IMF the best doctor at present

IMF the best doctor at present

From Media Indonesia

It is necessary for us to pay special attention to Media
Indonesia's editorial on March 7, 1998 titled Between a quack
doctor and a doctor, which was written in the same vein as an
article appearing in The Sunday Times and reprinted in Kompas on
Feb. 16, 1998 titled The West begins "to be involved" in Asian
crisis. I wish to underline the statement made by Prof. Kenichi
Ohno, an economist who graduated from Stanford University and who
spent four years working for the IMF, "that Asia's economic
crisis stems from systems and that the first thing to do before
implementing a long-term solution to this problem is to keep the
market psychologically calm".

In connection with Ohno's statement, we Indonesians, perhaps,
must continue to keep the IMF as our "doctor" and willingly
swallow the 50 bitter pills it has offered for our economic
recovery. It means that, as suggested by Frans Seda, we "need not
change our doctor", and that it would be better for us to keep in
a safe place the CBS pill offered by Steve H. Hanke. Otherwise,
we may suffer drug poisoning before the illness is cured.

Well, being "an outpatient", we must continue to keep the
market psychologically calm. Perhaps a political breakthrough
(for the short term) brought about by the President will be an
effective means to achieve the psychological calmness of the
market as meant by Prof. Ohno. Who knows, this breakthrough may
be the establishment of a strong cabinet. The most important
thing is that the new cabinet must be capable and have vision.
So, one must nurture one's own acquiescence and throw away
personal or group interests for the sake of achieving national
objectives.

JASWANDI SALIM

Jakarta