Mr. President, We Need Your Bold Action

President SBY made symbolic action against corruption by visiting assaulted ICW activist Tama. Previously, in the same vein President established Team 8 to investigate the alleged Bibit-Chandra of bribery case. And President also asked for outside court settlement for Bibit-Chandra's case only after the polling showed that people felt the government cannot handle this case.

If I have to give evaluation the way President did to the cabinet ministers, then I will give red mark to President in terms of law enforcement.

The style of SBY's leadership concerning with law enforcement is 'not to interfere'. Can he do that? Of course not. I know the President is very good person and he by no means support the evil. However the President's inaction means indirectly support them. The corruptor camp will hail no bold action against them.

The assault on ICW activist and Tempo magazine headquarters are not coincidence. Ridiculously, the President said it was a third party benefitting the situation and asked the police to arrest them. Certainly it is impossible that the incidents have not any relations with the case of suspicious accounts of several higher ranking police officers. And it is not logic to let the tainted institution to solve the problem embroiled them. And worse, Corruption Eradication Commission has declared that they will not take up the investigation. It seems they have been intimidated by previous traumatic experience against the police.

President SBY is likely a good singer and song writer. His heart tends to be soft. But this time we need his bold action to enforce law. We don't need his symbolic visit to Tama. We need the real action to command the impartial investigation against the suspicious officers' accounts. Otherwise many people will think he has no capability to punish his disgraced subordinate. And once again 'not interfere' means to support the misconduct parties.

World Soccer and Us

As happened in any other places in the world, we have also World Cup fever here. For a month Indonesia's newspaper, television, facebook, daily talks are dominated by world cup event. Impromptu soccer experts derived from politicians, lawmakers, artists are rampant in every television program. They gave analysis vehemently as if they are Franz Beckenbauer or Carlos Bilardo. And the cafes are full with people watching the game jointly. In short, our citizenry love soccer very much.

Unfortunately until now all we can do is watching the game and giving nonsense comments about the game. The performance of our national team is very bad so the fledging team such as Laos can beat us. Even if we love soccer, we cannot manage every aspect of soccer. Many players seem to be a gifted fighter instead of soccer player. Indonesia's soccer referee is not the most powerful man in the field commanding the game as we see in South Africa. The referee here can be beaten if you are not satisfied with his decision. The police cannot control hooligans fouled the public properties. Worse yet, there is no sign of soccer resurrection. (However resurrection is not the correct word of our national soccer, because until now we have no significant achievement even in Asia tournament). The national soccer association, PSSI, is still in doubt in terms of capacity to bring us any achievement.

Let us find the solution or the cause.

As far as potential players are concerned, there is no reason that we have no such good kids to be great player. We can get the talents all across archipelago. An ounce Singapore's population can select 11 players, let alone the 4th populous country in the world. If we have had the players and then we need a good system to forge the local talents. The question arises whether our national team players reflect the meritocracy of players. Are the kids of natural talent and physical fitness from remote areas in Maluku or Papua have a chance to show their skills and be intensively trained in school of soccer?

Our soccer competition has been held regularly. It is good for every player to hone their skill. We also invite the 2nd or 3 rd level of players from Brazil, Argentina or Africa to join the league. While the 1st level of theirs go to Europe. However, to Indonesia regular league with harsh competition don't have significant correlation with our national soccer team performance. Compared to Singapore, their teams have the same of skills or even better than us. So our busy league has failed to transform the players to be international player.

Now speaking about the coach. Let me tell you something that we have a big problem in the player's basic skill. Imagine that world class-coach Jose Mourinho manages our national team. What will happen? Absolutely, Mourinho might have failed in the beginning of his stint. Why? it's because our players has not passed the basic skill need including dribbling, passing, kicking the ball to the right place and right time. While the coaches in storied nations grapple with the strategy to put the right man in the right place and how to play using the width of field, etc. So you can't have a strategy unless you have many skilful players.

In a nutshell, in order to have dignity in soccer: first find the talented kids, second hone their skills as if they are the friend of the ball and they can do anything with the ball, and the last invite the best strategy coach to create team character and identity like Johan Cruyff create Barcelona as attacking team.

Can They Blame Jabulani?

If you can't dance don't blame the floor. If you can't win in the World Cup match don't put the scapegoat on Adidas-made ball Jabulani. It seems disproportionate as there is too much complaint on the high-tech ball.

The goals scored in this first round matches is only 25, compared to 39 and 42 in Germany 2006 and Japan-South Korea 2002 World Cup, respectively. Is this justified the less goals due to this damned Jabulani? However, statistics say that this first round average goal of 2.1 is nearly the same with average goal of 2.21 in Italy 1990 World Cup. The then-less goal is analyzed as a result of defensive playing.

