Finalist-PhilBlogAwards 2010

Finalist-PhilBlogAwards 2010
Finalist for society, politics, history blogs

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

FOR YOUR CONTINUING ESTEEM OF ME AS TOP BLOGGER, BLESSED 2011!

Prof. Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Guru Ra
January 2011

Manigong Bagong Taon! Prosperous New Year!

I hereby send my goodwill greetings to enthused readers and fellow analysts who continue to appreciate and spread my notes about social life, wisdom, arts & culture.

About three and a half years ago, there was scarce information about me on the internet. Today, as I’ve spread my messages of Light and hope to all of the corners of the globe via the blogs and social networks, many enthused souls responded through reading, exchanges of notes, and citations of my works. Finally, after your appreciation and support of my cyber-crusade, information about me on cyberspace increased by gigantic strides.

Special thanks to the following online news, magazines and portals for citing my notes as among the top blogs on cyberspace:

http://asiafinest.com
http://clpl-india.com
http://humanitariannews.org
http://newestnews.net
http://pul.se
http://sociology.alltop.com
http://thedailyreviewer.com
http://topcityblogs.com
http://www.nonprofit.org


For recognizing me as Finalist-Best Society, Politics & History Blog, special thanks to the Phiippine Blog Awards:

http://www.philippineblogawards.com.ph

Thanks too to the following hundreds of sites that have cited, discussed and debated on various notes of mine about a diversity of topics and themes:

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Friday, January 28, 2011

OPUS DEI ARMED SUDAN’S CHRISTIAN SOUTH

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Sudan is undergoing a schism, the dividing line being the north-south axis. North is the predominantly Muslim section, with large infusion of Arab genetics into the ancient black ethnicities of the area; south, the Christian section, with predominantly Negroid ethnicities as core population.

A cursory review of history would show us that the Arabs, who were at one time the nexus of world culture, easily reached Sudan and the northern African regions. Egypt, Sudan, Chad and other countries were a bit contiguous to Baghdad and Arabia, and so the Arabs could easily reach the area contrasted to the European lands near the Atlantic during their westward conquests.

We should also be reminded of the era of rise of capitalism when slave trade was a normal predilection of the British, Portuguese and other European powers. Arabs cashed in on the opportunity, raided Negro areas of northern and eastern Africa for the chattel (slaves). In the process, large numbers of Arabs decided to reside in Africa as new entrants or additions to northern Africans of Arab descent.

Let’s fast forward to the present when an authoritarian regime rules the whole of Sudan. Previous to the authoritarian drift of this nation, there were already covert operations by Christian clerico-fascist operators to enforce an agenda of creating a schism in the long run by carving out a Christian south.

The Opus Dei, to note, has been notoriously engaged as partner-operators of fascist forces for a long time. Having had practice in Spain as co-partners of the totalitarian Phalangist regime of Franco, the Opus Dei would later replicate their positioning for global power by arming and financially supporting Christian rebel forces such as the Irish Republican Army and the Croatian Army.

Croatia is an example of a mini-state carved out from a larger entity (former Yugoslavia) via an army that was practically entirely supported by the Opus Dei. For your own study of the subject matter, you may as well begin with the book Thy Kingdom Come by the controversy writer Robert Hutchison. From there you can branch out to other research materials regarding the fascistic group Opus Dei that aspires to be a modern Knights Templar aiming to defend the interests of the Papacy.

In my own country, the Philippines, couples of Christian militias suddenly cropped up in the southern island of Mindanao after the 2nd world war. The militias went on a rampage of massacre of Muslims there, supported as they were by the big landlords and the Christian Right. A most notorious group was the Tadtad, which revived after long dormancy to help the Establishment contain the rise of the guerilla Maoists and Muslim rebels.

As you can see, Christian ultra-conservatives or clerico-fascists are carving out their own spheres of influence. With so much money stashed in many banks and secret vaults across the different continents, aided by the previous policies of financial and monetary liberalization that permitted unhampered money laundering across borders, the Opus Dei is so powerful today as to be able to create new countries out of regions that are predominantly Christian more so Catholic.

Accordingly, so gargantuan are the tentacles of the Opus Dei, with mafia groups involved in its money laundering, arms trading, and other large-scale crimes across borders. The group was to a great extent responsible for the collapse of the Vatican banks in the 1980s, a crash aided by a mafia Masonic group. That crash led to the domino effect of financial crash of Italy as a whole.

When that crash was investigated by the newly installed Pope John Paul I, the pope was tragically assassinated barely a month into office. It was the same mafia cum Opus Dei operators that were responsible for the assassination of the pope. Now that the pope comes from the extreme Right, the Opus Dei has no worry about further machinations behind the scene.

We should therefore be not surprised if Pope Benedict mouths lines about Christians as the most victimized by terror attacks of a sectarian nature. These are mere cover ups or masks for covert operations being undertaken by Opus Dei and another powerful force, the Society of Jesus, to bring back the power of the papacy in the globe.

