They reject foreign direct investments while they want higher salaries, better services and a supposed end to labor export policy
These guys are indeed asking for higher salaries, better services and a supposed end to the labor export policy. However, they stupidly reject the badly needed Foreign Direct Investors with fears and claims like (1) only foreign investors will get rich and leave Filipinos poor and (2) that foreign investors are "foreign invaders".
Do you want to know why it's just really impossible to raise up the Filipino's daily minimum wage without risking the economy? It's because of the current economic condition. They want their minimum wages increased but they reject the need for FDIs all in the name of "nationalism". Here's the question that they need to answer -- are there enough Filipino-owned businesses that will pay taxes to finance the government?
They want better services but they hate competition at the same time. How do you become competitive? It's in the face of competition. It's stupid to brag about "PENOY PRAYD" whenever a Filipino succeeds abroad if they don't know how so and so succeeded. No, those Filipinos who succeeded abroad faced competition before they became "the one" -- Lydia De Vega didn't become one of the fastest women in the world if it wasn't for all her hardship and training. One reason why the oligarchy sucks in giving services is because there's hardly any competition. Would you bother to give better services if there's so little to no competition? If you want better services then open up the economy since competition brings forth innovation.
They want to end the labor export policy but they still reject foreign investment at the same time. I did mention earlier that there's not enough Filipino-owned businesses to employ that many jobless Filipinos. No, 4Ps is not going to end the joblessness problem as its fanatical followers and proponents would want you to beleive -- it's just a band-aid solution at best one way or another. China and Singapore were once very poor countries. What Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kuan Yew did was not to give 4Ps type programs (and the government's treasury was dying that time) to open up the economy to Foreign Direct Investors which helped curb employment and give more income to their state.
They want higher salaries and lower priced goods
I remembered writing about Renato Reyes Jr. and his fantasy land where salaries are high and prices of commodities are low. While it's possible to lower prices in the long run such as the economies of scale and when innovation finds less costly ways to produce quality goods but has he considered that increasing salaries do play a part in the increasing the prices of goods and services?
What's the basis of the overhead pricing for business profit? You certainly need a profit to keep your business running. You need to sell a certain amount of goods at a certain price in order to go beyond break even and earn a profit. The cost of equipment and utilities do count -- such as the cost of maintenance, water, electricity and gasoline used to operate a business. But do they account that increasing the cost of labor will actually increase the cost of the products and services?
How does that work? If the minimum wage is increased to a certain level then doesn't that dictate you need to increase the prices of your goods and services to a certain extent so you can pay for it? If I decide to increase my employees' salary then I need to sell at a higher price so I can continue earning profits and paying their increased wages. Asking me to sell my products low and pay my employees high is a form of economic suicide. It would eventually decrease my money needed to maintain the quality of the business as price isn't the only competitive advantage you've got.
They want quality services without having to pay for it
As if asking for higher salaries while the costs of goods are decreased isn't enough -- they want to have high quality services without having to pay for it. That very idea is just stupid once you do everything at a business angle. Why do businessmen not give everything for free? Why are sample sizes so small while the actual products contain much more? It's because they need that money to keep their businesses running. Businesses run on money that they earn from their products and services -- not from gold coins that fall from the sky. That money is needed in order to pay necessary bills, buy new equipment and to pay salaries.
Why do you usually have to pay for better services? Let's consider the fact that there are many scenarios where you really need to pay more to get more all the while you should still find legitimate cost cutting methods at the same time. Businessmen need more money in order to get better quality supplies, better labor (by motivating employees through better pay) and better equipment -- which all of these result to better products. While it's good to find methods to produce at a lower cost but doesn't that mean that you should sacrifice quality in order to pay less. It's like cooking something -- can you make a better dish based on the best ingredients that cost more or on super cheap ingredients because they are close to their expiration date or even because they have molds growing in them? It's like how unsanitary street food will cost much less than regular fast food for this reason -- fast foods will spend on keeping their place clean and getting the best ingredients while street foods won't.
The problem of the activist mindset is that they would rather get everything free like in the story of the Little Red Hen. Nobody wanted to make the rice or bread but they all wanted a share of it. The little red hen did all the work and everybody else around her just wanted to eat it but never to take part in making it. What they don't realize that quality requires hard work which in turns needs to be justly rewarded. Then again if they don't pay then what will businessmen have in order to continue their products and services?
Worse, they want to abolish the law of supply and demand
It just WTFed me where people said that Noynoy Aquino is the better president than President Rodrigo R. Duterte for this reason -- prices that were mostly linked to the WORLD MARKET were lower than today. For example, Noynoy gets credited for lesser gasoline prices and President Duterte gets blamed for it -- never mind that both presidents also experienced gasoline rollbacks AND increases during their term -- it's mostly a world market problem. Also, a lot of prices may be increasing today because of supply and demand -- if the prices of rice are increasing then it's because it's El Nino -- if there's a drought then supply will be low and demand will be high -- thereby causing an increase in price as a result.
Also, the comparisons were usually done inside the mall. If you're going to buy your vegetables at a mall then don't expect them to be cheap for this reason -- those who sell at the malls are paying higher rent than those who sell at a stall. Vendors who lease space in downtown areas are bound to pay lower than those who rent in the malls. Also, if prices increase in the malls it's not just a supply and demand issue but also an issue of rental increase. I mean, don't lessors usually increase their rental rates every five to ten years? If the prices of the rent increase then so do the prices of products and services.
Hmmm... what do they want to do next? Abolish the law of supply and demand? If that's the case then they are asking the government to commit economic suicide. If you decide to sell low when demand is high and supply is low then expect a major loss in your business. It's biting more than you can chew. But for these guys it doesn't matter anyway as long as they get what they want, right?
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