Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

Financially Fat I was partly inspired by Odette to write this blog. It was during Odette that I realized (at a whole new level) that complacency is deadly . The picture above on the  Financially Fat Facebook page may seem funny. However, this is also written on the Facebook page: We’ve romanticized resilience for far too long. . In the Philippines, or even in international media, “Filipino resilience” is often praised after every typhoon, flood, or crisis. Smiling through hardship. Laughing amidst loss. It sounds inspiring—until you realize it’s also become an excuse . . An excuse for poor disaster response. An excuse for subpar infrastructure. An excuse to stop holding leaders accountable. . We shouldn’t glorify the ability to endure what no one should be enduring in the first place . . Resilience should not replace responsibility. Hope should not replace action. And smiles should not replace solutions. . It’s time we stop clapping for survival—and start demanding systems that pre...

The Express Tribune The recent Microsoft Global Outage was caused by Crowdstrike. Since I'm no IT or CS expert--it's better if I let them talk in the news. From BBC News , here's a detail from Crowdstrike that reveals the root cause of the problem has been systemic with an update: This is still a little unclear. CrowdStrike is known for producing antivirus software, intended to prevent hackers from causing this very type of disruption. According to CrowdStrike boss George Kurtz, the issues are only impacting Windows PCs and no other operating systems, and were caused by a defect in a recent update . "The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," he said. "This is not a security incident or cyber-attack." What exactly was wrong with the update is yet to be revealed, but as a potential fix involves deleting a single file, it is possible that just one rogue file could be at the root of all the mayhem. Thankfully, those who created th...

  With EDSA 37 on the way, I'm afraid some people still use EDSA 1986 to oppose constitutional reform. Never mind the very facts that the late Benigno Simeon A. Aquino Jr. aka Ninoy Aquino, had blasted out that the first Marcos Administration wasn't even a parliament. The late Salvador Laurel challenged the legitimacy of the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.'s position as either president or prime minister in Japan --a real parliamentary country. Some people may be using Rappler to fight any attempt to even improve the Philippine constitution. Never mind that the Philippine constitution is the very system that dictates how people from top to bottom, will behave. For example, if the constitution says you can't marry without parents' consent or can't marry at all if you're below a certain age, that prohibition restricts the person from marrying. This interview from Rappler ran by Ayee Macaraig has an interview with a person who Filipinos should listen to instead o...

Back then, I wrote an article where I discussed the stupidity of the "If it's bitter, just add sugar." mindset . In Cebuano, it's, "Kung pait, butangi lang ug asukal". The mentality itself has kept many people poor. It would go with how people just want to have a good time. It can be observed in how people deal with their salary hence explaining their financial situation (read here ). With Christmas just around the corner (read here ), it's very easy to land into the dreaded Holiday Debt Trap (read here ). What's next? Would those members of the labor union blame the government and entrepreneurs for the bad decisions they made themselves?  What's with the typical Filipino mindset about money (and sugar)?  Please note that I'm not attacking every single Filipino  there are Filipinos who are mindful of their money. Instead, I'm tackling the predominant mindset brought about by the "Kung pait, butangi lang ug asukal" mindset. It se...