In the Philippines, both Opus Dei and Jesuits openly supported the candidacy of the moron blabbermouth Noynoy Aquino, son of the late Ninoy Aquino (husband of former president Corazon Aquino) who was a CIA operative. Both Opus Dei and Jesuits were well positioned in power during Corazon Aquino’s incumbency, so you can see how they have gotten back to power with the victory of their blabbermouth puppet.

Thus, it should not surprise us to find out that Benedict badmouths those who persecuted the Sudanese Christians, as both Opus Dei and Jesuits were behind Benedict’s ascent to the papacy. The involvement of the both religious groups in Sudan’s Christian insurgency and the campaign for an independent Christian Sudan is logically expected.

Now that the Opus Dei has a stronger position in Africa and its puppet state Croatia is in operation, where would the group strike next to enlarge its fascistic sphere of influence and control?

[Philippines, 21 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Monday, January 24, 2011

GRANDEUR AND MAGNIFICENCE IN ASIA’S CITIES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to my fellow global citizens!

The year had just kicked off, and we’re already witnessing the contrast in images projected in the mass media between East and West. Just notice the projections regarding urban life in each hemisphere, and you can see the differences in the images.

Asian cities have been projecting themes of cooperation, growth, exquisite city plans, 21st century architectural wonders, and these themes were projected well despite the typical urban problems of decay (congestion, pollution, traffic jams). In contrast, those of Western cities’ projected crimes, street protests, snow storms, floods (e.g. Australia’s), and related pessimistic images.

Coming from the East makes me feel with awe and pride about the transfigurations that our own emerging markets and big cities are going through. Our economies are clearly the drivers of the world economy, our investments and treasuries in the West largely keep their economies alive, and our growth and rising middle class make for our urban accomplishments as well.

Whereas before our cities were citadels of flies, malaria, squalor, and crimes, today our big cities have mutated to model skyscrapers, exquisite urban plans with many mixed land use commercial centers, architectural wonders & cultural innovations, and multi-cultural cooperation. Peoples of the West who are truly appreciative of our feats would normally experience their jaws drop in awe over the marvels that our big cities can show to them.

Among recent depictions, I recall vividly the images of Christmas trees in malls all over Asia even in countries that are Buddhist, Hindu, and Moslem. Asian urbanites are showing the way to how a former sectarian event—the Christmas holidays—can be globalized and celebrated by every nation, race, and culture. Buddhist children in Thailand for instance showed deep fondness for Santa Claus and Christmas, so their respective schools respected their fondness and celebrated Christmas as well.

In Indonesia, Moslem workers were shown preparing the finishing touches for Christmas decors, Christmas trees, food & delicacies for the Christmas event, and related paraphernalia. Many of the exported decors from Indonesia’s Muslims reached the Philippines, with some of the Christmas lights reaching our home in suburban highlands east of Manila. China’s toys, Christmas lights, delicatessen, wines, and holiday paraphernalias made us equally happy as did the Indonesians.

Scenes of Asian cities celebrating the New Year—largely the Western New Year based on the Gregorian calendar—were well projected on television, internet, and print media. Taipei 101, the 2nd highest building worldwide, had its equivalent scenes of pyrotechnic fireworks and revelry of people in its surrounds. Such an event happened in all the big cities of Asia, rest assured.

Beijing with its trade exposition buildings, wondrous streets, magnificent palaces, and other marvels, were among those projected in the media. The world’s largest mall is in this city, and is owned and built by the SM Group of companies of the Philippines (owned by the Sy family).

The cities of Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Calcutta, Shanghai, Shenzen, Mumbai, Manila, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka, Dubai, Abu Dhabi among others, were also projected with each one having their contributions to the grandeur of 21st century life and the bright beginnings of 2011. Till now the very positive projections of lustrous performance and compass of the future in such cities are still being churned out in the mass media.

Contrast those images to the still prolonged floods in Australia (cities affected too), another round of snow storms in the USA, massacre in Arizona by a sociopathic young man, hundreds of deaths in Mexico (how many dead in Acapulco? Mexico city?...), continuing protests in Europe over austerity measures and rising poverty,…well, negative images dominate those reportorials about Western cities, with some images shocking and unnerving.

Before the year 2010 ended, an American lady (professional) whom I met in a social network, shared to me a videofilm of hers about “3rd World America.” Depicting huge poverty incidence in the USA coupled with urban decay, huge income disparities between rich & poor, and deterioration of the once mighty physical economy there, the short feature film struck a cord. It amplified scenes of 3rd world deteriorations in America at this time, degenerations that we analysts thought would take place in the next decade yet.

The film was hair raising and admittedly effective in portraying its intentions. Knowing the rapid ‘decline of the West’ (ala Spengler) that is going on in the industrialized world, I could only but hope for a reversal of degenerative trends there, trends that are likewise manifested in the negative images about the Western cities.

