In these days and age of drive-thru’s and ultra-fast meal, I was able to coin, even just in my mind, this apt term I refer to as “bad burger”. I was about to attend my MPA class yesterday when I felt so suddenly that I had some hunger to contend to. Uncle Pabs, Aunt Yolly and cousin Nigel arrived from the states on Thursday that I’ve been driving them around the city for nearly three days now and that maybe, I get to feel the need for food and water more often than what is usual for me. Driving could be such a brawny exertion that too much energy is consumed in the process and thereon the body burns so much calories that the body demands more of it as a result.

So I hied off towards the nearest cafeteria as soon as I arrived at the university ground and bought one of the fastest meal that there could be had around at that time, and that was the tuna sandwich that I gobbled in as quickly as lightning. After I drank a soda, I felt that I can take another bite at a sandwich but I had observed that the tuna sandwich preparation was not as “fast” as I wanted it to be and I was a little later for class. So I decided that I would hop to another food stand nearby and ordered a hamburger, one food preparation that wasn’t as lengthy to prepare since most students in the university seem to order it all the time and that the vendor always had a burger nice-and-ready, ready to be served.

But to my regret, the burger that I had bought didn’t really fit to my liking. I shouldn’t have ordered it in the first place. First, it was a bit raw and secondly, I didn’t taste any beefy flavor in it. It was kinda strange, you know. I should have known better.

I was thinking that in this age of globalization and high-competition in trade, every vendor, whether of food or other commodity, should always try to find the best manner of selling and preparing their products. It’s a time where one could not afford to commit one mistake, or one would wither and lose business.

So I regretted so well my fifteen bucks spent on the badly prepared “bad burger”. I swear from now on that I wouldn’t have any of it—if I can help it. I’d rather wait for some steamy tuna sandwich than go for a very quick but unsavory burger. Perhaps, I would have to hie-off to Jollibee or McDonald if I want one—that’s where the real burgers are found.

Like that famous “Gone With The Wind” dialogue, I swear that from now on, I’ll never have to eat any “bad burger” again.

I have been following this issue for some weeks now—the recent slowdown of the U.S. economy—and wanted to blog about it so eagerly but wasn’t able to due to time constraints; what with the perniciousness of task at work. Presently, I am being the overall coordinator for the conduct of a symposium on International Relations and Foreign Policy slated this coming Friday, and things to be done had become more urgent as the date approaches so nearly.

When the news on the U.S. economic slowdown finally became widespread, after weeks of speculation and foreboding, I got a glimpse of U.S. President George Bush speaking about it in a news conference in the White House, and I could fairly note the grimness of the situation through the heavy face that he had wore that particular moment. Often, action speaks louder than words.

It is simply the worst time for this to happen. Election time is fast approaching in America and the war crises in Iraq are far from over. An economic downturn is the last thing that President Bush would need right now. If he could not resolve this economic woe, President Bush would probably have to contend to a scenario where he have to exit his post with a dark shadow following him—mismanagement of the economy and an unresolved war in Iraq.

Perhaps, he had given so much focused on his war campaign in the Middle East that he had forgotten that his people had also needed much attention from him.

Right now, the U.S. Congress had approved a bill allowing nearly $160 Billion worth of funds to be inputted into the American economy, putting money in the hands of middle income Americans, hoping that they would spend it on consumer products, pump priming the economy with sustained economic activity.

But what if this strategy wouldn’t work at all? Too much or abrupt increased in spending could result to high-inflation, doing more harm than good in the process.

If that happens, a prolonged slowdown would inure to a full recession, where the U.S. economy would shrink by so much that jobs would continue to be lost and productivity could move towards a downward spiral.

And everyone knows what happens when the America catches cold. The rest of the world sneezes. Even as we speak, stock markets across the world have suffered due to this debacle in the American economy. It is then of grave concern for all of us. In our turf, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had just approved a 75 Billion pesos stimulus fund, hoping to shield and immunize our economy from the global effect of the slowdown in America. And it comes now at issue on where does our government get such huge amount of money when in fact we have lingering problems in our balance of payments and our offshore debts remain at a scandalously high level. It had amazed me to no end on how our President could easily announce the release of such huge amount of money, just like eating peanuts in the park—when we all know that money in our treasury is of no significant amount.

Perhaps, it would amaze us more in the coming weeks when we try to find out where this money from the so-called stimulus fund had gone. I hope not. Or we’ll be having yet another useless Senate inquiry on this. (Isn’t it often funny to observe how our Senators are always asking some Malacañang official about some money and where did it go, and in the end, they’d be finding none? Senators ought to be smart and not gullible, aren’t they? But they seem always to end up like Wily Coyote, continuously putting traps here and there, and yet, Mr. Road Runner always come out unscathed and scot-free. I could always see a Wily E. Coyote scenario in our Senate.)

So where were we?

