RAJAWALI MUDA

In every controversies, there are always pros and cons, what really matter is the reason for being pros or being cons.Between this binomial choices there are smart reason to choose a side, and there are stupid reasons. This article shows both smart and stupid reasons to reject something or to condemn something, (in particular the " ujian nasional"), the final exam for high school students, conducted nation wide. I'll let you to choose which one is smart, and which one is stupid. For me, personally, reasoning in condemning something, should also contains the solution, at least some suggestion for the better act in the future. The act of condemning something, without appropriate reasons nor reasonable solutions, are much worse then the one who actually made mistakes in the first place.

the final exam itself is a bad incentives stimulant, stick and carrots would not be able to work efficiently as long as the agent and the principal has diverse and contradicting objective. The fact that strict exam might undermine the prestige of schools, as most of the students probably failed, the agent-principal problem, is a way that a principal ask an agent to do something for the expense of his utility, and compensate it in the future, the problem won't be solved by giving bad names to schools and giving extra credit to the successful ones, this in fact distracts the incentives, as people will force to cheat, when the first mover will profited from it.

the problem is, one, the principal can not always been able to supervise the schools, and therefore, they need some other carrots for other success indicators. In addition, we need to lay off bad assumption and stupid paradigma, as the failure in the sacred national exam is the end of the world. In france, similar exam take place, it is called le bacalaureat (bac in short) some says, it's so brutal and demanding, especially in aljabar, and mathematics. People who managed to overcome it, in flying collours, will be awarded by cheap cost of study up to PhD level, the grades are not very important.

Those who were not able to get Bac level, will still get jobs, it's not the end of the world. They normally work as rough workers, field technician, etc. Which promise quite attractive remunerations (in relative terms). To eliminate the incentive to cheat, I think we need to change our paradigma, leaving university is not a shame, it's an opportunity, those who are able to pass the final exam should be able to get the high school diplome, however, still they could not get higher education without passing it first. those who doesn't pursue their education has better things to do, working, those who pursue another level of education are those who in the end will become low level managers, junior consultant, etc. This is what I really meant about carrots, the incentives now divided in two hierarchy, higher level of income of education in the future, or lower income but more time to develop experience. The ujian nasional should not circumcise the opportunity of students, instead, giving them choices, with clear consequences

Bernoulli wrote a famous paper in 1738, about the expected utility of sending a cargo of spice from amsterdam to st.petersburg, if the cargo arrived safely, the sender will find their wealth increased, however, there are chances that the cargo will be lost as well. Daniel Kahneman from Berkeley shows that this is not the way people made their decision, First, mankind tend to be biased in short term focus, they will be much more risk averse for short run losses, and much less risk averse for long term expected outcome (in this case wealth). Second, people tend to have over-confidence of gain in something they don't know nothing at all.
the drama in national awakening party precisely shown both cases, both parties under disputes seems to care too much in their ability to control others, afraid of losing in the face of their own fanatic supporters, but care very less in losing in the national election next year. They prefer to focus on short term risk than long term gain, as the disputes made non-traditional supporters look another way in the coming election. The increasing uncertainty in probability of winning also seems to validate the nobel laureate hypothesis, as people assign much higher probability of truth in their opinion than is warranted , not only in the short run they are risk averse, they also believe that they are the potential absolute winner. Which in many cases proven to be another way around

For those get bored with monetary economics books like me, the song must be a great start to read it all over again. Somehow it reminds me of the seminar class of Anwar nasution, the class where people shut their mouth, the class where we learn that being risk lover will end up pretty bad.

for those who share the same class with me, guys, remember when he was bragging about the CBS system? (in this video this is also the abreviation of Columbia business school)

for those who doesn't know anything about the beauty of Pak Anwar, should understand better by seeing this post

by the way please enjoy the video, tribute to dhira for the link, absolutely hilarious

A conflict by every means is costly, therefore they (both parties) are operating in a high cost, and below its optimum full production level. In economic term, we call it below the production possibilities frontier. This is represented by the graph on the left. any where inside the cone are feasible to enough to attained. In our case the two axis represent the two parties (M for vertical and GD for horizontal), the cone (PPF) is the number of potential voters, as internal split will cost them some voters, hence both are operating inside the cone, instead of operating in the blue line of PPF where the number of voters is much greater.

