---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Dengan mengClick banner sponsor anda menyumbang Rp. 1000,- untuk HomePage IndoNews. ---------------------------------------------------------- KOLOM SUPANGKAT: THE PREOCCUPATION OF POLITICS, ECONOMY IS GOING DOWN THE DRAIN Our economy is going nowhere if not down the drain in spite of the multibillions dollar loans from the IMF and the CGI because they made a very wrong diagnosis, thereby they are going to give the wrong therapy to the near terminally ill patient. The Habibie cabinet took the easiest way out of the crisis by applying the Keynes- ian Deficit Spending to be financed by foreign loans. Deficit Spending is one way to utilize the savings to revive the industry, and since our savings is artificially stuck by the 50% interest rate, nobody in the world would withdraw his saving to "gamble" to cure the "ICU" (Intensive Care Unit) patient! Especially when the highests rate you ever can get is 50%, unparallelled in world economy. Keynesianism is totally being disgraced unduly. Besides, foreign loans is a drop of water into the ocean to finance the revival of the economy. There must be another alternative. The Indonesian economists must find a way to do it, if not now, then after the election. But given this lose- lose situation, why do we have to beef up our foreign loans which we could not afford to pay back in the foreseable future because we were buried to the neck with the existing unpaid loans? The prospective winners of the next election never paid attention, if there is any at all, to the revival of the economy, even one single economist like PDI's Kwik Kian Gie would be dwarfed by the worsening problems until then. Why isn't there an Association of Economists to brainstorm our economic woes? Everybody seems to be preoccupied by politics, politics, and nothing but politics. H.S. Hidayat Supangkat New York. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 25 Feb 1999 jam 13:21:29 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