Maybe it’s time that Western peoples should look up to the themes and images projected by Eastern cities, watch and learn from our nascent innovations and urban marvels, and hope that the experience could help to reverse the deepening pessimism and nihilism going on in Western cities and nations.

[Philippines, 19 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:
MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

INDIA JETISSONS 2011, ALL SET FOR BIG GROWTH

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gracious day to you fellow global citizens! Special goodwill greetings to the people of India!

The year 2011 just kicked off with a good start for Asia, today’s indubitable growth driver of the global economy. From macro-economic fundamentals to micro-innovations, things are heading for another great year of bountiful growth and future prosperity for Asians.

India, known in ancient times as Bharat, is no exception to the Asian trends. Its income grew by double digit the past year, its macro-economic fundamentals are reclining on the positive side, and so external observers like me have reason to infer a very optimistic year of performance for modern Bharat.

Not only is India growing with sufficient prudence domestically, but even on the international terrain the Bharat ‘emerging market’ has done well. India’s enterprise moguls have sustained the patterns of expansion in overseas investments, which is laudable.

Just recently, the news bannered the gladdening reportorial about investments moving to Africa. As this is happening, the tie up between Tata Group and Siemens for producing the Nano car (priced at $2,000) and a diversity of machines and tools is now in the pipeline, with joint ventures expected to permeate Brazil, China, and other ‘emerging markets’.

So far so good! Well, the social sectors of Bharat may have a different opinion, such as the rural food producers who still number the greatest in the population, so they are entitled to their perceptions. And, the women who for millennia have been subjugated in yokes of patriarchalism, they too must feedback their advocacies about greater economic and social freedoms for women.

As to the market players, they have already advanced their reservations about the move to tap through their private communications networks (e.g. bug them, in search for possible money salting overseas or racketeering, and so on…). They have aired their concern about possible abuse of their privacy, a move that is short of installing a fascist tyranny in India.

India has been an exemplary democracy in Asia and the world, so there really should be no apprehension about the moves there to monitor money laundering and related criminal activities via covert tapping of communications lines and channels. However, there are fundamentalist groups in the power structure there, so there is some reason to be bothered about possible abuse of such intelligence discretions by right-wing Establishment groups.

One wish I’d like to share for Bharat’s people is that they should avoid advancing materially at the expense of their spiritual growth. India’s greatest wealth, as I observe it, is its spiritual wealth. It would prove very tragic if not catastrophic if Indians will eventually drop off their spiritual practices, such as going the Yogic Path, in order to metamorphose completely into a materially prosperous federation.

I remember that couples of years back I said the same thing about Nepal. I just couldn’t believe that Nepalese regard themselves as a poor nation, when in fact their spiritual wealth remains intact. Such a perception could lead to a win/lose situation, whereby Nepalese would prosper materially by throwing away eventually their spiritual wealth, and that for me will prove catastrophic as it bodes a Dark Age for the future materially wealthy nation.

It would be best for India and south Asian nations to prosper in an integrative way, by synthesizing material progress and spiritual wellbeing. That compass would lead to a new experience of win/win situation, where both techno-economic progress and spiritual growth would go hand-in-hand.

That represents a daunting challenge for India and its people. For those persons and groups in India who resonate with my thesis, they are already assured of my moral and spiritual support—me being a spiritual guru here in Manila/Philippines. Should they invite me to their cyberspace forums, sure I will join them and be a process observer of these tech-savvy scions of Rama.

For the Indians of today, cheers! Namaste!

[Philippines, 17 January 2011]

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

AFTER ARIZONA MASSACRE, WHAT’S NEXT IN ANGLO-SAXON AMERICA?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Americans were shocked again by another event of mass murders done by an expectedly sociopathic man—a certain Mr. Loughner, 22 year-old White man. Just about a month ago, a White man in the east coast shocked Americans when he shot at a school board’s officials before shooting himself to death.

Aren’t Americans supposedly inured to such sociopathic murders already? Not only Americans, but White men and women shouldn’t be shocked at all over such tragic deaths, as White society has been showing increasing signs of madness over the last 150 years or so.

I’m sure nobody has forgotten Jack the Ripper. At the time the crimes of serial murders were done by the diabolical killer over a century ago, sociologists were busying themselves with studying the fragmentation of the collective mind in modern society, which has been the cause of crimes and suicides.

Just go back to the works of Emile Durkheim, George Simmel, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and you would browse for yourselves the painstaking inquiries and theorizing done by sociologists then to capture the fragmentary state that institutions and the collective mind were undergoing.

Onwards through the latter half of the 20th century, Western (read: Caucasian) thinkers haven’t ceased to capture in theory what was going on behind society’s structures that was cause behind fractured minds and sociopathic behavior. Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean Francois Lyotard, Jacques Baudrillard, to name a few luminaries, continued the tradition of studying the fragmenting society, psyche, and their expressions in symbolic constructs.

