A belated recognition of risk by the establishment?
Yet from my December 2014 warning:
Yet if oil prices remain at below the cost to maintain the GCC’s and oil producing welfare states which may end up with the cutting of social services, how far before Arab Springs or popular revolts emerge?And yet how will the blowing up of the Middle East bubble extrapolate to Philippine OFW remittances? More than half or about 56% of OFWs according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) have been deployed to this region. Will OFWs (and their employers) be immune from an economic or financial crisis? This isn’t 2008 where the epicenter of the crisis was in the US, hence remittances had been spared from retrenchment. For this crisis, there will be multiple hotbeds. The ongoing crashes in oil-commodity spectrum have already been showing the way.
From my October 2015 note:
Saudi Arabia is state of economic funk. As evidence, she has declared a cut on political spending in response to ‘record’ budget deficit, have been drawing from her foreign currency reserves to bridge this record deficit (forex reserves has plunged 11% from August 2014 highs), Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund has been selling equities (mostly European equities) also designed to shore up her government’s finances, and lastly, statistical GDP has been falling and has been expected to fall further.Saudi’s plight has not entirely been about oil, but also about her huge welfare state. She has been an active geopolitical player in the Middle East where Saudi forces have been militarily involved in the Yemen civil war against Iran supported Shia Houthi insurgents.And it has been more than Yemen. The Saudi Arabia government has long helped in the plotting of the overthrow of the Syria’s Assad regime which she has been forthright.Syria’s civil war, which is an extension of the proxy war between the US and Russia (aside from Ukraine), has become an enormous humanitarian disaster.And Saudi’s anti Assad stance brings her directly against the alliance of supporters of the Syrian regime: Russia, Iran, Iraq and China which raises the risks of escalation of war in the region...
In short, if my suspicions are correct, given the economic and political deterioration in the region, hiring trends in the Middle East may have been on a downswing.
This may not even be a recognition of risk.
Why?
Because such headline seems intended to impress upon or mentally condition the public to lay blame the surfacing internal or domestic problems to external forces.
Yet once this becomes a reality, such dynamic will not prevent the expose of economic and financial imbalances brought about by sins of omission and commission of the government via the BSP's bubble blowing policies.
Moreover, the emergence of such crisis will only be used to impose more interventions to expand the power of the state. As a famous statist dictum goes: Never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things you could not do before.
Finally, in the season of political circus, what more than to use "modern day heroes" or the OFWs as a source for political grandstanding or to generate votes! As if the government can do anything to substitute prospective job losses with their "planning" and "programs"
Yet why worry? Based on government statisticians, economic contributions from OFWs have become inconsequential!
Said differently, in 2015, all of a sudden, the role OFWs remittances have become trifle to the touted consumer spending meme! Or OFWs have been stripped of their role as " heroes".
Yet as for the consumer spending populist dogma, visit the most popular malls (as I had during the past days) and see how much store turnovers and vacancies have grown! Yet the OFW crisis has yet to arrive.
Why?
Because such headline seems intended to impress upon or mentally condition the public to lay blame the surfacing internal or domestic problems to external forces.
Yet once this becomes a reality, such dynamic will not prevent the expose of economic and financial imbalances brought about by sins of omission and commission of the government via the BSP's bubble blowing policies.
Moreover, the emergence of such crisis will only be used to impose more interventions to expand the power of the state. As a famous statist dictum goes: Never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things you could not do before.
Finally, in the season of political circus, what more than to use "modern day heroes" or the OFWs as a source for political grandstanding or to generate votes! As if the government can do anything to substitute prospective job losses with their "planning" and "programs"
Yet why worry? Based on government statisticians, economic contributions from OFWs have become inconsequential!
Said differently, in 2015, all of a sudden, the role OFWs remittances have become trifle to the touted consumer spending meme! Or OFWs have been stripped of their role as " heroes".
Yet as for the consumer spending populist dogma, visit the most popular malls (as I had during the past days) and see how much store turnovers and vacancies have grown! Yet the OFW crisis has yet to arrive.
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