The Brancatelli File for 1984

August 5: AN INHERITED PASSION: WORKING THE LAND
Given the numbers, it's hard to understand why Hawaiians still fret over the flagging fortunes of the state's agriculture industry. But going strictly by the numbers is a mistake because Hawaii's reliance on agribusiness is as much psychic as economic. There is always hope in Hawaii for a better agricultural future. These days, hope's name is Francis S. "Frannie" Morgan, but the basic problems of Hawaiian agriculture remain intractable.

August 4: NEW TIMES FOR HAWAII'S OLD BIG FIVE
Hawaii's "Big Five" companies owned and operated the Islands as their private preserve for most of the last century. They aren't the political and economic forces they once were, but the Big Five still control many crucial facets of the state's economy, their buildings dot the downtown Honolulu landscape, and they still hold much of the state's real estate.

August 3: PROFITS IN PARADISE
When the monarchy reigned, Hawaii's government and business community got along just fine. Relations haven't been quite so chummy in recent years. With business growth slowed after two decades of fast-paced expansion, Hawaii's business community has become increasingly vocal about the state government's heavy-handed economic controls.

August 2: HAWAII AND MASS TOURISM: AN UNEASY 25-YEAR MARRIAGE
Tourism was only a $100 million business back in 1959, the year statehood and commercial jetliners first came to Hawaii. Today, the Hawaiian economy is almost totally dependent on the about $4 billion it pumps into the local economy. Although its long-term growth and prosperity seems secure, the industry nevertheless faces a series of vexing, and sometimes conflicting, problems.

August 1: HAWAII, 25 YEARS LATER
Twenty-five years after statehood, Hawaii remains unsurprisingly exotic and not quite totally American. But if there is any real surprise about Hawaii, it’s that this outrageously contradictory chain of beautiful tropical volcanic islands has become so American after only 25 years of statehood.

July 1: DEREGULATION IN MICROCOSM: THE BATTLE FOR HAWAII'S INTERISLAND FLYERS
Since 1981, the state’s short-haul industry has been a textbook-perfect case of airline competition with suicidal price wars; outlandish promotions; protracted philosophical squabbles and operational firefights. The land of pineapples and macadamia nuts is now a reflection of the American aviation experience in miniature: anything and everything that has happened to the airline industry since deregulation has happened to Hawaii’s interisland market.

April 1: IT'S 1984, BUT HONG KONG IS WORRIED ABOUT 1997
It is impossible to understand Hong Kong's current woes if you assume they've been caused only by Sino-British squabbling over sovereignty and administration of the colony after 1997. Hong Kong's crisis is much more complex. It's the inevitable culmination of a mostly benevolent colonial past, a ferocious dedication to unorthodox business practices, a cacophony of competing national egos and the colony's position as a symbiotic interface between East and West.

Copyright © 1984-2019 by Joe Brancatelli. All rights reserved.