Say I am the President of Timbaktu or Pulau Belakang mati, a country which is getting out from stoneage.
How, can i develop my country if i had to start rebuilding my country from stoneage?
First of all, in order to develop a strong and vibrant country i must have good governance and justice to be the bedrock principle for my country. This is because we cannot break good principle but break ourself going against good principle in life. Those who are good and productive need to be rewarded and those who are lazy or corrupted need to be censored. This would make my country more productive and treasure good value which is godly in nature.
Why must we eradicate corruption? Corruption is worse than the nuclear disaster in hiroshima and nagasaki which ended WW2. Great thinker in an African University had always believe that if you wanted to destroy a country or civilization, you can do it by allowing their students to cheat in exam, lower the passing marks and instill negative value such as corruption.
As these children grow up they will be corrupted lawyers, corrupted doctors, corrupted engineer, corrupted police and corrupted army. As a result they country legislation is not trustworthy, the doctor is not passionate in his work nor effective, the engineer will build tofu building that can collapse any time, the police and army will be asking for bribe and put their personal interest above the needs to serve the country and all the citizens will only serve self interest. Just imagine whether this scenario is worse than a nuclear disaster that befall hiroshima and nagasaki?
So we need to stem corruption at the bud as the saying goes the fish is rotten at the head.
Corruption and opium is the cause of the fall of the Chinese Emperor in the Qing dynasty and many other civilization worldwide. If the mighty Chinese Emperor can fall what about my small country in Timbaktu or Pulau Belakang mati?
Furthermore, we need to educate our young generation on good principles and moral values in life as well as creating a judical system that has good corporate governance and stem corruption at its core and at all level of society. Currently, China and Indonesia had strict laws that will execute anyone, that is found to be corrupted after a fair trial in court, be it billionaires, police chiefs, armies or even politicians. So with good governance, the justice system will make sure that everyone is equal in the eye of the law. There must also be division and independence in legislation, executive and judiciary.
After good governance, what we need is a productive society. We should encourage productivity by rewarding more the productive group in society and encourage the non productive part of society to be productive. China recently have encorage more of their urban dwellers to go to third or fourth urban city to develop modern farming and rewarding those who are willing to work and relocate with higher renumeration that is three or four times higher than the basic income. This policy would encourage people to be more productive and competitive in nature to develop modern farming in their beloved country.
Next, is to eradicate poverty and to increase the GDP of my country. GDP is refer to the amount of goods or service that my country produce in a year.
How do we eradicate poverty? In order to eradicate poverty we must make sure our young generation treasure hardwork and success. Success does not come before hardwork even in the dictionary. We should creat productivity month, slogan and seminar. The Indonesian president, Jokowi understand this and he united Indonesian under the slogan "Mari kita kerja" and Indonesia is now setting the tone to be the fourth largest economy in the world.
If all the strata of society is hardworking, productivity will increase and the GDP per capita will increase and as a result the socio economic and well being of the country will improve as more of the citizens will be free from poverty and out of the rat race.
The best advice that a mother can give to her children is to work hard all their life. In life if you do more than what you are paid for in life, you will be rewarded handsomely as coined by motivational Guru Napoleon Hill.
You can ask any one that is freed from the bondage of poverty or achieve financial freedom, which is more alluring or motivated? Handouts or financial freedom from poverty due to hardwork on his or her own efforts?
Like the saying goes if you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him, how to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime.
Lastly, in order to bring my country into a develop status. I need to bring development to my stoneage country. How to do that? I need to build big ticket items with priority on projects that have high impact on the economy, environment or society well being. I need to differentiate between good debts and bad debts. Good debts are debt that bring in more income and bad debts is the one that leads to leakage or money outflow. In this modern world, connectivity is time saving and time is money. I will build high class internet be it 5G or 6G. Those with higher speed can creat better infrastructure for Internet of Thing and the 4th industrial revolution. Next, connectivity is via highways to connect my strategic towns to ports. A better infrastructure nationwide include better railway tract such as high speed train, better airport and port that can handle bigger tanker such as afromax tanker will help to ease business and shorten my time to transport my goods nationwide as well as worldwide. China's belts and roads initiative to connect country worldwide by building massive infrastructure to creat the new silk route is to be applauded here. This should be follow by development and massive investment in R&D and training.
Furthermore, why is development important? This is because if we have connectivity, commerce will improve and we will have multiplier effect in our economy. Why is this so? Say we develop highways for our country with a cost of 1 million. The spillover effect is more than 1 million as when the contractor gain more contract, they will hire more worker, worker would than use their income to consume more goods and service and the spillover effect of consumption can reach multiple time my initial 1 million as illustrated by the following examples. When a worker buy food, the food vendors can buy raw materials from the market, the market wholesellers can buy clothes and the clothes' shopkeeper can buy cars and the car dealer can go on holiday making the GDP multiply multiple of time. This is because the demand side of the economy does not only depends on money, M but also on the velocity of money, V. When the GDP increase the main beneficial is the government as the government owns the golden share in all business through a 28 percent taxation. Leading to multiplier effect in economy. Everyone will feel rich and there will be feel good factors spreading throughout the country.
If i were to do the opposite and tax exorbitantly, i will have a lot of tax income initially but soon the tax income will reduce with time as people will be reluctant to spend nor work hard and the rich will migrate to better country. Japan suffer from stagnation in GDP and stagflation because high tax and high cost of foods and houses make Japan's citizen thrifty and compulsive to saving. This reduce the velocity of money and leads to lower productivity and GDP collectively. As a result, there will be lower tax overtime as in Japan since the 1990s. In the computer stimulation game Sim city if you increase tax rate your income over time will drop as people will migrate to other destination that is more conducive for business and support them and their family well-being.
When my revenue grow, i can then do more welfare program and CSR as there will be more contribution from my government and other stakeholders be it businessman, Ngos, public organization or governmental bodies working in unison and harmony to achieve the ultimate goals of nation building.
Sooner or later, with the Grace of God my country can achieve a developed country status as i have set the right guarding principle or compass for my country and fulfill my duty as the president or CEO of my tiny country of Timbaktu or Pulau Belakang mati.
Moral of the story: You cannot break good principles in life but you can break yourself if you go against good principles in life.
In God we trust.
God bless you,
Dr. Lion.