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

RIP: Ali Sadikin

Former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin sadly passed away on Monday. 


 But despite his toughness he was always much respected. Not just for “allowing” Golkar to lose an election in Jakarta but also for his pragmatism in dealing with urban problems. His most controversial policy was to legalize gambling – a move which raised around 20 billion rupiah a year for the municipality. 

This was a sizable sum of money back in the 70s and was used for such immoral purposes as building roads, health clinics and schools. 

But the pious won the day, and it wasn’t long before gambling was made illegal again. But 20 billion rupiah is peanuts today of course, and a mere drop in the Sunda Straits compared to the massive US$4.4 billion casino development currently underway in Singapore that is intended to “attract Asia's rich and famous”. 

It’s the same old story of course – the Singaporeans seeing a tremendous opportunity that its large neighbor has decided to pass by. 

And the Singaporeans should do well – by 2011 the regulated gambling market is expected to reach a phenomenal US$30 billion

And none of it for Indonesia. 

But there is unregulated gambling of course. And that’s big business in Indonesia. In fact, trading on the Jakarta Stock Exchange dried up during the football World Cup finals in 2006, as punters preferred to bet on the football games instead. And things may be no different tonight. Chelsea at 2 to 1 to lift the cup? Sounds like good odds to me!

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