Uruguayan minister admits deep concern about events in the Euro zone
Uruguayan Minister of Economy Fernando Lorenzo expressed deep concern regarding events in Europe and warned that “the longer the delay in effectively analyzing the cost of the crisis” then everything will work out “much costlier”.
Lorenzo addressed this week a seminar on innovation, new technologies and better qualifications for human resources and also referred to the European situation and the cost of recovering the Euro zone, following on a question from a Spanish panellist.
“The bill will continue to add up until it is not clear who is going to pay for it”, said Lorenzo.
He added that the definitive bill will emerge once it is known who is going to pay it and that he is effectively capable of doing so. If you say the bill is going to be paid by the Greeks, nobody believes you. You are then facing a serious problem of temporary coherence”.
More specifically Lorenzo talked about the challenges faced by Uruguay with labour, which is increasingly unqualified for the type of posts offered by the economy particularly as the country approaches full employment.
“If the unemployed or out of a job (approximately 6% of the active working force) are given a job with matches their capacity, “the country’s GDP could increase almost one percentage point”.
But if that mass of idle workers are properly qualified in a process that can take “four to five years”, the country’s growth “could be four, five times greater”.
Lorenzo emphasized in the need of government polices precisely for this kind of situations and said it is “a threat to the democratic system to argue that the Uruguayan bonanza of these years has been possible only because of the external context”.
If that was the case, “all that is good and bad comes from outside, and whatever we do here has virtually no significance, then it would make no sense or matter less whoever tries to implement innovation policies”, concluded Lorenzo.
The minister and his team, actually headed by the former Economy minister and current Vice-President Danilo Astori are coming under growing criticism for having squandered years of bonanza in bloating the budget, increasing government employment and not planning and executing much needed infrastructure for the country’s expanding economy.
Most major investments such as pulp mills plants, improving ports, new airports, greater silo capacity, low taxing favouring agriculture and cattle breeding were started by previous governments.
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This is the economics of the madhouse. No thought is ever given to reducing the costs of any of the government monopolies AND if he wants a better qualified workforce why not reduce the number of government employees (thus reducing fiscal drag) and have them employed by the commercial sector OR are they not qualified also? If that is the case why does the government employ them anyway?
If the changes being made were started by the previous government perhaps it is time for another change.
So, we're bollocksed then?
More and more government employees and less 'able' people who earn ALL the money. Clue: government employees DO NOT EARN money (they may WORK for their money): they produce NOTHING.
I don't disagree with you on adding government employees. What I was trying to say (probably poorly) that a politician complimenting a state energy company for price increase is not unreasonable in countries that subsidize energy.
Even authoritarian states have reducing/eliminating energy subsidies. That's why investors should look really hard at taking over or privatizing large state energy enterprises that have been subsiding costs, the odds are sooner or later some politician is going to suggest the state is being exploited want either change the terms or nationalize it.
But why do they subsidize energy? Who pays for the subsidies? These deluded politicians seem to think either 'the Government pay' or the people won't realise they are paying for it in taxes: IVA, etc. We must not forget that the government can only SPEND our tax money, they do NOT earn anything.
No, the real problem is the confusion throughout society as to who pays for what. There is ONLY ONE RULE: if the government are spending money, they are spending YOUR MONEY.
This minister would be best advised to have a walk around a UTE / OSE / ANCAP / ANTEL / etc. operating base and an office WITH HIS EYES OPEN and see for himself the 'lethary' and 'oh, is that really a problem' attitude for himself.
The REAL problem is that these employees, from Ministers through all levels of these companies DO NOT RECOGNISE CUSTOMERS. They think the public (their customers and the people paying their wages) are a nuisance to be ignored while they finish chatting to their ,mates, about last night whatever.
I would imagine, from personal business management experience with the government staffing levels that HALF of these people could be transferred to more productive private enterprises.
That would reduce fiscal drag, increase tax revenues by an order of maginitude, and increase exports. Win-win alround.
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