure, but I would suspect that none of the protestors have jobs that would in any way be related to the telescopes.

I suspect many - maybe most - of those protesters didn't have jobs pre-Corona - and instead sucked out of the State government assistance

[hotzcatz]

We had some tourists visiting (earlier this year before the virus - back when we had tourists around here) and they asked us why the homeless camp was along the highway out in the middle of nowhere and flying British flags upside down. I'm not sure if the TMT protestors message is getting out very far.

[terracore]

"There were some folks doing pasture raised chickens for awhile, although not at the moment."

Unfortunately, the only real buyers of locally produced chicken were resorts and restaurants. And they aren't buying anymore. Most regular people can't afford it. They were selling a small amount at farmer's markets, but they are closed too. We bought some of Puna Chick's grow outs when they realized they were raising chicks they had no customers for. We offered a butchering class to others who wanted to buy them but didn't know how to process them.

I remember when the sugar mill on Maui closed a few years ago the state went crazy trying to replace the egg in the basket even though it was a much smaller component of their economy than it was when sugar left the BI. They passed some law to study the feasibility of growing hemp but it was just an exercise in bureaucracy that became irrelevant when the Republicans re-legalized hemp in the 2018 farm bill.

I don't know what is going to help Hawaii's economy. The state is over-regulated and anti-business. A very tiny percentage of the population have successfully protested away ferries, telescopes, wind power, and just about everything else that doesn't suit their agenda of returning to the 1700's but keeping their lifted trucks etc and none of the elected officials have the backbone to stand up to them. The industries that haven't been gutted by protestors, taxes, and bureaucracy won't come here because of the cost of living. I don't see tourism rebounding within my lifetime on it's own but there are things the government could do to help. One would be to recall the 9th island and legalize gambling, even if it's limited to the tourist areas. The other would be to legalize recreational cannabis, but I doubt Hawaii's penchant for bureaucracy and corruption could regulate either gambling or the weed industry. Just look how the liquor control commission behaved when Maui Brewing tried to give away hand sanitizer:

https://www.mauinews.com/news/local-...nitizer-promo/

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by terracore

One would be to recall the 9th island and legalize gambling, even if it's limited to the tourist areas.

I completely agree the State of Hawaii have left money on the table so to speak without legalized gambling.

You make it a Wynn like resort - you also uplift the tourism spending dollars.