A NEWS report quoting a study conducted by a civic group, Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities, as saying that about 70 percent of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are unable to save or invest for themselves due to financial-management illiteracy reflects lost opportunity.

With 10 percent of the 92 million Filipinos, or 9 million, working abroad and sending money back home, there is so much money that could have been invested in productive enterprises.

Since the end of World War II, there has been one truth about the way the world works. From the most remote South Pacific island to the highest mountains, in the deepest jungle, on the streets of every city on the planet, everyone knew the value of an American $100 bill.

At the end of the war, 44 nations sat down and created the Bretton Woods Agreements, which established a framework of rules, institutions and procedures to regulate the international monetary system.

MANILA—The recent collapse of the global economy, caused by, among other things, the lack of regulation of financial markets, has further eroded the credibility of neoliberalism. And yet it continues to exercise a strong influence on the majority of economists and economic managers, for whom, despite its obvious shortcomings, it remains the default discourse.

Why the continuing invocation of neoliberal mantras when the promises of this doctrinaire approach have been contradicted at almost every turn by reality?