ISLAH on the way?
if that's the case, then why is so hard for them to do islah? it's not very surprising, because the islah is in fact not a sustainable point. This means that there are problem in dynamic inconsistencies in doing islah, preferences of both parties will change overtime. You see, say M is willing to accept islah, they might move from every point inside the cone to one point at the blue line, M groups are signaling, they are ready for peace treaty, calling disarmaments in their side. the problem with this, is that in the other side GD will now have a stronger incentive to wipe out all the M group, and therefore they will opt for a corner solution, choosing the 100 percent voters on the rightest point of the blue line. This happens for vice versa, with the benefit of the second mover. This explains why both parties decided to wait. As long as both parties don't have credible expected peace commitment there will no be islah. Both parties seem to send signals of continues fighting.

why are they fighting anyway?
I am not a politician, I honestly don't know. In economics literature conflicts might happen depends on the feasibility of such conflicts, internal splits or whatever we call it.
feasibility depends in two term, benefit and cost, according to Collier (2005,2006) , conflicts will happen wherever it is feasible to do.The benefit is high, since the general election is coming, more pie will be available in the near future, and if they are lucky, less mouth to feed. The cost is not enormous, some says in PKB, GD is irreplaceable, so preference toward GD is almost inelastic to external shocks. the last but not least is the probability to lose and to win, if we say the non-activating of M is a coup d'etat process then it's a rational thing to do, because historically, the other group tend to win anyway.

what about in the future?
the problem of conflicts is, it works in economies of scale framework, it gets better when it escalates even more. the losers will ask for friends and allies for help, and so do the winners, both parties accumulating their power in the expense of others which tend to be persistent Collier(2002) call this a conflict trap. I don't really understand politically, but fragmenting a political party in many small pieces is not very healthy for them, just look at PPP, or others. one thing for sure, if GD wins once more time, the more likely this things happen in the future, in an increasing scale of splits. this might happen in the future either because the probability of winning is getting higher, or whereas the cost turned to be insignificant. However no matter how significant that might be, it seems that the counter reaction is getting tougher everyday.

well, just see what will happen shall we?, time will tell.

Having the opportunity to study abroad, doesn't literally mean study in the campus alone. Everywhere I go,I always seen something interesting to watch, to learn, from other people, everyone. last weekend, I went to sweden, I spent a day in Stockholm,but spent most of my time in Uppsala,45 minutes by train from Stockholm. A perfect city, i would say, not too noisy like paris, less risk to be lonely than staying in Norway's country side. a small city, with surprisingly large mosque, the traffic was normal,no more embouteillages, but unfortunately no metro, nor tramway running around the city as well, but the transport was good, kinda expensive though. the train was better than Paris RER, and the buses were also much better and so was the transport from Nykoping airport to stockholm. much much better than Paris Beauvais transport.

the apartments for students is good, and well furnished. The neighborhood was nice,the people were great,nice and friendly, typical for small neighborhood kind of society, the city is surrounded by mountains,lakes, and trees, and of course snowy picturesque view... I just loved it, I need it to refresh my mind, which I wasn't able to do in the blurred and crowded city so called Paris.

the food was great, for me, as long as I could find a nice, relatively cheap, tasty and cozy, Chinese and Indian restaurant nearby, that should be good enough.

in Uppsala, we will able to find not only the oldest university in scandinavian country, but also large taxes,it was the largest in OECD countries, up to 2007, but becoming the second after denmark this year I think. However they had a very low inflation rate, only around 1 percent rate annualy. corruption is low, property right is protected, people should be able to do new businesses in only 15 days, approximately two weeks, I think this rather impossible in French style of bureaucracy. similarly to france, however they had problem with unemployment as well, since the policies in hiring people seems to be burdensome.

