Jerome Bitun

It's been two months since I wrote something here. I must admit, writing is sometimes hard. Not that I don't have anything to write about, but more like I thought of something to write while walking/driving/showering but I forget to write it down immediately and when I'm ready to write, I forgot what I was going to write about. Anyway, I wasn't able to write anything last month because I was on vacation for three weeks. I went to the Philippines and Hong Kong as we usually do. I'm telling you this because it has something to do with what I am writing about today. As I usually do whenever I go somewhere, I like to observe everything. I not only try to enjoy the sights and the place, but I always try to look at the town or country from an economics point of view. I know, I'm weird that way. For my clients who are from the Philippines, here is what I observed. Philippines Compared to when I was in the Philippines back around 2009, when Gloria Arroyo was s...

So the US debt deal has been passed and was presented to Obama a few hours before the deadline which Obama signed. The deal increases the US debt limit immediately by $400B and another $500B by February. This avoids a default by the US government. Part of the debt deal is to cut the US deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over 10 years. If you divide that, it's around $200B a year. To put that amount in context, in 2010, the interest alone paid by the US on its debt is $164B. The Department of Defense budget in 2010 is $663.7B. In short, the spending cuts are insignificant. Here's the sad part, the budget cut is not really a cut in spending. According to Presidential hopeful Ron Paul , the budget cut is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. I know a lot of people are confused ...