Wednesday 23 April 2008

Senator Obama is Charming America

I watched CNN Compassion Forum last week. For the first time I directly observe Obama’s public speaking in Pennsylvania today. This changed my opinion from underestimated about his chance to be the US President.  I saw a better performance in him compared with the other two candidates. He has also a good opinion about most of Indonesian Moslem population:” which tolerant and could work in the modern world with the Jews, Christians, and others”. He added that “the clash of civilization is sometimes just for politically interest than the reality”.

Posted by Maddar at 22:43:30 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

The economic growth could be better this year, but inflation…

The economic growth for this year could be higher than 6 percent, but the inflation could be higher than the government expected. There is at least one reason to be optimistic about growth: there are some big provinces that conduction governor election this year such as South Sulawesi, East Java, Central Java, West Java, and North Sumatera. There is unknown number of spending of the each governor candidate team that could help the economic growth. About inflation, everything is already clear such as what the TV tell us everyday…..

Posted by Maddar at 22:39:35 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday 14 March 2008

Special Economic Zones, Free Trade Zones, Free Port Zones, and Batam

I was in Batam two days ago for discussion about the SEZ,FTZ,FPZ, and especially related with Batam. What I got about the discussion on Batam was, the economy has grown above national level as naturally taking advantage of its location, but the politic problems which probably make this place will become messy. The politic problems are ranging from global, regional, national, and local politic that have potentials disturbing the economy. When dealing with global and regional politic, there was a conspiracy theory that I could not find the empirics or rational explanation behind the theory. What I found were the national and local politic that probably the most potential dangerous problems in disturbing the growing of Batam.

I said that this kind of place is like a "region state", as Keinichi Ohmae stated, as my quotation in the first place of the discussion:

"Region states are not-and need not be-the enemies of central government. Handled gently, by federation, these ports of entry to the global economy may well prove to be their very best friends"

(Kenichi Ohmae, The End of Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies, 1995, page 100).

Regions state such as Batam, Johor, Singapura; Guangdong, Hongkong, Taiwan; and other regions that reflect the economic cohesion and taking advantage each other for economic prosperity, but not in the same national or country.

The policy maker should open their eyes that in the future, when the barriers of trade among countries significantly decrease, the international trade policy perspectives will move to what so called "economic geography or economic regional perspectives". It means that location advantage (including transportation cost), economies of scale, and agglomeration will become the most attentions of the business. The potential regions (such as the region in the regions state) should be used in taking advantage of its locations and become the hinterland or connectors to the other Indonesian regions. And China has applied the perspectives since 20 years ago by developing SEZ (Special Economic Zones) and then entering WTO in 2001, which means China put the economic geography/regional economic first before moving to the international trade. And the result: China is shaking the world both for good and bad perspectives.


Posted by Maddar at 10:01:31 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Saturday 16 February 2008

Divorce: income differential explanation

After having watched celebrity gossips for years such as silet, hot gossip, insert, insert investigasi, kiss, cek dan ricek, and others, I found one hypothesis that the income differential between husband and wife could determine the level of divorce.

Lets define D=Divorce, ID=wife's income minus husband income. The higher the ID, the higher level to be divorced. Let us D=f(ID), that shows the positive relationship between income differential and level of divorce.

If this hypothesis is empirically true, it fulfills one of the phrases from film Shreck that "celebrity marriage never last".

Posted by Maddar at 02:35:53 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday 07 February 2008

Some Latest Issues

This blog was empty for almost two months. Some notes on issues that have taken attention are summarized below. I will try to come back to this blog again for the next days.

1. Notes on US Recession

Krugman (like always) and Greenspan seems agree that US economy is facing recession now. They sometimes blame Bush for the recession [and of course Bush will blame the terrorists]. The other opinion (If I am not mistaken) was from Ms. Friedman who blames Greenspan, because at the time of Greenspan as the Fed Chairman, the expansion monetary policy has taken role in pushing credit expansion that taking stock nowadays. This problem seems almost the same with Indonesia problem that create moral hazard before the crises in 1998. I think for nowadays, the Bush administration will fight for facing the recession by using both fiscal and monetary expansion. It means that the real problem will be faced after the presidential election when the inflation takes place in the economy. The inflation problem as the result of both from supply (especially of the high oil price)  and  monetary side (the Fed expansion). After the presidential election, both the fiscal and monetary will apply the contraction policy. Then the real recession probably will start around the end of this year if the economic management could not face the challenges.

