MANILA’S HUNGER PANGS

Erle Frayne Argonza

In a previous article about obesity, I already touched on the hunger issue. It is particularly interesting to study nutrition issues in Manila today, nutrition patterns render the Philippines among the ‘transitional populations’ that characterize emerging markets.

Needless to say, in a transitional population as defined in demographic theory, both problems of hunger and overweight co-exist, with obesity rising at faster paces than hunger. Depending on current circumstance, hunger could fluctuate from low to high. The difference between the two problems is that while hunger fluctuates or varies in occurrence, obesity steadily rises.

When I did an intensive study on fair trade & food security in 2005 for a national center entrusted with addressing fair trade & food matters, I did stumble upon the reports of the Social Weather Stations or SWS about hunger. I also got updated about under-nutrition problems reported by experts of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute or FNRI, which indicated very serious nutrition gaps among children and women, and those for fisherfolks too.

What surprises me till now is that food producers themselves, fisherfolks most especially, suffer from under-nutrition problems. Food producers are abundant with food resources, and so expectedly they should show the least signs of under-nutrition. But this isn’t the case, and in a very informative manner, our nutrition experts led by Dr. Cecilio Florencio have used satisfactory factor analysis to unlock the causes and correlates of the problem.

From the late 1990s till 2004, the hunger incidence fluctuated from 8% to 12%, going up and down as data indicated. However, from 2005 through mid-2008, the pattern shifted to the 12% to 16% range, which surely makes the problem alarming.

As early as 2005, I already raised the alarm bell for hunger, recommended policy measures and the launching of a Hunger Fund as executor of the hunger mission. Unfortunately, state officials were not in the mood to listen to such problems then, and it seems that the FNRI’s own alarm bells to the Office of the President and to the Legislative fell on deft ears. Only when economist Dr. Mahar Mangahas and the SWS experts began raising the alarm bells over media did government respond.

To my own dismay, government response has been re-active. Nary can one find a new, fresh solution to the problem. It’s the same old fogey ‘give-the-poor-porridge’ solution, the same solution that one offers to folks during wars and calamities when people have to line up for scarce food preparations. Porridge & food stumps remain, till these days, as the intervention tool of state.

How to solve hunger in the long run, which our very own nutrition experts are adept at but which continue to fall on deft ears among top state officials and our own people who refuse to change lifestyles, isn’t anywhere in the Presidents’ nor Congress’ list of strategic solutions to the problem.

Let our state officials be reminded of the last years of the monarchy in Old France. When asked for a solution to hunger, Marie Antonette replied “offer the poor cake.” Whether the cake or porridge solution leads to food security is no longer an issue in fact. One need not be reminded that the French monarchy then, too immersed in its own vanity as to be so out of touch with reality, was decapitated.

[Writ 28 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]   

MANILA’S EMERGING OBESITY: IGNORE OR ADDRESS IT?

Erle Frayne Argonza

Nutrition-related issues and problems in the Philippines constitute a long list. Among all the related issues and problems, hunger stands out as the most highlighted today. While there is no question about highlighting hunger and addressing it with determination, over-focusing on this single issue tends to mask the other issues involved.

Among the emerging issues and problems in nutrition, I would handily pinpoint obesity as the most focal. Needless to say, it challenges development stakeholders to highlight the issue as well, and address it on the same level as hunger is being addressed today. Addressing it would mean resorting to public policy tools, strategies and programs at a national level, and creating necessary institutional frames to accelerate the problem’s solution.

While doing the study on fair trade & food security for the KAISAMPALAD in 2005 (this NGO is a national center for fair trade & food security), I stumbled upon both problems of hunger and obesity. At that time, the latest data from the Social Weather Stations regarding hunger indicated a 12% incidence, a figure that I found alarming as anything past the 8.5% index is considered significant. So I included the hunger issue among those food insecurity ailments that must be salved pronto, recommended policy measures, and even recommended the formation of a Hunger Fund as the multi-stakeholder executor of the anti-hunger mission.

The same study made me stumble upon the findings of nutritionists of the state’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute, which indicated a 25% obesity at the turn of the millennium. That average had its expressed distribution among age groups, with varying indices per age bracket. What was alarming at that time was the 25% Phliippine obesity rate was already 5% above the global average of 20% (the USA’s was 66%).

While I was aghast at the obesity incidence, admittedly I wasn’t prepared to tackle it then, and so I remained silent about the matter in the final research report, save for citing indices of over-weight across age brackets. Today the obesity incidence had risen well above the previous 25%, and certain popular media estimates indicate well pass the 30% mark already (we still need some more update nutrition research on the subject).

Obesity is markedly higher than hunger in the Philippines, surpassing the latter by over double the incidence. The problem with hunger studies is that the methodology is often subjective, since they employ surveys (e.g. asking the informant if s/he has been eating sufficiently or not. In contrast, obesity measures are objective and very exact, as calibration entails the use of weighing scales administered by licensed nutritionists.

I admit that I still am relatively unprepared to tackle the issue as of this day, that is as a development issue. I can only think now of the typical lifestyle intervention to address it, such as combining physical regimen with diet program and a total lifestyle change. Being athletic and a health buff (I was formerly Silver Medalist in national powerlifting –middleweight division), I often offer myself as a prototype of an optimally balanced physical-nutritional wellness person, even as I can easily lecture on lifestyle change and personal intervention to address obesity.

I would end this piece by tossing the query to my fellow Filipinos in the country and to friends overseas: will Manila continue to ignore obesity altogether?

[Writ 28 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

POST-PINOCHET CHILE MARCHES ON IN S & T FUNDING

Erle Frayne Argonza

Let us continue our reflections about wonderful news that brighten up our day.

Going back to Chile, as it continues to celebrate the air of freedom beyond the Dark Age of the Pinochet regime, we have another news item concerning the boosting of S&T funding in the said emerging market.

Chile is proving itself as a model of development that is worth watching. See what’s going on in this exemplar country through its S&T prioritization as indicated by funds boosting.

Happy reading!

[23 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the SciDev database news.]

 

Chile crea un fondo para becas en ciencia y tecnología

Paula Leighton

25 may 2008 | ES

La presidenta Michelle Bachelet durante su cuenta anual al país

Presidencia de la República de Chile

[SANTIAGO] Aumento en las becas para estudios de posgrado, fondos para equipamiento científico e incentivos para atraer a investigadores extranjeros son algunos de los anuncios que hizo la presidenta de Chile, Michelle Bachelet, en su cuenta pública anual (21 de mayo).

