ECONOMIC ANALYSIS – P-Noy and Obama

by GICO DAYANGHIRANG
PHL is the second fastest growing economy (6.8%) and just by a hairline next only to Indonesia (6.10%) among the five ASEAN countries. Worldwide, PHL is the 26th fastest growing economy among 196 economies being monitored by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). This outstanding regional and global economic performance of RP is the outcome of an adequate and timely fiscal stimulus initiated by P-Noy, election spending in 2010 and minimal leakage associated with corruption.
It’s also well that the political opposition in this country is ignorant or doesn’t care much about economic policy. It has simply allowed P-Noy and his economic managers to have their way. But Barack Obama in the USA has no such luck. He is up against a wall of fierce political opposition.
Obama has prevented the USA from sliding into a deep recession also through a fiscal stimulus. But this initial fiscal stimulus has been woefully inadequate to quickly turn the US economy around and to prevent an increase in unemployment that has subsequently occurred. He has proposed a second and larger fiscal stimulus to further stoke the US economy and reduce unemployment. But by then the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives in mid-term election and have blocked any further stimulus measure.
Republicans subscribe to the same erroneous austerity policy as the only remedy to a recession. This is the same policy that’s now being implemented and is failing so badly in the Euro zone. But Republicans have been unreasonably adamant to have their way and thus losing the presidential election to Obama for the second time.
While it is now convenient for the Philippines to have a non-existent political opposition, it is not exactly an ideal situation. What if P-Noy and his economic managers were wrong in their economic policy prescriptions for the country? There would’ve been no opposition in the House of Representatives and the Senate just the same. This doesn’t bode well for our political system and the quality of people we elect in these otherwise hallowed institutions. Except for a very few truly deserving ones, the quality of most candidates contesting seats, especially, in the more powerful Senate isn’t at all inspiring.