So, with the latest round of massacre expectedly by another White man, what else is new in Anglo-Saxon America? That gunner’s psyche is fragmenting, rendering him as a dangerous walking predator of sorts. Too many Anglo-Saxon men and women, followed by their colored people who were socialized into the Anglo-Saxon’s culture, are fragmenting in their psyche just as White society’s institutions have been disintegrating (read Baudrillard, Lyotard, Foucault).

Let’s get this straight: the phenomenon of sociopathic massacres is highest in the United States, though it is also prevalent in other Western countries. In contrast, such massacres are nearly absent in the ‘emerging markets’ that are today’s growth drivers of the global economy.

One need not even resort to using statistical correlates or chi square test to check whether being White man’s country is a predictor of such sociopathic murders. And among White man’s countries, the USA is topmost in the total incidence of such a ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’ behavior.

I did discuss the matter of mass massacres with my mother very recently. She acquired American citizenship and is already retired, though she chose to have a dual citizenship. She is very much aware of the social pathology that goes on in the USA, and was of the opinion that the next mass massacre is just around the bend.

So I raised the ‘research problem’ to my Mom about when would be the next massacre in case? Using intuitive forecasting, based on pass trends, I surmised that most likely over the next six (6) weeks at least, another massacre will take place somewhere in Anglo-Saxon America, and most likely it will be a White man committing the crime.

I won’t be surprised if my own estimate of one massacre in six weeks will turn out to be badly underestimated, that a couple or more will take place in the days ahead. A society that is in deep crisis—socially, culturally, economically, politically—is replete with possibilities of pathologically-induced massacres.

To comprehend their own states of being, I would counsel Americans (predominantly White Anglo-Saxon) to go back to the work of the late Pitirim Sorokin titled Crisis of our Age. Likewise read the works of Daniel Bell concerning the unfolding Post-Industrial society up North.

Well, there also was the late Jurgen Habermas who reflected on the ‘legitimation crisis’ and its attendant malaise in White societies. From Habermas you can branch out to the works of Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, and Ernst Bloch.

But this is what Americans ought to think about: time is running out on America. Too many luminaries up North have written about the fragmentary society and psyche, yet Americans failed to grapple with the realities unfolding, failed to address the fragmentation process with ‘best practices’ done at all levels.

Americans better be quick in altering the course of their history, for the compass of the unfolding history points towards sinking in quicksands of uncertainties, chaos, and a Dark Age.

[Philippines, 15 January 2011]

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

SET YOUR ANNUAL GOALS FOR 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


2011 has already started, and it began with an ambience of all-time high optimism across Asian countries. In my beloved country Filipinas, the Hope index measured an incomparable 89%, or that Filipinos are of the predominant hopeful mood that all will be well for their respective lives.

To start the year right, it would be best for each and every one of us to set our goals for the year. On the informal level of the lifeworld, there is this fancy for setting ‘new year’s resolution’ as the old year is about to end and the new year is just minutes away. This ritualistic practice can be improved on if the person sit down and put into writing the goals for the year.

As a professional, I have made it my personal practice to set goals for the year since I began working way back in 1981 yet. Then, at the end of the year, I would assess the level of goal attainment, correct flaws by rectified goal-attainment for the coming year, and then setting all in all the goals for the year in a very organized manner.

It would be best if you scribble your goals in the very diary or appointment book that you are using for the current year. Identify just about a few workable or doable goals, e.g. in my practice I would have just three (3) maximum goals to work on. Scribble each goal thereafter on a distinct or dedicated page in your diary.

After I write down a goal, I would then write some descriptions of the goal, and even identify sub-goals. Then, it would pay that I would also identify the ways to achieve the goal and sub-goals.

You can go ahead and prioritize the goals. Present the goal first which is top priority, then which is moderate priority, and which is least priority. Go ahead and scribble descriptions, sub-goals, and articulations about quantitative and qualitative targets.

After writing down your goals, make sure to check them every week or so. It would be bad practice to log them in, and then forget to check on them later.

The style of goal-setting can be as creative as it can get. For the prepped up young working persons, adding graphic images and jotting down the goals on one’s Blackberry or cellphone would be add fun and excitement to the goal-setting and execution.

For all ye global citizens, please don’t forget to set your goals for the year. If you have no fondness for this kind of exercise, better rethink about your position and begin the practice for your own sake. Moving ahead blindly, without a personal plan for the year, is like straitjacketing yourself.

[Philippines, 14 January 2011]

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Sunday, January 16, 2011

PHILIPPINE STOCKS @4,200+ POINTS, WILL SURGE ANEW BY 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Asian bourses continue to perform excellently, and the Philippines is a contributor to this bullish trend. In the past year, there were some junctures when the bourses did dip a bit, but never too dip as not to be able to surge back ahead. The bourses reflect the optimal growth patterns in Asia and are bound to replicate the feat in 2011.