they had some unemployment fringe benefit for the unemployed, but wait,they had additional shortcomings ; "you wasn't able to work, so we gave you money to survive for couple of weeks", so here it is, first, at the very least, the unemployed is obliged to apply for work, at least 16 application every month, second, no matter how clever you are, if we find you a job first,and you wasn't able to find yours, you should take the job, so it would be normal for an graduate anthropologist to work in a supermarket. Those are the shortcomings, the allocation of talents were not efficient, but the Scandinavian way, normally worked it out, why? information is the answer, people might some time work in poor condition, but as time goes by, they may find a suitable job.

what makes this work very well in scandinavian countries, is that they have less population problem than latin america nor west europe, they had such a great culture that corruption is bad, property right is respected, financial market have lots of varieties, business is good, people are smart, informations are free.

they won't be able to export corn and seeds, but they export human technology, like hand phones, IT's and Volvo's..just being here, I am able to find a little piece of puzzle why people really think scandinavian model is great, what my friend always make a great fuss about.

it'a a small piece of puzzle, but I'll find the rest of puzzle sooner or later..
just to prove that what might be look nice in other countries, won't always be as juicy as if we implement it in our country,at least it wasn't as easy as it look.

one thing I hate in scandinavia, is the prices of fresh food. what's wrong with all the people here, I went to the supermarket to get some fresh chilies, and it costs me 13 crowns for three pieces of chilies, in Paris the same amount of money gives me a whole pack of fresh red chilies, around 30 pieces. siiighhh..

Saya ngeliat hikmah dari Aceh,dalam artian itu peluang besar,
suatu daerah terbuka yang bisa kita bangun lagi dari awal, jauh dari kebobrokan jakarta dan sekitarnya (I do hope so).Aceh dari pandangan saya yang sempit, adalah region yang paling besar perannya buat indonesia di masa datang. Populasi tidak terlalu didominasi populasi tidak produktif,artinya orang muda yang produktif lebih banyak dari orang tua, infrastruktur dan tata kota juga bisa dimulai dari awal.

Sayangnya sepengetahuan saya isu besar aceh adalah relokasi penduduk, dan pembangunan fisik paska tsunami saja. Sisi ekonomisnya kurang disorot. Masalah lokalisasi industri misalnya, saya setuju dengan banyak pihak bahwa masalah aglomerasi dan faktor geografis mesti diperhatikan, hanya penting dilihat industri yang dimaksud disini. Di aceh kita bisa buat kota industri baru, padat modal dan padat tenaga kerja yang berbeda dengan kota industri seperti di Tanggerang.

mengapa berbeda? begini maksud saya; Industrialisasi di Indonesia seperti cerminan di Tanggerang dan basis "industri" lainnya selama beberapa dekade adalah industrialisasi yang semu, industrialisasi dihuni para pedagang, dan dealer (macam bapak JK) yang mengekstraksi harta bumi dengan barang modal kualitas tinggi, untuk kemudian menjualnya, ekspor non-migas kita memang sekarang berkembang, tapi isinya hanya sekitar plywood,barang barang turunan hasil bumi, apparel olahraga, dan barang barang jenis assembling lainnya. Masalahnya bagi saya ekspor tradisional ini sangat rentan dengan tekanan eksternal seperti harga minyak dan pergerakan kurs,ini karena barang barang modal nya sendiri sebagai input, kita impor dari luar negeri. Tahun 60-70an industri kita di indonesia selevel dengan korea selatan, sampai sekarang kita tak jauh jauh bahkan mulai dikejar oleh vietnam, artinya sudah ketinggalan 30an tahun dari korea selatan. Sekarang seharusnya sudah bukan era-nya jualan beras atau permen buat Indonesia, perlu ada lompatan besar di bidang industri untuk bisa mengejar negara lain.

