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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Kantor Pos Pasar Baru

On a recent sojourn around the Pasar Baru area of central Jakarta and I came across this old post office on Jalan Pos:

Kantor Pos Pasar Baru Jakarta


And tempo dulu, in 1947:

Kantor Pos Pasar Baru tempo dulu

About the only visible difference appear to be that the post office used to have a clock!

Notably, this is the first post office to be built in Jakarta (around the mid-1850s) - and with its huge arch the building bears a close resemblance to the marvelous Art Deco Kota railway station located further to the north.

Credit should also be given to the Indonesian Post Office for maintaining the building in such excellent condition (the same cannot be said of the Jakarta local government whose painful mismanagement of the historic Kota area of Jakarta means that many fine old buildings are now gradually rotting away).

Kantor Pos Pasar Baru
Jalan Pos,
No 1 Pasar Baru,
Sawah Besar,
Central Jakarta

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