Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

It's really hot right now, isn't it? El Niño is approaching, yet haven't Filipinos learned anything? Back in 2024, I actually wrote an essay asking if one would rather die from heatstroke or thirst, in the name of Pinoy Pride economics . I could be getting more aggressive than usual right now. It was El Niño when I wrote the post I previously linked. Now, it's time to think about the call to subsidize electricity for the lower class. As good as it might sound on paper , however, the big problem is that the middle class and above aren't an endless wallet.  Why increasing tax rates to subsidize electricity may be a short-term solution I was even thinking if critics of the TRAIN law aren't complaining about excise taxes but the lower tax rates . Did people like those in the Makabayan Bloc and those who support them complain that by lowering tax rates, there's not enough taxes to support the electrical subsidy? Unfortunately, the Philippines' electrical sect...

Here's a video from Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong enjoying Filipino shaved ice,  aka halo halo. This is a short video where Wong says, "Halo halo!" during the ASEAN. For some reason, he also sets the video to the song "Salamin, Salamin" by the Filipino girl band BINI. Salamin means mirror. The short video also has him greeting Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Vietnamese official Lê Minh Hưng, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. I can only imagine Flor Contemplacion Crybabies  may be overreacting on social media when this came out. Migrante International is still stuck with its narrative that FDI is bad . It's presumably born from the Flor Contemplacion crybaby narrative. They can cry all they want, but the facts remain as facts. Flor was guilty. The movie, The Flor Contemplacion Story,  remains a problematic film .  Ironically, some Filipinos may actually be...

Bongbong Marcos' Facebook Page The ASEAN Philippines 2026 was taking place in Cebu City. It's the 48th Asian summit. Last time, I wrote an article in 2023 where I talked about the great ASEAN opportunity . That post was a critique last 2023. I was writing how the Philippines has potential but it's held back by Pinoy Pride Economics . What has Pinoy Pride Economics done anyway? As I read the late Lee Kuan Yew's book From Third World to First , there was a stinging rebuke not just about the Marcoses but also about the sad state of OFWs: Mrs. Aquino's successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she backed, was more practical and established greater stability . In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech at the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said,  "I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy."  In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that  a British parliame...

World Riots As it was Karl Marx's birthday a few days ago (May 5), I personally find it crazy that I missed this "golden opportunity". I remember back when I was in high school, a maid of ours bragged, "If all the poor will unite, all the rich will be defeated." Years later, I remember some crazy brat (probably just past 18 and not in his late 20s) said, "We will do it better when we seize the wealth." This makes me laugh hard because the idea of the poor uniting against the rich, to create utopia, can be easily debunked with common sense . You don't need to go to Ateneo De Manila or the University of the Philippines to understand what I'm going to share. The poor aren't exactly homogeneous or all alike I haven't tried being poor. However, having talked with poor people who got better, it's easy to think that you can't have a homogeneous group of the poor. If you look at people under poverty, you have these situations to prove t...

Manila Bulletin Today is Labor Day, and it's a non-working holiday . Since it's May 1, it's easy for me to think of the Kilusang Mayo Uno movement. The same slogan still shows up almost every rally, "Raise the national wage to PHP 1,200.00 per day." It "doesn't help" that I do get the  Tu Quoque argument or "You too!" fallacy. It may look like "I haven't done much" compared to KMU , but I would like to address truths that would never change. It's all about that one fact, " Economics doesn't care about how many times you insult it. It never bends just to silence the insults. " However, it looks like KMU thinks that if they insult economics enough, economics will bend to their whims. However, history has proven them wrong and will still prove them wrong . This time, I'm going to raise an extreme example . KMU is in the situation of, "You may want it when you don't get it. You may no longer want it ...

I was following the Facebook page,  Behind Asia . Right now, I have to get into the argument s . It's not going to be easy to deal with a Facebook page that has at least 217K followers. I'm going to say that my purpose isn't to win the debate, but to spread the facts. I might just be a nobody, but that doesn't mean I should shut up and do nothing. I have my limited freedom of speech, which I can and should use. I'm going to go into Behind Asia's and try to refute some of its ridiculous ideals. I wouldn't take too much time refuting them all, but those I feel like need to be refuted, as soon as possible . Claim: 60-40 isn't an issue, and economic charter change is the "easy solution" This is one of Behind Asia's recent posts . I would like to share the claim before shooting it with common sense. The political elite is pushing aggressively for Economic Charter Change (Cha-Cha). The central argument is that the 1987 Constitution’s restrictive ...