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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Better red than dead

Nah!! Just kidding. I ain’t no commie – so don’t send in the hate mail just yet!

Even so, I quite liked some of Karl Marx’s class war stuff when I was a kid, but I think that probably had a lot to do with being brought up in stockbroker Surrey during the Thatcherite years, and having a distinct dislike for the hegemony of the ruling classes.

So why a hammer and sickle?

Well today marks the 40th anniversary in Indonesia of the murder of six army generals in a supposed communist coup back in 1965. General Suharto was conspicuously left off the death list however; but you’re not supposed to mention things like that in Indonesia…

In the bloody retributions that soon followed, Muslim youth groups - with the help of the Army of course -slaughtered as many commies that they could get their hands on: more than 500,000 according to most estimates.

The Americans also did their bit of course, and compiled death lists for the Indonesians. Oh well. You know what they say: the only good commie is a dead one…

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