By the start of 2010, I was of the opinion that the Philippine stock exchange will trade very bullishly, that it will eventually breach the all-time best record of 3,600+ points achieved during the era of the Ramos presidency yet. True enough, it did breach the 3,600 points and ended up at 4,200+ points by end of December 2010.

To recap, 2,000 points is the bourse’s psychological break point in my beloved Philippines. Quite a barometer of the economy’s health, the stock index says that the economy here is faltering when the bourse crashes below the 2,000 point barrier and stay down there for many months. At some time in 2009, that incident happened, though fortunately for the country the stock index climbed back past the 2,000-point threshold quickly.

Being among the Asian countries that have learned to insulate themselves from global economic downturns and great recessions, the Philippines did bounce back right away and saw the index breach the 3,000-point level in the first semester of 2010. This trend alone is cause enough for great hope for the coming months and years in this country.

With ‘smart money’ leaving the North due to stagnation and recession, it wasn’t long before the Ph bourse soon felt such ‘manna from heaven’ getting invested into its stock options. With that happening, the stocks meteorically ascended the 4,000-point level in the 2nd semester, and was optimistically forecast to reach 4,600+ points by certain quarters.

Witnessing the pattern of periodic decreases amid a general trend of sharp climb, I did raise eyebrows over the mega-optimistic forecast. I was already happy to see the 3,600+ points breached, but a 4,600 point conclusion is far from achievable in 2010. And so, true to my intuitive forecast, it settled at 4,200+ points, or just 200+ points beyond the new barrier of 4,000 points.

As big ticket projects are now on the pipeline for negotiations and implementation soon, we can expect investments to surge upwards more sharply this 2011. This will be reinforced further by the upgrading by Moody’s of the country’s investment grade from “stable” to “positive” just as soon as the new year commenced.

An offshoot of the optimism in the investment field will be entry of more players locally to purchasing stocks in the new IPO options opened to the public. Furthermore, ‘smart money’ from overseas will inflow into the local bourse and capital markets, thus ensuring another year of surge in the stock index.

This time around, I will be among those who will accept a forecast of the Philippine bourse breaching the 4,600+ points at the end of 2011. Granted that fairness in the stock trading and surety of regulatory mechanisms will be stronger this year, the Philippine bourse will perform excellently again this year and facilely breach that new forecast level.

[Philippines, 13 January 2011]

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

WESTERN ECONOMIC SHRINKAGE A REALITY AS ASIA RISES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Magandang araw sa kapamilyang global! Good day to fellow global citizens!

For three decades already, I have been echoing a prognostication that was already current stock within sociology, about the ‘decline of the west’. Let me return to the same theme, as the rapid decline of the West and the fast rise of Asia is now a reality of the current historical juncture.

Just a couple of days ago, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s or PDI’s opinion pages published an article by the past recent premier of the UK, Gordon Brown (PDI, 7 January 2011). Titled “Reviving the West,” it was a rather straightforward admission of the techno-economic decline that the West had undergone and the rapid ascent of Asia as the global economy’s growth driver.

As Brown succinctly stressed, “Time is running out of the West, because both Europe and the United States have yet to digest the fact that all the individual crises of the last few years—from the sub-prime crisis and the collapse of the Lehman Brothers to Greek austerity and Ireland’s near-bankruptcy—are symptoms of a bigger problem: a world undergoing a far-reaching, irreversible and, indeed, unprecedented restructuring of economic power.”

That was the former premier speaking, a technocrat and economic manager prior to his premier stint, so it does carry weight as much as those of the globe-trotting former US president Bill Clinton. Gordon went on to demonstrate his deep knowledge of the rising middle class consumers of Asia who altogether will make the greatest consumers the world over in the foreseeable future.

Said Gordon:

Of course, we all know of Asia’s rise, and that China exports more than America and soon will manufacture and invest more as well. But we have not fully come to terms with the sweep of history. Western economic dominance—10 percent of the world’s population producing a majority of the world’s exports and investment—is finished, never to return. After two centuries in which Europe and America monopolized global economic activity, the West is now being out-produced, out-manufactured, out-traded, and out-invested by the rest of the world.

That indubitably is an empirical substantiation of the thesis long held by Western social forecasters about the ‘decline of the West’. Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, Daniel Bell, Alvin Toffler, and John Naisbitt have churned out voluminous prognosis and forewarnings about the same thesis within a century’s span…and that thesis is now a reality.

In the middle and last portions of Brown’s article, he admonished Americans in particular to re-invent the ‘American dream’. The way to the revival of the West, with the USA showcasing the compass, is to re-structure the economy altogether. Accordingly, the nascence of over a billion middle class Asian consumers is a huge opportunity for America to re-invent itself and revive a strong economy.