In my opinion the combination of defensive tactics and the same level of skill among the teams contribute utmost to the drought of goals. We can see how Japan thrashed Denmark and how the top-notch teams such as Italy must go home earlier. The players across the world have honed the skills in the same primary league in Europe, so they are quite familiar with up-to-date strategy of football.

Had Jabulani is a problem, it might be so much goals instead of less. Why? The goalies would always fumble in catching the ball! Every shooting to the goal area will have a high probability to be a goal. Moreover, I watched the match Netherlands versus Japan in which the Dutch had the ball possession of 70%. It means the Dutch can control Jabulani. If the ball is so wild, it will never happen that a team has a lopsided possession. And the last argument will go to the result of the matches. Until now we see no surprising result. Even some second-round playing teams dubbed as underdogs, they have played the good games and deserves to pass the first round. If the ball uncontrollable, then the matches will be in a mess, the result will be arbitrary.

So just go on playing with Jabulani, stop complaining anything and give us the best show.

Where Will We Go?

As a nation we do not know where we will go in this turbulent world. I see nothing of clearly, loudly communicated plan from our leader, SBY. Until now I have never been impressed by anything what he had done for his 2-term mandate in terms of what this nation want to achieve.

SBY's pro growth, pro poor, pro job is too abstract for me. It is far cry from we really need now: simple realistic plan, but considerably implemented. Lack of vision, make us mire in the crazy idea of pork barrel. Since the term of presidency is only 5 years, the plan needs quick and smart actions to ensure people seeing the result.

Among the 3 pros, pro job should be the first thing to be handled. The growth we need is the quality growth that leads the jobs absorption. The poverty will be eradicated if the government can provide jobs directly or indirectly with the adequate salary to live on. We don't need the statistics telling us that the employment is full or the unemployment less than 10%, we absolutely need is how to make a rapid shift from the low added value of farming-oriented jobs to industrial jobs and then the next to higher added value of service industry. That is the path should be got through. And there is no other path to step based on Indonesia's situation.

The government should formulate the program to be industry-based country. And the rational way is to invite the foreigner through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). To lure the foreign fund of investment we should give them best infrastructure, red-tape-free administration, tax holiday, etc. And we should have known that there is a lot of choice for investors to put in their money. And what we have done with FDI is very poor. Data showed that Indonesia lagged behind in terms of FDI absorption. The ratio of Indonesia's FDI to GNP is 5%, compared to China 11%, Vietnam 55%. We have a lot of space, a lot of variety of energy, a lot of cheap workforce, but we see only few of economic zones. We have abandoned this competitive advantage. It indicates that the government has no real agenda to make pro job happen.

In a nutshell, our prosperity begins with shifting of farming jobs to industrial jobs – Pak Harto had ever had and had ever carried out this vision. The SBY administration should begin the massive program of industry-led development. Only the government with bold action and do something meaningful remains memorable. Hopefully SBY listen to my advice :-) or the next president will.

Spend or Not To Spend

The world's economic crisis has not gone yet. Many economies are still crippling and trying to find a new way to boost growth. The standard policy during economic crisis is to give stimulus and unemployment benefit. But now, the still-sluggish economy faces a new-arising crisis of swelling fiscal deficit which has claimed a victim, Greece. And Greek generous pension system has now been under fire for its contribution to the large deficit. (see Reference #1)

Large deficit debacle of Greece spooked many countries all across the world. Many countries from United Kingdom to Japan is now controlled by deficit hawks. Under the fiscal retrenchment action, the government budget will be shrunken.

Now the government have 2 alternatives of action: stop its stimulus, unemployment benefit and shift to parsimony or go on because of still-sluggish economy?

Apparently, noted economists have different answers.

The answer of Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman: continue spending! The government should help the unemployment and continue the economic stimulus until the certain good economic condition and then save the money. In a nutshell, spent now, save later. But when is the perfect time to save? The right time is when the Federal Reserve has traction on economy, so it can reduce the interest rate to offset the rising of tax and spending cuts. Now the Feds can do nothing with its instrument because the interest rate is nearly zero. (see Reference #2)

In contrast, Harvard University Professor, Alberto Alesina has different prescription. To face the large deficit budget, the fiscal retrenchment is the right answer. The idea is the government's lower spending need lower tax and as the consequence it will lead the rising demand. There have been mountains of evidence. Goldman Sachs economist Broadbent and Daly researched 44 large fiscal adjustments in 24 advanced economies since 1975 concluded that reducing expenditure by 1% boosted growth by 0.6%. (see reference #3)

Let us see who is right, who is wrong. In my opinion Krugman's suggestion is more plausible.

Reference:

1. http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/02/greeces_generous_pensions
   
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/opinion/21krugman.html?ref=paulkrugman
   
3. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-21/cameron-bets-on-prosperity-from-austerity-while-obama-pushes-more-stimulus.html