Just wanted to share a reflection I’ve been going through some time now about “wasted votes”. Is there really such a thing?

Which vote is a wasted vote? The one used to give the best candidate a fighting chance, or the one used to let a supposed front-runner’s backers control the outcome with unscientific surveys? Having generated the largest business portfolio for my previous company using market research, it really bothers me that the methodologies behind the various election surveys seem so loose that the results are practically useless except for whatever agendas those who paid for the surveys may have.

For example, if Noynoy A is really the front-runner, how come most people I speak with are supporting Gordon?

Obviously since I’m not a Villar-ionaire I can’t do a proper survey myself at this point, but it’s very worrying – look at the financial crisis caused by believing too much in credit ratings paid for by the companies being rated themselves – how much misery has been caused by this ill-placed compianza? Should we peg our faith in getting the leaders we deserve on unscientific surveys, or should we peg our faith on finding the best fit candidate for our country’s needs?

What would you like our country to have achieved 6 years from now? How do we measure the achievements we would like our people to have accomplished in 6 years, 12 years, 24 years, and what kind of proven accomplishments let us know which candidates are the best choice?

I am sure different voters will have different criteria, and different results, but I hope you’d help spread the word to let the best candidate win, and not necessarily the ones pre-selected by paid-for survey companies. Personally, I’m impressed with this platform and the values, qualifications and experience behind it http://bit.ly/cABGn9

Just to share, where I’m from, I can go jogging at night, there’s a functioning public library, LTO transactions take 15 minutes, public school students have international-standard classrooms, and it doesn’t even need to collect the same taxes as Makati. Do we want to just survive in our country, or really live?

I believe our people will make the right choice if we just remind ourselves to stay focused on what this election is about – our future, our dreams, and our loved ones.

May the best candidate win.

What do you think? Please spread the word to everyone you care about also

Cheers :)

raising tax collection efficiency from current levels of 13% to 15% is a priority. doing that reduces deficit by 150M already.

of course, reducing taxes won’t be done until things are stabilized. that goes without saying, Anne.

We can only lower the tax once we’ve reached a stable economy. Do you not know that? Guess not.

Having read this book. This also reminds me of a novel by Ayn Rand. A murder and rebirth of a man’s spirit. Sometimes I think that, Ayn was antagonist to the human sub-species or our insubordinate human culture as a whole. Oh yeah! John Locke and Adam Smith got this perspective from this wonderful Novelist, Ayn Rand. She was ahead of our time and, practically predicted these scenarios in her “Atlas Shrugged” novel.

“Who is John Galt?“

What a shame.

food for “technocrats”

- nscb [dot] gov [ph] headlines/StatsSpeak/2009/091409_rav_bbb_food [dot] asp

excerpts:

Between 2000 and 2003,

GDP/GNP grew at effective annual rates of 8.76%/9.10% and 3.70%/4.12% in current and constant prices, respectively.

Poverty incidence, as a proportion of poor families, declined from 27.5% to 24.4%.

Likewise, the magnitude of poor families was reduced by about 124 thousand families from 4.147 million to 4.023 million families.

Between 2003 and 2006,

GDP/GNP grew at effective annual rates of 11.80%/12.14% and 5.56%/5.90% in current and constant prices, respectively, which growth rates are higher than in the previous period.

However, poverty incidence, as a proportion of poor families, increased from 24.4% to 26.9%.

The magnitude of poor families likewise increased by about 655 thousand families from 4.023 million to 4.677 million families.

Between 2000 and 2006,

GDP/GNP grew at effective annual rates of 10.27%/10.61% and 4.62%/5.01% in current and constant prices, respectively.

Poverty incidence, as a proportion of poor families, slightly declined from 27.5% to 26.9%.

The magnitude of poor families increased however, by about 531 thousand families from 4.147 million to 4.677 million families.

Thus, during the period under review, while economic growth was higher from 2003 to 2006 than in 2000 to 2003, poverty reduction was more effective during the latter period. Of course, Mareng Winnie has been telling us that economic growth is not sufficient to reduce poverty. Growth must be high enough, and it must trickle down to the poor!

Let us look at other indicators, and reflect, as politicians do, for discernment! Specifically, let us look at wages/income and prices. (Table 2)

Economic growth during the 6-year period from 2000 to 2006 actually translated into a general improvement in the income distribution with the shares of the poorest three deciles and the next three deciles increasing at the expense of the three richest deciles.

Per capita nominal income has increased.

The increase in per capita income among the vulnerable groups, specifically the second to the fifth poorest deciles, was high enough to cope with the increase in prices in 2000-2003.

However, in 2003-2006, the increase in income of these vulnerable groups was slower than the inflation rate, be it in terms of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food, or the CPI for all items.

Between 2000 and 2006, the increased income of the vulnerable groups coped with the inflation for food, but not with the CPI for all items.

In other words, from 2000 to 2006, the Philippines experienced economic growth that was pro-poor and to a certain extent, pro-middle class. However, our poverty reduction program has not exactly been an outstanding success because inflation eroded whatever increase there was in the income of the vulnerable groups. Technically therefore, to be able to address poverty, it is not sufficient that there be economic growth, nor that there be increased income and improved income distribution. Income must increase faster than inflation.

The basis for Ricardian and Marxian property rights that evolved from an agrarian society to the division of labor on the shop floor and the fight over the surplus value created in the division of labor on the shop floor.

Please the note the first money or currency is the labor required to produce a thing of value to be traded. The cost of that in real terms is the value needed to sustain labor’s needs and wants. Prices of everything stem from that reality. Labor in this means the physical and intellectual labor required to produce value and the collective social labor required to produce capital goods like a steam turbine. Has the Philippines ever graduated to producing its steam engines at least?

Wow you are parroting the technocrats. Plus revenue leaks and pump prime the economy.

One of the more brilliant technocrats the country has ever produced Sixto K. Roxas once wrote that in emerging societies like the Philippines you still have to build the pumps that you will have to pump prime since we do not have it. That would mean you simply pump prime imports.

The Philippines economy cannot have a normal industrial business downturn. What we have is a continuing trade deficits that causes fiscal deficits. It is caused by (allow me the technocratic term) supply bottlenecks that are structural and systemic in nature. Not only economic structures but combined with political and cultural structures that make it absolutely impossible to pump prime a primitive wealth creating society.

Fiscal deficits are structural in nature in the Philippine context due to its low saving capacity and the trade deficit is the root cause of those fiscal deficits.

Governance becomes an acute problem since the elite have to compete to grab the power over the fight for the meager savings and the power to create deficits by the state.

Keynesian economics distorted and corrupted by the private capture of state power.

The country lives by inflation based taxation and the country survives by devaluing its debt away.

The future generations will pay for it and not you or Dollar Joe.