Brown also forewarned America’s politicians, notably the Right, about criminalizing external forces, such as China’s currency, as culprits behind the decline of the US economy. Intervention measures such as currency wars are flawed, precisely because they fail to address the internal factors that are truly the causes of the economic decline.

To a great extent, I do agree with the evaluations and interventions of Brown. Fact is, I have already begun to echo the theme that America and Europe ought to reverse the policies of liberalization, privatization, and deregulation that led to de-industrialization, agricultural decay, infrastructure decay, and the rise of a ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance (vulture funds, derivatives or hedge funds). As I had been saying all along, the West should go back to the principles of the ‘real economy’ where wealth is produced from agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructures, transportation & communications, and science & technology.

As a matter of fact, I have been among Asian analysts and development practitioners who have urged the Americans to go back to the economics of New Deal propounded by the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Likewise should the tried & tested policies upheld by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick von List, and John F. Kennedy, policies that impelled the rise of the physical economy and brought bountiful prosperity to Americans (read: created a predominant middle class), be put to the fore in rebuilding America.

Gordon resonates somehow with the ‘physical economy’ framework, even as he heralded the need for a new Marshall Plan for the world. Accordingly, the Plan could help to recast the banking system that was dirtied by its engagements in speculative financing and contributed to creating financial bubbles. The Western peoples should better listen to him, more so the youth who will be tomorrow’s Western leaders.

Let me re-echo the same message I have been saying all along: that prosperity should be a win/win phenomenon. No one here in Asia would ever want the USA and Europe to go back to the era of ‘cave man’ economy of hunting & gathering. I’d be happier many more times if the West should re-invent itself, cease from playing the destructive game of win/lose logic in order to prosper, and move back to reconstruct its physical economy altogether.

Asian spiritual masters, who incidentally also discoursed on economic doctrines (i.e. Baha’ullah, Gandhi, Vivekananda, Sarkar, Sri Aurubindo), left us all the legacy of building prosperity through the way of peace, cooperation, and mutual-help. It’s time for the Western peoples to retool themselves, by throwing away the binary and destructive thought system they inherited from their forebears, and by learning from Asia’s spiritual and intellectual giants.

[Philippines, 09 January 2011]

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IS THE PHILIPPINES ALREADY INDUSTRIALIZED?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Let me continue with the reflections on my beloved Philippines’ economy. This effort is often part of my self-accepted duties to update myself and my compatriots about the state of the Philippine economy at the start of every year.

Just a week ago, I came across an article writ by one of the stock market columnists in the Philippine Daily Inquirer of PDI, that re-echoed an emerging perception in the international business community concerning the Philippine economy’s being ‘industrialized’ today. Coming from the business community itself, this evaluative perception is replete with many implications for the country. It bodes well for the country in fact.

I wish that the perception will resonate with greater power by the day so that those in academic and ideological circles will rethink their positions about the Philippine ‘mode of production’. As far as the Maoists are concerned, PH will always remain as semi-feudal/semi-colonial, backward, agrarian economy. Some academic circles will re-echo the same old worn out “PH is a service economy, with mixed economy features.”

This analyst still recalls very well the ‘mode of production’ debate that reverberated the halls of the University of the Philippines in the 1980s. I graduated from this university in October 1980, then came back to take up graduate schooling in sociology from Nov. ‘83 to April ‘89, and so I was able to flow with the discussions and debates ensuing. The debate centered largely on whether the Philippines is semi-colonial/semi-feudal (Maoist) or capitalist mode (moderate Marxists, populists, social democrats).

By the mid-90s, the debate was already faltering and dying out. It was a dead debate when the year 2000 rang a sonorous beacon of the new millennium. But if you ask any of the competing ideological blocs today about their perceptions of Philippine reality, you will notice that they will churn out the same lines that they’ve been saying for decades.

As regards the perception that PH economy is a ‘service economy’, the criterion is largely based on what sector—agriculture & forestry? industry? services? –contribute the greatest to the gross domestic product or GDP. Since services contribute 55% to the GDP, then PH is a ‘service economy’.

That evaluative perception has a kindergarten undertone to it, as it relies on simplistic assumptions. Just because the industrial sector, which churns out barely 30% (manufacturing + infrastructure combined) of the GDP, looks diminutive than services, doesn’t merit an economy to be judged as ‘services’ or ‘non-industrial’ economy.

To be fair to those opinion quarters who have their own paradigm that churn out specific evaluative judgements, the term ‘industrializing’ was used to label Philippine development since the 1980s. At one point, PH was included among the NIEs or ‘newly industrializing economies’, and so the reference point was industry more than services.

