``A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.” - Barry Goldwater, (1909-1998) ex-US Senator
I would like to point out that in spite of the bunch of incorrigible weenies crying for the scalp of the government, the firming Peso and the buoyant Philippine Stock Market is proving these naysayers wrong, thus far.
Yes, we Filipinos are soooOOOooo endemically fragmented to find pleasure in intrigues and controversies such that a foreign writer once labeled us as having a ‘Damaged Culture’. Why so? Not simply because bad news sells, but in the Philippine setting, perpetual gloom and doom is deeply ingrained in our culture because alot of us try to be self styled improvers.
Like political butterflies that jump from one party to the other, there won’t be satisfaction unless power is bequeathed upon them. As Eric Hoffer wrote in his book the True Believer (p.14), ``A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.' This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.” Yes for a start maybe we should comprehensively identify and accept our shortcomings, and work for the collective betterment instead of simply minding someone else’s business.
Take the case of the recent group of improvers or messiahs agitating for an ouster of the incumbent government. These seditious buttheads offer NO CONCRETE viable alternative programs on how to manage the government yet, in the pursuit of power, they would opt to risk the already tenuous financial position that the country is into.
Let me cite an example, because high energy prices have percolated to the consumer goods and services (headline inflation), they clamor for a repeal of the Oil Deregulation Act and to either reinstitute the defunct Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) or worst, Nationalize the oil industry to head off higher consumer prices.
They expect the government to takeover the buying and selling functions of oil at prices fixed or predetermined and not on market terms. If oil prices in the world market falls below the pegged levels oil companies then will have to pay the difference so the government could shore up its buffer, and if oil prices moved higher than the pegged prices then the government would have to draw out from its buffer to pay the oil companies. The idea looks theoretically plausible but is predicated upon a stable/less volatile global oil price environment. For if oil prices continue to race higher and the buffer is depleted then the government’s recourse would be, needless to say, to borrow money to cover the buffer.
In effect, they are asking for more government subsidies in an era of RISING oil prices (Crude Oil is in a bullmarket for already about 5 years~ with more to come!!!). This translates to BOATLOADS of ADDITIONAL DEBTS for a country at the throes of an economic ‘crisis’. They are prescribing short term gains (relief) at the cost of the future. It is a case of the ‘cure is worst than the disease’.
3 year Chart of New York’s Crude Oil WTIC
Even while their representative economist acknowledges that India and Indonesia have been undertaking policy changes to lift energy subsidies, their pronounced leader have steadfastly espoused on this feckless government interventions.
Yet, in the same mold they refuse to bite bullet with increased taxes (VAT) while the members of clergy included in the group are staunchly opposed to the MINING Act. Imagine, crying for an ouster of the government on xenophobic grounds, of course, they have not directly said it (albeit outspoken detractors during the recently ratified Mining Act of 1995 last December) but instead used the public’s angst on higher consumer prices to promote their outmoded leftist ideals. Nonetheless, the typical scapegoat of corruption remains as the byword for the touted radical change.
So what solutions do they offer?
On the revenue side, they refuse the direly needed additional Taxation and yet reject access and development to an industry that may uplift and alleviate the country’s economic status.
On the spending side, they espouse on more government subsidies to pacify the public’s present predicament which is a result of an intricate WORLDWIDE phenomenon and NOT of a domestic one, and cries to expand government presence to cleanse itself.
The probable result, La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme choses. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
In addition, how can they curb the de rigueur culprit the ‘corruption’ malaise when expansive government is one of its major causes? According to economist Christopher Lingle, in his article Graft Goes Hand in Hand With Big Government (also posted at my blogsite)…
``Instead of expanding political power to eradicate corruptive practices, the opposite is needed. An essential problem with corruption is that it most often promotes excessive government power, so reducing political intervention in people's lives is the right direction. A distrust of the private sector and unfettered markets invites regulation by public officials that issue licences and permits. But these monopolistic powers meant to serve citizens create power imbalances that can impose harm on citizens that face incentives to protect themselves through bribery. Instead of moralising to prevent public graft, it is better to undertake legal reform of the institutional infrastructure. A fundamental change in political culture combined with a shift away from granting governments with extensive powers of intrusion can help root out corruption.”
Finally, these self-righteous imbeciles should as well train their guns on the following:
1. US Federal Reserve for expanding credit to an unprecedented scale and its negative real interest rate policy which fueled massive speculative positions globally,
2. The excess printing of paper monies by the collective governments stoking an inflationary environment,
3. The OPEC members for nationalizing their respective oil industries thereby misallocating capital investments that led to the present underinvestments,
4. The Chinese government for adapting a market-based economy (from less than 100,000 cars in 1994 to over 2 million cars 2004),
5. The US dollar-remimbi peg that accelerated an infrastructure and real estate boom thereby increasing demand for oil,
6. The war on terror that has disrupted oil supplies,
7. The Bush administration for the continually loading up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and
8. The lawyers and environmentalists for increased regulations on explorations and oil refinery requirements.
Does a change in the administration alter any of these landscapes? I guess not.
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