In my analysis—I could see some form of irreversibility in the recent economic woes of America. International political analysts have always put forward the idea about how there would come a time when economic power would shift away from America, transferring wealth and productivity might towards other important players in international economics like China, India or EU and it seems to me that as elementary as these views are, such prognosis seem to become more and more patent and appertaining, not in the near future, but even now as we speak, where the wheels of change has started rolling so furiously. It is in the decline of American economic right happening right before our very eyes.

It is of great note how writers have begun to write about the gap between rich people and poor people in America—on how it continues to widen, causing major and systemic economic problems there—when in fact, just about a decade ago, there is no such term as the “poor people in America”. But now, there are the so-called “poor people” in the land of milk and honey.

Times are but a-changing.

In my readings, this most recent economic turmoil in America had been caused by the increased prevalence of joblessness and high-cost of housing there. Of course, it goes to say that when many Americans are unemployed or underemployed, not many of them could afford to buy houses, driving prices upward in the process as demands decreases. I understand that housing is a very huge and palpable sector in America. House mortgages and loans are main activities in the financial system, becoming therefore a major economic catalyst. If the housing sector is slow there—or at worse stagnant—then the whole U.S. economy suffers.

But then, it all boils down to joblessness in America. It is of common knowledge that a great bulk of the manufacturing sector there had outsourced their main production activities overseas, towards China primarily and to many other locations in Asia, such as India or Vietnam. Such is the trend happening for more than a decade now and the very low labor cost in Asia had compelled every American business to look eastward, or face obsolescence as they would become so hard-pressed to compete in terms of sales. How would Nike for example level up with Reebok when Nike continues to pay high-wage American workers while Reebok could lower their sales prices benefiting on very cheap labor cost in China.

With technology transfer easily transmuted nowadays, from one continent to another, the level of workmanship in America is easily replicated in areas like Taiwan and China.

This way, American companies have no other recourse but to shift manufacturing overseas in order to remain competitive. As a result, a huge portion of jobs in America would be lost, thereon spurring lower spending among the population and a continued meltdown of the U.S. economy is most likely to happen. Like I said, there is an irreversibility in all of these. The decline of the once so mighty American economy has started and shift in economic power would be given way.

And decades from now, even political and military power would soon follow.

I am sure you’d never heard of this term or word before.

You might even think that this might be the pretty name of an adorable lady I recently met. Hey, I am very much married to fancy about some name of some pretty woman.

Before you’d wonder farther, “chini” is the terminology that my kids refer to the twenty-five cent coin, that bronze colored quarter of a 1-Peso coin. Due to a sputtering of sari-sari stores and the occasion of flighty vendors just outside our premises, my kids would often request for some pennies from me so that they could hie off and buy candies and curls outside. The minute I get home from work, or from any point in the city, the kids would soon appear before me with their hands on the open palm position, demanding for the pennies, sometimes at the barrel of the gun. I had always intimated to my wife that the kids should not be spoiled with this kind of habit and should be trained to value every penny they could have. But they could be often so raucous with their demands that in the end, I always give in to their often-extreme persuasions. I could not do anything except give in. Maybe a penny here and a penny there wouldn’t as much imbibe them towards being spendthrift and squandering attitudes. I hope so greatly.

I had always wondered how they had formed this habit and become sometimes too wary that they could become excessive in their ways, especially when they grow up. My inquiry into this matter would always lead me to their Lola Dol and their late Lolo Hussin, who had always spoiled them with money whenever they come visiting or when the kids goes visiting to them on weekends.

When I was a kid, my Lolo Unih had been so lenient to me that I had become so used with money in my pocket at a very young age. Somehow, it had inculcated in me the bad habit of being a spendthrift, buying lots of toys and chocolates, here and there. When he had suddenly passed away, the money suddenly disappeared (at least the kind that I had been having before) and I had to contend with the huge adjustment that I had to make. It’s not sane I tell you. It’s one of the most difficult phases of my life. It felt like the world came falling on me and there was a general heaviness on my gait the moment my grandfather had died.

But thanks to the Lord that such occasion is already in the distant past. The money I have now may not be that much but it sure tends to me fairly well enough.

Now, my kids could sometimes ask too much money from me, way beyond their age. For example, whenever I give them pennies in the denomination of twenty-five cents coins, the so-called “chini”, they always spurn it and wanted the 1-Peso coin instead, even if the total of twenty-five cents coins would approximate or even surpass 1 peso.

I always tell them that money is not something to take lightly and they must learn to spend them wisely. I want to inculcate in them the value of money and wise use of resources as early as now, for I fully believe that good management of wealth and resources is one elemental key to success—to their future success for that matter. Spending should be within the parameter of how much one earns. If one spends more than he or she earns, then there should be a very huge problem.

So I end up with a lot of “chinis” in my pocket since my kids doesn’t even want them. Often, whenever I am at the grocery store or at the pharmacy, and whenever the store cashier gives me loose change in the denomination of 25-cents, I often decide to tuck them into those donation boxes or jars that we often see in these sort of places. That way, my “chinis” would be of great use to some other member of our society.

Or maybe, I should have a jar myself at home and put the “chinis” into them whenever I have them. Maybe in time, there’d be so many of them that even my very demanding kids would want them.