The way the Opposition are going on in their Budget presentations, it’s clear they suffer from a fundamental misapprehension about what the budget of a country is all about: they seem to believe it’s the same as the budget of a household. Simplistically, for instance, they carp about the Government not giving more money to poor people to spend, just because we’re getting oil money nowadays. Now, in and of itself, that sounds fair; but governments have wider responsibilities beyond and above our poor.
Take the nonsense that one leader of a political party spouted: that “people can’t eat bridges and roads” – because the Government is spending massive sums on infrastructure. But a government that invests on infrastructure is following Lao Tsu’s maxim that, “If you give a hungry man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime”!! This means that when a government invests in infrastructure, it’s facilitating the ease of setting up businesses in remote places. In this way, they make it possible for people in those areas – like in Reg 9, when the highway to Lethem is completed – to get jobs and live their lives in dignity, and not depend on handouts.
Another complaint is, “Why doesn’t the Government spend what it’s bringing in, but is borrowing both domestically and internationally to fund projects?”. Well, for the domestic borrowing, unlike a family, the Government can just print money through its Central Bank to intermediate the loans the local banks make to businesses and individuals to execute, say, Government contracts to build roads. Governments print all the money circulating in a country, and they can’t go broke!! Families don’t own their own banks, unfortunately, so THEY can go broke!!
Now, the Opposition can retort that with Govts printing money, inflation can get out of hand, like during the Burnham days. But that’s where the Government’s prudence comes in – to print just enough money to facilitate the growth of the economy, so that “too much money ain’t chasing too few goods”, which is the very essence of inflation!! So, for instance, if the Govt just pumps money into every citizen’s pocket without engendering more production, we’ll soon be like Venezuela, where it takes a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread!! For foreign borrowing, govt’s gotta ensure our exports would generate foreign reserves.
The Opposition also complain about the Government facilitating businesses, and complaining as if the Prodigal Son was being fattened at the expense of the stay-home one. But Government’s gotta look at the future, and if they don’t facilitate businesses that’ll outlast the oil-production timeframe (30 years?) then we’ll just be repeating TT’s mistake!!
So, no…governments aren’t households!!
…on AI
Trump announced he’ll be backing US$500 billion investments in infrastructure to facilitate AI development. Of course, they have one eye (both?) on the Chinese, who are mounting challenges far from just the manufacturing of consumer goods to keep the shelves of Walmart stocked!! Now, while the Chinese have already shown that they’re moving up into very technical areas, their recent announcement of a new AI model – Deepseek – has thrown the Yanks for a loop.
Benchmarks now confirm that Deepseek is not only as good as OpenAI’s o1, but is only 3% of the price!! Boom!! You can also use its Open Source for “free” – which you can’t do with o1. There’s no overstating how profoundly this changes the whole game. And not only in regard to AI, it’s also a massive indictment of the US’ present attempt to stop China’s technological development – without which Deepseek may not have been possible.
As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. We’ll what the tariffs do!!
…on Gaza
Because of the uninterrupted flow of aid and arms to Israel, we can be sure that they ain’t serious about the Gaza Ceasefire. Your Eyewitness doesn’t know why anyone thought it would be different under Trump.
