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

Great countries and not-so-great countries

Some 25 percent of Aussies view Indonesia "very negatively" according to a recent survey. A lot of ‘em also think Iraq is a basket case, and two-thirds don’t like Bush. If a similar poll were carried out in Indonesia, I guess you’d find unfavorable attitudes towards any of Malaysia, Israel, Australia, Singapore, the US, Holland, China, Saudi Arabia, or Denmark – subject of course to the prevailing political prejudices of the time. 

 But what counties are truly great? And which ones are not so great? Well, here are my lists (provisional): 

Great 
1. Great Britain. Beer, football, sarcasm and rain. What more could you ask for? 
2. Sweden. Well you know what they have there! 
3. Jamaica. For obvious reasons!!! 
4. South Africa. An unpleasant story with a happy ending. 
5. Indonesia. Paradise innit? (as long as you are not one of the 120 million or so unfortunate souls living on less than US$2-3/day) 
6. The US (*). Hendrix, the Flaming Lips, MLK, LA, the American Dream etc. 7. Brazil. The beautiful game. 
8. India. All that is sublime and all that is mad. 
9. Kazakhstan. 

Not so great 
1. Zimbabwe. A madman at the helm and inflation of 7,638 percent. 
2. Sudan. Where the locals are being wiped out faster than a Geiger counter ticking over in a nuclear power plant. 
3. Myanmar. Nasty nasty generals who should be stabbed with the pins on the stupid medals that they wear. 
4. The US (*). Bush, US foreign policy, napalm, Barry Manilow. 
5. Belgium. 

*Note: the US appears in both lists 

Other lists 

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