Thank you for your always insightful reply, BenK. To be sure there are things to improve in our collective mindsets.

However, consider the typical Filipino when he goes to the US. He doesn’t pee in public or jaywalk because he knows Americans enforce their laws. Also, he knows that there are clean public toilets readily available and safe pedestrian crossings. Yet when he returns to Manila he’s back to his old ways. Is peeing in public and not following traffic laws culturally ingrained in the Filipino psyche? I don’t think it’s anything that dramatic. It’s merely enforcement of the law or at least the perception of enforcement. If you have enforcement and an alternative, the Filipino will follow.

I think what Lee Kuan Yew did for Singapore is admirable. But to my mind I don’t think he engaged in social engineering. He introduced and trained his people in Western manners to make Singapore business friendly to the West. The Singaporean is still culturally Chinese to the core but behaves like a Westerner. I’m not a sociologist so I admit I’m not 100% sure of my terminologies here. Maybe Mr. Lee did engage in social engineering. I guess my point is that Filipinos are not inherently corrupt or feeble-minded that there has to be some legislation to correct this. Again, if he has enough money in his pocket he begins to be a little more honest and starts thinking a little more intelligently. Remember the movie “Trading places” with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy? I think man’s attitude to any given stimulus is universal.

Just my 3 cents (adjusted for inflation).

Lee Kuan Yew might disagree with you, and I personally know a few people (besides myself) who see a lot of value in much of his outlook, because it has borne tangible, productive results. I think it is a sad state of affairs for a society when leadership actually has to consider teaching the population basic manners like not urinating wherever they like, or dropping their trash out the car window, or blasting music at nerve-shattering levels from giant speakers in front of their stores for no apparent reason, etc., etc. But these are merely symptomatic of an unhealthy shared mindset among the people that must be changed.

As a hypothetical candidate, I can confidently say that I recognise the problem, but I am also obliged to admit that I do not know how to solve it myself. Social engineering should not have to be a government function, but government functions should promote social quality. That being the case, I would enlist the assistance of others with a greater understanding of the issues to find ways to encourage improvements of the Filipino “attitude problem” without intruding on personal freedoms or involving the government in unproductive nit-picking.

That’s a very good point, and just plainly sensible to my way of thinking. Re-examining the functions and output of government agencies and doing away with those which are redundant or superfluous is a major theme running through my program, and a project-based outlook is a necessity to be able to accomplish that. But kudoes to you for pointing out the importance of the methodology, which I didn’t articulate — this is a platform, after all, not a spending bill.

haha… my ideas? geez, theres so much i still dont understand about political economy, finance, and macroecon to have solid ideas beyond generalties like increasing tax efficiency…

but my work has exposed me to one reform which can help improve governance:

i have one humble suggestion for the budget…

currently, the philippine budget is based on/built on spending for personel, capital expenditure, equipment, etc…

there is a need (and this is something practitioners know about) to turn this into project based budgeting (i.e. how much is used to teach math, to provide immunization) at the local government level.

this data is currently NOT available. i suggest that the next admin makes this a priority.

information like this can help the govt plan for the future, in terms of service delivery (as opposed to salaries, etc…)…

BenK,

Personality and comportment cannot be legislated because social engineering is not a governmental function – so you are right in not trying to find solutions there. I took a quick read of your blog and kudos to you and others (like benign0) who take the time to find solutions to what ails our country.

I’d consider a managed float a functional peg. Anything that is not actually free-floating is a peg of some sort.

Once of the things I’ve always said about a platform is that it should have at least one legitimate opponent viewpoint, so…what are your alternative suggestions to these ideas?

i dunno about ur characterization of a functional peg. i think its a managed float vs the dollar but with a focus on using monetary policy primarily for maintaining domestic price stability (as opposed to preserving the nominal exchange rate). i looked at the numbers, and i think that the average inflationrate falls within the target, but there was a big jump in 2007… i’ll try to look at it again…

about number 2) i think we should acknowledge this is harder than that. the best case for loan renogotiation would be loans that are made by illegitimate governments. for recent debt, thats not a good excuse. i agree that tax efficiency is a the fiscal job number 1 fiscal.

if we are worried about stabiility of profits for exporters and importers, i wonder why we cant use futures contracts/options.

about #3…

i dont think you have good arguments about samurai bonds perse, but bond finance (foreign debt) in general. frankly, untill tax collection goes up OR goverment spending falls, debt is inevitable.

Right, this is just a part of a part of the entire platform. You may read the entire outline on my blog if you haven’t already. I’ll be taking up other parts of it in the manner I’ve done here in the coming weeks.

To counter your particular concern, I don’t believe that increasing efficient delivery of services by cutting away the bloat in government need necessarily equal a reduction in services offered. It undoubtedly will on the face of things, but when those cuts are examined, I believe they will be found to be mostly superfluous activities that have little practical benefit anyway — except, of course, to the unproductively-employed desk-warmers that fill those jobs that will be excised. They’ll have reason to complain…and that’s just too damn bad for them.

Some of the notions that Benign0 has expressed are things that are beyond the original scope of the platform, but I think they are good ideas. However, my background and personal point of view towards where the boundary between government and personal behaviour should lie does not put me in a good position to make suggestions as to how to legislate personality and comportment. When I reach the point where it is time to talk about ‘Culture’, hopefully Benign0 will be able to present his amendment to that platform as well. That’s the thing about platforms — even the best of them have to be written in pencil, with a little space between the lines, because any good candidate will be consulting with his voters, with experts in various fields, and as time passes more is learned and perhaps circumstances change. Platforms should be firm, but not frozen.

This is just the economic aspect of a platform. You will note in the matrix that there are six other aspects aside from the economy that a platform, in my opinion, should cover.

Note that there is an aspect called “Culture” and I am hoping there will be initiatives formulated under this to address such cultural issues you cited (like the population being “conditioned” to be dependent on government).

Unfortunately no candidate (or party) would dare adopt this platform. The population has been conditioned to depend on government for everything, including jobs. Reduction of government as a platform (which necessitates reduction of services, even if it promises lower taxes) for a candidate is political suicide. While I believe that this is key to getting our economic house in order, it will be a cold day in hell before it happens.