Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

[SG]

Just because the government has cleverly disguised bribery in the garb of law doesn't make it any less bribery, they simply coerce and intimidate the citizenry to pay up or suffer the consequences and it's all perfectly legal.

Whilst I feel for you, and I too have bridled at the fees, interest, and plain gouging that goes on in my home country (although we don't suffer the health care scam that plagues the USA) these are legal charges and thus by definition not bribery or corruption. I hate 'me as much as you do but they are legal. You don't have to buy a new car either.

I'm afraid I agree with BaliLife and Tin Tin.

The last few days in the Jkt Post have have a fairly impressive list of folks arrested or charged in recent days by the KPK, these include some fairly big fish...bank governors, provincial governors, and much more.

But the biggie that really caught my eye was the move onto the State oil and gas companies. The KPK estimates that USD$22Billion has been syphoned off these guys!

That is an unbelievable amount of money as we all know, anywhere in the world, but in Indonesia, I wonder how many schools could be built and run, or roads repaired, or hospitals funded. Or police salaries increased so their hands are not so readily out.

The thing is, every time you hand over the little bit of cash here and there..as you put it "Conditional, local bribery or "gift giving" to the occasional Indonesian official", you essentially ok things like this illegal self enrichment. You can't have it both ways.

[Sumatra]

SG,
Do you think locals engage in bribery to even up the score due to incidents such as the siphoning of that USD 22billion? Commoners need to level the playing field somehow! TinTin if that common treasury was used in a responsible manner and even if it only covered 75% of the services you allege it does, I wouldn't gripe so loudly but our public schools are a mess, 60% of high school grads couldn't read a cereal box without a tutor present, an associate's degree in anything has become the new high school diploma because of that, the roads and bridges are falling apart and we have a town official who's making $40,000USD per yer for working two days a week, four hours per day. I'd like to know just whos' common good you think this is serving.
I like Roy's facitious remark about "trickle down economics" because it dries up before it goes too far down. I'm not against free markets just government spending "free for alls" that the middle-class taxpayer must shoulder the burden for.
Can't wait to feel that Balinese sunshine again!!!!!!!!

Don

[SG]

Do you think locals engage in bribery to even up the score due to incidents such as the siphoning of that USD 22billion?

No you miss the point...I didn't say that at all but if you accept and ok corruption at the lower levels you accept it that higher level too..where do you draw the line? You are saying it's fine for a cop or lesser official take a back hander or be given one. Then you implicitly ok the theft of the much larger amount...it's the same thing, its just scale.

Your arguments about failures in the system in the US are valid but your comparison to an employee of the people or an officer of the law knowingly pocketing an illegal bribe is flawed.

Incidentally polling out today showed a large drop in Golkar support across Indonesia, the reason being given is the they are perceived as corrupt or accepting of corruption.

[Roy]

But the biggie that really caught my eye was the move onto the State oil and gas companies. The KPK estimates that USD$22Billion has been syphoned off these guys!

A sizable sum that is, no doubt, but it is nothing compared to what levels of bribery and corruption the fossil fuel industry has wrought on the US, and on other sovereign nations.

One should hopefully be able to give Indonesia a little credit in that it hasn’t, and never will, go to war for oil.

East Timor is Australia’s Iraq. Rich in off shore resources, especially natural gas, the US looked aside as Australia stepped into East Timor and helped to orchestrate their independence. What really went on in Tim Tim is obscure and cloaked within a mantle of human rights abuses. East Timor is being sucked dry by Australia.

Given the performance, and the examples offered by major democracies in the world, why shouldn’t an underpaid Indonesian government employee seek out a little extra now and then for his, or her family?

Corruption comes from the top down, so why should we criticize those who are most visible in this when they are only a minor reflection of the much greater problem?

[BaliLife]

I don't know how much Australia is sucking out of Timur Timur. It was not their business to intervene, that's for sure - but I disagree that the intentions were explicity as were the US' intentions in entering Iraq.

'Manifest Destiny' is the term.

Sumatra, you seem to confuse inefficiencies of goverment with corruption. Governments are inefficient no doubt (except for Singapore of course) - that's the 'Diseconomies of Scale' arguement - it doesn't mean they're equally corrupt.

Ct

[SG]

Roy,
I do agree with most of what you've said but it doesn't make any of it right. That $22Bn would go a hell of a long way to helping a lot of people in Indonesia. Taking it down a step or two, I'm told that the reason that so many traffic lights are working correctly in Bali is that maintenance funds are syphoned off at a local level. If that is true then I wonder how many accidents would be prevented if that little bit of corruption was stomped on.

East Timor...yep, I agree with you 100%. Isn't it structured that 80% of the net return goes to East Timor..but Australia decides on what is the taken from the gross to give you the net, which includes all the processing and fees charged by various Australian companies and agencies. I had it explained to me in some detail by an Australian friend recently, and there was a TV doco about it too, and it was something like that. East Timor, with all that wealth remains one of the poorest nations in the world and gets a very very low percentage back. A similar thing to the new deals in Iraq.

Then we have Cheney / Halliburton...it's very hard for the West to lecture RI over these things. If Sumatra wants to point to US corruption that is a very good place to start.

Corruption does come from the top down which is the philosophy followed by the KPK.

[Roy]

'Manifest Destiny' is the term.

Manifest Destiny for whom...the East Timorese or the Australians? IMHO, it is deplorable what the Australians have done and are still doing in Tim Tim, but how can I point a finger when my own country has done the same in Iraq?

I do agree with most of what you've said but it doesn't make any of it right.

For sure, that is the truth. As for Bali, I am very upbeat now that Pastika has won the office of governor. This man has a fine reputation for no nonsense, and no BS. I think the next five years will be like no other in Bali’s history. This is not a man who is afraid to confront the problems and challenges that confront him.

Simon, it’s great to have someone else on this forum who is as tired of “RI bashing” as I am! Cheers!

[SG]

Simon, it’s great to have someone else on this forum who is as tired of “RI bashing” as I am!

I think this country has an incredible future, it's potential is almost unlimited and it really pisses me off when there a failure to recognise just what the people of this nation have achieved, against incredible adversity, over the past decade.

There are lots of bad eggs here, some in some pretty powerful positions but that's not only an Indonesian thing, as my comment about the utterly corrupt Dick Cheney is meant to indicate. I disagreed with Sumatra's examples of corruption in the USA simply because I think he / she was pointing in the wrong direction.


As an aside, the phrase above should have read "lights are working in-correctly"

[BaliLife]

I think this country has an incredible future, it's potential is almost unlimited and it really pisses me off when there a failure to recognise just what the people of this nation have achieved, against incredible adversity, over the past decade.

I'll respond to this as I'm probably one of the individuals on the thread that this is pointed at.

Without trying to sound like I'm anti-RI, which I'm not, I wonder if you can perhaps quantify the bolded part of your statement? I would genuinely like to know, what you believe has been achieved? I'm not posting this to shoot down the RI in any way, but I think it's important to quantify this very presidential like statement.

In the same way, grand comments are made about the US, eg. "heart of freedom" or the "greatest nation in the world" - these comments are difficult to refute because they're pegged to subjective criteria - if in fact to any criteria at all.

So, playing devil's advocate, I'd like to understand how you, SG and Roy, believe that the RI deserve credit in their progression. To do this, you'll really need to draw on comparables, and where those comparables have failed - or where the RI has outperformed the comparables. Some ideas for comparables might include (suggestive only, and not limited to these of course), Malaysia, Thailand, China, Turkey, etc. No, not one of these countries has an identical basis for comparison, but it would be a start. I think the arguement that 'Indonesia is unique, so don't compare it' is flawed. For a nation to be credited with something, that credit needs to be on the basis of them having achieved something rather impressive, and surely what defines impressive, is at least in part based on how other nations have performed in their quest to acheive such.

I'm not trying to aggrevate anyone here, I really am genuinely interested in having some of these statements quantified.

Ct

[Roy]

OK, I’ll give you my “little talk” that I like to give to Americans visiting Indonesia for the first time. I tell them to imagine the 48 contiguous states of the United States being blown up into 15,000 pieces and spread the distance of east of Hawaii to Maine. I ask them to imagine that no bridges connect any of these islands.

Then I ask them to consider that in those 15,000 islands are some 400 indigenous cultures with over 150 unique languages. Then I ask them to consider that unlike the US which has been independent from foreign colonial powers for 225 years, this country has only been independent for 58 years. Finally I ask them to recall their American history and think of what America was like in 1841.

This “little talk” generally provides a little perspective and an immediate appreciation for Indonesia.

The last ten years is an excellent bench mark for growth and advancement of this democracy, as 10 years ago ended the Soeharto regime.

[SG]

I'm not trying to aggrevate anyone here, I really am genuinely interested in having some of these statements quantified.

Ct

Firstly, this was in no way pointed towards you or anyone on this board.

Secondly, i don't think it's valid to ask for comparisons, most especially to those countries you list...China is 30 years into an economic programme instigated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, Malaysia and Turkey have had fairly much uninterrupted stability, obviously with strong hiccups, with good infrastructure for decades and Thailand has benefited from first the massive financial input of the Vietnam War then huge foreign currency input from huge tourism numbers since then. Such comparison is flawed.

