And this time, the presidential campaign by the candidate offers the recovery of the economy and the creation of new jobs.

In order for new jobs to be created as a result of economic reactivation, it is necessary that there be investments. A society that does not invest is a society inexorably condemned to delay, to economic decay, and thus to the social decay that this entails.

Does Ecuadorian society invest? Not. The public sector doesn’t invest because it doesn’t have the resources, and it doesn’t because it gives more than 10,000 million dollars a year in subsidies: fuel, social (IESS, Isspol, Issfa), electricity, bonds for poverty and the like.

Most of them, namely the first two, do not go to the poorest in the country. Therefore, the state cannot invest because it has no funds and spends on the less poor. How then can the candidates promise job growth and economic recovery knowing that the state has no way to invest? The correct promise would be to say: “We are going to abolish subsidies, so that with this measure the state will have resources, and with those resources, it will be able to invest, in order to create future employment in this way.”

On the other hand, Ecuadorian society is also facing a serious problem of non-investment of the private sector. And it does not do this because the structure of interest, with ridiculous upper limits and credit segments that have no relation to economic, financial or real technique, gives incentives for consumer loans, not corporate loans, which go to companies. It is companies that produce investment, or what is known as gross capital investment, which is the addition of plant, equipment, buildings, computers, machinery, and anything else that is used to produce more and more efficiently, and then generate economic growth and more employment in society. The correct speech, therefore, should be: “We will modify the absolutely irrational structure of interest rates, so that then there is lending to corporations and companies that are the ones that employ and, above all, generate investments.”

Campaigns are increasingly moving away from reality, from the analysis of the fundamental problems of society, and are reaffirmed as a marketing exercise in which one should try to say what the voter wants to hear, not what the voter should hear. This creates great frustration in the electorate, because they check again and again that the election promises are completely far from the reality experienced by the elected government.

All promises of employment are false unless it is clearly explained that the above actions will be taken. Instead of making promises that will not be fulfilled, the candidates should confirm that, given the extremely short government, they will commit to seeking not re-election, but a national agreement that leads to solving the major structural problems we face, which lead us to an unsustainable society. (OR)