There is no money for pensions

Images of powerful mass demonstrations, unprecedented, extremely popular in France for yellow vests, was heartbreaking and at the same time devastating in 2023, and we hope it will not happen again in 2024 in Panama because it did not save the disability, old age and death program of the Social Insurance Fund. Fitch Rating has sounded the alarm several times, and anecdotally was the first rating agency to sound the alarm when the Greek crisis occurred in 2009.

What worries The situation in Panama in the first quarter of 2024, is that there is still no vision, nor concrete answers that would guarantee money from the Panamanian social security program and; It is common knowledge that the countries with the largest wealth gaps, the highest debt levels and the worst income growth trends are the regions most likely to suffer serious conflict.

When these conflicts occur, conflicts that can arise because there is no money for pensions, we must first ask ourselves: where will the money come from in Panama to get out of these conflicts? Who will pay more than what is budgeted for pensioners Panama? December 2024? Those who “have money” or those who “don’t have money”? Of course, it’s almost impossible for those who don’t have money to be the ones who do assume broken dishes, although modest people The effect would be to cut spending on subsidy issues, which MPs typically pay to people who can pay more. If the rich perceive that they will be taxed more, it is to be expected that they will leave Panama, which causes a process of emptying the tax bases. Will the 120 for 65 program last for all Panamanians?

Panamanian society is in permanent transition between the past that forms its memory and the vision of the future that inspires its evolution. In this coming and going, leadership is essential: we must make decisions, gain trust, keep promises, propose a way forward; Good leaders in the Panamanian people want to walk with them. Leaders operate in scarcity, in time and in a competitive situation.

Leaders inevitably face a constant challenge: to prevent the demands of the present from overriding the future. A general manager was needed to lead, manage and talk to the most representative sectors of the company. the company will save money for retirement in 2024.

What we really need in P right nowAnamá to save the Social Security Fund is the leader, be it a statesman or a prophet who dominates the people. Enough of autocratic bureaucrats.

On the other hand, there was no leadership from the group of representatives that had control of the Assembly in the last 10 years, They do not care about the crisis that may arise, they will continue to receive tenders for medical supplies in hospitals.

Statesmen are not aloneInvited to solve easy questions. They often resolve themselves. It is at the moment when the balance collapses and the scale is hidden by the fog that the opportunity to make decisions that save the world opens up.

Hopefully in 2 quarters we won’t have to say: it was crucial to see our pension system die this year, looking for leadershipless bureaucrats who do not represent our society. They had already planned the fatal blow and their personal departure: they sent their relatives to study abroad with state money in the form of financial aid so that they would not experience shame in a restaurant or watch them suffer because Panama in flames at the end of the year.