Category: Economy

Labor Day serves as a reminder that Filipinos are workers and not much else

May 1, 2021 benign0 8 Comments

It’s Labour Day again and that time of the year when the familiar background din of poverty porn and rhetoric around the “victimisation” of workers is put front-and-centre and amplified to circus-grade. At the centre of all this noise is the idea that need determines pay and wealth obligates “giving”. Never mind, of course that…

Economy

Philippines, the sick man of Asia “again”? No. It ALWAYS HAS been sick!

March 18, 2021 benign0 26 Comments

Certain “thought leaders” are issuing shrill commentary on the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns aimed to mitigate its effects. The fact is, most if not all countries are suffering from economic crises in varying degrees thanks to the brittle world order of intricately interdependent and interlinked economies created by “globalisation”….

Culture, Development, Economy

The crisis we knew had to come

January 4, 2021 benign0 3 Comments

People march back into their respective workplaces ready to face the New Year once again like they always have. Whether this New Year will be a better one is a favourite subject of debate specially now that everything’s changed. While it may seem that humanity is in the cusp of a “solution” to the crisis…

Economy, Environment

Why the rich get access to the COVID-19 vaccine FIRST before the poor

December 15, 2020 benign0 17 Comments

First let’s do the math and take stock of the science. It takes big bucks, and lots of intellectual capital to develop a vaccine — more so to do it at the speed with which companies like Pfizer and Moderna did. Furthermore, the technology and expertise that went into these development efforts weren’t built up…

Economy, Society

“That could have been spent helping the poor” and other liberal ululations

September 5, 2020September 5, 2020 benign0 5 Comments

When critics of any sitting Philippine government see money being spent on public works, the first thought always goes to “that money could have been spent helping the poor”. That’s just plain palamunin (mooch) mentality. This comes from a nefarious thinking habit of those liberal types who dominate much of the Philippine Opposition today —…

Business, Economy

The Philippines is reverting back to an agrarian economy thanks to COVID-19

August 11, 2020 benign0 6 Comments

Nothing necessarily bad about agrarian societies though these get their bad rep from their association with the Third World and “underdevelopment”. Some “economists” would measure “modernisation” in terms of the proportion of the workforce employed in agriculture. As the thinking goes, a progressive shift in the workforce from farming to manufacturing and services and, therefore,…

Business, Development, Economy

COVID-19 economic collapse is the crisis the Philippines had to have!

August 7, 2020 benign0 7 Comments

Filipinos can no longer rely on their traditional gravy trains — OFWism, work outsourced from the First World, foreign investment, and foreign aid — to prop up their labour-added-value economy. Foreign workers are coming “home” by the droves, the First World is rapidly repatriating its offshore work, and governments all over the world are diverting…

Business, Economy, Government

Just What Do You mean by Essential?

April 23, 2020 ChinoF 19 Comments

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced humanity to practice isolation as an attempt to avoid infection. Government officials have advised the public to not go out except for essential business. And as a result, as webmaster Benign0 and Ilda have written, the pandemic gives us reason to pause and look at the lifestyles we’re living. Their…

Culture, Economy