Let’s go back to the USA in the year 1900 when it was already adjudged as industrialized. Industries began to enable the imperialistic pursuits of the USA then, if you recall your history well. But at that time, agriculture was still employing over 90% of the workforce, and nary an evidence can be shown that industry had out-stripped agriculture at that juncture as the main contributor to the national income (today’s GDP) perentage-wise. Yet the USA was already adjudged as ‘industrial’ at that time!

If the criteria would be largely the (a) prevalence and (b) impact of capital goods or ‘reproducible goods’ industries, then the market players have clear evidences to show such increased prevalence and impact. Save for integrated steel and castings & forging industries, every vital capital goods are already being manufactured in PH today. Unless of course that the ‘services economy’ judges are blind to these developments.

The emerging perception and judgement about PH economy should be impetus enough to cause a re-tooling by the analysts and ‘best practices’ innovators. It would prove beneficial for everyone if coteries of opinion-makers, business executives and capitalists themselves would begin the ball rolling by publishing their emerging perception about the ‘emerging markets’ such as PH to be already ‘industrialized’.

As a related event, I just signaled the young Prof. John Ponsaran, head of the development studies program in the UP Manila, about the emerging perception. I once taught in the UP Manila’s department of social sciences, where development studies is niched, so I know the temper of the faculty there that goes for debating on anything under the sun. I hope the emerging perception will be tackled in that campus.

[Philippines, 08 January 2011]

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

PHILIPPINES’ FOREIGN EXCHANGE BREACHES $62 BILLIONS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Good day to you, fellow global citizens!

The newspapers this morning released a gladdening news about a macro-economic fundamental in my beloved Philippines: foreign exchange or FOREX reserves breached the U.S. $62 Billion mark. The news item means that my country has all the foreign currencies to purchase a year-long worth of imports and still end up with a surplus of money.

That is inarguably good news, a veritable proof of how strong the Philippine economy is. My country surely belongs to the ‘Asian economy’ and is part of the region that is intractably the growth driver of the global economy today. PH’s forex grew by almost 50% from $44 Billion in 2009 to $62 Billion in 2010, and that is a very newsworthy development.

Practically all of the major macro-economic indicators in the country ended up with good results as of end of December 2010, thus ensuring prognosis of healthy fundamentals in the foreseeable future. GDP growth rate is good (c. 7%), balance of payments is at surpluses worth billions of U.S. dollars, exports & imports have rebounded since the lamentable contraction in 2009 (affected by the North’s recessionary winds), wages have been going up, inflation rate has been a manageable 2.8%-4.2%, debts are manageable (no fiscal crisis in the short run), domestic market had expanded by double digit, and liquidity has been sustained at manageable level.

So far so good! I have no better wish than to see the rising forex levels sustained so that PH can breach forex reserves of $100 Billion as early as 2012. At that level, we can safely say that foreign currency (dollar, pound sterling, yen, euro) will be an over-the-counter commodity, thus ending decades of forex crisis that was a factor behind PH’s low capability to secure foreign loans for its big ticket development projects.

The days of the forex crisis—whence forex levels wasn’t even enough to pay for 1 month of imports—is way behind us now in the ‘pearl of the orient seas’. Our forex reserves, added to the other macro-economic fundamentals, have rendered our country as more than stable economically and financially, thus meriting an upgrade in its assessment by investment evaluators (e.g. Moody’s).

The only thing to watch out, in a cautionary manner, is the contribution of portfolio investments to the forex level of late. As the northern economies burn, ‘smart money’ has been departing from their niches and finding new havens in Asia. And so a substantial sum of billions of dollars of that ‘smart money’ found its way into the Philippine financial and capital markets.

Our financial markets here are very highly liberalized, so the danger that volatilities can bring to our very own forex reserves is there. Extreme volatilities elsewhere in the globe can lead to investors’ gross divestment of their portfolios, thus leading to a domino effect of economic crash.

I have no problem admitting that short-term investments do make an economy healthy enough, provided that the regulatory mechanisms—available as tool to address volatilities’ adverse effects—are strengthened or reinforced at this moment. We can never have a repeat again of the Asian financial meltdown in 1997, a meltdown that began with currency attacks and then led to domino effects of crashing blows on banking, realty, manufactures, infrastructures, and the other sectors as well. No sir! We can and should never have a repeat again of that Dark Year of ’97!

Short of installing capital control measures, such as what Mahathir Mohammad did for Malaysia, PH’s central bank and monetary board should evaluate quickly the impact of possible volatilities through simulation models at hand. Maybe more tighter regulatory interventions should be installed as options in case of the contingencies arising, measures other than manipulating the liquidities through interest rates or shoring up fiscal capabilities through extended treasuries sales.

Among the options to be taken is the imposition of a Tobin Tax on all cross-border financial transactions. I have been echoing this option since the late 1990s yet, and I will again echo it this time. Just by imposing 0.35% tax on all such transactions, the country can accumulate buffer stocks of monies for the rainy economic days, at the same time that it can contribute immensely to international organizations such as the UN (as per prescription by the late economist James Tobin).