dari sisi supply**, saya yakin kita gak pernah kekurangan, berapa ribu anak mahasiswa lulusan ITB,ITS,UNDIP,UI dll yang punya kapabilitas di bidang industri. Di bidang IT misalnya,ada seorang teman dari Burgogne bercerita kemampuan IT orang perancis sebenarnya masih standar, masih di bawah para pekerja IT indonesia. Contoh lain misalnya barang modal untuk perkakas dan pembangunan, semua barang modal untuk bangun infrastruktur di Aceh kebanyakan diimpor dari negara negara donor (kayaknya sih) Perancis, Jepang, Malaysia, dll. Saya kok gak pernah ketemu ya perusahaan besar indonesia yang mengembangkan alat alat berat setelah Texmaco. Coba bayangkan satu propinsi dibangun! berapa banyak alat berat yang dibutuhkan? dan itu smua potensi ekonomi ini bocor ke negara donor, sebagian kecil saja dinikmati oleh calo calo dari jakarta. Contoh lain barang perkakas dapur, saya pernah search di google perusahaan Indonesia yang membuat kompor listrik, keluarnya electrolux di suatu toko di glodok, padahal apa susahnya bikin kompor? (sotoy yah)

menurut saya yang suka sotoy ini masalahnya di sisi demandnya, supply** seharusnya bisa diotak atik lah, demand nya yang kurang, karena inheren sama banyak hal.

Ambil contoh kompor, mana ada investasi buat pengembangan kompor listrik dan turunannya kalau smua keluarga di indonesia masih pakai minyak tanah dan gas? di era industrialisasi sekarang ini selayaknya minyak dan gas digunakan untuk industri ,sepadan dengan harganya yang akan terus naik sampai kiamat, maka mesti industri yang menggunakan,wong cuma mereka yang bisa flexibel merubah harga barang sesuai cost produksi, sedangkan manusia sekuat apapun asosiasi buruhnya gak akan bisa naekin gaji tiap harga minyak dunia naik ,ya kan?. Makanya pengeluaran mereka juga mestinya tidak terlalu fluktuatif. Listrik dalam hal ini bisa juga menjadi fluktuatif tapi rasa rasanya tidak se-fluktuatif minyak karena hanya produk turunan dari minyak tambahan lagi listrik itu economies of scale industry, makin banyak yang pakai, makin rendah costnya beda dengan minyak yang harganya tetap karena kita impor.(tapi gak tau juga deh ga mau sok tau). Kembali ke kompor, kalo keluarga indonesia bersedia merubah gaya nya dari kompor minyak tanah dan gas ke listrik, demand kompor akan tinggi, sangat tinggi, gak usah lah kita ekspor dulu, menuhin permintaan dalam negeri pasti sudah belepotan.

Dari sini berkembang lah ilmu pengetahuan, teknologi, cluster cluster baru industry yang berakar kuat dan berkesinambungan di tanah negeri, bukan industry yang berkembang karena "orderan" assembling dari orang singapur atau malaysia. cluster cluster ini menjelma menjadi network, network anak anak pintar negeri yang menghasilkan ide ide segar, barang barang baru, yang sepertinya sekarang sangat jarang kalau tidak dikatakan tidak ada sama sekali.

Supply dari tenaga tenaga ahli muda ini sudah dimulai dengan proyek habibie, dengan IPTN dan lainnya, blue print riset dan teknologi kabinet sekarang juga sudah mengarah kesana,tambahan lagi bakal ada ribuan beasiswa untuk menjadi pintar dari dikti, Suatu saat ketika para cendikia ini selesai studi mereka akan mendapatkan tempat yang nyaman di pusat pusat penelitian teknologi yang bernilai jual, Saya berkhayal Aceh di masa datang kaya dengan infrastruktur dan tenaga ahli di bidang nya,menjadi semacam silicon valley di amerika serikat.

kenapa aceh? karena tempatnya yang sangat strategis, di ujung negara, dekat selat malaka,jika dibangun pelabuhan internasional (memungkinkan gak sih?)yang bebas dari pungli dan sarana jalan yang baik, kita bisa buat zona ekspor yang dekat dengan sumber industri dengan sangat mudah dengan akses yang baik ke selat malaka, baik melalui pelabuhan di aceh, maupun di medan, saya yakin bakal jauh lebih memiliki nilai jual daripada di cakung Jakarta utara.

