Crisis in Indonesia
X-POP3-Rcpt: eweick@ns Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Unverified) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:52:16 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FYI Ed, My buddy Jack is part Indonesian and lives near us, when he's not globtrotting as an environmental economist. he offers below-- BTW Heide and I are off to participate in a workshop with Robert T at Malaspins on Sat. Jay X-From_: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Jan 22 20:35:37 1998 X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 20:44:14 -0900 To: Jay Mussell Heide Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Jack Ruitenbeek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: YOUR EMAIL ON SITUATION HERE [Jakarta] Hi Jay, I've been asking some of my friends and colleagues about situation in Jakarta and thought I'd pass this response on to you ... you may wish to forward it to your in-laws. I've removed the name of the sender of the message so feel free to circulate this. He lives in Jakarta. Jack X-From_: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Jan 22 18:53:54 1998 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:53:33 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "KW" Subject: YOUR EMAIL ON SITUATION HERE My response was a bit sarcastic but here are few tidbits. The Rupiah continues to fall dramatically, hitting 15,000 in Singapore yesterday and closed in Jakarta around 12,000. Likely 2 million have lost jobs in Jakarta since December. For the whole country, anyones guess. There are actual loan defaults among the private sector beginning to be publicized. None of the real big companies yet, but technically all the majors here are insolvent. There will have to be a major agreement between international lenders and big borrowers here on write down or renegotiation of terms. That is probably going on in the back rooms this week but being kept quiet for now. The IMF package did not address the private sector aspect of the debt crisis at all and that is what appears driving the situation downwards further. Suharto announced he will run for Pres and now is the question of VP. However, this am MPR announced a name will not be announced until mid Feb at the earliest and most likely Mar 1 when they convene to elect the Pres. The mere talk of Habbie as VP drives down the markets. He is considered a major loose cannon by the international finance community. There are also public calls for Suharto to step aside in the press and some local small demonstrations. Prices are rising very fast, but that is also compounded by Ramadan when they always rise. Next month direction in prices will be interesting. Alot of vendors are being downright greedy and that most are Chinese doesn't help their case as being the targets of attacks. April 1 is when they will raise the price of fuel. I feel that will catalyze the social unrest as it typically has in all Asian countries where fuel prices have increased. Social Unrest: there have been isolated incidents re food shortages. This usually occurs in other cities such as Medan, Surabaya. Jakarta has been quiet. There are alot to expats leaving Indonesia, not from fear, but from being let go. Most Indonesian firms, across the Board, with expats, cannot affort them. Last count I had was on the order of 200 departing next week. WHAT DO I THINK: we are playing it conservative and reasonably cautious and are setting up contingencies if something does occur. On our projects we are not mobilizing on longterm positions that involve family moving over here for protracted periods until after April 1. Other than this we are pursuing business reasonably agressively albeit very selectively. Based on this, I am here with my family and feel safe but I am in a bit of a different situation re career commitment. But if I was considering a family holiday, Indonesia wouldn't be one of my prime candidates given the unpredictability of the situation for the time being and April will be an interesting month with the fuel increases. However, to work here, knowing your assignment, no problem. All the IFI projects are proceeding. I can certainly keep you posted over the next couple of weeks. Rgds We vote with every dollar we spend. Heide Brown and Jay Mussell Martin Park Communications RR2, S27, C35 Gabriola, B.C. V0R 1X0 1-250-247-8144 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~brownjay/index.htm
Re: Alternative Investment Code
Dear Mr. Douthwaite: First, let me say with unabashed admiration that I found your book "The Growth Illusion" to be seminal in my thinking. Second, let me apologize for using extensive quotes from your book to post on FutureWork some of the ideas that you have so elegantly outlined. Third, I would ask that you share with me any list addresses on which you post regularly as I would like to continue to monitor and learn from the clarity of your writing. Now, in response to your answer which was posted on FutureWork in response to Colin and Ward, (who I do not know) regarding the ideas of external investment. Canada, is currently the largest country in the world with a tiny population of less than 30 million people - it has jokingly been referred to having a Canadian Passport as belonging to the cult of Canada, so small is our population in regards to the 6 Billion currently in the world. In my case, I grew up partially on a farm in Alberta which had been homesteaded out of wilderness by my grandfather in the 1920's. A thriving community with churches, community halls, schools every ten miles and small towns of only 50 or 60 people existing for most within that 10 mile radius. I can clearly see them know in my mind's eye as they were in the 50's as I traveled with Grandpa on Sunday outings, neighbor visits and purchasing expeditions and group work projects. In this area, from 1910 to 1950 the small mixed farmer had opened up virgin land and built a community with roads and services. Family's became known through several generations and it was expected that many would stay in the area, taking over farms or developing small businesses to serve the agricultural community and for a mere 40 years this was true. Now, when I go back, many of the farms have only deserted houses, there are no local schools, the school buses take kids for a radius of over 30 miles to what was once a village but has now grown into a small town. The other small towns have disappeared, often without even a sign telling where the were. Farmers now think nothing of hopping into the big V-8 pickup truck to drive 20 miles to pick up a couple of pounds of nails. Women who once cooked meals from farm produce, now drive up to 50 miles to go shopping for food in a supermarket and in the process they have lost the basic skills of food preservation and food preparation. Children