BWorld 608, The digital future, rising productivity and economic growth

* BusinessWorld, May 30, 2023.

Technology modernization, like the transformation of farm tilling from animals to crude hand tractors to modern fast tractors, always leads to lower cultivation time, less waste, higher productivity, and higher incomes.

In the area of consumer electronics, corporate and personal finance, there has been a quantum leap in technology modernization, from the old slow mail to telegrams and pagers to e-mails and social media, and now artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT.

At the BusinessWorld Economic Forum 2023, held on May 25 at the Grand Hyatt Manila in BGC Taguig City, the theme was “The Digital Future: Accelerating Business and Sustainability.” It was a big event with many face-to-face participants, from corporate sponsors and individual attendees. I attended the event, and several other BusinessWorld columnists also came. Very few speakers were from government and multilaterals, most speakers and participants were from the corporate world.

The presenters from Microsoft Asia Pacific, Peter Maquera, and from nChain, Stephan Matthews, discussed many digital concepts that looked to me like extended Greek equations in my undergrad and graduate economic studies. But I understand the end goal of that digital modernization — faster and more efficient work, fewer meetings, and inter-office coordination, better understanding of customers and the public, and an overall increase in productivity and, hence, corporate and personal income.

The other speakers and panelists echoed this perspective from their respective sectors — banking, land transportation, telecommunication, real estate, agribusiness, etc.

I checked the data on labor productivity of some countries. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has an updated measurement regarding this until 2022 — they use GDP at constant 2017 international dollars at Power Purchasing Parity (PPP) over total employment (Labor productivity = GDP/Employment).

The contribution of technological, financial and other modernization is reflected in rising labor productivity from 2011 to 2019. However, the dictatorial lockdowns worldwide in 2020-2021 has neutralized the increase in productivity in many countries — their output per worker in 2022 was either flat or lower than 2019’s level. This includes the G7 countries especially France, and ASEAN countries like Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines (see Table 1).

I do not believe that more AI will lead to massive job displacement, with millions of unemployed. When pagers replaced telegrams, when e-mails replaced snail mail, when drones replaced many photographers, it did not lead to massive job displacement. This is because new businesses and jobs sprouted — like cell phone trading, upgrades, and repairs, and now drones trading, upgrades, and repairs.

When people have higher incomes due to the adoption of AI, they will not burn or throw away their savings. They will spend — on more vacations and travel, on more exotic or fanciful food and parties, etc. And this creates new jobs elsewhere.

In the afternoon session, the presenter from Unilever SouthEast Asia, Kristine Go, talked about modernization in nutritional products — fine. But she started with a rather alarmist view — that “Our food system is the biggest contributor to environmental damage.” She cited figures like 30% of greenhouse emissions coming from the food system, that 50% of our soil has been lost in the last 150 years, that 75% of the world’s food supply comes only from 12 plants and five animals.

With all due respect to Ms. Go, I think her assessments are rather alarmist and dangerous and can justify the “war on farming” that is slowly being done by the government of the Netherlands and other countries in Europe. Farmers are being forced to drastically reduce their carbon and nitrogen emissions with the threat of farm takeovers by governments.

I checked the data on selected agricultural production — there is little or no indication of reduced farm output and productivity as a result of continuing soil erosion, monoculture of plantations and farms, or use of fossil fuel-based inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides. I use Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data from developing Asia — countries that are likely to ditch strict environmental regulations as they produce more food for their big populations.

From 2000 to 2020, as more big tractors plow rice fields, corn fields, sugarcane fields yearly — and even thrice a year during the rice-corn planting cycle in a year — soil erosion is greater and yet agricultural output is rising, an increase of up to double or nearly triple in corn output in just two decades. See China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, etc. in Table 2.

This is not to justify tractor-induced soil erosion, but nature and gravity can partly replace the eroded topsoil with new soil from the uplands, especially organic matter from the forest floor, carried downstream by rainwater and flooding.

The biggest threat now to higher food production and forest protection actually comes from renewables like big solar farms and wind farms. Hundreds of hectares — and soon thousands of hectares — planted to rice, corn, sugarcane, coconut, fruits, etc. are being converted to solar and wind energy production. Since solar hates the shade from clouds, rain, and trees, all tall and mature trees must be removed and cleared. Many mountain tops and ridges are being flattened, thousands of trees killed and cleared, so that 18- or 24-wheeler trucks carrying long wind blades, long steel bars, huge turbines, and heavy cement can be transported high up in the mountains.

