Between Recession and the Increase of Public Holidays | Entre la recesión y el aumento de feriados

Editorial, El Diario:

The Bolivian economy has entered its fourth year of recession and, in this way, the decline of the Gross Domestic Product threatens the future of the national economy. Data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund show these characteristics, underscoring that Bolivia’s GDP has suffered an extraordinary drop which, naturally, is the result of twenty years of MAS governments, led by Evo Morales Ayma and Luis Arce Catacora.

This serious situation is mainly due to the fact that production in the country is disappearing. The word “production” is no longer taken into account either among the people or within official spheres, and what is now expected is the arrival of foreign aid or the allocation of subsidies for national productive activities.

Apparently, people now think only of trade as the solution to the crisis, an erroneous view preached by political parties both inside and outside the government. It is ignored that production is linked to the labor force and to the creation of factories, companies, and goods necessary for the existence of human society. In Bolivia, the lack of production policies has led to the belief that trade is the sole cause of progress, and for that reason there are more merchants than consumers. Obviously, GDP shows the collapse of this factor to incredible levels. We now almost only consume and do not produce.

In this regard, it is necessary to emphasize that GDP consists of the set of goods and services produced within the national territory, regardless of the nationality of the producers. It is, consequently, the sum of all the values added by companies and productive administrations located within a given territory (whatever their nationality), to which VAT and customs duties are added in order to impose taxes on products.

Therefore, if in a country like Bolivia those values do not exist, the Gross Domestic Product collapses. Consequently, the work that must be carried out from government spheres is of great responsibility and sacrifice, without merely making speeches or adopting demagogic postures.

The recession is undeniable today in our country and is being addressed with deficiencies in official spheres, which, apparently, consider that things will fix themselves.

Furthermore, many political organizations believe in economic materialism, according to which the only source of development is the economy, forgetting that there are other important sectors such as culture, political ideas, civic institutions, the media, etc., which are not taken into account.

Finally, despite knowing that an excess of public holidays leads to a drop in production and GDP, holidays continue to be decreed, increasing the fiscal deficit and maintaining a gigantic machinery of insensitive and self-satisfied bureaucrats. Worst of all, such measures also hinder production and the development of Bolivian society.

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