La mandataria destacó que su gobierno creará un fondo con US$6 mil millones para financiar un ambicioso programa de becas de posgrado y de formación en oficios tecnológicos de alta especialización, tanto en Chile como en el extranjero.

Dicho fondo permitirá que las mil becas de formación en universidades extranjeras destinadas para 2008 aumenten a 2.500 en 2009 y a 6.500 en 2012, anunció Bachelet.

Además, el próximo año 150 técnicos que se desempeñen en áreas prioritarias para el país accederán por primera vez a becas de perfeccionamiento en el extranjero, las que en 2010 aumentarán a 2.000.

Bachelet dijo que en 2009 también aumentarán las becas para maestrías y doctorados que se dictan en Chile y se entregarán 35 mil becas para estudios técnicos superiores. 

Otro anuncio fue un programa para atraer en dos años a al menos 100 científicos extranjeros, los que se desempeñarán en universidades regionales “en áreas donde aún no contamos con suficientes expertos nacionales”, señaló.

“Todos estos anuncios que contribuyen a que en Chile haya personas con mayor formación son muy bienvenidos, porque le dan valor agregado al país. Al mismo tiempo, es muy positivo que científicos extranjeros vengan y contribuyan a formar estudiantes y nuevos investigadores”, dijo a SciDev.Net Servet Martínez, presidente de la Academia Chilena de Ciencias.    

Para fortalecer los centros de investigación científica, Bachelet anunció también que  “durante los próximos dos años estableceremos un programa de equipamiento científico al que destinaremos US$30 millones”.

Finalmente, la mandataria se comprometió a entregar en 2009 treinta mil computadores de uso personal a escolares pobres académicamente destacados, implementar laboratorios móviles de computación para niños de educación primaria y apoyar la conectividad digital en 35 comunas del país.

Texto completo del mensaje presidencial de Michelle Bachelet

CLIMATE CHANGE: PLANETARY OR GALACTIC?… ROCKET SCIENTIST BACKTRACKS GLOBAL WARMING

Erle Frayne Argonza

We cannot deny, as shown by evidences, that Earth changes are taking place today. There are no fixed interpretations of the changes though, and the scientific community is the least unified about such interpretations.

Whether the fixed idea of ‘global warming is carbon-based monstrosity’ is fully accepted across the sciences and civic groups remains as a hot issue. It is, for one thing, too contentious, and in my opinion as a social scientist, too reductionist with pugnacious eco-fascist underpinnings.  

Astronomers have recently reported updates about all planets of the solar system undergoing changes in their polar areas. Even the sun does not escape its own equivalent changes that have repercussions on the electromagnetic belt of our very own planet. Unfortunately, global Establishment media and information niches have released the news in separate, isolated packets so that they won’t be noticed by the public, thus sustaining the rather erroneous and suspicious fixed idea of a carbon-based or human intervention-induced Earth changes.

Below is a news item about an Australian rocket scientist who was previously among the most vocal interpellators of a carbon-based global warming problematic. The same scientist has now backtracked on his previous statement, indicating as such the disagreements within the scientific community about the subject.

[27 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the Executive Intelligence Review database news.]

Former Global Warming Rocket Scientist Cools to Reality

July 18, 2008 (EIRNS)—An Australian Greenhouse Office consultant from 1999 to 2005, David Evans, now slams the global warming theory he once supported. In an opinion piece in Rupert Murdoch’s national newspaper, The Australian, Evans stated that: I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

“We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.”

Evans said he initially thought the evidence seemed “pretty good,” but had admitted it was not conclusive. Now he says straight out: “There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. [They are] going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.”

RE-ECHOING ROOSEVELT’S ‘PHYSICAL ECONOMY’ SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

Erle Frayne Argonza

My beloved country remembers the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt very well. It was his presidency that paved the way for preparing the Philippines as an independent state, by first granting the country the status of a commonwealth with its own constitution (1935 Constitution), and by permitting such domestic government to prepare the legislative measures and policy environment for a future independent state (granted independence in 1946).

Roosevelt’s regime also paved the way for the developmental paradigm that would propel the Philippines along the road to industrialization (we now term this as Import-Substitution Industrialization). The paradigm, based on the works of previous thinkers Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich von List, and the exemplar development policies of Abraham Lincoln, puts great stress on the ‘physical economy’ as the foundation for a prosperous and mighty economy in the long run.

Roosevelt further went on to cogitate that colonialism should fold up after the war, and that all former colonies must follow the road to development and prosperity, this being the road to genuine international peace and cooperation. The international doctrine of Roosevelt became the foundation for post-war cooperation, and buttressed the founding of the Bretton Woods agencies whose mandates were propelled precisely by the physical economy framework, the need for undertaking development in the former colonies, and the need to regulate national currencies via fixed exchange rate backed by the gold standard.

The current circumstance is now too remote from the ‘physical economy’ policy regime of the post-war era. Economic liberalization policies led to globalization and the galvanization of the ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance. The ‘virtual economy’ had led to de-industrialization, agricultural decay, decline of S&T, and deteriorating infrastructures in the most affected economies, and had fragmented developing states into ‘failed states’.

The global financial system created by the relentless liberalization of financial, fiscal and monetary policies across borders, had already collapsed and is beyond salvation using the present intervention tools that now seem to be burnt out tools altogether. A global conference must be convened most urgently to carve out a new financial architecture based on a ‘physical economy’ framework, and to decisively criminalize predatory finance.

Below is a press release of relevant notes on the global financial collapse, by the economist Lyndon LaRouche.

[27 July 2008, Quezon City, Metromanila. Thanks to the Executive Intelligence Review database news.]

 

LaRouche: Financial System Is Dead, Cannot Be Saved

July 13, 2008 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).

With the U.S. and British financial press full of wild speculation about how the Bush Administration is going to intervene Monday morning, to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lyndon LaRouche today issued a sharp, preemptive warning: “The financial system is already dead. It cannot be saved.”

LaRouche expanded: “If any of the reports of a planned bailout of the two big mortgage lenders, by the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve are true, I say, ‘Forget it.’ Any such efforts to delay the funeral of the present global financial and monetary system will only make matters worse. A bailout will cause an accelerated hyperinflationary explosion, far worse than the hyperinflation that hit Weimar Germany in the autumn of 1923. Back then,” LaRouche continued, “Germany had a gun pointed to its head. The gun was called the Versailles Treaty, and Germany had no choice. Today, the United States has a choice. I spelled out the choice in numerous recent locations.”

