That is, compared to the rest of the world. This became starkly of late. Everybody now is complaining our peso does not go far. Once a thousand bill is changed into smaller bills, these would all be gone in a jiffy. Yet you have not bought anything of value.
The big cause is the peso is very weak compared to the US dollar. A consequence of our high demand for that currency. Moreover, whatever small dollar earnings we managed to eke out, these are forked over immediately to foreign countries. Why? We buy a lot more from abroad than what we sell to foreign buyers. For we never took to heart the value of self-sufficiency. It appears not to exist in the vocabulary of our government and its officials.
Other countries we can compare ourselves to are in a lot better position. Taiwan, for one, is the biggest semi-conductor exporter in the whole world. It makes a lot of machineries– high-tech and low-tech– highly in demand internationally. Even food products, and a lot more.
Well, you might argue we are so backward compared to Taiwan. Perhaps you might be thinking of a comparison with a lesser developed nation. Why don’t we take Vietnam. That country was pulverized with bombs by the Americans during the Vietnam war, practically sending it back to the stone age. Where is it now? it is way ahead of us in terms of development. We are practically eating its dust.
Of course there is something whose production we are very good at. We are one of the best in coming up with politicians of the undesirable kind. Instead of leading us to higher ground they are dragging us down into the depths of underdevelopment. They are sucking for themselves whatever small economic juice we earned, risking every iota of energy left in us.**