The digital future should be an ally of humanity, of more food production, forest protection, new jobs creation, higher labor productivity, higher life convenience and modernization. So far this is happening, with occasional blips from the mixing up of environmental and climate alarmism that are not conducive to humanity advancement, modernization, and faster economic growth.

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Research Consultancy Services, and Minimal Government Thinkers.
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See also:
BWorld 605, Climate cycle, climate loans, and the PPP Act, May 26, 2023
BWorld 606, The Laffer Curve of Philippine tobacco taxation, June 18, 2023
BWorld 607, Philippines ratings upgrade, energy policies to sustain growth, June 19, 2023.

Law of diminishing marginal utility, diminishing marginal revenue

In one workshop on taxation and smuggling, I briefly explained the concept or theory of the "law of diminishing marginal utility" or declining satisfaction, happiness, as more of a good, a commodity or service is consumed or used. Then its variant, the "law of diminishing marginal revenue" or declining revenue as more inputs are added.

From Investopedia,

The law of diminishing marginal utility states that all else equal, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines. Marginal utility is the incremental increase in utility that results from the consumption of one additional unit. "Utility" is an economic term used to represent satisfaction or happiness.

In simple terms, the law of diminishing marginal utility means that the more of an item that you use or consume, the less satisfaction you get from each additional unit consumed or used.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp 

And here is a basic illustration.

https://www.sarthaks.com/905283/elucidate-the-law-of-diminishing-marginal-utility-with-a-diagram

My own example of diminishing marginal utility is drinking beer. Say a person has an average optimal intake level of 6 bottles. So drinking the first 5 bottles leads to rising fun, the 6th bottle seem to peak for the person's fun. The 7th bottle, the person starts to walk wobbly, the 8th bottle the person cannot walk straight, starts to fall down, the 9th bottle starts to puke or vomit, the 10th bottle can no longer drive back home, might meet an accident. Declining utility or fun as more bottles are added, can lead to negative utility.

One important variant is the law of diminishing marginal revenue. In taxation, as the tax rate goes up, government revenues tend to decline after sometime. It is represented by a "Laffer Curve" which essentially shows the behavior of diminishing or declining marginal utility.

https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/05/22/524267/the-laffer-curve-of-philippine-tobacco-taxation/

In Filipino, "tama lang, hindi sobra, hindi kulang". Pag sobra, usually suwapang na, like overhyped tax rate like in so-called "sin products."
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See also:
Bank failures in the US, Europe partly due to DIE and ESG, April 04, 2023
On de-dollarization trend among countries, April 24, 2023

First Republic Bank and ESG, DIE, RE, May 06, 2023
The origin and control of money, May 26, 2023.

BWorld 607, Philippines ratings upgrade, energy policies to sustain growth

* BusinessWorld, Philippines ratings upgrade, energy policies to sustain growth
May 24, 2023 | 4:18 pm

My Cup Of Liberty
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.

Last Monday, there was good news — the Fitch upgrade of its outlook on the Philippines from “negative” to “stable.” The Philippines’ rating remains at “BBB” which is considered “investment grade” and above the “speculative grade” of “BB” to “D.” A rating of BBB means the risk of loan default is low and is a vote of confidence that the country’s ability to pay its financial obligations is high.

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno commented: “The improved outlook for the Philippines to ‘stable’ is a testament to the country’s robust macroeconomic fundamentals, as evidenced by the economy’s strong growth performance in 2022 at 7.6% and 6.4% in the first quarter of 2023.”

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said: “Fitch’s improved outlook is a welcome development leading to the attainment of our fiscal consolidation goals and the achievement of more fiscal space for the government’s priority agenda and projects.”

So far, so good.

Table 1 shows the comparative ratings of selected Asian economies from the top ratings agencies in the world. The Philippines is at par with Indonesia in Fitch ratings but higher than it in S&P ratings. It is also higher than India and Vietnam.

Congratulations, Philippine entrepreneurs, investors, consumers, and the government economic team.

ENERGY ISSUES

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has recently been on the hot seat in the eyes of the public, government regulators, and legislature. See these recent reports in BusinessWorld: “NGCP warns RE intermittency could pose grid integration issues” (May 14), “Gov’t may retake control of NGCP” (May 14), “NGCP confident of hurdling proposed audit of operations” (May 18), “DoE expects NGCP audit to start this year” (May 21), “Senate probe sought on delays in NGCP projects” (May 21).