LaRouche cited his recent call for the Federal Reserve to immediately raise interest rates to 4 percent, as a stop-gap measure to prevent a massive flight of institutional capital from the banking system. He demanded that this move be accompanied by clear statements from the Fed that there will be no more Bear Stearns-style bailouts of the speculative bubble. Instead, the Fed will protect the chartered Federal and state banks, through bankruptcy reorganization, on the model of what Franklin Roosevelt did, when he first took office in March 1933, and faced the same kind of collapse of the banking system that we face now. “Only, today’s crisis is orders of magnitude worse,” LaRouche added, “due to the massive leveraging by the banks and other financial institutions.”

LaRouche warned that Bush Administration and Fed officials, like Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, may be on an “ego trip—unwilling to admit that they have failed miserably. But the reality is that they, like the George W. Bush Administration, have failed, with wretched incompetence. For one thing, they failed to reverse the Alan Greenspan monster bubble, which is now blowing.”

LaRouche added that there is no way to even estimate the magnitude of the financial bubble, that has now blown. “The collapse of Fannie and Freddie means the end of the system. And that has already happened, and nothing can be done, within the rules of the current system, to solve that problem. We can keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive, but only through actions reforming the system, in terms echoing the precedents of President Franklin Roosevelt, that in ways appropiate for the actual conditions of today.

“The only alternative is to implement my three-step solution to the crisis,” LaRouche concluded. “If the so-called leadership in Washington is unwilling to do that, then this financial system, and, by extension, these United States, are finished. It may be a tough reality to swallow, but it is the only reality that there is.”

Lyndon LaRouche will be delivering an international webcast on Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. (EDT). The webcast takes place on the first anniversary of LaRouche’s July 25, 2007 Washington, D.C. webcast address, in which he announced that the financial system had already crashed. Days later, the collapse of Countrywide, and other major mortgage lenders, and the blowout of Bear Stearns, illustrated that LaRouche was 100% correct.

ICC: IMPERIAL CRIMINAL COURT?

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning!

The decision of the International Criminal Court, which now seems to be a thin disguise for the Imperial Criminal Court of the European oligarchy, still rings loudly across the globe today. The decision had unlocked grave repercussions on the African continent as a whole, as it further threatens sovereign nation-states and turn them into hovels of failed states, as exemplified by Sudan.

Below is a an article culled from the Executive Intelligence Review that perceives the ICC decision as a handiwork of the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy.

Enjoy your read!

[26 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

`Imperial Criminal Court’
Opens Gates of Hell in Africa

by Lawrence K. Freeman

British imperialists escalated their ongoing destabilization of Africa on July 14, with the decision by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), to file charges of “genocide and crimes against humanity” against Sudanese President Gen. Omar al-Bashir. The British and their collaborators want to eliminate the sovereignty of African nations, so that Africa’s population can be greatly reduced, thus ensuring that Africa does not “use up” its vast resource wealth for its own development, and for trade with Asia, China in particular. There is no mistake of the timing, the intent, and the forces behind this unprecedented action, which is premised on completely false charges. It is intended to blow apart Sudan’s North-South peace settlement, plunging the country even deeper into civil war. The consequences of the ICC’s decision, if not reversed, not only would be devastating to Sudan, and the stability of the Horn of Africa, but because of Sudan’s strategic importance, the entire continent would bleed.

The hand of the British and the hypocrisy of the ICC’s claims are revealed by the fact that one of the major funders and creators of the ICC is British agent, billionaire speculator, and former Nazi collaborator George Soros. Upon hearing of Soros’s role in the formation of the ICC, through his Open Society Initiative and Justice Initiative networks, Lyndon LaRouche said: “If the International Criminal Court is to have any claim on credibility, let them take up the case of a real Nazi collaborator.” If anyone should be put on trial before the ICC, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, it is George Soros (see Documentation, below).

The immediate danger to Sudan and Africa is that if the ICC is successful in de-legitimizing Bashir’s Presidency, then negotiations between the government and opposition groups become impossible. As one African from the Washington diplomatic corps told me following the release of the ICC charges: “We have two options for Sudan. One is to maintain a positive peace process. The other is for chaos and the collapse into a failed state.”

International opposition to the ICC move came swiftly. On July 14, in talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Paris, according to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that the ICC escalation threatens to foil negotiation efforts between the Sudan government and rebels in Darfur. Egypt has promised to do all it can to avert any measure against the Sudanese leader that could further destabilize the country.

The Africa Union (AU) also denounced the ICC move. “We would like ICC to suspend its decision to seek al-Bashir’s arrest for a moment until we sort out the primary problems in Darfur and southern Sudan,” Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe said, speaking on behalf of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who chairs the African Union. “If you arrest al-Bashir,” he continued, “you will create a leadership vacuum in Sudan. The outcome could be equal to that of Iraq. There would be an increase in anarchy, there would be an increase in civil war. Fighting between Chad and Sudan would increase.”

The 22-member Arab League called for a July 19 emergency meeting of its foreign ministers, at the request of the Sudan government, to discuss how to diplomatically foil the ICC provocation. Arab League chief Amr Moussa was to travel to Sudan July 20, to report to President al-Bashir.

According to the Middle East Times on July 15, China, which is one of Sudan’s major investors and buyers of its oil, expressed deep “concern and worry.” The ICC “should be conducive to maintaining the stability of the Sudanese situation, and to the proper resolution of the problems of Darfur, not the contrary,” a Chinese government statement said.

Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, called on the UN to “exercise restraint and find solutions that will help the people of Sudan and resolve the crisis in Darfur.”

The Times added that Sudan’s main opposition parties and critics of the Bashir regime have united with the government in rejecting the ICC decision, and vowed to prevent the President from being prosecuted in the international court, calling this a violation of the country’s sovereignty and independence.