Kedepan mungkin kita akan bisa mengekspor produk2 industri kualitas tinggi,bukan mengekspor beras dan jagung, sudah saatnya anak anak petani menjadi programer2 IT tangguh, anak anak buruh menjadi arsitek arsitek besar menjadi tulang punggung industri industri besar di Indonesia. dan biarkan para ilmuwan pertanian memikirkan bibit unggul buat makan, bukan buat di ekspor.

kuncinya menurut saya adalah kemauan untuk berubah seluruh rakyat, paradigma lama mesti didobrak, sudah terlalu lama bangsa ini lelap dalam tidurnya,membakar BBM bertahun tahun, membuang buang uang APBN untuk subsidi padahal infrastruktur pendidikan,kesehatan, dan industri tidak membaik, di papua sana masih ada orang pake kapak batu untuk mencari sagu,malah kita bangga dan sekarang menjadi obyek industri parawisata (siighh...)

tugas pemerintah di Aceh bukan hanya merelokasi penduduk atau mempetak-petakan kota, tapi membuatnya menjadi kekuatan baru di Indonesia

ps : ** untuk mengurangi salah pengertian, ini sisi supply buat pengembangan industri di aceh,-mimpi saya-, tidak merepresentasikan masalah supply di indonesia secara keseluruhan, artinya conditional terhadap masalah logistik dan pungli

kumpulan mahasiswa sekarang terlalu mudah berdemo, ketika masalah muncul, langsung turun ke jalan. Apakah tidak sebaiknya mengedepankan dialog dulu sebagai intelektual muda dalam rangka menggali solusi.Jika tidak apalah bedanya dengan tukang becak?, sekarang bahkan mahasiswa sudah beralih fungsi jadi preman, ntah apakah preman itu gantian yang malahan belajar sekarang.
Di liputan enam hari ini ada sekumpulan mahasiswa berdemo mengutuk kelambanan pemerintah menangani kenaikan harga.Tradisi reaktif seperti ini sepertinya telah menjadi trend sejak lama di kalangan mahasiswa, dan masyarakat kita.

(1)pertanyaan pertama buat mereka, harga yang mana? inflasi kah maksudnya? jika memang bgitu jawabannya menjadi sulit, suatu dilema karena instrumen pemerintah terbatas, suku bunga tak mungkin dinaikan lagi,bisa bisa jadi krisis yang menghantam, mengingat pasar uang dunia sedang memanas,pengetatan kredit dimana mana karena lembaga keuangan dunia merugi dikarenakan krisis mortgage di Amerika serikat. Pemerintah dan Bank Indonesia menjadi terbatas ruang geraknya, karena sektor riil dan sustainability hutang di masa datang taruhannya.

(2)Masyarakat yang mana yang dimaksud? smua orang bicara kemiskinan, rakyat sengsara, semuanya hanya idiom yang mereka dengar di media. Mahasiswa bagai kerbau dicocok hidungnya, mengekor tanpa mengerti masalah. ketika seorang pakar berbicara dengan titel PhD nya, mahasiswa politis ini merasa terpanggil untuk membela ide ide tuannya, tanpa ada proses menerima dan mempertimbangkan.