The trigger was the series of yellow and red alerts and rotating blackouts in the Luzon-Visayas grids, the latest being on May 8. The NGCP’s PR guys tried to spin the event as due to failing power plants when the reality was its transmission line in Zambales tripped, affected a big power plant there which took many hours to restore. Its spin was caught by the public and the legislature, especially the Senate.

In other developments, see also these recent reports about solar and wind energy in BusinessWorld: “Six floating solar contracts issued for construction on Laguna de Bay” (May 10), “Higher auction floor price sought for floating solar” (May 11), “ETM seen helping PHL accelerate transition to clean energy” (May 16), “DoE issues rules to expedite offshore wind energy projects” (May 19).

Since solar hates shade — from clouds, rain, trees — it is an intermittent and problematic energy source. Solar developers cut and murder all trees nearby because of the trees’ shade that can reduce solar output. Or large agricultural land is converted, so we see many rice fields, sugar fields, cornfields, etc. that have been converted to solar farms. Solar is the most anti-trees, anti-green energy technology.

I checked data on solar capacity and generation by country and computed the implied capacity factor or percentage of installed capacity that actually generates electricity. After many decades of subsidies and favoritism given to solar (and wind), the capacity factor remains low. In 2021, there was a maximum of 22% (Spain) and as low as 9% (Netherlands), with an average of 14% worldwide. Meaning that on average, solar produces 28% at daytime, zero at night, for an average of 14% worldwide. The Philippines has only 12.5% or below the world average (See Table 2). This could be due to the frequent cloudy, rainy days in the country that year.

We have to sustain growth. We have to further improve our investment environment and attractiveness. We have to create more jobs and businesses, reduce people’s dependence on government for welfare and subsidies. In the process, we have to reduce the need for more borrowing and taxes.

Our energy policies should not compete with more agriculture production, more forest protection. There are moves now to develop solar farms in lakes and dams. This should be fine but the impact on the marine environment as sunlight is prevented from reaching below the water’s surface does not seem to have been studied well.

Wind capacity factors and related issues will be discussed in future columns.
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See also:
BWorld 604, The Philippines had fastest GDP growth in the world in Q1, May 25, 2023 
BWorld 605, Climate cycle, climate loans, and the PPP Act, May 26, 2023
BWorld 606, The Laffer Curve of Philippine tobacco taxation, June 18, 2023.

Tax Cut 37, Marginal tax rate

Some basic taxation concepts I read today from Tax Foundation:

(1) Average Tax Rates -- the total tax paid divided by taxable income (the amount of income subject to tax after deductions and exemptions), measures the overall share of income paid in taxes, or the individual, household, or business’ tax burden.

Example: A single taxpayer with $45,000 in gross income pays approximately $3,700 in income taxes. This results in an average tax rate of 8.2 percent.

3,700 ÷ 45,000 = .082, or 8.2% ATR

(2) Marginal Tax Rates -- the amount of additional tax paid for every additional dollar earned as income.

For example, a 10 percent marginal tax rate means that 10 cents of every next dollar earned would be taken as tax. A rich person facing an effective marginal tax rate of 55 percent does not owe 55 percent of all income in tax, government would take 55 cents of the next dollar earned.

https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu-case-study-average-marginal-tax-rates/

These numbers I got from "The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics" (2008), subject on "Marginal tax rates" by Alan Reynolds. Philippines taxes also started in socialistic rate of 70% in the 1970s to 35% in the late 80s and 90s, down to 32% around 1997.

The following numbers also from Tax Foundation. Scandinavian economies Sweden and Finland have 70%+ tax rates. Still socialistic. Switzerland has a cool rate of 46%.

Figure 1 Top Effective Marginal Tax Rates in 2019 and Their Composition

https://taxfoundation.org/taxing-high-income-2019/

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See also:
Tax Cut 34, Bidenomics and reversal of Trump tax cut, April 10, 2021
Tax Cut 35, Why oil taxes should be small or zero, November 18, 2021 
Tax Cut 36, WTA's Asian Taxpayers regional forum 2022, October 06, 2022.

BWorld 606, The Laffer Curve of Philippine tobacco taxation

The Laffer Curve of Philippine tobacco taxation
May 22, 2023 | 7:08 pm

My Cup Of Liberty
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. 
https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/05/22/524267/the-laffer-curve-of-philippine-tobacco-taxation/

One important concept in Public Finance Economics is the Laffer Curve. It shows a bell-shape relationship between tax rates and revenues: as tax rates increase, revenues also increase initially then plateau at some point and start to decline after. The concept was developed by US economist Arthur Laffer.

Consider income tax. At 20% to 30% tax, people would tolerate it. But as income tax rises to 40% and higher as their income rises, some people would reduce work to an income level where the tax rate is only 30% or lower and instead enjoy more rest. Other people would misdeclare their real income, like getting a second or third job and not declaring it because their tax rate would then jump to 50% or higher. This undeclared, unreported income is considered among “underground economy” activities and tax collection on this is zero. And the government’s overall revenues start to decline.

This column has discussed the Philippines’ excise tax revenues from “sin” or “public bad” products — alcohol, mining, petroleum, sugar-sweetened beverages, tobacco — before (“Taxpayers’ burden from uniformed pensions,” May 1). Tobacco tax revenues were the highest in the following years: P126 billion in 2017, P136 billion in 2018, P148 billion in 2019, P150 billion in 2020, P176 billion in 2021, and P160 billion in 2022. Tobacco tax revenues experienced a decline for the first time in 2022, coinciding with the big tax rate imposed — P55/pack — and as more people shifted to smuggled or illicit tobacco products which are very cheap.

This column has also previously discussed estimates of tax losses from cigarette smuggling alone: Congressman Joey Salceda, the Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, put it at P30 billion/year; former party-list congressman Jericho Nograles, said it was P31 billion/year; Jesus Aranza, Chairman of the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), said it was P25 billion/year; and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Romeo Lumagui, Jr., put it at a whopping P100 billion/year. See Table 2 in the column “Addressing high inflation and tax leakage” of March 13.

I constructed this illustration of a Laffer Curve using data on actual tobacco tax collections from 2017-2022, then projected collections for 2022-2024, and the tax rates per pack. So a tax rate of P30/pack in 2017 yielded P126 billion in revenues; P50/pack in 2021 yielded P176 billion revenues; P55/pack in 2022 yielded P160 billion, versus the projection of P210 billion in the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) 2023.

This represents P50 billion (P210 billion minus P160 billion) in unrealized revenues, which is midway and consistent with the various estimates of P30 billion to P100 billion in yearly tax losses from tobacco smuggling and illicit trade.

If this trend continues, the potential revenue gap in 2023 could be as high as P90 billion, and even larger in 2024 (see Figure 1).

So, from a Laffer Curve analysis, the optimal tax rate — where tax revenue is largest — is P50/pack. The P55/pack imposed last year yielded a decline in revenues. Government is worse off while smugglers, criminals, and their protectors in government are better off.

Assume tax losses of P50 billion from smuggling in 2023 and beyond. If this can be cut to just half via better law enforcement by national and local governments, the P25 billion in additional revenues can do any of these, and more:

1. If used to subsidize electricity prices, this will lead electricity that is cheaper by P0.23/kwh (P25 billion/110 billion kwh), for all on-grid consumers nationwide.

2. If used to retire some public debt, this will lead to savings of P26.5 billion/year (P25 billion principal plus P1.5 billion in interest at the current 6% a year Treasury-bills and Treasury-bond rates).

3. Such savings can fund a Targeted Cash Transfer (TCT) program covering 7.60 million households. For 2022, the Department of Budget and Management released P27.1 billion for the TCT program — P19.43 billion last year and a follow up of P7.68 billion last week.

Last week, on May 18, The Economist Impact organized a big conference, “Global Anti-Illicit Trade Summit, South-East Asia,” at the Shangri-La The Fort at BGC in Taguig City. The keynote speech was given by BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui, Jr. Among the things he said was, “the damage that illicit trade can wreak on an economy… most immediate impact is the loss of tax revenues that are urgently needed to fund development efforts.” He also pointed out the “unfair competition between the players in these illegal activities and legitimate business enterprise… money generated from illicit trade is used to fund organized crime, resulting in heightened security risks both locally and internationally.”

Then he discussed four measures that the government can take to control smuggling and illicit trade, especially of tobacco products. These are: a.) improved border controls, b.) enhancement of intelligence networks and interagency coordination between the country’s key law enforcement agencies, c.) have a comprehensive legal framework on trade of products in “brick-and-mortar” stores and e-commerce platforms, and, d.) strict enforcement of applicable laws and regulations against illicit trade and new anti-illicit trade legislation.