No, the only thing you can compare it to, as Roy implies, is Indonesia 1998, the end of Surharto. In the previous six decades the nation had been mislead & mismanaged, stripped by it's leaders, suffered a huge massacre and hit by a massive economic shock.

Not healthy..it was a basket case (although a very small number had done well) and it's population was poorly educated (80% youth literacy in 1990) and unhealthy..a life expectancy in the 50s during most of the past decades.

Both those figures have improved out of sight to almost first world levels and Indonesia has, by UN standards, the second fastest growing middle class in the world. Sure there is long way to go, especially in healthcare and child mortality and the like but huge leaps have been made.

But the real progress is the beginnings of the democracy that this country wants to become. The direct vote for President and governors is a huge thing (if you missed that in Bali this last month you must have been asleep) and there is massive national pride in the democratic process. Ten years ago this was a fairly unpleasant military dictatorship with blood on it's hands. many of those people are still around but real change is evident

Now I know you believe that real power exists in the hands of a very small elite but you agreed earlier that there is a real devolution of power in Indonesia. That devolution can be traced back to May 1998 when Suharto was moved aside, admittedly with connivance of the military and others, but that is always the way and any way you look at it, the achievement is immense. And it has just begun.

[BaliLife]

Roy - you copied and pasted that coz I swear you've written that word for word before - but that's not to criticize it, you make some valid points. And SG - besides the comparables brush off, you too make some valid points.

I guess we'll see where we are a decade from now. What I do agree with is things are changing - and they'll continue to.

Ct

[Sumatra]

Besides Roy, have any of you lived in the US for longer than a 12 month period?
If so, did you all have rose-colored glasses duct-taped over your eyes the entire stay? Or, perhaps you all led a sheltered existence during your tenure, hitting only the tourist hot spots on the map? I'm curious. Balilife, one cannot confuse corruption with inefficiency. Inefficiency is caused by miscommunication and lack of directed and consistant action towards a desired positive outcome. Corruption on the other hand, is caused by greed and fueled by opportunity, it's very directed and purposeful in nature. I'm not missing any points.
Don't forget, I'm living this every day, I'm up to my neck in it.
Bush and Cheney should be impeached and rather than looking forward to being John Insane's......er, McCain's running mate, Mitt Romney should be sporting an optic orange jumpsuit and staring at the world from the inside of a cage. Score another point for plausible deniability.

Sumatra

[BaliLife]

Bush and Cheney should be impeached and rather than looking forward to being John Insane's......er, McCain's running mate, Mitt Romney should be sporting an optic orange jumpsuit and staring at the world from the inside of a cage.

you're living in a democracy my friend.. "The oldest democracy in the world" as mr powell once said, right before he announced to the UN Security Council your country was going to take unilateral action against iraq.. I'm a macro kinda guy, so the leaders Americans have are the leaders Americans chose in my view

I don't actually mind your posts, but when it comes to economic circumstance, they sound just a little too whiney.. I lived in Canada for 5 years - I never envied people living in the states, but I never thought, "oh our poor southern neighbours".. Your tax rates are superbly low, your gas is as cheap as hell and your housing costs next to nothing, compared to canada.. And I'm makinmg reference to your housing costs when they were at their peak, not where they are today, some 15-20% lower.. An average detached home in Vancouver is well over 3 times the price of an average house in the US.. An average detached house in Canada I believe is currently around the 350k mark - the US is around the 200k mark and at it's peak the Case-Schiller index was at the 250k mark.. Sorry sumatra, I don't have a lot of sympathy for an american screaming how hard they've got it economically - at least for the things you've outlined - but then again, perhaps I'm just a cold SOB..

Ct

[tintin]

Sumatra,

Besides Roy, have any of you lived in the US for longer than a 12 month period?

I came to the USA when I was 18 years old, as a student. I went back to my country of origin for few years and returned to the USA, at age 28. I am now 71! Except for the period 1990 – 2000, where I happened to live in Bali about ½ of the time, the USA has been my home. You do the calculations…

[Sumatra]

A whiner?
Well, sticks and stones may break my bones but names will only hurt my feelings.
Methinks I'm paddling too hard against a current too swift to ever make any progress. Alas, tis' often the way of humanity and the primary reason why we won't make the next evolutionary corner, jumping the rails we'll plow headlong into the oblivion of extinction.
But..I'm gonna have a little fun in the sun before I go, no matter who I have to bribe.

Sumatra