At this moment whilst the many dead bodies are not yet burried, when the injured are literally waiting in the rain for medical care, when cries are being wept, condolences and sympathies are only good for politicians and bureacrats. They woud hardly save a soul or make the wounded feel any better or wiser. Nearly 5,000 lives ended and many homes destroyed sicne my last post! I wanted to express this sorrow of course, but what the Yogyakartans need more is real help. NOT WORDS.
At this moment I'm ashamed of and would like to curse myself--for thinking this way, and for not being able to reach out let alone help out. No one can be really prepared for such ever-clandestine disasters; still first-aid emergency measures could have been better. A better system needs to be in place. NOT ONE, EVER, RELYING ON CHARITY.
Long Weekend At...
See how a local government advertises half-page of its outrageous stupidity, blatant folly, and unethical vision in Kompas today.
The Government of Kabupaten Sleman.
Jl. Pasaramnya, Beran, Tridadi, Seleman, Yogyakarta
http://www.sleman.go.id.
Witness the minute to minute eruption of Mount Merapi, a rare natural event in the world...
LONG WEEKEND AT...MERAPI
blah, blah, blah...
Merapi Slope, 25-28 May 2006
Information contact: 0274-898350/868405 ext. 1150.
This public service commercial for "Kaliurang and Tourism Recovery" is from the Government of Kabupaten Sleman.
The Government of Kabupaten Sleman.
Jl. Pasaramnya, Beran, Tridadi, Seleman, Yogyakarta
http://www.sleman.go.id.
Witness the minute to minute eruption of Mount Merapi, a rare natural event in the world...
LONG WEEKEND AT...MERAPI
blah, blah, blah...
Merapi Slope, 25-28 May 2006
Information contact: 0274-898350/868405 ext. 1150.
This public service commercial for "Kaliurang and Tourism Recovery" is from the Government of Kabupaten Sleman.
To Will Oneself Free
"To will oneself free is to effect the transition from nature to morality by establishing a genuine freedom on the original upsurge of our existence."
"Bertindak bebas adalah bertindak etis, penuh petimbangan dan kepedulian, bukan didorong oleh impuls sesaat."
Simone de Beauvoir quoted in Mengungkap Selubung Kekerasan: Telaah Filsafat Manusia by E. Kristi Poerwandari, 2004.
"Bertindak bebas adalah bertindak etis, penuh petimbangan dan kepedulian, bukan didorong oleh impuls sesaat."
Simone de Beauvoir quoted in Mengungkap Selubung Kekerasan: Telaah Filsafat Manusia by E. Kristi Poerwandari, 2004.
Waiting for the Night Train
Note: This updates the previous, now deleted, post: Investment: Barking the Wrong Tree
Anybody who is somebody or nobody in the economic realm--ministers, authorities, economists, journalists, laypersons, etc-consciously or not, is preoccupied with growth. As we often hear, "In order to create jobs to such and such percent, we need to increase growth to such and such percent." Another variant from economists: "To contribute to growth by such and such percent, we need to increase electricity (or whatever variable) to such and such percent. This is based on our econometric modelling, which was based on empirical evidence."
Kita terlanjur harus percaya pada pertumbuhan, one would say in Indonesian. Inundated by waves of economic gospel, we have been converted to believe in growth. In today's international intercourse, we join the mainstream, albeit awkwardly and relatively safely to date.
So, in Growth we trust. We think we know well what triggers it: fiscal stimuli, consumption, and investment. In the case of Indonesia, they are fully aware that relying on fiscal stimulus is not possible "thanks" to the mounting debts to service. Dependence on consumption is unsustainable; 95% of the population barely has disposable income or the marginal propensity to consume.
Thus the belief solidifies that Indonesia has to resort to investment: specifically, foreign investment. Let's call it investment of the first degree. Through it we will get the real sector moving. This is the light at the end of our tunnel, our "only" hope. Foreign investment is a night train (and we've hoped for an express one) with bright headlight heading toward us through our dark ages.
For the express train to come unhampered conducive environment is needed. And for this conducive environment, infrastructure is needed; market sentiment, too, must be maintained.
Yet all this conducive environment, infrastructure, maintenance of sentiments, is, strictly speaking, investment in itself, which needs to be satisfied through provision of some other conducive environment, infrastructure and maintenance. Shall we not call it investment of the lesser degree?
It is the nature of capital that it is enamored to profit-excepting the rare acts of philanthropy, a concept borrowed from the spiritual world. Capital, or money--to put it bluntly, has no nationality; nor have the slightest interest in nationalism. Profit making, literally or metaphorically, is essentially the basic purpose of human economic activities: to derive or create values based on existing production factors.
Profit in the business and economic sense can be derived through profit-generating projects. The drive toward profit making, in its pure intention, has nothing to do with a country development. But in the search for profit, business entities inevitably encounter and deal with governments.
Governments are no business entities. Their conceptual and existential purposes are beyond that of the latter. It is a fatal naiveté to believe that such express night trains want to take us anywhere we want.
