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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Carwash babes aka Montir-Montir Cantik in Kebayoran Baru

RCTI’s Montir-Montir Cantik (Beautiful Mechanics) is one of my favorite Indonesian TV shows.

Some may say it’s a bit sexist, but I’d say the opposite is true.

Because by featuring female mechanics, the show does a very good job in breaking down the gender stereotype that females don’t know anything about cars. Even if they are wearing hot pants while going down on the customer’s, er, car.

Even so, I was really surprised to see that the vision of the show’s producers has now become reality with the opening of an exclusive carwash garage in the Blok M area of South Jakarta.

And Garasi Yudhoyono, as its called, is apparently doing a roaring trade, even though it charges Rp100,000 for a car wash, about three times the normal price.

The owner of the garage, a well-known Jakarta entrepreneur, says that many well-known politicians and businesspeople now bring their cars to his garage for its weekly hosedown rather than let the driver take it there.

And judging from the pictures below, I can see why…

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