Blowing Up the Peace Process

Andrew Natsios, former U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan (2005-07), responded immediately to the indictment by the ICC with a statement entitled “A Disaster in the Making.” After cautioning human rights groups focussed on Darfur against applauding the ICC’s decision, he warned them “to think again about their enthusiasm.” Natsios went on to say: “The question all of us must ask who care about what happens to the long-suffering Sudanese people is this: what are the peaceful options for a way out of the crisis facing the country and what measures are likely to move the country closer to that way out rather than further away? Without a political settlement Sudan may go the way of Somalia, pre-genocide Rwanda, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” He concludes: “This indictment may well shut off the last remaining hope for a political settlement for the country.”

Over recent months, saner forces in the Untied States, including Natsios, have been working with leaders in Sudan to prevent the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) from failing. The CPA ended 20 years of bloodshed between the North and the South, and led to the formation of a Unity Government composed of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement representing the South, and the National Congress Party for the North. Despite difficult moments, the CPA has prevented the country from returning to North-South war, and it is hoped that it will serve as a model to solve other conflicts in Sudan, including that in Darfur.

After fighting broke out between soldiers from both sides in Abyei (an oil-producing region whose boundaries are in dispute) earlier this year, concerned people recognized that if the CPA were allowed to go down, all of Sudan would go down with it. After the signing of the CPA in January 2005, international attention and money were diverted from the full implementation of the agreement, into the Darfur crisis, which has only become more intractable. Allegations of genocide against the Bashir government, promoted by the media, Hollywood celebrities, and former and current British, U.S., and European government officials, has been part of the dangerous and failed policy of “regime change.” The claim that the Bashir government is pursuing a so-called Arab cleansing of the so-called Africans in the Darfur region is simplistically untrue, meant for simpletons who are willing victims of “group think” propaganda. In Darfur, almost all the people doing the killing and being killed are Muslims, in a complex, multi-nation war that involves Chad, Libya, the Central African Republic, and other countries not in the immediate conflict zone.

Sudan’s Strategic Value

To understand the strategic importance of Sudan, start with the mighty Nile River, which flows north from Sudan through Egypt before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. Think about what would happen to the 80 million Egyptians, 25% of whom inhabit Cairo, and who depend on the Nile for their very existence, if Sudan implodes through internecine warfare. Who will honor the 1959 water agreement between Egypt and Sudan? What will the Egyptian government do if the flow of water from the Nile is interrupted? Will they not be forced to act, militarily if necessary? Now, think about the countries that border Sudan, all of which are suffering from severe political and economic troubles: Chad, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Who benefits, and who will suffer from the decision made by Soros’s ICC, acting as a “world court” over and above the interest of the nation-state?

Now think about what Sudan could be for Africa. It is the largest nation on the continent, with the proven potential to feed all of Africa, if it were assisted in managing its water systems, mechanizing its agriculture, and providing irrigation. Instead of sliding into chaos, Sudan could become the “breadbasket” of Africa. The completion of the Merowe Dam, in collaboration with China, provides a glimpse of the potential for food production that is possible with basic infrastructure. (See “Defying Britain’s Genocide System: Sudan’s Great Project in Agriculture,” EIR, July 18, 2008). What is the true potential of Sudan and Africa, if credits for long-term investments in water systems, high-speed rail transportation, and nuclear power were extended by the West, instead of formenting wars and destabilizing poor nations? Sudan with its size, location, and agricultural potential can play a central role in the development of Africa, if we are wise enough to assist it for that purpose.

Why Africa Is Targeted

Look at a map of Africa. Start in Nigeria and let your eyes move east across Sudan to Ethiopia and Somalia. Then look south from Sudan through Kenya, to Tanzania, across Zambia, to Zimbabwe, and finally to South Africa, which represents a portion of Britain’s old colonial empire. Now look at the destabilization of these former colonies, including the recent elections: Nigeria’s flawed Presidential election in April 2007, the organized mayhem that followed Kenya’s December 2007 Presidential election, and the crisis organized from outside following Zimbabwe’s March 2008 Presidential election. And what do you think is being planned for South Africa’s Presidential election in 2009? Will there even be a Sudan in which to have national elections that are presently scheduled for the Spring of 2009?

The British imperialists have never given up their desire to eliminate even the semblance of an independent nation in Africa, that could offer resistance to their policy of controlling the abundant, rich land, and vast resource wealth. To this very day, British Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, like his predecessor, Tony Blair, cannot accept the fact that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and millions of courageous Zimbabweans will not submit to British control of their nation, and will not return the land that rightfully belongs to them. The people of Zimbabwe have fought longer and harder than any other African nation against the heirs of Cecil Rhodes, the founder of British imperialism in Africa; and Zimbabwe still today represents a bulwark against British re-colonialization. Many otherwise thoughtful people refuse to understand that the British oligarchy still functions as an empire, but an empire whose power comes from an international financial syndicate, known as the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy.

This British policy of treating Africans as chattel, wiping out their people, and looting their resources became the official, although not public policy of the United States, under President Richard Nixon, with Henry Kissinger’s 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). This report targeted the fastest-growing populations in the “Third World” for population reduction—i.e., genocide. It also sought to prevent those nations from expending their natural resources for their own benefit, when these resources were deemed vital to the Western financial cartels. NSSM 200 was a Malthusian tirade against population growth, especially that of non-Caucasian people, but also included the importance of the “advanced sector” having a continuous flow of “mineral supplies” from developing countries which had high rates of population growth.

In its Executive Summary, under the subhead, “Minerals and Fuels,” Kissinger’s report states: “Rapid population growth is not in itself a major factor in pressure in depletable resources (fossil fuels and other minerals), since demand for them depends more on levels of industrial output than on numbers of people. On the other hand, the world is increasingly dependent on mineral supplies from developing countries, and if rapid population growth frustrates their prospects for economic development and social progress, the resulting instability may undermine conditions for expanded output and sustained flows of such resources” (emphasis added).

If one truly desires to understand why people are suffering in such horrible conditions today, and why countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa are under attack, one need only refer to NSSM 200.

 

OIL PRICES GOING DOWN FOR GOOD? TOO EARLY TO SAY!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Good evening from Manila!

We Manilans were met this morning with the seemingly good news that oil price nose dived to $125 per barrel. As this news was released, we have just three (3) days before Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo or GMA, will deliver her State-of-the-Nation Address or SONA.

With due respect to a fellow economist, the eminent world woman leader GM Arroyo should better not say lies comes Monday SONA that her actions on oil tax in Manila are responsible for bringing down global oil. Rather, her regime’s actions on state imports of rice immensely led to more speculation on the global commodities markets that indeed contributed in no small measure to raising the price of rice world-wide, actions that added pressures on oil prices to go up too.

