There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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Role reversal

A few years back everyone dumped the rupiah. It sank like whale faeces to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. On a few crazy occasions it even went to 17,000/USD. Ridiculous queues at foreign banks like Standard Chartered as rich Indonesians put all their money into dollar accounts that pay virtually no interest.

But today, the rupiah is king – in Indonesia at least. No one likes the dollar anymore. If things continue the British pound will soon be worth US$2.

There’s a moral behind all this of course. And it’s very simple. When things get really bad, they probably won’t get worse. Cos when you’re at the bottom, the only way is up. And, conversely, when you’re at the top the only way is down…

 Even so, money is money. Maria Eva wanted Rp5 billion, but would have accepted dollars of course. The difference is that with dollars you only need one briefcase to take the money to the bank. With the rupiah you need a van.

 But Maria has got no class and doesn’t rank as one of my top Indonesian celebrities for 2006.

 Don’t like classy chicks? Well, there’s always the ayam kampung…

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