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I am interested because I plan to go an spend a fair amount of time there. I travel to less developed countries like Peru and the Phils because I really enjoy the people and culture. Money from Canada goes a long way and you live like a king on little over a thousand a month.
Ohh gotcha. Well your going to have a great time. In the meantime since your so interested here are some links that will help you learn a lot about how to live there and things for you to do:
I took an economics course at the University of the Philippines in 1985. The professor echoed the point, "The Philippines will always be a Third World country because we export tomatoes and import tomato paste."
A country that is a net importer of manufactured goods against raw materials is always on the losing side of the imbalance of trade (and the Saudi peninsula entities are no different--they are still basically Third World countries, appearing otherwise only because they are small).
O ok that's interesting. I was reading that the huge power problem is what is keeping them like that. But that info you told me is 30 years old. Is there not a chance that this could change?
Based on what I have been analyzing, this over-populated tropical island is on a trajectory like any typical countriy of this description because all these things like the worst ranking for weather vulnerability and stuff is all sitting against it.
But do you think the story about Phils chances has changed from 1985? That was from years before I was born!
Another thing that I find very odd is how often the Phils gets left out of discussions/studies. I looked at several reports covering tons of countries and ones like this development report omit the Phils from it entirely. That is why I keep thinking that it is often overlooked. Still puzzled by why it is.
Last edited by Santaronto; 03-14-2014 at 03:38 PM..
Ohh gotcha. Well your going to have a great time. In the meantime since your so interested here are some links that will help you learn a lot about how to live there and things for you to do:
I have an interestin point to say about "the grass is green"
It is indeed greener on that side for a Canadian because we have 10 times as much money and when we are over there, we can suddenly get way more than we did IN Canada. I can only get a room and a bus pass and some food here on 1080 bucks. there, it gets you all your transport, tons of high quality fresh tropical food, an apartment, girls lol
It is greener over there. For them, they have to go to Canada to get the advantage that's why the grass is greener is no joke.
I just finished doing some research and learned some really important info. The world is currently headed in a trend that basically has already set which countries are set to be poor and which will be rich. Essentially, the ones that are already based as rich countries will stay that way and stabilize at very high standards with little growth. The lower income countries like Brazil , Mexico, Peru, China will remain low income, but not as bad as the rest. India, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria will be be based as very low income countries where the elite take advantage and the economies will therefore swell. That is what they will be gowing on.
So us in Canada, Uk ect with medium sized population will see little further growth because quite simply 'the work has been done' and we obtained our developed status.
In Nigeria, Phils ect, they will be 'taken advantage of' by working them, supporting the fortunes to the elite and that is what will fuel their eceonomies. It looks unfair, but after all this research, I figured it out. We in our lives will never see the day Philippines and India are all rich neighborhoods like Toronto. In Phils they can't even support by Canadian standards the 150 million people they will have on the island for power, goods housing ect. The huge population problem is the big thing.
Poverty + high population density + urbanization = slums. Other SE Asian countries aren't as bad because they lack or at least are less impacted by one of these three factors.
Poverty + high population density + urbanization = slums. Other SE Asian countries aren't as bad because they lack or at least are less impacted by one of these three factors.
Yes very true. Despite them having higher GDP per capita, they are cursed with the worst possible combination of factors.
Very seismically active zone that ruins chances for nuclear to safely develop BUT at the same time, no Geothermal potential as a trade-off
Most typhoon active zone in the world which severely damages the economy BUT doesn't have a decent river network to supply hydro power.
Highest population growth rate in the region too.
Wages are just high enough that low cost production investments coming from elsewhere actually skips right over the Phils and right to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and even Africa among many others.
Isolation from the Asian continent means potential attention goes right across China's borders to places like Cambodia and Myanmar.
No solar power potential. Even Pakistan, India, Ethiopia and a lot of others are in great positions to rise out of poverty because of amazing power potential from renewables.
Unlike most countries, they are all divided up in tons of islands and this further stunts population size-driven economic growth.
Worst policies in the region governing investment and business starting/ownership.
Insurgencies/violence affecting natural resource rich areas in its south.
