Be Optimistic! http://articles.ibonweb.com/webarticle.asp?num=976 IBonWEB.com - Looking back on what the country's economy has gone through may bring us to a saddening yet somewhat ridiculous picture of the crisis. After the fell down of Soeharto in 1998 which followed by monetary and banking crisis, some economists predicted the economy even may turn worse. Some of them predicted that the economic growth will be negative and will reach minus 20 percent, or even 30 percent, and the poverty rate will reach 50 percent of the population. But the facts speak different; poverty rate only reached 23 percent of population and economic growth only reached minus 13 percent. At the end of 1998, many economists still had pessimistic predictions. They said that the economic growth will be still negative at minus three percent in 1999, but in reality, the economic growth was not negative, it reached 0.3 percent. They still had negative prediction for the year of 2000. They predicted that the economic growth would only stay around 2 percent. But the condition in the first quarter of 2000 was beyond their predictions, so they revised their prediction of economic growth to 4 percent. But in fact, the economic growth reached 4.8 percent. After those fallacies, most economists still had negative prediction. They said in 2001 the economic growth will be lower than 4.8 percent and some of them even said that the growth will only be two percent. But in reality, as the Statistic Indonesia announced recently, the economic growth has reached 2.6 percent in the first quarter. Referring to my previous column in this media entitled Vote of No Confidence, there is a discrepancy between predictions and reality. And it is not just a matter of coincidence or "statistical discrepancy", but it gives us message to be more pessimistic about Indonesian economy. Conventional and conservative way of thought is no longer appropriate to analyze the economy in crisis. We have to be more creative and optimist! By that, we could find an extraordinary solution for Indonesian economic crisis. Martin Manurung (Economist of Puri Consulting and Teaching Staff of Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia) . ...........Menuju Indonesia yang Demokratis dan Berkeadilan............ Untuk bergabung atau keluar dari Milis, silakan anda lakukan sendiri Bergabung: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Keluar: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ->Cake, parcel lebaran & bunga2 natal? Di sini, http://www.indokado.com<--
