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The GIG Economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought positive and negative things into the world, accelerated processes, technologies, it has shown us new ways of doing things, it taught us – the bad way – to treat the environment well, it has brought us together with our immediate family, but has taken us away from our friends, has not taught us (or taken) fear of an unknown disease has forced us to learn from it quickly, but it has changed the world quickly. We have already appreciated the new way of working of young people of generations X, Y, and Z, more than anything because of the amount of technology that these have been exposed over the years. They are kids who were practically born with a cell phone and laptop under their arm, and who have no fear of technology. For those who are still in another century, young people under the age of 40 see life completely different from what we (baby boomers) see it for those over the age of 40, especially if they have been exposed to new trends outside ou...
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No more taxes!

  Like everything in Panama, the possible tax increase for Panamanians begins as gossip that runs on social media, where government officials on duty deny it, opponents of the government on duty insists on it and that is where it is creating, again, an unfavorable climate in wanting to recover our economy. Similarly, most Panamanians, pessimistic from their bones, already sing that the country is burning to Nero's "Rome", in this case, Nito. More recently, we did this with Juan Carlos Varela and his government, who needed no further opposition help to sink the country into a negative climate that led us to grow less and less after the year of its five-year period. Now, during the first 20 months of the Nito government, we have dedicated ourselves to giving hard any government action, whether good or bad, indiscriminately, and even many practically comparing ourselves to Haiti, something totally far from reality. And look, I am not saying that things are okay, but I do...
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Panama Ports, the Controller and the Shrewd

Since Contract 5 of 1997 "Approves the contract with PANAMA PORTS COMPANY, S.A. (PPC), for the development, construction, operation, administration, and management of the port terminals of containers, passengers, bulk cargo, and general cargo in the Port of Balboa and Cristóbal" enters its last phase prior to its extension, the pros and cons of maintaining a "strategic partner" that clearly has not been right in your actions towards our country. And it is that of all the privatizations that were made under the five years of Ernesto Pérez Balladares as president, this contract with PPC, and the contracts of the northern and southern corridors with PYCSA and ICA, respectively, have been at least scandalous, for the interests of our country. We have talked about the Brokers before, and even gave my opinion about the valuation of brokers at the time and I have also written earlier about PPC and its contract, but now, the Republic's Comptroller has issued a repor...
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Saving the Social Security

 Models like the Social Security (CSS), as we have in Panama are a thing of the past, since the pyramid scheme (Ponzi Scheme), on which it is based, has not been sustainable anywhere in the world, so countries tend not to offer health services (as in the United States where you either have private health insurance or you can't go to any private hospital) or you have a "socialist" health system where everyone is served with the same quality (Europe). There is also a model like the Colombian, where the same health system is provided in outsourcing. As for retirements, they are managed privately, through pension funds, where each receives the retirement that corresponds to him/her according to what he contributes to it, without any type of solidarity in the system. In this case, the pension system is at the mercy of financial market swings where pension funds are invested for the best possible return, but they are far from political decisions that are more difficult to fix i...
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Where to Invest in Panama 2021

2020 has been a difficult year for everybody, where we had to adapt to many things by trying to save our lives and to survive economically. But the COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented global economic crisis. But not a crisis that is the result of some kind of financial problem or "screw-up" or the speculation of the unscrupulous, but it is a crisis that provokes a pandemic that has kept us – more or less time – within some kind of quarantine. Now, this does not mean that all businesses or independents workers were affected, many survived by doing what is necessary to survive, while other businesses located niches to be in, other businesses flourished, and delivery became the standard of the post-COVID 19 world. This article I write at the beginning of all new year's is meant to give you an idea of where we could invest in this year, based on the opportunities, laws, demand, that exists at any given time, and that we could take advantage of. This year is s...
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The year that will come in 2021

Although there is still uncertainty about 2021, basically because of the resulting problems from COVID regrowth not only in Panama but in the rest of the world, and even though we do not yet have a date for vaccination to begin in our country (they have just announced that the first 40,000 doses arrive in 2 or 3 weeks), I always stay positive, I think that in this country, we can turn the bad situations around, and we can get our economy moving forward quickly. After my forecast for the end of 2020 where I see a decline in GDP by order of 20%, unemployment of 18%, and inflation of -1%, 2021 may bring us a fundamental change in our main macroeconomic figures after a year of recession, but it did not get to become stagflation. My forecast for 2021 leads us to GDP growth in the order of 10%, unemployment of 10% thinking that the vaccine will arrive in the first quarter, and by the second half, we could be able to vaccinate the whole population (at least the vast majority of the 3 millio...
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The Year that Was 2020

2020 has proven to be a very special year. Some will say that it was a year to forget, others will be able to say that it was a year when we learned a lot, others that the Panamanian does not learn anything and will always stumbles upon the same stone, in short everyone can have his own opinion on it, but it was definitely a different year. I will try to outline a small summary of what happened to us and talk about the GDP figures for the 3Q that came out last week, and how little has been said about unemployment according to a telephone survey that INEC (National Institute of Statistics and Census) did instead of the face-to-face survey they normally do in different pre-selected houses. The year had started slower than in 2019, in fact when we look at the GDP figures for the first quarter, even though we had grown, it was less than 1% (0.3% to be more accurate in nominal GDP and 0.4% in real GDP), compared to the first quarter of 2019. And when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019...
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