Every election is always for the “soul of the nation.” It is because of SocMed where we hear something to that effect over and over and over. But it is always the same.
In the US election of 1860, the campaign slogan for Abraham Lincoln was “Vote yourself a farm and horses” in support for a law granting homesteads on the American western frontier areas. Politicians of either gender today do not have the cojones to say directly “Vote for me and I will give you free stuff.”
The history of US slogans is interesting. 1848 Zachary Taylor: “For President of the People.” Too bad the Taylor estate cannot be paid a royalty every time a politician says that. The 1872 opposition campaigned on “Turn the Rascals Out,” which would work well for some candidates today as then when rascal meant “rude, dishonest, mean, unprincipled and even dirty like ‘Doesn’t take a bath.’”
Presidentiable Al Smith in 1928 campaigned for repealing Prohibition with “Make your wet dreams come true.” How can you beat that?
This coming Philippine election though is unique as we are in the middle of a crisis cycle that we have not experienced before. Certainly, Joseph Estrada came in near the tail end of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. However, the economy was only affected for two quarters in 1998 with the worst being negative 3.1- percent growth. We were observers and not major participants in the crisis despite the peso depreciation.
The 2008 Global Debt Crisis did impact economic growth. But here again we were really bystanders because it was a commercial banking disaster, and our banks were not involved. The gloom and doom headlines—and Social Media—were hysterical. But if you look at actual economic data from 1998 to 2019, the few speed bumps were not major and were infrequent.
Everything changed when we went into the “chaos panic cycle” in January 2020.
For example, the Russian war in the Ukraine. No one has a clue what will happen next. As I said previously, I see a slow burn rather than an explosion as Russia consolidates gains and the EU/US try to figure what to do. But I will probably be wrong about the military aspect.
However, this is serious. “An EU embargo on Russian oil in the works—French minister.” Then, “EU to impose full embargo on Russian oil next week, after this weekend’s French election, and will send price above $185, according to JPMorgan.”
The container terminal at the Port of Shenzhen went to 30 percent of normal operations in May 2021, which caused the massive backlog of global shipping and goods distribution. This port handled more than 26 million TEUs (twenty-foot container equivalent unit) in 2020. Now the Port of Shanghai is under Covid siege, and this port traffic was 43 million TEUs in 2020.
On the financial front, the US economy is under attack by 40-year high inflation, a sickening debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, and a not-always-there president who has the lowest approval rating on record for this point in his administration. What happens with US interest rates affects every economy.
The Philippine president is the head of government, but he/she does not even come close to running the government. Under current conditions and with all these developing situations, it is the members of the cabinet who are crucial, particularly Foreign Affairs, Finance, Budget and Management, and Energy.
It is the men and women who occupy those seats that will directly determine the near-future of the nation, not the ones on stage at the “Biggest Grand Rally in History.” Regardless of their experience, in truth, there is not a single presidential candidate ready to take over in June 2022. There will be a hard 2022 learning curve. Even assuming that they can all turn buko juice into champagne, this time it is genuinely different.
On a personal note, congratulations to our son Christopher John and his wife-to-be Joyce Valenzuela who will be married this Saturday. Time does fly by so quickly.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.