The panel of reactors were also high profile, like former NEDA chief Dr. Ciel Habito, former DOF UnderSecretary Romy Bernardo, WB-Philippines chief economist Dr. Karl Chua.
He also showed these three charts with these notes:
Graph 1: Our investments-to-GDP ratio is still lower than
our neighbours’ by far.
Graph 2: Savings vs. Investment -- this makes me cry. We
have the domestic resources to put in investments, but instead are going out of
the country. The mirror image of the positive current account over a decade.
Graph 3: Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows,
there’s a slight uptick but a lot of catching up to do vis-à-vis our ASEAN
neighbours.
Good observations, Romy.
But one thing I noticed in that forum were these two mantra, "poverty is still high", "inequality is worsening".
I believe there is deception in these mantra because of
the end-goal -- more government welfarism and subsidies, more foreign aid, more
taxation to confiscate the income of the rich and "fight inequality",
to have forced equality (modern socialism?) if possible.
let me cite some anecdotal stories and proof why I said
this.
1. In a rice farming village that I regularly visit in Bugallon, Pangasinan (I manage an
agro-forestry farm there), before, the poor ride carabaos or cows. Now, the
poor ride motorcycles. Almost all houses there have one motorcycle or tricycle.
The luckier ones have a 2nd hand car.
2. A big cause or contributor to poverty in villages and
areas like this is accidents. People party and drink especially at Fri and Sat
nights, and endless accidents happen every week. Household savings can be wiped
out in just one accident. The population control advocates were perhaps wrong
in legislating for more taxpayers-funded condoms and pills. They should have
advocated for cheaper motorcycles and more alcohol, these two are perfect
combination to reduce population, weekly.
3. Agriculture, modernization is coming rather fast, actually. The use of
rural labor with ever-rising government-mandated minimum wage for rice harvesting is declining. Why? There
are now rippers, a small machine operated by just one person, that can do the job of 10-15 people in rice harvesting,
at a much faster rate, lower cost. To get one rural labor for rice harvest, the
going rate is P200 per day with meals, or P250 w/out meals.
The ripper/harvester however, still requires rich threshing, which means
additional cost for the rice farmers. Now there are combiner machines
(harvesting + threshing + bagging). Zero labor cost, zero meals cost, zero
uncertainty if the workers might go home early and not finish the work. These
combiners get around one sack for every 10 sacks of palay harvested, threshed
and bagged. Big savings for farmers, meaning higher income. In that town alone,
I heard that there are seven combiner
machines or tractors for hire.
4, Inequality is NOT a problem. The poor used
to live up to 40 yrs life expectancy, now the poor can live up to 70, 80 years
or longer. That means longer, productive life. If inequality is a problem, then
any envious or socialist-leaning person can demand that his salary should be at
least 10 percent of the monthly pay of Gokongwei or Henry Sy, even if he works
only 5 hours a day and party 6 hours a night, every day.
To conclude:
1. As government intervenes more to "protect labor" (from capitalist exploitation?), entrepreneurs (big and small) hire less labor. Thanks to endless capitalist innovation in technology including farm mechanization.
2. Inequality is not a problem. Poverty is. To reduce poverty, allow the middle class and the rich to create more jobs, to produce more goods and services so that their prices stabilize if not decline, and thus become more affordable to the poor. Or allow the poor to become micro, then small-medium entrepreneur themselves, via less business taxes and bureaucracies.
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See also:
Inequality 20: The Top 50 Richest Filipinos, September 01, 2014
Inequality 21: Marx, Keynes and Pikkety are ideological soulmates, December 01, 2014
Inequality 22: Ten Men Eating Equally but Paying Unequally, February 27, 2015
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