Fellow Earthans, please look at the backyard of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the honorable King pledged before the UN Secretary General last month that the oil wells will pump out more stocks of the commodity so as to shore up the supplies by the month of July. It is now the tail end of July, and so it seems that the Midas touch of the KSA King has been creating sure-fire effects on gas prices.

The question worth asking is, will the latest decline in the price of oil be for good? Remember that the soaring prices of oil were largely caused by massive speculations in the spot markets, conducted by diverse financier groups. To a certain extent, the inflationary patterns in the grains prices also contributed to inflationary patterns in the oil sector.

There was the demand side that was cited as possible cause of the oil price decrease. The observed decline in the usage of oil by American consumers had accordingly factored into the equation, thus reducing oil price in global spot markets.

A simple multivariate analysis would show us that a combination of (a) supply side actions (KSA King’s ‘pump more oil’ policy) and (b) demand side behavior (Americans consume less oil) have (c) dampened speculative pressures and eased oil prices a bit. In other words, the predatory financiers were caught flat-footed by the double-whammy, even as some losing speculators are now hurting badly over the latest developments.

But do mark this: the financiers will strike back. The cyclone season is around, one can muse safely that cyclone devastations will induce short-term shocks on food, oil, and some non-durable commodities. Such eventualities could then induce pressures on cyclone-related or force majeure-coverage insurance, possibly impelling prices of the said commodities to go up from this month till November.

There also is the US federal campaign period coming, which will see inflationary spending from both parties as well as from the federal government as part of pump-priming measures. Such eventualities will altogether lead to new rounds of oil consumption in America, which will continue till the winter months.

No, definitely not, we are not at the tail end yet of oil hyper-inflation. This is the least that I can forecast for the moment.

[Writ 25 July 2008, Manila, Quezon City]

US WATCH: TRANSPORT U.S. BACK TO PROSPERITY

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

The final feature of the US ‘real economy’ worth featuring is transportation & communications. This is among the most productive sectors that produce real wealth, contrasted to the ‘casino economy’ of predatory finance that produces wealth from out of wealth itself, producing really nothing worth our value. Broad as it is, let me focus on the transport sector.

 

Time was when the railway industry took off, inducing growth as soon as the railways hit the West. The continental divide among the US states was bridged quickly, intra-trade exponentially increased. Soon enough, foreign trade also increased in leaps and bounds as maritime shipping grew and matured quickly, making US articles of trade be exported to all corners of the planet.

 

Trains, ships, airplanes, automotives, trucks, heavy equipment, tractors, and other state-of-the art prototypes came out of America’s workshops to propel growth not only in the US but in other countries as well. “Made in the USA” products became household words everywhere, including my Wild Wild West province of Cagayan in Northern Philippines, precisely due to the miracle of the transport sector that was broadly a facet of the ‘real economy’ of America. I was a child in the 1960s and early 70s when the “Made in the USA” was chic and almost a cult-level cliché.

 

That era now is now consigned to the dustbins of a remote past. Sure, America still produces state-of-the art transport prototypes. But look, railways have stagnated (is there a mag-lev there now?), automotives are shrinking by the day (laying off and displacing thousands of top quality industrial technicians), while the cutting edge technology for almost all prototypes, save for military transport, have already been surpassed by Asia.

 

McCain and Obama should better do their homework and understand the catastrophic future that awaits America if the transport sector remains neglected and ceaselessly ravaged inch-by-inch by the infernal fires of predatory finance. The policy makers there better salve the ailing sector quickly, and get back those laid-off topnotch industrial technicians to work before they lose every iota of motivation to even get involved in the sector they grew up with but which rejected them (how traumatic!).

 

If there’s any sector to begin with, it’s railways. Better renovate the railways, and establish maglevs in all the major continental routes of the US. And quickly take the initiative to establish cross-border maglevs with Canada and Mexico. Later, establish maglevs connecting Alaska with Russia via Siberia, thus connecting US to the Asian land mass.

 

Sorry for sounding ‘interventionist’, fellows in America. We Asians are as concerned with your economy as you are, and we would want your economic leadership to again rise to the fore. If America does that, other nations will then move on, propelled by growth in the ‘real economy’ because America is doing so. Failing to do that, the economic baton will transfer to Asia, and it will crash our hearts to see our fellow Earthans of America sinking in esteem by the day, because of their collapsing prosperity.

 

We are all siblings on Earth, this is certain, that’s why we share words of wisdom about your economic conditions. May you finally have a reform-oriented President comes this coming electoral contest.

 

[Writ 07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: S & T CUTTING EDGE EROSION

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

As I’ve been stressing in previous articles, “it’s the economy” that count much as top agenda to be addressed by policy makers, bureaucrats and growth stakeholders in the USA. And this should be the primary concern of the political bigwigs when election comes by the end of the year.

 

A policy shift that will veer away America from the destructive flames of the ‘virtual economy’ founded on predatory finance, back to the ‘real economy’ based on tangible outputs in manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructures, S & T, and transportation & communications.

 

This time around, do make reflections on the S&T facet of America’s economy and society. For over two (2) centuries the USA was a hallmark of development, precisely due to the ingenuity manifested by its entrepreneurs who built the mighty industrial economy. The S&T facet of production has been a well established fact-of-life in America, and I should stress that facet here means ‘cutting-edge’.

 

Without S&T cutting-edge, America would still be a backwoods economy today, much like some backwoods states there. But since the founding fathers of America laid down the foundations of growth and prosperity—foundations based on the ‘real economy’ or ‘physical economy’—and propelled by the collective will to drive relentlessly till the grand visions are achieved, America has risen meteorically to where it is: a mighty economic juggernaut, the object of high esteem by many nations.  

 

But when the ‘virtual economy’ began encroaching on every economic sector there, most specially after the collapse of the gold standard, gradually did the priority for developing S & T erode. Today that erosion is severely felt, as many analysts from the West have heralded the admission that Asia had already surpassed the essential technological cutting edge of the West as early as 2007 yet.

 

Let’s take solar technology for instance. Solar panel design had already reached maturity in California, home to solar energy development. The early take off of the industry there prompted the investors to immediately establish branches overseas, one of which is the Philippines. One leading company was so surprised that its Filipino engineers (Philippine-based) had already surpassed the innovation designs of their California counterparts (Americans) before the end of 2007 yet.