And finally, a tendency to invest in/commit to the industries most hinged on the maintenance of low wages. Phils is more agricultural, but is committing to a long term growth in service outsourcing which basically is going to be kept afloat on the condition that wages remain low. Is quite possibly the only industry that requires inequality and prohibits the country to advance with wages and benefits to its general population. The fact that the gov is committing to this purely low-wage-dependant industry taking a stronger hold proves their intentions on what wages will be like in the country further down the road. I think they have committed to this being the path because it has already become evident that with the population explosion and lack of potential energy growth, this is the only viable option to at least increase employment despite it showing zero sign of making equality and high standard of living for the general 154 million population that will weigh them down 35 years from now.
With little in the way of likely change in this huge combination of bad factors, I don't see much change in that country during most of our lives to the poverty situation except for the extreme poverty.
Last edited by Santaronto; 03-15-2014 at 11:53 AM..
As an archipelago, the Philippines would have a tougher sell attracting manufacturing anyways due to higher transportation costs.
I wonder if that is working together with the huge power issue against the Phils. Every country from Bangladesh to Pakistan to Ethiopia to India and Vietnam, all poor countries too, seem to get nuclear and or renewable energy and consequently also have plenty of manufacturing. Phils has basically none of any of this.
it is true that you can can a good idea of how it is doing my looking at satellite imagery. Anyone that looks at toronto or Singapore can see quite well how it 'looks' rich. the well planned and buiilt houses, the many breat buildings, the green belts, the roads. You can also see when a country is more in the middle like say a place in Chile or Brazil or China or South Africa. It does not look like super rich houses in all neighborhoods in Canada, but the whole cities are built up and slums are not as obvious to pick out on satellite.
In Manila if you go on Google Earth, you notice a huge number of houses built in shantytown way like in Tondo, Navotas,, Caloocan City North and South, Malabon and many others. You can't miss it at all.
But what surprised me was how when you look at the other countries in SE Asia and they are less severe, in Hanoi vietnam, you don't see the types of slums like Manila.
They are more like a dense neighborhood of cheap multistory buildings, while Manila's has a lot of the ones that are literally tin shacks made out of scrap. All you have to do is a google image search and you will see that I am right. The same better image is present in Cambodia. You look and see no shantytowns. The poorest houses are lined along streets like the richer ones. Myanmar, which has a bigger population is just as well laid out. I am not criticizing Philippines, but simply wondering, why so many slums there, despite it being true that Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam are poorer than them. It doesn't make sense.
well, i used to analyze aerial photos for a living
i will take a brief look at what you're describing and get back to you
In Manila if you go on Google Earth, you notice a huge number of houses built in shantytown way like in Tondo, Navotas,, Caloocan City North and South, Malabon and many others. You can't miss it at all.
from what i can see from the aerials, yes, this is true. there are shantytowns, and in manila they seem unusually crowded.
however the majority of Manila neighborhoods are not shantytowns. the neighborhoods seem small and crowded, but the lot lines and houses are much more geometrically uniform, with high quality roofing... almost like urban japan.
in other words, it looks like there is pressure to "fit" people into Manila, presumably because of the surrounding landscape, that i don't really see in these other countries you name. I can't speak for the country as a whole, but Manila strikes me as much more densely populated than the cities you're comparing it to.
Quote:
But what surprised me was how when you look at the other countries in SE Asia and they are less severe, in Hanoi vietnam, you don't see the types of slums like Manila. They are more like a dense neighborhood of cheap multistory buildings, while Manila's has a lot of the ones that are literally tin shacks made out of scrap.
when i look at hanoi from aerials, it looks like total chaos. people's dwellings would appear to be larger than in Manila, but of worse quality, angled in all sorts of bizarre ways. for what it is worth , you don't see an obvious class divide, everyone seems equally impoverished.
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All you have to do is a google image search and you will see that I am right. The same better image is present in Cambodia. You look and see no shantytowns. The poorest houses are lined along streets like the richer ones.
from aerials, rural Cambodia looks like a concentration camp or something. their development patterns are unusual. Phnom Penh looks interesting from the air .. with a very rigid pattern ... but the structures don't look like anything you see in Manila, and outside of the city center it looks pretty awful.
Last edited by le roi; 03-17-2014 at 07:34 AM..
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