“Save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist.”
Talking to a Mexican newspaper, Bill Gates said he was convinced that a crisis is coming as a result of the extreme situations to which the world has been led by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. To deal with its consequences, Gates advised keeping an emergency fund untouched and available. The Microsoft co-founder recalled that this was always his attitude since his days as a young entrepreneur: to have enough to maintain his standard of living and to be able to pay for his company’s expenses for 12 months. And the future? “You can only be optimistic in the long term if you are pessimistic enough to survive in the short term,” the tycoon confided to El Economista in Mexico City.
Situation analysis, caution in expenses, prudence in indebtedness and emergency fund. It is no coincidence that Microsoft – from which Gates retired in 2000 – is the third company with the highest market value in the world. Its permanence on the podium is due to strict governance that makes it a machine for anticipating scenarios, especially those that contain high risk.
It is not wise to compare companies with countries. But let us agree that many of the variables that affect both have points of coincidence. Perhaps they are leveled by the character of those who are in charge.
We have already seen that Gates saves his optimism for the future while tightening his wallet for the short term.
Saving the distances, what do the politicians in the Government do around here? They spend like the rich within a State with more than limited resources and that has been living with a budget deficit for years. Abusing its powers, the Government continues to fatten the payroll when the most basic actuarial calculations tell it that this is not possible. Result? Growing fiscal red and the need to issue debt to meet the investment obligations assumed by the State, limiting it to areas such as health and road infrastructure. There are works that run the risk of being unfinished and others paralyzed in the start-up stage.
The principle of “saving like a pessimist and investing like an optimist” does not work for Paraguayan politicians, especially for those who have distorted the meaning of the word “investment” that they have mutated into “electoral campaign spending”, one of the the worst scourges suffered by the public treasury.
Paraphrasing the North American tycoon, pessimistic in the short term, evicted in the long term.
