the price of alcohol in Indonesia continues to soar into the stratosphere that new import duties are introduced .
I was coaxed into penning a few paragraphs tetchy about the recent increase in import tariffs in Indonesia , particularly steep- vertiginous positive percent perpendicular-150 that has been imported slapped alcoholic beverages. I am a little aware that if the protests along these lines may seem a bit like the rocker stamping designer philistine feet expatriates. "We demand more tiramisu!", "Tickets Opera or death!" Etc., etc. Maybe all blotter debate may seem a bit frivolous when malnutrition than two dollars a day still stalks the land and a large part of the country's infrastructure evokes a heavily bombed Beirut.
Perhaps, however, we could turn around the argument and ask why the notoriously indolent legislators Indonesia wasting their time on demonizing drink when there's a whole country out there that desperately needs reconstruction. Would that prove that they are all decent, peci-wear, God-fearing types contributes to divert public attention from the smell endless corruption that unfolds continuously in future horizon like a roll of toilet paper stained unraveling down a steep hill?
But we will look at it in a bit more depth must we? I can not really profess to have a completely neutral position on this.I'm a native of London and not Lampung after all.
However, I should point out, Mr. President, that I am a relatively light drinker and not the kind of dipsomaniacal, turps-nudging stereotype I guess now wake up in a cold sweat at the prospect these new levies on imports.
Well, one liter of the hard stuff comes inflated Rp.1,125,000 on a market price of Rp.1,000,000 (already low) to Rp.2,500,000. Fancy Rp.2,500,000 pay for a bottle of Jack Daniels? I suppose if you wanted to hug them then it would probably be cheaper to fly to Singapore and buy there, the cost of return flight included.
Protectionism made its place. If you look at a view over the history of the world beyond the neoclassical economic orthodoxy that crashed the financial system of the world in 2008 and has now intensified private debt up the pre-crash levels of 250% GDP, it is clear that the world's most prosperous economies, including those in the West there is the centuries has managed to climb in such an advantageous position in the first place thanks in part to protectionist measures.
However, it was just part of a larger puzzle which also involved investment in the state education sector and industry, often supporting a loss for many years until that the local stuff that you produce good works. And there's the rub. political elite of Indonesia does not really investing. They kleptomania. With this in mind, the new import duties will be to do nothing, except the ramp up inflation, especially at a time when the rupee has hit a low of 17 against the greenback.
There are many who see the hand of disparaging religious fervor and so-called "Sharia-isation" that underlies these new levies on imports. Note that from the spread of new taxes, liquor imports were selected for the top whack eye-watering 150 percent. And, of course, all this is above the supermarket refrigerators being exorcised the devil lemonade, tee. Tangerang will .ly dry and full putative nationwide ban on alcohol that will soon go before the Indonesian Parliament.
Despite assertions to the contrary, then, it is difficult not to see the prescriptive piety as opposed to public health as the driving factor of the current campaign against our beloved suds, especially when it is seen in the context of a great love of cigarette advertising of the country and its semiotic pollution endless. The weed is surely much more destructive with respect to public health as Bintang is, however big tobacco here has a relationship hand in hand with political sleaze (as in many other countries).
My current bane is the last Gudang Garam saturation campaign. These ads are a Western man, impeccably turned in a black leather jacket and shiny ponytail neatly combed, playing some bluesy licks on an electric guitar while a couple of young women watching approvingly in opulent comfort of a class, chromium and glass adjustment bar.
Gudang Garam has clearly missed a trick here, like a true rocker surely would have pushed a lit cigarette in the doll of his ax. Although in the broader context of blues music as a primal cry of the oppressed and dispossessed, developing in many artistic explorations of rock, sanitized table in this announcement all the authenticity and aesthetic vitality a chartered accountant with lung cancer check himself in a Swiss euthanasia clinic.
Interestingly, condoms have also been subject to higher taxes. I contend that this is more evidence for the prosecution in the assessment of the true religious impulse underlying booze tax hike. Over the years, many more Firebrand leaders of the country have taken a few movements of the papal playbook on perceived evils of the humble rubber Johnny. This certainly goes beyond inconvenience and alcoholic inadmissible on the ethical territory. In fact, my proposal would be a personal policy of Java carpet bomb with packages of "party hats" and sinetron stars showing how to put things with some bananas twice a day on all the country's main television channels. But I digress.
Ultimately, many Muslims in this country, shock horror, drink beer is the devil and are also fond of making beasts with two backs. Well, many of my knowledge at least, but perhaps says more about my own existence fault. Passion and piña coladas may be fine, but none of my brothers touch a ham sandwich with a barge pole, and
them that abstinence seems to take the curse off of another two transgressions. Cross fingers are not too many deaths of moonshine in the coming years. I can feel the tingling old optic nerves already.