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

Image
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

What I still don’t get is:

Why the country is used as a gigantic rubbish tip?

Why many Indonesians believe that in the west sex is “free” – in the sense that you could just approach some random stranger of the opposite sex and ask them for a quicky and they would promptly agree?

Why proper pavements aren’t made which people could actually walk on and not risk death or serious injury?

Why there are zebra crossings at all considering it is suicide to use one as cars don’t stop?

Why ONLY dangdut is played at street weddings?

Why the busway lane is full of motorcycles every day and the uniformed chap standing there does NOTHING to prevent this?

Why foreign doctors are not allowed to practice in the country given the poor level of health care which means rich Indonesians (mostly politicians and businesspeople) do a runner and get treated abroad, significantly draining the country’s forex reserves?

Why foreign universities aren’t allowed to set up here to reduce the need for parents to send their kids overseas to gain a (very expensive) education which (as in the previous point) drains Indonesia’s forex reserves?

Why the Indonesian school curriculum/system is so unbelievably shoddy - when they could easily adopt the Cambridge syllabus and exams – as Singapore has done?

Why gojek is considered “good” but uber “bad”? Because one has two wheels and the other has four?

Why bigotry towards LBGT people raises its ugly head from time to time even though over 10 million gays live in the country and – so far at least – they have not tried to bring the country to its knees? Even during the authoritarian Suharto era, things weren’t as bad as they are now and a transexual named Dorce was a popular TV presenter, who, to her credit, ran “a number of orphanages that cared for thousands of children.”

Why the traffic madness in front of Semanggi is allowed to continue given that it is entirely preventable?

Why microlet always seem to be either empty or just waiting by the side of the road – and there are so many of them?

Why every other car is a fucking Avanza?

Why Jasa Marga cannot operate efficient toll road booths (by using real electronic ticketing) to prevent kilometer-long queues of cars trying to get onto the inner city toll road every evening?

Comments

  1. There's ugliness and beauty, and for sure room for improvements. Tell us your story of your contributions, it can inspire more than complaints.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 10 best plus plus massage spas in Jakarta

20 things you should know about Indonesian women

The comfort zone (Jakarta hotel and spa)