Politician and business

Politician's business is one of the hot issue in this election (nope, I havent get around to write about neo-liberalism...maybe not enough market incentive)

Does politics and business mix well together? They could, but the possible downside is also quite severe.

To forbid businessman to go into politics is as mistaken as to allow politician take advantage of state apparatus for their own private benefit. Some middle path is required.

I took cue to practice in some developed country and proposed a blind trust where a politician's money is invest without him knowing where it is put to avoid conflict of interest.

More on this link

Neoliberalism and law formulation

Megawati recently made these written statement:

"Kejadian yang dialami oleh Prita merupakan bukti kasat mata, dampak dari neoliberalisme, di mana kekuatan pasar bebas dengan lembaga-lembaga multinasionalnya dapat dengan mudah menggunakan hukum seperti UU 11/2008 tentang Informasi Transaksi Elektronik (ITE)"

Despite much sloganism inside and citicism to it, would Indonesia would be better off if all the legal product is evaluated publicly whether it will benefit corporation more than commom citizen. Even more so if it is done by an independent body with competent people on it.

Let the debate continue.

The war of slogans

The election fever is reaching new height with labelling effort to box the opponents.

I'd like to know more concrete policy and the number of each presidential candidate instead of empty slogans and the race to steal narrative.

Indonesian deserve a real and substantive debate on economic policy in order to make an informed choice.

Anyone know the website of economic platform of each candidates?

Election conduct and election system

So many interesting things happened during this election, sometime hard to choose which one to focus on.

Should it be the meteoric rise of Democrat Party? or the plot within plot of coalition? or the disenfrachised voter by KPU incompetence?

But they all have been covered rather extensively. and so little coverage has been given to systemic analysis of election system. District system has many advantages that is sorely needed in a large and plural country like Indonesia. Thus I argued (click here)

Economist and Election

The economist magazine have an interesting article about Indonesian election (click here)

and Nurkholisoh, an old time friend, publish a splendid article on the Economics of Election (click here)

I am also still optimist on Indonesian democracy eventhough acknowledge there likely to be many, avoidable, glitches in this election... May the journey continue smoothly.

update:
Another excellent article (click here) on the Economist on Indonesia election

Prabowonomics?

Have been reading some opinion article on Prabowonomics.

Among them are Teguh Dartanto in Koran Tempo, Bersihar Lubis in Medan Bisnis, Heri in his blog dan Vivanews feature.

Does it really deserve a school of thought by itself?

The strands of policy seems to have emphasis on role of the state and primary sector, with a healthy dose of scepticism to globalisation. Dartanto put forward a thoughful critics of some of its target.

Name-nomics is a good cacthphrase in the time of frenzy campaign. So I am looking forward to read more of SBY-nomics and Megawati-nomics as well as JK-nomics.

It would be interesting to have more debate on economic platform of each party though and less musical campaign.

Even though also quite likely that Indonesian campaign promises are, in Ron Ziegler's immortal argot, "inoperative" on the day after the election.

Economist are Running the Obama Campaign

Read this quote from Slate magazine on Obama campaign decision to used sms as major campaigning tools:

Green and Gerber estimate that a door-canvassing operation costs $16 per hour, with six voters contacted each hour; if you convince one of every 14 voters you canvass, you're paying $29 for each new voter. A volunteer phone bank operation will run you even more—$38 per acquired voter. This is the wondrous thing about text-messaging: Studies show that text-based get-out-the-vote appeals win one voter for every 25 people contacted. That's nearly as effective as door-canvassing, but it's much, much cheaper. Text messages cost about 6 cents per contact—only $1.50 per new voter.

If Obama win, dont forget the part played an army of economists with cost benefit analysis as weapon. Politician, ignore economists at your perils!