(3)Kenaikan harga barang barang itu karena apa? Kenaikan harga harga sebagian besar dihasilkan dari harga pasar yang tinggi, karena kepanikan para pengelola modal dunia.
Banyak orang tidak mengerti,di abad ini harga beras, pangan dan minyak tidak hanya ditentukan oleh biaya produksi, ada faktor spekulasi dari pemegang modal,pemegang hak jual dari komoditas2 dunia. Kepanikan kenaikan harga minyak dunia, dan berkembangnya bio-fuel sebagai "emas hitam baru" membuat banyak pemilik modal beramai ramai membeli hak future option membeli komoditas pangan,untuk mengantisipasi harga yang lebih tinggi di masa datang, yang ironisnya berujung pada meningkatnya harga2 komoditas. Proses self fulfilling mechanism ini murni exogenous dari peran pemerintah, penjelasan kenaikan harga pangan lebih lanjut dibahas disini, yang menegaskan faktor eksternal adalah faktor penting penentu harga harga pangan yang meroket. Jalan pintas yang paling mungkin dipilih adalah subsidi, yang resikonya antara lain kemampuan fiskal pemerintah menurun drastis dan more inflation from demand pull inflation. Sebaik apapun skema subsidi langsung, leakage pasti saja ada. Intinya inflasi adalah suatu fenomena tidak aneh, bahkan kemampuan negara kita mempertahankan inflasi tidak bergejolak hebat adalah prestasi yang baik.

Data resmi menunjukan kemiskinan menunjukan trend yang membaik dari tahun ke tahun seiring dengan momentum pertumbuhan ekonomi yang membaik,tapi well-being masyarakat yang rendah, dan masalah eksternal yang buruk,menghambat proses ini. Orang orang pesimis atau tidak mengerti malah cenderung untuk menyalahkan dan mempolitisasi output data bps,mereka tidak mengerti bahwa poor in income term tidak selalu berkorelasi dengan poor in non income term, mereka tidak mengerti bahwa masalahnya terletak di pengembangan infrastruktur dan public policy dalam penyediaan barang publik, ironisnya mereka tidak juga mengerti bahwa ketika uang negara dibakar setiap hari di jalan jalan besar untuk orang orang kaya,di dusun papua sana masih ada saudara kita dengan teknologi zaman batu berkubang dalam kehidupan, di gunung merapi dekat bukit tinggi, banyak petani membakar panennya karena tidak ada fasilitas gudang yang memadai untuk sekedar menunggu harga gabah membaik. Banyak media menyorot susahnya hidup kaum pemulung di jakarta,tapi sedikit yang tahu, bahwa penghasilan "si hina" pemulung kadang bisa sampai tiga kali lipat gaji guru "sang pahwlawan tanpa tanda jasa" honorer di tanggerang. Definisi orang miskin dan sengsara di negara kita telah didikte oleh media, bahkan penyebab pemiskinan ini juga telah didikte oleh para opportunis politik dan masyarakat menelannya bulat bulat.

Sedih melihat perkembangan negara kita seolah dianggap angin lalu, oleh komentar komentar pengamat (politik) ekonomi dadakan, dan para anggota dewan yang tidak siap oleh data ketika ditanya wartawan dari media kelas tabloid.Masyarakat kita tidak mengerti bahwa dengan sekian banyak bencana alam, bencana kemanusiaan, perseteruan politik, kemunduran intelektual dan inovasi teknologi, negara kita masih bertahan, dan berkembang walaupun tertatih tatih.

Banyak perubahan telah dilakukan, subsidi energi dikurangi, dan dialihkan pada pembangunan infrastruktur, ini penting karena faktor non income masyarakat tidak menjadi prioritas selama satu dekade ini. Perampasan harta bawah laut indonesia oleh nelayan asing yang high tech,membuat proses pemiskinan nelayan semakin kompleks, kurangnya dana untuk membangun keamanan laut yang kuat kini sdikit demi sedikit ditambal,lemahnya teknologi masyarakat nelayan (seharusnya) mulai menjadi sorotan, penggunaan teknologi baru untuk memanfaatkan sumber sumber energi baru bermunculan. fokus dari departemen departemen di pemerintahan mulai membaik, birokrasi sedikit demi sedikit dikurangi di berbagai departemen, terutama departemen luar negeri.

Mari saudaraku bangun optimisme negeri, selama setiap politisi dan pengamat bicara pesimis atas negeri,terutama demi simpati anak negeri di pemilu 2009, selama media mempublikasi ini dengan tidak proporsional,dan selama rakyat menelannya bulat bulat pesimisme ini. Tidak akan bangkit negeri ini dari kesusahan