do not know their neighbors and those wonderful old country dances were the kids and grandparents all went are things of the past, the churches have closed down and the kids stay at home with the TV. In fact most of them don't even learn the farming skills of their fathers as it is accepted that an education will lead to a good job in the city and that Dad and Mom will sell the family farm to provide for their retirement - usually in the city. I agree with your exposition that the net flow of capital outside of communities destroys those very communities and it is with great sadness that I and many others who had that type of childhood feel when we stop chasing the buck for awhile and think of the childhood we had as compared to the childhood we are currently giving our children. My girls, know more about the Spice Girls than they do about their great grandparents and the 50 years of community living, friendships and relationships that were developed when small local communities existed. If I find any consolation in the current world situation, it is that capitalism may self destruct on the global level and that electronic technology may destroy those great capitalistic sumps that suck the life out of the country into cities. The land of my childhood is a wasteland of specialized people growing specialized crops that are determined by the need to generate income so they can farm larger so they can make more income. Their life is no different except that their "job" is in the country. Their lifestyle is as empty as it is for the rest of us living in the suburbs and fighting the morning rush hour. This is all rationalized under the concepts of opportunity - but from my standpoint, this is a word from George Orwell. Well, enough of my morning rant, I get frustrated with words. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde
Priorities in the time of Internet (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:38:03 -0800 From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Universal Access Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Priorities in the time of Internet "200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today. Not one of them is Cuban." (A sign in Havana, photographed March 1997.)
Re: FW: Expertocracy
"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In any case, however, if our society was run by experts, it *might* look like the noble vision of H.G. Wells' film "The Shape of Things to Come", but it might also be an autistic idiotocracy (using "idiot" in the classical Greek sense, not of having a low IQ, but of being unable to participate meaningfully in the life of the polity / "polis"). Would it be too cynical to suggest that that sounds a lot like what we already have? Well, maybe not to such an extreme, but perhaps it is just a matter of which kind of idiot. A lot of politicians who successfully access public office seem to me to have an outlook which is insular and elitist, occupying a sort of separate public policy makers culture. I fear I would feel better represented by the expert idiots, who might presumably inhabit the academic science culture which at least overlaps the idiosyncratic cultural synthesis I embody. Say, speaking of expertocracy, does anyone remember the Technocracy Party, with their grey cars with the red and white yin/yang symbol? They had a significant presence in Vancouver, with a headquarters building stubbornly clinging to life into the late seventies, and diehard adherents preaching the virtues of expertocracy, voices in the wilderness as isolated as the maoists and trotskyists, probably even moreso. Theirs was an idea whose time clearly hadn't yet come. -Pete Vincent
FW: Bear Market? (fwd)
From: Richardson_D [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bear Market? (Formerly Japan's MoF) Hi Doug -- As far as I can see the Fed is controlling the market very closely these days with 3-month treasuries. At least when the market is down interest rates seem to be down as well and conversely. Thus it seems that the Fed is preventing a real melt down in stocks while at the same time denying any impulses the market may have to go up. Thus you may very well be in luck and the bear market be well established fairly soon. The recent experience we have had with central bank control of the stock market is in Japan from 1987 to the present when the market gradually fell from the 38000's (?) to the current 14000's (?), a truly prolonged bear market. At the same time the short interest rate was reduced below 1%. It is interesting to attempt to apply this history to the current U.S. situation. For me the most upsetting element of Wall St. was the chart on p. 81 showing the net U.S. credit position since 1952 as a percent of GDP. From a break even position in 1982 we now are in hock for 16% of GDP, an amount that is increasing rapidly. The Fed must be aware of this, and must also be aware of the powerful effect interest rate cuts can have in reducing the value of the dollar and thereby tending to restore some sort of trade balance. On the other hand it may be that the situation has gone too far already, and if the dollar were to begin a long descent speculation would force an immediate crash and an abrupt end to the current world economic system, i.e., with the dollar as the international currency and the U.S. as the consumer of last resort. Indeed there is real peril here since roughly half of international trade consists of INTRA-corporate transfers and, except for the EC and Japan most currencies are pegged to the dollar anyway. Thus it is not clear that devaluation can restore the U.S. trade balance, at least at dollar values that are acceptable to speculators and in terms of its role as the international currency. Yet what else can they try? At some level of international indebtedness the willingness of speculators to hold dollars will disappear, and it would appear from your chart that that day is fast approaching. At least the low interest rate approach has some hope of saving the U.S. stock market from a true melt down and could provide benefits both domestically and internationally in propping up demand and staving off the global recession (depression?). Dave -- From: Doug Henwood[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 23, 1998 11:17 AM To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Japan's MoF Jay Hecht wrote: The "bears" in the latest Barron's roundtable all repeat the same thing. Another "Rational Expectations" hypothesis - all assertion, no facts. I can't read that crap anymore. Either makes me want to scream or go to sleep. All I care about is that a bear market be well established by the time the paperback of Wall Street comes out. Doug Attachment Converted: C:\ISTAR\EUDORA\BEARMARK Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
