THE chief economist of the Bank of Guam, Joe Bradley, hasn’t ever been accused of wearing rose-colored glasses. In fact, the rather dour Mr. Bradley has sometimes been compared with that fellow in the old Li’l Abner comic strips who walked around with a black cloud over his head.

So last year when Bradley put out a fairly positive forecast for the Guam economy, observers were encouraged. Alas, it didn’t last.

Yesterday at the Hilton, Bradley told his audience of business decision-makers: “I won’t be fooled again.” The story is reported elsewhere in this edition of the Variety by Mar-Vic Cagurangan, a former editor-in-chief of this newspaper whom we welcome back to our pages as a contributing reporter.

After reading her story about the event, which we did not attend, we called Joe Bradley to chat about his latest forecast. “We’re exactly where we were back in 2006,” Bradley said of the military buildup. The questions of when, how much, what are you planning to do, are more up in the air now than ever, despite the assurances this week by Joint Guam Program Office officials who met with senators and Gov. Eddie Calvo and his staff.

“For business planning purposes, I want to know what’s going to happen next week, next month, or maybe next year,” Bradley said in his presentation. “But three to five years from now, I can’t make full plans, particularly when I don’t know how much impact [the buildup] will have on the civilian community.”

Instead, Bradley suggested Guam should concentrate on a known industry, tourism, and stop speculating on a military buildup that may not happen.

There are some encouraging signs that the visitor industry is doing quite well. March was a record month for visitor arrivals in the last three years; and although three months do not make a trend, Bradley said if the current projection pans out, we should see a 7.5 percent increase in visitor arrivals, year over year, to about 1.25 million by the end of 2012.

This is our bread-and-butter industry, he pointed out. It’s where new private sector jobs will open up and new dollars will be brought into our economy.

The buildup? Forget it, Bradley said. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but put it on the back burner and pay more attention to visa waivers and cleaning up our tourist spots, parks and beaches. We still have the best place in the world to relax, swim, play golf and fish, and we’re close to the major population centers of East Asia. That’s where our true potential lies.

If something comes of all the buildup talk, so much the better. “But I’m still not particularly optimistic,” the economist said cheerfully.