Economic gap

Economic gap

I am very much interested in Minister of Research and
Technology B. J. Habibie's comments (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 12,
1994) on the issue of economic gap related by Prof. Sumitro
Djojohadikusumo recently. According to Habibie, nowadays
Indonesia is much better than the United States of America. The
criteria, which is used by Habibie, is the comparison between GNP
per capita and poverty line which for Indonesia is 54.47 and for
the U.S.is only 36.67. Another criteria used by Minister Habibie
is the number of population that is still under the poverty line,
i.e. Indonesia has only 13.6 percent and the U.S. has 30 percent.
Fantastic!

My question: "Is that true?" According to presented data
Indonesia's GNP per capita is US$ 700, and the U.S. is $ 22,000.
The Indonesia's (Jakarta) poverty line is $ 13.6 and the U.S.
(New York) is $ 600. Mathematically, it is correct to say that
700 divided by 13.6 is bigger than 22,000 divided by 600. But is
it really true that the Indonesia's poverty line is only $13.6
or about Rp 30,000 (enough to buy 85 kilograms of lowest quality
rice), and the U.S. is $600.

In my opinion, the criteria used must be universally valid. Or
is it because $ 13.6 is enough for Indonesian people to live for
one year? While the American standard is $ 600 a year? Is $ 13.6
sufficient to meet the minimum physical need (22,000 calories)?
Yes, maybe it is enough to buy gaplek (dried cassava chips). Then
the Indonesian people are indirectly undervalued.

If the mathematical formula as explained by Pak Habibie is
accepted, it is easy to reduce the number of the population who
is under the poverty line, i.e. by lowering the standard, for
example, from $ 13.6 to $ 10 or even $ 5. So it is quite easy to
achieve the one percent target as stated by Minister Habibie. As
simple as that?

HAMDI HASSYARBAINI

Jakarta