OK, the
Fed reduced the interest rate, the Euro and Yen rebounded against the
Dollar, and even Rupiah got hauled up a little bit
from the
ditch. Yeeeha! Internationally, this week has been too distressing
to learn that Bernie Madhoff may have stolen
from
some of us, and the SEC got berated
by the
public for being so slow to catch him. Well, even Germany’s
Manager Magazine stated that
Bernie’s niece Shana
even
married to a high-ranking SEC staff! Haven’t we learned from Ponzi
and the
infamous
pyramid effects?
Orchard Road,
Singapore June 2004 -- then the world was somewhat more black and
white and a little rosier.
Photo by Sigit
Mursidi (2004)
Our
situation in Jakarta is equally tough, and we are still worrying about
the wave of unemployment. OK, the
President implored
to the
business community that termination should be the last resort, to be
done only when we have exhausted all other measures. But the fact
that
termination cases may not all be reported
results
in discounted unemployment figures by the Depnaker. We are in a dire
need of an immediate shaping-up effort on this front. We should
really get scared, get mad, and get real and attack the unemployment
problem head-on. To the Indonesian politicians (who so far had said
not one single meaningful idea to get around the imminent wave): no
matter how scary this is, please stop
pretending
and
beating around the bush. The tsunami really is coming!