I think these measures are practical and workable. In addition, the Commissioner and Congress may also consider two other policies that I propose.

One, freeze the tobacco excise tax to between P50 to P55/pack. Reduce the price gap between legitimate tobacco — the cheapest pack now costs P120 (P60 of which is excise tax alone) vs the prevailing smuggled tobacco price of only P40/pack. A lower price differential between the legal and illegal products can lead to reduced consumption of the latter.

Two, partially peg the annual budget of law enforcement agencies like the Philippine National Police, Philippine Coast Guard, and National Bureau of Investigation on revenue collections from excise tax, especially tobacco products. If excise tax collections (with the oil excise tax removed) flat line or decline, these agencies’ budgets will be affected for the worse. This way, there is an incentive among the agencies to strictly enforce laws against illicit trade and products.

FEWER BIRTHS

Also last week, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released an update on monthly vital statistics for 2023. To save space, I computed the monthly data to January-November averages, as the December 2023 data is still incomplete.

There has been an alarming, consistent decline in the number of births in the Philippines starting during the 2020 lockdown, then the mass vaccinations starting 2021. There were nearly 30,000 fewer births a month in 2022 than in 2019. This is not good (see Figure 2).

The lockdowns of 2020-2021 plus the mass vaccinations of 2021-2022 — or political tyranny plus medical tyranny — coincided with, if not triggered, the reduction of births in the Philippines.

The proposed Senate Bill 1869 creating a new bureaucracy —the Center for Disease Control (CDC) — is a dangerous bill. Among the coercion explicitly provided for in the bill is “Promote treatment, vaccination, or immunization against a contagious disease, compelling the isolation or quarantine of persons who are unable or unwilling, for reasons of health, religion, or conscience, to undergo immunization or treatment” (Section 13, #5).

Mandatory vaccination or mandatory isolation is equivalent to mandatory discrimination. The vax-vax-vax narrative and business has contempt for the natural immunity developed by people and only believes in “vax immunity.” It only believes in virus mutation but not human mutation in response to new viruses and bacteria. It is a dishonest narrative and now senators want to institutionalize the dishonesty via legislation. SB 1869 is political and medical tyranny. It should not be passed.
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See also:
BWorld 603, The NGCP wall: Transmission problem blamed as generation problem, May 14, 2023
BWorld 604, The Philippines had fastest GDP growth in the world in Q1, May 25, 2023 
BWorld 605, Climate cycle, climate loans, and the PPP Act, May 26, 2023.

Weekend Fun 84, More Father's day jokes

Another fun day on Father's day. Got these from friends, Filipino jokes. Enjoy.

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See also:
Weekend Fun 71, Father's day, Husband's day
Weekend Fun 81, Sic o'clock News - Rewind, January 15, 2022
Weekend Fun 82, Bawal Party, BBM supporters, May 08, 2022
Weekend Fun 83, Academic lessons on Mother's day, May 14, 2023.

BWorld 605, Climate cycle, climate loans, and the PPP Act

* BusinessWorld, May 17, 2023. 
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With endless “climate crisis” or “climate catastrophe” narratives that we hear and read, we have been led to embrace more wasteful, bottomless climate loans and climate bureaucracies.

See how the multilaterals like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB) lobby in stories published in BusinessWorld this month alone: “ODA, loans not enough for climate goals — ADB” (May 4), “PHL to host Asia-Pacific conference on disaster risk reduction” (May 8), “Gov’t seeks $500-million climate risk loan from WB” (May 11), “ETM seen helping PHL accelerate transition to clean energy” (May 16).

The Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) is an economically dangerous and blackout-friendly climate loan scheme concocted by the ADB to fast-track the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, especially wind-solar. Buy out then kill via early retirement of coal plants and invest more in wind-solar. As of the first quarter of 2023, coal contributed 61% of total electricity generation in the Philippines, while wind and solar combined contributed only 4%. See how blackout-prone the Philippines will be if such a dangerous and economically suicidal policy is enforced.

THE CLINTEL REPORT

Last week, on May 9, the Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel), an Amsterdam-based independent think tank founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok, released its new report: “The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC: An analysis of AR6.”