 

Now, as you go from one economic sector to another, most specially the productive sectors, and assess the cutting edge situation of technologies, then you can see the reality that America & EU (West) were already surpassed. It won’t take long before the wealth boosted by the Asian cutting edge will move up, making Asian regions surpass both the US and EU in terms of GDP.

 

Well, the other option is the ‘neo-con’ option: nuke all competitor nations back to the stone age. If you do so, say if you nuke the Philippines today which designs and produces ½ of the worlds Intel chips, think of the consequences. Nuke India, China, ASEAN, South Korea, come on demonic neo-cons! Enjoy your Nero madness with wild abandon!

 

I’d rest my case.

 

[07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: INFRASTRUCTURE DECAY, NEEDS MASSIVE REDEVELOPMENT

Erle Frayne  Argonza

A bridge has fallen, the Mississipi river flooded Orleans like some pathetic third world city, airports are too cramped up as they are incapable of containing the surge in passenger & cargo levels, the East Coast experienced the emergency shut down due to grid overload (causing massive blackout), railway tracks are thinning out and overall capacity is on downward trend, and more.

They seem to be unrelated, but for economists and sociologists the trends all tell the same story. Pieced up together, they indicate crumbling infrastructures. Not because the structural engineers of America are sloppy, and definitely not that the heavy equipment sector couldn’t provide quality machines to reinforce the burgeoning infrastructure need of the juggernaut US economy.

The true story is that, as the economy shifted to the ‘virtual economy’, there was the systematic abandonment of infrastructure as a priority for fiscal and budgetary allocations. “Leave that to the private sector!” was the slogan for infrastructure. Even the famed fast lanes of America are already being sold out one after the other to the highest bidders, financial speculators all led by the likes of Felix Rohatyn & partners, thanks to deregulation and liberalization.

The thing is, most of America’s major infrastructures—airports, wharfs, roads, bridges, dikes, dams, power distribution, and more public works—were built in the 50s and 60s yet, at the height of the post-war boom under the aegis of the New Deal. Such infrastructures now require massive renovation, with entire replacement for those decaying beyond salvaging.

Did the civil engineers of America speak about the matter clearly? They did, and they have been saying alarming things since the 1990s yet. At the height of the ‘bridge over troubled water’ fiasco, they came out with the report that ¼ of America’s roads and bridges needed major repairs and replacements as soon as possible.

The other sectors’ experts have spoken as well. In the airlines industry, no less than state officials have forewarned that if no renovations (toward expansion) will be done on airports in 10 years’ time, there will be major crisis in the airlines sector. The possibility of emerging markets overshooting the USA’s cutting edge in air transport delivery also looms ahead in the short run.

With no reversal of policies in sight, chances are that, in 20 years’ time, the USA will be an apocalyptic landscape of fallen bridges, impassable roads, rotten wharfs, fallen dikes and inoperable dams, rotten buildings left to nature, and forest cover claiming back once bustling cities.

Only a timely policy reversal can nip the apocalyptic future in the bud. That is, if the political bigwigs in the coming election—McCain and Obama—do their homework well, comprehend the problem deeply, and begin large-scale strategic solutions to colossal problems in infrastructures.

[Writ 06 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]  

US WATCH: AGRICULTURE DECAYS, BIOFUEL MATTERS MOST!

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Agriculture remains to be among the most protected sectors of the US economy. Enough to cause ceaseless chagrin on the members of the WTO, who have been demanding that the EU-USA-Japan trilateral belt better play by the rules and remove the trade barriers in agriculture.

But the overall alarming trend in America’s agriculture is the rapid shrinking of arable lands altogether. Lucky enough that America is blessed with millions of acres of arable land, but the liberalization of land use conversions affected this mighty economy strongly like in other countries. Prime agricultural lands are being transformed into commercial and residential lands, most specially those southern regions that practically fed the whole America for nigh centuries long.

Agriculture is following a general trend of economic decay. The historic practice of mono-cropping alone had already created havoc on the soil quality in many places across the US. Compounding the decay problem is the pressure by WTO members for the sector to bring down the trade barrier, thus possibly bringing in floods of cheap food imports from Europe and the south.

Just recently, the inflated marketability of biofuels led many a planter to shift to massive corn production, for the sole purpose of raking profits on alternative fuels. Of course, many hedge funds and enthused investors had cashed in on the biofuels craze, and news came out that even Bill Gates had invested in this ‘greenfield’ energy source.

Estimates put the amount of corn planted to biofuels as more than enough to feed over 110 million people. That’s a lot of mouths to feed for sure! But feeding mouths is hardly the priority in the US agriculture today, the core focus being the next round of looting on the consumers’ purse by driving food prices upwards both due to the biofuels craze and speculation on food stocks.

So, what say you, voters of America? Let’s just hope the political bigwigs contesting the presidency will indeed take the interest of ‘food security’ at its core. Failing to do so, America itself might end up with inflated food prices in the couples of years ahead, and believe it or not, the Depression era of seeing people without food on their plates may come back. The difference being that the Great Depression was only quite temporary, while this coming ‘food insecurity’ will be around for a very long time.

This brings to mind what the late John Meynard Keynes declared cryptically, “in the long run, we shall all be dead!”

[Writ 06 June 2008, Quezon City, MeroManila]

ASIAN RENAISSANCE: ANTIDOTE TO NEW DARK AGE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Maganding umaga! Good morning!

A gladdening news for me is the fact that many people in the West (or North) highly appreciate Asian growth and its role as today’s life-breather of the global economy. Without Asia, given the recurrent recession of Western/Northern economies, the global economy would be in a collapsed state today.

The added news that certainly warms the heart is that many Northerners/Westerners look up highly to Asia as the hope of the world, that hope coming precisely from the Asian Renaissance. We seem to be in a rehash of that situation of the medieval age, when the ‘world system’ collapsed due to incessant wars organized and financed by the Venetian mercantile oligarchs, leading eventually to a Dark Age. The (Western) Renaissance became the light of the Dark Age and teleported mankind out of that catastrophe.

In the current circumstance, a Dark Age looms as the Anglo-Dutch oligarchs organize and finance conflicts of every kind across the globe, which will expectedly lead to a larger conflagration that will be sparked off by the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict and then move on to ignite other conflicts in all regions and continents. The conflagration will be a near repeat of the Peloponnesian Wars (Athenian oligarchs’ wars), the Crusades (Venetian oligarchs’ and Norman warriors’), and 30 Years’ War (Church wars, Dutch-Teutonic oligarchs).  After each conflagration, mankind fell into a Dark Age.

