Ugh. That’s so creepy. The government seizing assets, whether foreign or local. Not the point of this thread, but what can I say? It’s a gag reflex. Theyre already doing that through taxation. Anyway, back to the program.

btw, jeg, we have to stop babying our people. they must learn to compete with anyone, even in their own country.

I completely agree. If we want PS3s, laptops, and flat-screen TVs, we have to make them ourselves. We’re babying our people by allowing these things to liberally flow in here. If we want those nice, yellow bell peppers, grow them in our own greenhouses instead of importing them from God knows where. ‘Protecting’ them from imports will either spur the people to make them themselves or do without them. It’s up to the Pinoy businessman. The can be babies and whine, or they can do something about it.

Yet as people like The Ca_t love to demonstrate, we pride ourselves in acquiring credentials for fields of study developed in the West; fields which, by their very nature make use of globally-accepted metrics and standards. If we are so intent on doing it our own way “by our own standards” then we should develop our own field of pwede na yan economics and teach that in our state universities.

If we remain poor in an open economy, then that just simply makes the reality more obvious — that our society cannot compete in an open economy in our present form, and in the way we as a people are constituted (not in the legal sense) at the very fabric of our collective.

we have to stop babying our people. they must learn to compete with anyone, even in their own country. i think we are being unfair to our own people when we try to cuddle them, insisting on lowering the playing field for foreigners while propping up the natives. the result? natives who have no courage, backbone, interest, and ability to survive on their own. all they develop is their ability to bellyache, whine, complain and blame their government for their miserable lot.

Very well said, Manong Ben. Very well said.

So all we could do now is sulk and rant, ain’t it?

the truth is that we requested and even argued with govt functionaries in so many fora including senate and house of representatives for them to protect the local industries from unbridled liberalization. at the end of the day and when you left their office, they will still do what they have in mind – full liberalization as dictated by wb and imf.

Seriously, jim? PS3, laptops, and flat-screen TVs? These are your examples why liberalization isnt evil?

I agree with blackshama. One of government’s duties everybody agrees with, whether they be socialists or libertarians, is protecting the patrimony from foreign invasion. I would like to extend that to economic invasion and not just military invasion.

the govt’s lack of vision and direction for our country is obvious. we lack or neglected the basic industries that will catapult our country towards industrialization. national steel corp, which was profitable when govt still owns it was sold so that some can make commissions. Philphos was also neglected, that’s why we are now importing inorganic fertilizer at huge quantities (more than 1.5 million tons per year) and sold at around P1,500/bag (P 700/bag in 2007 then it went up to P2,000/bag this year before the crisis). the P728 million in bolante scam could have been used productively if it was instead infused in philphos as it will benefit the farmers with low cost fertilizer. the raw materials for fertilizer is locally sourced, sulfuric acid, which is a by-product of Pasar’s processing of copper concentrates.