Economics on Wednesday

  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...

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...

 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...