Only a Renaissance, led by Asians, will be the hope for the coming decades or couple of centuries. When the North-South dialogue will collapse and give way to the next Dark Age, induced by the incessant wars of the Anglo-Dutch-Teutonic-Zaibatsu oligarchy (to identify a longer list) up North, then peoples will by instinct look to the south for the sparks of hope, of dialogue and civility. Then the planet shall be jettisoned out of the holocaust, back to the ‘Light Age’ (light is opposite of dark).

Incidentally, many peoples across the globe have already immersed themselves in Asiatic thought streams and their practical applications, such as yoga meditation. So, the Asian Renaissance will not just be a monopoly of people of Asian genetic origin, but will be multi-player from the very inception. Many Asian spiritual masters, gurus and intellectuals transplanted themselves in the West during the past decades, so this explains the permeation in Western cultures of Asiatic thought streams. On the other hand, many peoples of the West/North took up studies in the Eastern institutions and ashrams (retreat centers of spiritual masters and gurus), thus ensuring a more expanded diffusion of Asiatic thought streams in the process. So, as one can see, it has been a two-way process of diffusion and enculturation to Asiatic thought streams.

Any Renaissance takes a long time to percolate, brew and galvanize, so it will not be prudent to demonstrate the exact contours of a gigantic movement—with so diverse players—that is continuously evolving. It affects all human endeavors: philosophy, arts, sciences, technology (biotech, physical tech, social tech). I would confess my own limitation and be honestly humble when asked about the exact contours of this movement. I make no pretensions for being God Almighty who knows best about the matter in its expansiveness and universality.

The following short list of items are what I can share about the matter:

·         Oneness & Becoming: Asiatic thought and practices are products of this single most important cosmic Law of One. Western modality is dualistic and/or binary, resulting to polarity principles and practices that have eroded the very condition of humanity and endangers the species itself. The added premise concerns the process of ‘becoming’ contrasted to Western stress on ‘being’.

 

·         Pure Thought – without prejudgemental Qualities, premises, biases: Sri Krishna taught us well about the matter. Go back to Srimad Bhagavad-Gita, in the sermon of Govinda to the warrior-saint Arjuna. The essence of Asiatic metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Jesus and many masters followed through on the ‘pure thought’ modality, on what benefits can be derived from them, what truths derived too. See the New Testament, Dhammapada, Mahabharata, and onwards to the teachings of Baha’ullah, Vivekananda, PR Sarkar (neo-humanism, tantra), Sri Aurubindo, Mahatma Gandhi (Ahimsa).

 

·         Dialogue & Consensus: In this domain, Asians regard that theory is fact, such as in Western physics where “a theory is also a fact.” Nobody even thinks anymore why dialogue should be ensued as a matter of exercising consensus. It is theory, it is fact, period. But do go back to Lao Tsu, Confucius, Mencius, Buddha. Unfortunately, the Western powers destroyed the teachings of Malayan gurus upon occupying the Southeast, while Khmer and ancient Javanese teachings of the same were simply lost in time as the same civilizations eroded and died. Incidentally, Filipino indigenous teachings, derived from folk lore (of which there are now encyclopedic volumes of scholarly translations) are available, which I myself will have to review (budget constraints delimiting buys).

 

·         Physics and Multi-Dimensions: The true elements of matter, the different ontological dimensions, and the properties of matter congruent with each dimension. Steven Hawkin’s ‘hyperspace’, ‘lower space’, and ‘higher space’ concepts are nearer the truth than ever. The Book of Dzan, theosophical writings (e.g. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine), and synthetic writings such as Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics would be good reads. Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi also contains details of masters’ teachings about the same subjects. On the practical side, how to conduct dematerialization and bilocation are explained and demonstrated by the masters. Didn’t mahayogi Jesus Christ (master Issa in India) demonstrate how to walk above the water and materialize fish for a huge crowd of devotees?

 

·         Yoga and Meditation: Yoga is the science, meditation the practice. Too many traditions to choose from, study and investigate, and practice. Choose that which is in accord with your psyche. In my case, I chose Agni yoga, which synthesizes rajah yoga (focus on crown chakra, will-development), Kriya or Christ yoga (pineal/higher faculties), karma yoga (service/solar plexus chakra), and bhakti (opening up heart chakra). If you wish to use yoga to reinforce healing, Kundalini yoga would be perfect. Bhakti and practices that develop the solar plexus chakra would be excellent for peace keepers and conciliators. Zen would be perfect for highly contemplative, introspective types. Sure, you can combine them, such as what I do.

 

·         Natural Healing Paradigms & Therapies: Too many to behold, and too popular nowadays. In Manila, with the signing of the ‘traditional and alternative law’ in the late 90s and the creation of a state institution for this, natural healing has become an institution in itself. In my case, I was trained in Pranic healing, and I practice it (pro bono) for psychosocial counseling. Deepak Chopra’s ‘mind-body-soul’ writings (e.g. The Way of the Wizard) would be a good entry point.  

 Well, Partners, Fellows on Earth, those items would suffice. Before I be accused of causing you indigestion, I would stop right there. There are more, so please go ahead and draw the compass of your journey into the ‘Eastern way’. But just to remind you, the great statesman Mao Tsetung once cautioned us: “no investigaton, no right to speak” (see: Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, 5 volumes). Nobody should pretend to know Asiatic thought streams without first fully immersing in them, for at least two (2) decades.  

Let me now end by encouraging everyone to learn the ‘Asiatic way’, integrate these into their largely Western psyche, and help in any way to bring us to the ‘dawning of a new age of Light’.

[Writ 26 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION

Erle Frayne  Argonza

The public (in America) is of the broad position that the NAFTA was responsible for the folding up of many factories and the transfer of jobs to Mexico/South. This NAFTA-bashing has some validity to it, but the semi-economic integration alone with Mexico and Canada isn’t a sufficient reason for the bigger problem of de-industrialization.

Once robust and colossal, the industrial sector of the USA contributed over 50% of the Gross Domestic Product or GDP, and employed half the labor as well. As early as the mid-50s, the futuristic sociologist Daniel Bell already warned that the trend wouldn’t hold long enough, as the ‘post-industrial society’ was already knocking its doors on the USA. Not only that, he also forecast that by the 21^st century, the center of global economic growth would be the Asia-Pacific, while labor would shift to the services sector.