Meantime, for the Filipinos and Asians, cheers over the buoyant forex reserves in Manila! Mabuhay!

[Philippines, 08 January 2011]

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Sunday, January 09, 2011

WOMEN CHIEF EXECS: INCREASING COUNT, KUDOS TO WOMEN POWER!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Women are making themselves felt more and more in the field of state governance these days. It surely pays to reflect on the increasing ascent of women in this field of endeavor.

In my own country PH, women have since expanded their presence in the top management of state and business bureaucracies. Latest count by the commission on women puts the number at 40% of total exec seats held by women, which renders PH among the exemplars of women empowerment in Asia and the world.

Our immediate past president, Gloria Arroyo, showed her own executive acumen as the Philippines graduated to middle income status from that of a poor 3rd world country during her incumbency. In 1986, our first lady president Corazon Aquino became the iconic symbol of democracy domestically and worldwide. Both lady leaders joined the select coterie of globally influential lady execs for their exemplary feats.

The most recent additions to the lady chief execs are Australia’s Premier Julia Gillard and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. I’ve already expressed my kudos to the noblesse ladies, and I wish that they will propel their respective countries towards greater growth and magnanimity in the global community.

The latest gender report shows the following list of lady chief execs (see AFP, 2011):

Australia: Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Argentine: President Cristina Kirchner
Bangladesh: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed
Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff
Costa Rica: President Laura Chinchilla
Croatia: Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor
Finland: President Tarja Halonen
Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel
Iceland: Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir
India: President Pratibha Patil
Ireland: President Mary McAleese
Kyrgyztan: Interim President Roza Otunbayeva
Liberia: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Lithuania: President Dalia Grybauskaite
Slovakia: Prime Minister Iveta Radicova
Switzerland: Confederal President Doris Leuthard
Trinidad & Tobago: Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Goodwill and best wishes to all the women chief execs! Mabuhay!


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Thursday, January 06, 2011

RE-ECHOING KUDOS TO PRESIDENT ROUSSEFF OF BRAZIL


Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Brazil and the world are all eyes today on the newly elected president who just took her oath as chief exec, the magnanimous lady Dilma Rousseff.

Rousseff replaces the very popular Lula da Silva who had to step down due to constitutional limits on presidential terms (2 terms only). Both leaders come from the same socialist party of Brazil, even as Rousseff once served as top cabinet aide of Lula, so we do expect a continuity of the redistributive policies of Lula.

A former guerilla, who was among the audacious patriots who dared to clash it out with the military dictatorships that were backed, or should we say installed by the U.S.A. She suffered incarceration and political torment, rose above those constrictions as democracy returned, and ascended to power like a phoenix.

To recall, Lula worked out to bring social equity to its fruition, the result of which enlarged the middle class in Brazil. Poverty alleviation programs have been churning out good results as more poor folks graduated to middle income status during his term. His government’s innovative cash transfer program is being copied by various countries in the world today including my own beloved Philippines.

Lula will surely be well remembered for his feats, and hopefully the socialist party that he belongs to will stand by those redistributive policies that were inspired foremost of all by socialist doctrines. For his feats, Lula became the world’s most popular and admired leader in the whole world, and put Brazil all the more at the center of the world’s global growth drivers.

We will all be missing Lula, the same way that we miss Mandela of South Africa. But no worry, there’s Lady Rousseff who will continue the Lula’s policies and programs and who will dare to innovate more in such areas as providing aid to developing countries that are in need. Rousseff will strengthen Brazil’s leadership in Latin America, enough to veer away the south from the hegemonistic bullying of the U.S.A.

I did echo my kudos to the honorable Rousseff after she won her electoral victory. Let me re-echo my greetings again:

Best wishes for you President Dilma Rousseff in your incumbency as chief executive of Brazil! Goodwill to all Brazilians! Mabuhay!

[Philippines, 04 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
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Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
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ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
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Monday, January 03, 2011

ARGONZA BACK FROM THE HOLIDAYS, EXTENDS GOODWILL!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to all ye global citizens, readers, friends & fellows of this enthused analyst from Manila!

I’m back from the holidays, recharged and refreshed. I haven’t returned though to my gym works, so I promise myself renewed gym burning late this week.

Ye fellows of mine who did intake so much food inputs this past holiday season, don’t forget to burn down those extra fats, cleanse away excess bad cholesterols, and regain back your regular weight. Go back to your physical regimen, or develop one if you have been neglecting your physical wellness in a long time or so.

There are so many exciting things to talk about this year, more so from where I’m located: Asia. Just sit and relax, sip coffee or beverage while you browse over my coming notes, share comments every now and then. We will be together in the excitement, like riding our roller coaster of blog thoughts.

Goodwill, good health, prosperity to all of you for the year 2011!

[04 January 2011, Philippines]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

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@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com
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