Since then, Indonesia became one of the largest democratic country in the world, and a very liberal economic system was adopted. Politics became top priority and the economy became less important..
This sudden change has caused mismanagement of the country, so many bad things occurred i.e. abuse of power and corruption by government officials, members of parliament and the legislative bodies.
Due to the said mismanagement, the country's very rich natural resources have only been enjoyed by few people. While the majority of the people are poor.
In this regards, Bloomberg reported (below) that the number of rich people in Indonesia has almost doubles in just 1 year.
I hope that in the future there will be another report which shows that the number of middle class people, i.e. those whose economic conditions are somewhere between the poor and the rich, also increased significantly.
Number of Indonesian billionaires nearly doubles
The number of billionaires in Indonesia has nearly doubled from a dozen last year to a record 21 today -- thanks largely to booms in coal, palm oil and other commodities.
Forbes Asia also said in its December issue that the collective net of the country's 40 richest people jumped from $42 billion to an all-time high of $71 billion.
Indonesia, home to 237 million people, has one of the fastest growing economies in the region. That's thanks to a strong stock market -- boosted by the wealth of many on the list -- abundant natural resources, and consumers who are eager to spend.
The richest Indonesians were once again brothers Budi and Michael Hartono. Money generated by the Bank Central Asia, clove cigarette giant Djarum and palm oil interests gave them a combined net worth of $11 billion.
That's up from $7 billion last year.
Photo: Courtesy of Fotokita/M.Iqbal
10 comments:
semoga kekayaan yang mereka peroleh benar2 membawa berkah.
Sawali,
Mudah2-an demikianlah yang akan terjadi, mas.
moga aku bisa termasuk ke jajaran orang2 itu nanti. :)
itu berarti Indonesia semakin berkembang dan maju,, semoga negara kita yg berkembang ini tumbuh menjadi negara yang lebih maju yg bersih dari korupsi:P Thanks Harry
Though each time we are critical about the present system ( and I really think it deserves and is worth a critical approach like any serious democratic government)we should remember the New Order regime is still at the root of the bulk of all evil (members of the Suharto "old boys' network" are still at work, big time corruption originates from those years, mega financial economic mismanagement did create the condition of the '98 crash - and the rest of a unfortunate legacy), it is sad that you essentially are right; the socio-economic consequences of the neo-liberal policies are that the gap between the masses of the poor an the very small elite of the appalling wealthy has turned into an abyss. 21 billionaires is not good news, but a shame really. Really god news should be that all civilians had an income well above the poverty level.
I think however, the new regime had hardly any other choice but going with the strong neo-liberal winds.
Moreover macro-economically the results have been rather satisfactory ( about 6% sustained yearly growth of GPD resulted in a larger GPD than the Dutch one for instance) - including, I predict while waiting for the research results, a significantly larger middle class.
Nevertheless it should and could have adopted much more social-democratic measures. Because without them this economic philosophy ultimately only benefits the ultra rich and exposes the rest of the population to the harsh, whimsical an anti-social outcomes of some inhumane economic models.
@TUKANG CoLoNG,
Itu bisa jadi kenyataan, karena anda masih muda. Asal mau bekerja keras dan pintar.
@Dee,
Mudah2-an begitu jadinya, karena kalau korupsi melulu cape deeh ..
@Colson,
You are right and I agree with you.
But people, especially the poor, are getting more and more sick and tired at all the bad things. The worst thing is that more than 60% of the people have given their votes to a man who promised to eradicate corruption and other evil things, but the result is that that man has wasted all their trust. If this go on, people would not mind if they are lead by other man, no matter who he is, as long as he can promise good things. They wouldn't mind if he is a communist, a dictator, a religious fanatic, etc.
hopefully someday I can be on that list :D (and not forget doing good things for other people afterwards ^__^)
Ria/the Dream Catcher,
Of course you can be like them if you work hard and smart, and always pray to God.
That is exactly true my friend. I guess we have similar people in your country and the Philippines. While the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer. I guess one thing I could pinpoint why this is happening is lifestyle. Rich people are more busy attending to their business. While the poor are busy producing babies. :)
Hi JP,
I like the way you say it :
"Rich people are more busy attending to their business. While the poor are busy producing babies."
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