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

Which premiership club should Indonesians support?

The terrorists may have saved Man U from a humiliating defeat at the hands of an Indonesian All Star (sic) team but they haven’t dampened Indonesians’ enthusiasm for English footy. Nope not at all - and a couple of games will still be broadcast every Saturday night on TVONE (however, don’t expect to see either Man U or Chelski on too often although Wigan Athletic and Burnley might be featured quite regularly). 

But who should Indonesians support? Well, surely a club with Indonesian connections, right? But is there one? Well, are there any premiership clubs with Indonesian players? No. Or premiership clubs owned by Indonesian tycoons? No. However, there is one English premiership club which is sponsored by an Indonesian: Tottenham Hotspur!


Yep, the sponsors being Mansion of course - no relation to the Mansion House Meths drink one hopes – but rather an online gambling venture owned by Putra Sampoerna, a wily old businessman who sold his cigarette company to the Yanks for a whopping 5 billion US dollars back in 2006.

Cigs and gaming; Sampoerna knows what people want 

I was always very skeptical about the Mansion venture, but I have to say Mansion seems to be doing pretty well now that it’s moved into online “hardcore” gambling i.e. poker (judging by their Alexa ranking of 23,267).

Quite why gamblers trust these internet gambling sites is beyond me – I mean how do they know the odds aren’t being unfairly stacked against them from the start? And as for Spurs, well they had a great first game in the new season beating Liverpool 2-1 on Saturday. 100-1 to lift the title? Not a bad bet in my opinion!!!

Comments

  1. Leicester City's 30 percent share is owned by Iman Arif (one of Indonesian FA officials).

    ReplyDelete

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