Who, by the way, will take care of non-income generating projects, such as public roads, hospitals, bridges? Who will fix the portholes roads in front of our houses? Government? Should be. But a cash-strapped government like Indonesia's? Only with difficulty! Where would it get the fund? Investment by the first degree? Only if it is promised profitability. Debts (the first or lesser degree)? Here we go again, to the fiscally paralyzing factor.
Amid Indonesia's yearning for investment, some key questions are left unaddressed--not even adequately asked: What if investment doesn't help? What if the express night train of the first degree only passes us by? Worse, what if it turns out to be one that will crush us? What will we have left to explain? What will be our sources of hope?
Anybody who is somebody or nobody in the economic realm--ministers, authorities, economists, journalists, laypersons, etc-consciously or not, is preoccupied with growth. As we often hear, "In order to create jobs to such and such percent, we need to increase growth to such and such percent." Another variant from economists: "To contribute to growth by such and such percent, we need to increase electricity (or whatever variable) to such and such percent. This is based on our econometric modelling, which was based on empirical evidence."
Kita terlanjur harus percaya pada pertumbuhan, one would say in Indonesian. Inundated by waves of economic gospel, we have been converted to believe in growth. In today's international intercourse, we join the mainstream, albeit awkwardly and relatively safely to date.
So, in Growth we trust. We think we know well what triggers it: fiscal stimuli, consumption, and investment. In the case of Indonesia, they are fully aware that relying on fiscal stimulus is not possible "thanks" to the mounting debts to service. Dependence on consumption is unsustainable; 95% of the population barely has disposable income or the marginal propensity to consume.
Thus the belief solidifies that Indonesia has to resort to investment: specifically, foreign investment. Let's call it investment of the first degree. Through it we will get the real sector moving. This is the light at the end of our tunnel, our "only" hope. Foreign investment is a night train (and we've hoped for an express one) with bright headlight heading toward us through our dark ages.
For the express train to come unhampered conducive environment is needed. And for this conducive environment, infrastructure is needed; market sentiment, too, must be maintained.
Yet all this conducive environment, infrastructure, maintenance of sentiments, is, strictly speaking, investment in itself, which needs to be satisfied through provision of some other conducive environment, infrastructure and maintenance. Shall we not call it investment of the lesser degree?
It is the nature of capital that it is enamored to profit-excepting the rare acts of philanthropy, a concept borrowed from the spiritual world. Capital, or money--to put it bluntly, has no nationality; nor have the slightest interest in nationalism. Profit making, literally or metaphorically, is essentially the basic purpose of human economic activities: to derive or create values based on existing production factors.
Profit in the business and economic sense can be derived through profit-generating projects. The drive toward profit making, in its pure intention, has nothing to do with a country development. But in the search for profit, business entities inevitably encounter and deal with governments.
Governments are no business entities. Their conceptual and existential purposes are beyond that of the latter. It is a fatal naiveté to believe that such express night trains want to take us anywhere we want.
Who, by the way, will take care of non-income generating projects, such as public roads, hospitals, bridges? Who will fix the portholes roads in front of our houses? Government? Should be. But a cash-strapped government like Indonesia's? Only with difficulty! Where would it get the fund? Investment by the first degree? Only if it is promised profitability. Debts (the first or lesser degree)? Here we go again, to the fiscally paralyzing factor.
Amid Indonesia's yearning for investment, some key questions are left unaddressed--not even adequately asked: What if investment doesn't help? What if the express night train of the first degree only passes us by? Worse, what if it turns out to be one that will crush us? What will we have left to explain? What will be our sources of hope?
Future of a Nation
The future of any nation greatly depends on its energy resource--energy as well as the shrewdness of its utilization being a truest indicator of a nation's wealth. The way a nation treats (its need for) energy determines its own life and how other nations will relate to it. This may be a sorry fact, but that's the way how the cowboyish world is being run, when peace is placed between two smoking guns.
Whether or not a nation's name remains written on or will be swept away from the International Map must connect with it. Nuclear energy, like globalization itself, has been here to stay, and so it would take a very naïve leader to ignore its importance. What Iraq has beneath its soil is energy that can power the entire world for hundreds of year, but what has happened to it?
So I feel sorry for the Jakarta Post's article today which instead of focusing on substance chose to impart its biased opinions. It is still a world of perceptions we live in, of course, but why not let readers shape their own? Would be more enlightening for the readers to hear what Ahmadinejad had to say about the US and the West, rather than to be concocted with sentiments as to how they should view this president, and their own.
Whether or not a nation's name remains written on or will be swept away from the International Map must connect with it. Nuclear energy, like globalization itself, has been here to stay, and so it would take a very naïve leader to ignore its importance. What Iraq has beneath its soil is energy that can power the entire world for hundreds of year, but what has happened to it?
So I feel sorry for the Jakarta Post's article today which instead of focusing on substance chose to impart its biased opinions. It is still a world of perceptions we live in, of course, but why not let readers shape their own? Would be more enlightening for the readers to hear what Ahmadinejad had to say about the US and the West, rather than to be concocted with sentiments as to how they should view this president, and their own.
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