Had the policy-makers heeded the warning of the likes of Bell then, and fine-tuned the ‘real economy’ principles of Franklin Roosevelt, the de-industrialization of America couldn’t have happened. By the early 1980s, Alvin Toffler added resounding echoes to the forecast of a post-industrial society, by adumbrating the  ‘3^rd wave technology’ thesis. Such a thesis expounded that knowledge-intensive technologies would dominate post-industrial society, and will destroy institutions founded on old economic-ideological precepts notably liberal capitalism and socialism.

However, the neo-liberals led by Friedman and Hayek became the dominant Pied Pipers in shaping the public policy of America. All sectors of the economy soon became dog-eat-dog arena for private sector hegemony, leading to the ascent of the ‘virtual economy’ founded on predatory finance. Gradually did the ‘virtual economy’ wreck the classic industries of America, the most exemplary being the steel industry.

The tragic closure of Bethlehem Steel tells it all: that the ‘virtual economy’ has no interest in sustaining strategic industries or to develop their technological edge further. One after the other, manufacturing concerns were closed shop, dis-assembled and re-assembled in emerging markets where labor and factor inputs were cheaper. The ‘industrial belt’ of America—stretching from up New England down to the automotive & machine tool shops of the south—is rapidly evaporating.

The clear message for this year’s presidential poll in America is: resuscitate the industrial sector. Re-tool both the hardware, institutions and human resources to make them competitive again. Revive all the strategic reproducible industries (steel, machine tools, railways, automotive, shipping, airlines, etc.), or else face the specter of ‘third worldization’ of America. A tall order, but what choice does the USA have?

[Writ 06 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: ECONOMY’S REAL VALUE

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

Great and mighty is America’s economy! America can buy the whole earth and feed all the world’s people! Americans are the world’s wealthiest, they can buy any and all guys outside the borders!

 

What delusional arrogance from some demonic Pied Pipers! The USA’s GDP ended up at $12.5 Trillion last year, though some indicator massage could yield a higher figure of $13.5 Trillion (using Purchasing Power Parity or PPP). Measure this against the Gross World Product of GWP of $59 Trillion more or less, end of 2007. Estimates by experts is that the US contributes to 22% of the GWP, and ditto for the EU.

 

That figure of $12.5 Trillion, fellows, is simply the ‘nominal value’ of the US economy. Nominal and real are two different categories in economics. Granting that the ‘virtual economy’ based on financial speculation has been the one that raised values of commodities and services in the USA, the ‘nominal value’ is actually inflated, rendering the ‘real value’ at a much lower level.

 

Do recall when the stock market crashed in 2001. At that time, the psychological benchmark was 10,000 points at the Dow Jones. Each point in the Dow Jones then was approximately $1 Billion worth. A decline of 100 points means $100 Billion pared off from the economy, or at least the virtual economy. The stock market eventually crashed down to 7900+, which made my own hair rise with horror all over my body.

 

The stock market then stayed for a time at the 7,900-8,300 points, for couples of months, before it again steadily climbed. For simplification, let us use the figure of 8,000 points as the lowest level that the economy can crash down to, the rock bottom. That is around 77% of the 10,000+ benchmark more or less.

 

That figure, fellows, is the rough estimate of the ‘real value’ of the US economy. If we multiply 0.77 by $12.5 Billion, this yields $9.63 Billion. That’s the real figure, the real value, the real score of the US economy. If we convert this to PPP, this will rise a bit to $9.8 Billion more or less. The remaining balance of $3 Billion, to complete the $13.5B –PPP, is all ‘casino economy’ value, all speculative value and nothing more.

 

So now, going back to a previous question, where and how will the USA get funds to pay for $50 Trillion worth of debts? Do the electoral bigwigs in America possess with them the proper framework to comprehend and recommend practicable solutions to America’s ailing debt crisis and overall economic malaise?

 

I wish you American voters will do your own deep inquiries about the depth of your problems. The health of the global economy is being endangered by the impending US economic collapse, a fire that can easily burn out the EU as well (this fire had already begun there in fact). When both the EU and USA are in economic collapse or ‘fire function’, the entire global economy will catastrophically fall in deep quagmires.

 

[Writ 05 June 2008, Quezon City, Metromanila]

US WATCH: CAN THE USA PAY ITS DEBTS?

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

Just exactly at what level had the totality of US debts had reached is practically anybody’s guess. So complex is America’s financial system and the mess created by the ‘bubble economy’ over the last three (3) decades, that it takes an enormous amount of research efforts led by top economists and financial consultants to undertake.

One thing is clear though: whoever will be the USA’s next execs must never fail to measure, comprehend, and reverse the debt trends. The estimates today, using combined data from the Fed, the Bank for International Settlements or BiS, and independent researches would put the figure at $50 Trillion.

Measured against the GDP, which stood at around $12.5 Trillion more or less last year, indicates that America doesn’t have the money to pay debts at all, assuming that the bubble bursts and the economy crashes to depression level. Well, the burst began last year yet, the recession is now on, and we need to observe events more closely to determine whether a depression will be at hand.

To say that US savings will salve America’s debt problems is baloney. The savings rate is barely 1%, which accounts for the need for large doses of foreign direct investments and portfolios to cover up for the lack of investible savings. Compare this to East Asia’s average of 30% savings rate, which makes this region’s economy verdantly robust for years to come amid US-EU economic collapse.

On the other hand, to bank on gross international reserves as the source of salvation would likewise bring guffaws. America’s reserves could never exceed $90 Billion at any given time (in real value), which couldn’t even suffice to buy for 1 month’s imports. Compare this to East Asia’s reserves, which range from 4 months imports in RP’s case to at least a year’s for China’s.

So, let us repeat the question, where and how will the US source its funds for salving the debt crisis? What concrete steps will be taken to reverse the debt trap? Who among the political bigwigs in America today possesses the soundest theory and practice for solving the gargantuan debt crisis?

Those questions remain to be answered. Let us hope that the two bigwigs McCain and Obama will do their homework well. The electorates’ expectations are enormously high, and meeting those expectations using traditional, flawed approaches and practices would only endanger both the economic and political stability of this once mighty giant.

[Writ 05 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]