It’s the caste system, stupid! And I don’t mean just the Philippines.
“This Is Why We Need to Spend $4 Trillion,” David Brooks, The New York Times, 20th Sep 2021.
To appreciate why the quote from Brooks, he was the first pundit I wrote at the New York Times. He is a conservative Republican. And when Dubya (George Bush) became the party’s candidate for president, he waxed poetic for all the reasons to elect the clown.
Here’s an aside. An American friend was so taken by the speech of GMA when she visited Washington that he wanted her to be the US president. “Ours couldn’t put one simple sentence together.”
Those familiar with US public television would know that Brooks and a democratic pundit had this regular debate, rooting for their respective dogmas.
Disclosure: I did my homework on “selecting people” in a leadership position, and Dubya had many negatives if we were disappointed with Cory despite her positive attributes. The evidence? Take one: He concocted a bogus war in Iraq, no different from Johnson doing it in Vietnam.
In an MNC, succession planning is a big part of running an enterprise. We were in over 200 markets and must be proactive in leadership development. Those familiar with the blog may recall that I presented a quick and dirty game plan to enter China, and both the president and CEO expected the leadership piece woven in. “Are you offering the job to John today?” That was the first thing out of the CEO’s lips.
Let’s hold it there to expand on the quick and dirty game plan.
It was not a dissertation. One chart with these simple bullet points: A third of the market is in the three major metro areas. We will capture a 20% market share, giving us the margins to go head-to-head against the only Western brand in the market. They have a 20% market share but are widespread. There are doors and doors open to us. But we will start and focus on the three major metro areas to get the biggest bang.
John used the same bullet points when we presented to the Board Policy Committee. But he spread it over three charts to speak to each one. Still, there was no need for a dissertation. Readers of the blog may recall that John was my boss in the Philippines.
The real world is where Juan de la Cruz suffers from abject poverty, and that cannot be compensated by us beating our chests for the dollar billionaires we created.
A dissertation can rationalize every positive we trumpet in the academic world yet miss the real world. Recall the Ph.D. I mentored. We revised the outline approved by the professor to capture the real world, even setting aside the great Mathematician’s — Markov — algorithm. That was her ticket to become the global marketing director of one of the world’s famous brands.
Let’s go back to my homework.
In doing my homework, I traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to St. Paul, Minneapolis, to a professor’s study in his new house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a company in Memphis, Tennessee that loudly trumpeted their embrace of the Total (Japanese) Quality, among others. The Memphis-based company also operates in over 200 countries and territories – and I would see their trucks everywhere I traveled.
I met up with a team of consultants who pioneered the 360-degree leadership assessment model. And a guru that came out with a best-seller in organization effectiveness.
And in Dublin, meet up with one of the two consultants behind the UK civil service selection process. The UK is the global standard in civil service efficiency and effectiveness.
Still, perfection is not of this world – as in how the politicians bet and lost on Brexit. Translation: Its fallouts are still reverberating. News item: “The pandemic and Brexit have exacerbated the shortage of truck drivers, which resulted in tens of thousands of EU nationals leaving their trucking jobs in the United Kingdom.” And the cold season is here; car drivers find petrol stations closed and homes need heat despite the unusual spike in prices; food rotting in warehouses – as in the supply chain ruined. That is akin to a perfect storm.
Did I say that I have no respect for (US) politics and chose not to exercise the right to vote?
But let’s get back to Brooks.
“I've spent the last few weeks in a controlled fury — and I’m generally not a fury kind of guy. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and others are trying to pass arguably the most consequential legislative package in a generation, and what did I sense in my recent travels across five states? The same thing I feel in my social media feed and on the various media ‘most-viewed’ lists.
“Indifference.
“Have we given up on the idea that policy can change history? Have we lost faith in our ability to reverse, or even be alarmed by, national decline? More and more, I hear people accepting the idea that America is not as energetic and youthful as it used to be.
“I can practically hear the spirits of our ancestors crying out — the ones who had a core faith that this would forever be the greatest nation on the planet, the New Jerusalem, the last best hope of earth.
“My ancestors were aspiring immigrants and understood where the beating heart of the nation resided: with the working class and the middle class, the ones depicted by Willa Cather, James Agee, Ralph Ellison, or in ‘The Honeymooners,’ ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ and ‘On the Waterfront.’ There was a time when the phrase ‘the common man’ was a source of pride and a high compliment.
