P347-billion added debt burden

P347-billion added debt burden

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-07-2014 MON)

 

National government debt increased year-on-year in May by P347 billion or 6.57 percent.  Gloria Arroyo left the country a P4.9-trillion debt.  BS Aquino’s now stands at P5.6 trillion.

 

This debt is unnecessary in light of the huge amounts wasted in the so-called BS Aquino Disbursement Acceleration Program cum presidential “pork barrel” (BADAP) or on Congress’ wastage of P35 billion last year passing only one law postponing the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

 

This is especially so considering the country’s over $20 billion in foreign exchange surplus or its Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of P1.7 trillion ($ 40 billion) costing 2.5 percent to keep idle, or BS Aquino’s June 2012 boast of lending $1 billion to help keep the Eurozone afloat.

 

Taking all that into account, does it still make sense for the Philippines to continue growing its debt principal and interest?  No!

 

The Philippines continues to borrow ONLY because of subservience to the US-led Western financial-political mafia.  As domestic banks get 70 percent of such borrowings, so too are local banks exploiting the people in this unnecessary debt.

 

The global banking mafia has had, and continues to make, many impositions deleterious to the country, one of which is the invasion of foreign capital into our rural banks, which will result in control by these global “too-big-to-fail” banks that had brought about regular financial collapses such as the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The only alternative to this cycle of financial looting is People’s or National Banking, which is part of the broader monetary system in its many forms, from cooperative banks to nationalized or government dominated banks, to the modern evolution called “crypto-currencies.”

 

This is the banking system of the main economic tigers of Asia, namely, China, Vietnam, Singapore, etc.  The people create the wealth and the surplus and savings out of it are lent to projects that benefit the people in a perpetual cycle of enriching people’s communities instead of private bankers.

 

There is no opposition from the Philippine establishment, i.e. the present ruling class of corrupt politicians and financial mafias (or banks) with interlocking ownership by mega-corporations, because the present financial-political-economic system benefits only them and excludes the people (the middle class and the masses).

 

BADAP and legislative “pork” are just the share of the system’s political cronies to keep the present system going.  Hence, there will eventually be a resurrection of BADAP and “pork” if the present system is to survive, which the powers-that-be are determined to do--unless, there is genuine change or revolution.

 

Revolution (peaceful desirably) is possible only if the ideological foundation of the prevailing system is undermined, by bringing to light values of right and wrong in matters such as ownership of the nation’s common wealth (land, capital-financial system, public utilities) or of public vs private ownership and control of such resources.

 

Without such public ownership or control (especially of the financial system), a government dedicated to the peoples’ welfare will never have the wherewithal to serve them.  Instead, a government controlled by private wealth will only protect private wealth and grow more private wealth--exactly the situation we have today.

 

Congressional “pork” was allegedly diverted to the personal coffers of Janet Lim-Napoles and various politicians.  But BADAP, now revealed, was used by BS Aquino to rid the Supreme Court (SC) of Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was an obstacle to the Aquino-Cojuangco clan’s desire of obtaining a P10-billion (instead of P490-million) government compensation for the distribution to farmers of Hacienda Luisita.

 

Unable to skirt clear constitutional separation-of-powers provisions, the current SC struck down BADAP but gave BS Aquino an escape hatch, mindful of his possible retaliation on the high court’s own “pork,” the Judiciary Development Fund.

 

The Makati Business Club’s “Coalition Against Corruption” made a call to abolish the P25-billion congressional “pork barrel,” but “pork” goes all the way down to the city council level.  Moreover, “pork” is public funds meant for public good, too.

 

But what about the P5.67-trillion debt, 70 percent of which goes to domestic banks and 30 percent to foreign banks?  Where do these banks get the money to lend government from which they charge taxpayers interest?

 

Renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith says, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

 

Positive Money cites from England, “Where does money come from?  In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits.  But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood.  The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”

 

The loans banks issue (including to governments) create bank assets, from which they can loan money out again, ad infinitum.  We are taxed to pay the interest to them.

 

Why don’t the people earn the interest by being the bankers themselves--through publicly-owned People’s or National Banks?

 

Napoles and company are certainly no match for the Ponzi schemes of the private banking mafia.

 

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