Category: Economy

Filipinos’ addiction to OFW remittances is incompatible with economic development

June 10, 2019 benign0 5 Comments

Look more closely at the facts surrounding the much-vaunted stellar growth of the Philippine over the last several years and one will find the same old disturbingly-familiar drivers of that growth. Or, rather, it is the absence of the right drivers that is more disturbing. Growth is still chugging along the traditional way — through…

Development, Economy, Money Talks

The Philippines needs to gear up to exploit the US-China “trade war”!

June 7, 2019 benign0 6 Comments

A trade war between the United States and China presents a wealth of opportunity to the Philippines — if, of course, Filipinos are up to the challenge of seizing them. Up for grabs is a bonanza for suppliers of goods and services that the US is set to cut China out of if this “war”…

Development, Economy

Why are Chinese workers WORTH MORE than Filipino workers in the job market?

March 3, 2019 benign0 12 Comments

For all the noise about the growing number of Chinese workers flooding the Philippines, very few “activists” have raised this most important question of all. Why do Chinese workers attract bigger wages than Filipino workers? Furthermore, it seems employers of Chinese workers in the Philippines are willing to take significant effort and incur the cost…

Development, Economy, Money Talks

The late Henry Sy is NOT the bad guy in the story of Philippine poverty. FILIPINOS are.

January 20, 2019January 20, 2019 benign0 26 Comments

Last we recall, the Philippines is propped up by overseas foreign workers (OFWs) to the tune of 10% of its economy and Filipino households down to the lower middle classes (a household demographic range where many commie “activists” were raised) are sustained by armies of servants paid slave wages. So when we see chi-chi “activists”…

Culture, Development, Economy

China knows how things “work” in the Philippines

November 21, 2018November 18, 2019 benign0 37 Comments

Indeed, the Chinese know how thing “work” in the Philippines. They have, after all, been prominent figures in Philippine industry since the Middle Ages. They know enough to fly above the radars of the natives and deal directly with the powers-that-be. That strategy of knowing and dealing with the right people continues to this day….

Culture, Economy, Money Talks

Will IKEA be good for the Philippine economy?

November 20, 2018 benign0 12 Comments

Filipinos are excited about news that Swedish furniture retail giant IKEA will soon be opening in the Philippines. The question is, where will IKEA be sourcing its merchandise? “Activists” have been denouncing how China is supposedly slowly taking over the Philippine economy, yet many of these snowflakes seem to fail to realise how IKEA reportedly…

Economy, Lifestyle, Money Talks

Filipino Twitter Titas shriek “The sky is falling!!” on prospect of Chinese telcos entering Philippine market

November 8, 2018 benign0 26 Comments

Self-described feminist and “accidental writer” Beth Angsioco in a tweet recently posed this question to the Titas of the Philippine Twitterverse… Will you subscribe to a Chinese telco? Throwing this question to Twitterverse. True to form of Philippine Titadom, the responses were shrill. There is hope though. One of them, after deciding “Absolutely not!”, at…

Economy, Tech Talk

Filipinos need to get better at killing in order to prosper

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 benign0 36 Comments

The seeming aversion of Filipinos to large-scale infrastructure projects — the sorts needed to achieve the vast economies of scale needed to compete in the global market likely stems from the Filipinos’ heritage of smallness. This prescient snippet quoted from Nick Joaquin’s seminal piece describes the underlying character of Philippine culture that is at the…

Culture, Development, Economy