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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Labor Day in Jakarta

A socialist, a capitalist and a communist agreed to meet. The socialist was late. 'Excuse me for being late, I was standing in a queue for sausages.'
'And what is a queue?' the capitalist asked.
'And what is a sausage?' the communist asked.

Sukarno of course went a little too far in tinkering with communism, and subsequently paid the price. Suharto took over and at least 500,000 people were killed according to some estimates. Most of those butchered were peasants who didn’t really have a clue about politics. But hey – that’s life. And death of course. The Americans did their bit, supplying names of those to be killed (how times change eh?), and the slaughter got underway. Read the account of a former CIA operative in Indonesia here.

But Sukarno had had a good innings. Like most “socialist” leaders, he had accumulated a huge fortune and spent the nation’s money on elaborate projects like the Senayan Sports Stadium and Monas (a huge phallic monument honoring his manhood according to some) while his people starved. He even had time to seek out suitable marriage partners in Japanese nightclubs.

But what most people don’t know is that Sukarno also had a crush on one of the sexiest women of all time, the gorgeous Marilyn Monroe.

Happy Labor Day!

I’ll give you Bali, if you say yes…

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