RAJAWALI MUDA

Twenty or thirty years ago, anyone visiting the Soviet Union or China would have been taken aback by the dirt cheap prices of things. A monthly rental was about ten over dollars then; a suit at just a few bucks; a cattie of pork at a few dimes; and a movie ticket at merely a few cents.

Fabulous! Things were so cheap and you thought it was almost paradise.But,even as things were affordable, they were not necessarily available.
While rental was dirt cheap, you might have to wait for well over a decade before you could get someone to rent his apartment to you. If you were looking for a wedding suit, you might need to make an order before you even decided to look for a girlfriend. A movie ticket at only a few cents? But where to get it anyway, if you were not someone in the politics?

If you were dead hungry, perhaps you would think you shouldn't have been standing in the queue! But no. You still had to. In Beijing or Moscow, long queue s were omnipresent year round. Everyone was waiting to get nothing more than just a loaf of baguette or a few grams of pork.

Ordinary people spent most of their time waiting to get something. No more time for work or study and no time to run the machines. The society remained stagnant.
What use was it if things were cheap but unavailable?And now, while waiting for CROUS calling up my name for an apartment in what so called city of lights PARIS, sitting here wondering why,a boursier gouvernement français (as I have considered my self) is more likely probably called SDF ( sans domicile fixed) the picture of Pekinese and Muscovites lining up for baguettes or pork comes into my mind.

Between the two, we see resembling situations, similar problems, and identical mistakes.Under the planned economic system of a socialist regime, the government subsidises by digging deep into the state coffers to bring down the prices of goods. Although prices are lower now, production is stalled. In the end, the government's burden gets heavier and the country loses its economic dynamism, while people in the street are suffering from a chronic dearth of daily commodities.

The French government has spent a fortune to subsidize apartments prices, resulting in significantly low prices of renting an apartment for foreign students, . This has made these –what so called- residence CROUS is always (play!?!) hard to get. A bigger problem is that, it is way cheaper than other apartment in the city, students pay only 190 euros for their rooms, while others have to pay more than 450 euros. Thanks to CAF and other kinds of subsidies of personal apartment. This extremely noble act of French government has camouflaged the real price of apartment, thus the real cost of studying in France, as a result this gives rise to two problems. Firstly, the subsidy on apartment for student is too high; secondly, the gap between the prices of apartment for students and Paris citoyens uses is too wide, resulting in the flow of rich parisien blinded with jealousy towards students allocated apartments via all kinds of channels. In this case may be via Sarcozy Big ass

while greedy French home owners, were forced to use agencies to sell and lend their petites chambres in high prices, students, lacking of governmental support, and consequently ignorance of French government were forced to live on the streets. Once I had thought that French would be a excellent example of a great symbol of socialism that really works, then I came to the very same conclusion that : “If the government continues to subsidize, more and more cheap apartment will end up in the hand of pure franco-parisien or in the hand of rich and powerful, while students, especially who came from developing countries like Indonesia can only stay in the queue in utter frustration, or stare at the "sold out" signs in desperation, exceptionally, perhaps students of North Korea and India might have some privilege more, considering they still have their nukes..

What is the use of cheap rooms if it is not readily available? The only way to address the problem is to narrow the subsidy gap, or even do away with the subsidy entirely so people pay the same price for Apartment. Certainly our bourse must have some “in sense” than “non- sense” number, at least 1200 euros will do, a cheap ones, compares to your expenses to go to your pharmacies for having serious head-ache, thanks to unwanted students form Indonesia running around to your office, and make you lie to them each time they come.

The government can always think of some other ways to lighten the burden of students in studying and, for instance through cash transfer program, job fulfillment, or even by allowing them to charge higher fees in baby sitting, to offset their higher operation costs.

Subsidy policies which are economically inefficient are what socialist regimes used to have. These countries have learned from their past mistakes and begun to discard such irrelevant policies to embrace market economy.Today, in the malls of Beijing and Moscow, we won't get to see long queues of people jostling for daily commodities. Instead, in the well-stocked supermarkets there, goods are always in demand, although they are no longer cheap.
It is better to be affordable and available, than affordable but unavailable.