2. Notes on US Presidential Election

If the US economy condition worse, there is a possibility that the candidate from Democrat will win the election, either Ms.Clinton or Mr.Obama. Unfortunately, the chance is not as big as the press shows us. There are two reasons for this: first, since the US independent, there is no US president from either women or black; second, nowadays the right wing (similar with the rising of Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) phenomenon in Indonesia)   in US domestic politic has taken big roles in US politic that make Republican win the election after the Mr.Clinton era. However, if Ms. Clinton or Obama were winning the election, the US politic will initiate a new history in the world of democracy that either women or minority could lead the biggest democratic country in the world.

3. Notes on the Impact of US Recession

If the US economy recession were coming, the whole world will suffer, including China, one of the emerging economies.  China will suffer both from the high oil price and the export demand from US. China will reduce its economic expansion that means will cut some imported input, such as from Indonesia for example. The Indonesian economy will also suffer from the downturn of US demand. This effect will probably take effect by the next year.

4. Notes on Suharto Funeral

Like it or not, Suharto was a great man for his time both for good and bad reasons. I have no personal relation with him, but I have some notes as the neutral perspectives based on my knowledge and information that I have. First, some of his economic policy has taken a big role in developing Indonesia from the lower/poor country into the middle income country. Two main good policies were the population control and education infrastructure through INPRES. Second, some of his political decisions repressed some groups in the past as the costs for its political stability, as his main concern. This becomes his biggest weaknesses until nowadays that invented political problems that seems become endless problems in this country. Third, because his time in power was too long (32 years), it created huge interest group that got advantages from his power. And the old wisdom word took action "power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupt absolutely". Unfortunately, the interest groups that took advantages from his power were range from politicians, tycoons, administrators, civil organizations, military personals, and others. It means that there were so many persons or groups who got advantages from his power. Some of them at the end of his power, when all problems were blamed to him, turned against him. It just the repetition of the old history of mankind.

5. Notes on Indonesian economic condition nowadays

Despite the problems of the external shocks, it seems that 2008 economy should be better than the year 2007 from the growth perspective with the cost of inflation. Indonesia also has applied the expansion policy both from fiscal and monetary in facing the next election. In financing the fiscal expansion, probably the government will squeeze the oil subsidy as one of the source of fund. This policy will face dilemma for Yudhoyono administration both from economic and political perspectives if he still want to race in the next election.
Posted by Maddar at 18:51:08 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Reformist and power

The hardest part of being reformist is when the distribution of the gain after the reformation takes place. Gie has his own way: to be a real reformist is just like a cowboy that come to a town facing the bad guy and the go home and doing the usual things better, not by being a replacement of the former. Gie has his way. Only poetry, mountains, and love that could understand him.  Please also don't forget the history:" Napoleon oppose the emperor in the name of the people and then he become the dictator emperor"

I don't want to say that what happen in Gie and Napoleon time are just the repetitions of nowadays time. But you could compare. Please remind them that they are having the gains of reformation today caused by the sacrifice of life many peoples and students.

Posted by Maddar at 03:52:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday 02 November 2007

Politicians and Nations

If I am not mistaken, Iqbal once said that the Nations are built by the Poets but will be destroyed by the Politicians. If it is true probably the best thing to do for me is "never votes for the greedness of politicians, unless I have a strong and good enough reasons"
Posted by Maddar at 09:24:43 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday 11 September 2007

September Eleven 2001: The day that shocked the world

It was 10 a.m six years ago [in Virginia, US], I was in my dream when my friend, Iwin, call me and said " please watch the TV now!". I was shocked, I think it was from a movie, not in the reality (do you remember the independence day?). Then my other friend call me not to go outside eventhough go to campus, caused the situation could be worse for the foreigner. I stayed and my friends also come to our apartment, one of them was Travis, an US marine officer. At that time I was still using Sarong (an Indonesia pijama?) and Travis gave attention to my sarong with his smile. He said to us that please becalm and not do anything that could make worse, staying in the apartment will be better for a moment.

Since that day, everything getting worse until I went back to Indonesia. I still remember two things that gave me a bad memory: first, when I tried having driving license, suddently the officer said that I have to give some requirement that very complicated (and I decided not to try to apply again for the license); second, at the time I went back to Indonesia, I had to pass through 12 times air port security checks that make me should open everything that I bring and use. However, I don't have to blame anyone because it is their job to make sure about our security. Probably the one that I should blame is the "NY attacker planner" that still being a ghost and being a debatable ghost until now: who are they?

Posted by Maddar at 19:06:47 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Monday 10 September 2007

Agricultural protection in the developed countries

When I taught my students about the the specific factor model, one of them asked me that "why should we liberalize our agricultural sector while the developed countries protecting their agricultural sector?". Actually It was a hard question, the answer that I had was only a question " Should we follow the wrong doers eventhough they are richer and more intelligence than us?".

Posted by Maddar at 00:44:43 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |