There was a severe global recession following the first Arab/Israeli conflict in the middle-east in the early 1970s which initiated, among other things, the formation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which resulted in dramatic increases in oil prices from about $3 to $10 to $30 per barrel of oil. Those events were partly responsible for a global recession and more than a decade of hyper-inflation around the world.

Economic dislocations were severe and widespread; output decreased, unemployment rose, capital investments shrunk and business closures were common everywhere, even here in The Bahamas.

On Cable Beach, the operators of the Nassau Beach Hotel, the Balmoral Beach Hotel (now Sandals) and the Sonesta Beach Hotel (now Breezes) indicated their intention to close down; placing approximately 3,000 jobs at risk directly and another 7,000 Bahamians at risk indirectly.

As the hotels were about to pack up and leave after trying unsuccessfully to sell the properties in a depressed global market, the then government of the day felt it had no alternative but to keep the hotels open and preserve the thousands of jobs.

The alternative, an army of the jobless roaming the streets of Nassau, was too frightening to contemplate in a country that did not have in place then, or even now, an adequate social safety net to provide unemployment and other benefits to its urban poor.

Cable Beach was at, perhaps, the lowest ebb of the business cycle ever experienced in the city of Nassau (except for that period in the early 1900s when the sponge industry was destroyed by some alien parasite that devastated the local job market).

That episode in our economic history gave birth to the Hotel Corporation of the Bahamas, the corporate vehicle established by the government to purchase the hotels and to keep them open through the global downturn.

A few years later, the global crisis faded into memory and the tourists returned in great numbers to the Cable Beach strip; good times were here again and Cable Beach was riding the crest of the wave; at the top of the economic cycle.

So good were the times that the hotels could have been sold for a handsome profit, perhaps. Nevertheless, the government not only decided to keep them; it built an even larger hotel (now the Sheraton) and persuaded Ted Arison of Carnival Cruise lines to construct the Crystal Palace and Casino which was later sold to Phil Ruffin.

The good times lasted for awhile. The popular properties on Cable Beach, some say, put a dent in the business at Resorts International on Paradise Island and virtually wiped out the smaller hotels downtown.

The hotels on Paradise Island changed ownership several times, through the hands of the late talk show host Merv Griffin to the flamboyant Donald Trump, but Cable Beach was the flavor of the month. It was not until Nelson Mandela was freed from his prison cell and political normality emerged in South Africa that the way was cleared for Kerzner to acquire the properties and transform them into what is now the Atlantis.

A feat that had dire consequences for Cable Beach; sending the strip once more to the bottom of the cycle from which it only hoped to pull itself up with the help of Baha Mar and Harrah's.

Cable Beach seems to be a cyclical animal; capable of climbing to astonishing heights at times but equally adept at slipping to the floor.

Given the recent events, the strip may be at the proverbial crossroads with one more opportunity to soar to great heights or, heavens forbid, stay wading at the lower end of the economic pool.