WE have probably all have seen it happen at least once.
During the big game, the basketball team we are rooting for has a chance to put it all away for a decisive win. There is the right amount time left on the clock. The momentum is in our favor. The right players are on the court and this is what they have practiced for and waited to do all season.
It is not the time for the lower percentage three-point shots. This is when you give your best and create an effective defense. This is when your offense is ‘by the book’ while still looking for all the opportunities that can be found. This is when you prove that you deserve to be playing in the championship.
Every week as we progress into 2015, the global economic situation continues to become more uncertain and, frankly, more dangerous.
We entered 2015 with oil prices continuing to fall and that is having a serious negative impact on many important countries including those oil producers in the Middle East and elsewhere. Global economic growth estimates for 2015 are still being lowered.
The Swiss National Bank threw the currency markets into chaos by stopping the Swiss franc peg against the euro. Now Greece has voted a leftist party into power that initially said that it would repudiate its foreign debt unless the terms and conditions of that debt were lifted to stop the government’s austerity program. Similar political parties in Spain and elsewhere in the region know that now they have a similar chance to change the sovereign debt game.
The euro currency system if not the European Union concept stands at the brink of potential failure and disintegration.
The US Federal Reserve’s plan to raise interest rates is now gravely threatened by a widely appreciating US dollar. Japan is showing little hope of any economic recovery and China is moving to a soft landing of slower economic growth.
Philippine businesses have committed to and budgeted for a strong increase in capital spending in 2015. But what happens in the next six to nine months to the PHL economy is in the hands of the government.
The government has done a good job in keeping its fiscal house in order. But now the Philippines has a genuine chance to leap-frog its economy into the future. There is no more time to study and delay the Public Private Partnership projects. The mining revenue scheme and general tax reform must be completed now. Investment incentives need to be reexamined and rationalized as necessary. Regional integration is becoming a reality and we need to lead and not merely pick up the leftover foreign investment scraps.
It is time for to either go big or go home.