It is a 180-page date-heavy report that tears into the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recently published 6th Assessment Report (AR6). Simply put, the Clintel Report showed in many charts and graphs that the IPCC AR6 is focused on “dangerous anthropogenic climate change,” ignores natural climate change, leans on extreme emissions scenarios, and cherry picks the time periods and the literature to make climate change appear “dangerous.”

Among the important data of the report is this chart showing that weather-related losses as share of global GDP is actually falling, not rising.

The report can be downloaded free at https://clintel.org/download-ipcc-book-report-2023/.

THE PPP ACT

The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act was passed in the House of Representatives last December: House Bill 6527, “An Act Providing for the Enabling Environment to Foster the Growth of Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure and Other Development Projects.”

There are six versions of the PPP bill in the Senate, and on April 18, the Senate Committee on Public Works conducted a public hearing on the subject.

The PPP Act is a quick win for the government and the public because it will expand infrastructure projects around the country at little or no cost to taxpayers because the private sector proponents will shoulder the bulk of financial, technical, and engineering costs.

The President will deliver his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in two months. In his first SONA last July, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. mentioned that the PPP Act aims to address three things: ambiguities in the existing law, bottlenecks and challenges affecting the implementation of the PPP Program, and lack of a competitive and enabling environment for PPPs.

So, the PPP Act, when enacted as a law, will unify the fragmented legal framework and improve governance of PPPs to improve doing business and protect the consumers. Currently, there are different legal frameworks for PPPs, each with their own requirements and processes: the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, the Joint Venture (JV) guidelines of the National Economic and Development Authority (better known as NEDA), local PPP and JV ordinances, and guidelines issued by other agencies with special charters.

The proposed PPP Act will address bottlenecks in the PPP process. The approval thresholds of the current BOT Law have not been amended since 1994, so the PPP Act will increase the approval threshold for national PPP projects, making the approval process streamlined and more efficient. The proposed approval thresholds for national PPP Projects are seen in the table in this story.

The autonomy of local government units (LGUs) in the approval of local PPP projects is recognized and preserved by the PPP Act. Some mechanisms should be ready to ensure coordination in investment programming between the National Government and LGUs. These include cases where: 1.) there are proposed National Government undertakings for approval by NEDA’s Investment Coordination Committee, or, 2.) the local PPP project affects national development or master plans and projects, so an endorsement from the National Government through local development councils shall be required.

The tight fiscal condition of the National Government at a time when public demand for more modern, bigger infrastructure projects keeps rising should help the Senate in fast-tracking the enactment of this bill into a law.
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See also:
BWorld 602, Declining inflation and the budget deficit, May 13, 2023 
BWorld 603, The NGCP wall: Transmission problem blamed as generation problem, May 14, 2023
BWorld 604, The Philippines had fastest GDP growth in the world in Q1, May 25, 2023.

The origin and control of money

Last night, my second girl and 12 yo daughter Bien Mary, who just finished Grade 7, going to Grade 8 this coming school year, asked me, "Dad, what happens if there is no money in the world?" I briefly answered it with "then people will go for barter, like several centuries ago." She followed it up with "And what happens if there is no politics, no government?" Hehe, my second girl has some DNA of me -- non fan of more politics, more government. My first daughter too, Elle Marie, told me she finds her subject in Grade 11 "Politics and Government" confusing and non-interesting.

Anyway, I checked Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (1776), Book 1 Chapter 4 is "Of the origin and use of money." See some origins or pre-money, pre-coins, form of exchange: use of cattle, salt, shells, tobacco, sugar, etc. Then people realize the inconvenience of carrying and exchanging different commodities. So they later use metals as form of exchange.

Then people experienced the inconvenience of metals -- weighing it, assaying it whether it's real gold or silver or other metals, or mixed with lower-value metals. So they began to use coins. The British pound sterling, the Roman copper, etc.

And coins were invented, used as form of exchange.

Then Smith's discussion of two types of value -- use value and exchange value. He used two very good examples. Water has high use value but little exchange value because it is widely available. Diamond has little use value for ordinary people but has very high exchange value for other people.

Bottomline is scarcity of a commodity. Air is very useful, so river or sea water, but since they are abundant and non-scarce in many places, people won't bother with their exchange value.

Control of money. By governments, of course. Modern governments print money, control how much to be released in circulation, when to "mop" it back to the central bank, and so on.

So there. And thanks to my two girls, the younger one especially, she accidentally pushed me to read that part of The Wealth of Nations.