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Does Indonesia escape the Plunder Bankers?
The US, Europe, Japan, Russia, Brazil – all of them are facing an economic depression as the follow up of the financial crises. And all of us will suffer. Severely.
Maybe not really all of us though. Maybe Indonesia will escape the economical catastrophe ahead. “President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia would not see a repeat of the financial crisis of 1997, as all the fundamentals looked solid and there was clear potential for domestic market expansion” (Jakarta Post, 06.10.08).
‘Our woman in Jakarta‘ more or less agrees with him. She reports that the Indonesian banks are not poisoned by bad derivatives, there is no serious threat for a credit crunch, Indonesia is not largely dependent on export to the US or Europe and the losses on the stock market don’t matter that much in a country where the overwhelming majority has other problems than shares, bank accounts and pensions.
But on the same day in the same paper this news could also be read: “the benchmark JSX index shed 183.77 points, or 10.03 percent, to close at 1,648.7 points.” Which, I agree, are moderate losses in comparison to the New York, European and Russian stock markets but it indicates the archipelago does not consist of islands in the financial and economical world. Which, I have to grant him, governor Boediono of BI confirmed: “The shortage of global liquidity will be felt as a result of this crisis.” And he added: “We must be prepared to face this over the next six months to one year“.
Kishore Mahbubani at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta.
On Thursday, the 31st of July 2008, Kishore Mahbubani – see the previous post- held a lecture at the presidential palace. His audience was the national ruling elite of Indonesia, the President himself, government members etc. And, as a courteous guest, he said some flattering things about ( and to) his host. But he also had several encouraging observations on recent developments in the country as well as some advice, worth to ponder upon, on how to do better.
He compared for instance what happened in South America and China. While thirty or twenty years ago every insider would have predicted Latin America would do much better economically than the People’s Republic of China, exactly the opposite has happened. In the opinion of Mahbubani both made the one and only right choice regarding the economical system: free market capitalism. So that did not make the difference.
“Asia is overcome by a tidal wave of common sense”
The quote is from Kishore Mahbubani, a learned and eminent Singapore citizen of Indian descent. He himself is making tidal waves in the media and universities by his books in which he castigates the West for arrogance, geo political incompetence and complacency, while at the same time he proclaims the ascent of Asian progress. While the US and Europe lack the capacity to understand the transformation the world is going through, Asia is marching to modernity with a huge, peace and stability loving middle class as result. In the process an ocean of new Asian brainpower – which always has been wasted- will become available and boost the developments.
As one might expect China is kind of a model to him. According to Mahbubani that country took two major beneficial decisions. One of them is that after the end of the cold war it didn’t copy the political system of the West (= liberal democracy), but only the economical one (free market economy). In that way it profited from the dynamics and vitality of the system, but could prevent the socio-political chaos the former USSR had and has to deal with. The other one is a geo strategic one: China offered a free trade agreement to the Asean and Asian countries and executed it. The outcome of that decision is that the Asian hemisphere as a whole benefits from a remarkable economic growth.
The Diamond Skull & IMF
Diamonds remind me of lines like these:
“A diamond as big as the Ritz” and
“Diamonds are the girl’s best friend” and
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
But F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marilyn Monroe or The Beatles have nothing to do with it. Not with this one:
“For the love of God” (2007) is a piece of art by the British artist Damien Hirst. The news is that it will be on display soon in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Actually it is only a human skull – but one made of platinum and totally covered with diamonds. Over 8500 gems! Investors bought it last year at € 75 million. An appalling amount of money, but probably the diamonds made it a bargain. Yet my overwhelming feeling at first was perplexity. And even indignation. Art devoured by decadence, globalization and capitalism. Why should the Rijksmuseum contribute to this madness by organizing this exhibition? And it isn’t even a museum of modern art.
Is the Eastern way to handle criticism different?
Lulu Wang is a Chinese woman who, when she was 25 years old, came to The Netherlands. In the last 22 years she has lived here and became a prolific Dutch author of quite a number of bestselling novels. She is, one might say, a very successful new Dutchwoman. Read More