“Look at the list of states that, according to a recent analysis of White House estimates by CNBC, could be among those getting the most money per capita from the infrastructure bill. Many of them are places where Trumpian resentment is burning hot: Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota.
“Biden had it exactly right when he told a La Crosse, Wis., audience, ‘The jobs that are going to be created here — largely, it’s going to be those for blue-collar workers, the majority of whom will not have to have a college degree to have those jobs.’
“In normal times, I’d argue that many of the programs in these packages may be ineffective. I’m a lot more worried about debt than progressives seem to be. But we’re a nation enduring a national rupture, and the most violent parts of it may still be yet to come.”
It’s worth repeating. “we’re a nation enduring a national rupture, and the most violent parts of it may still be yet to come.”
The blog can speak to the caste systems of the Philippines and the US because my family lived through them.
For example, we lived in desirable gated communities in the Philippines and the New York metro area. And in the case of the latter, we’re paying two sets of taxes beyond federal – with New York ranking first in total taxes (personal income and state).
And where is Trumpian resentment burning hot per Brooks? Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota. And they could use the Biden trillions to create jobs for blue collars and non-college degree folks.
It’s the caste system, stupid!
Yet, whether it’s Trump or Biden, Uncle Sam cannot be about “America First, and Only” – if it deserves to be a hegemon. Why do Americans call the US president the leader of the free world?
Biden messed up Afghanistan because he was playing populist politics, i.e., Americans want out. That he can be a Trump but not precisely – and appeal to Trumpians.
But leadership must move beyond “analysis” into “analytics.” For example, beyond AUKUS, Biden must keep to the GPS model: Where are we; Where do we want to be; How do we get there. Otherwise, the Republicans will label him incompetent – i.e., all bluster a la Trump – if they haven’t already.
Biden indicated that he knew Trump was transactional, not strategic, and why he pronounced, “America is back.”
That brings us to the Philippines – in a long, roundabout way.
Here’s a quote from an earlier posting: “Let’s digress a bit. Didn’t we say that what we need is ‘happiness,’ not GDP? That is patronizing and can only come from us in the Philippine elite and chattering classes.
“Because like the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Philippines needs funding. But let’s hold it right there.
“Funding does not mean tax revenues. Tax revenues come from national income or GDP. Can we not connect simple dots?
“Recall what the blog says all the time: We are GDP-starved. Forget about OFW remittances and the BPO industry, our top eight companies, the ‘sweet spot’ in our consumer market, the 4Ps, our MSMEs, and the Build, Build, Build program.
“They collectively don’t generate the levels of GDP to feed Juan de la Cruz – or fund the DA.
“Is that hard to comprehend?”
Let’s keep to “funding.” Why do we keep moving deeper into LGUs? Because they need development too, like imperial Manila?
How shortsighted is that? Very much; because it is a blatant display of the crab mentality.
We cannot rely on a measly national income per capita and keep dishing tax revenues to LGUs and codifying it with the Mandanas law. That is a race to the bottom, and the opposite of optimization is suboptimization. Translation: Nobody wins; everyone loses.
Can we not figure that out?
We are GDP-starved. Forget about OFW remittances and the BPO industry, our top eight companies, the “sweet spot” in our consumer market, the 4Ps, our MSMEs, and the Build, Build, Build program. They collectively don’t generate the levels of GDP to feed Juan de la Cruz – or fund the DA.
Consider: America is an economy of over $20 trillion. (And its GDP per capita is 702% ours.) It has the means to spend $700 billion in defense – almost twice our GDP – and that is why even a conservative Republican like Brooks is endorsing the Biden trillions.
What about us in the Philippines? We can’t copy America. But we can benchmark against our neighbors. They begged for foreign money and technology, and today are major export countries.
And, worst of all, these neighbors left us in the dust!
It’s the caste system, stupid!
We value hierarchy and paternalism instead of the common good.
And the common good comes from self-government – as in personal responsibility and an egalitarian ethos. In other words, it is not about “rank has its privileges.”
Are we Juan Tamad, Bondying, and Padre Damaso rolled into one?
Haven’t we messed up with Juan de la Cruz yet?
Gising bayan!
No comments:
Post a Comment