Now is the right time to buy things

JAKARTA (JP): "I need the damn thing," Johan said. "Like you need a bullet between your eyes," I retorted. "Look, you've been bitching about needing money, and now you're throwing the stuff at something you shouldn't even consider buying."

It's useless, of course, to tell anyone not to do something, so he went ahead and phoned the dealer. An hour or two later a delivery boy arrived, bent double under a huge box containing a color printer.

It set him back about Rp 700,000 which he forked out with the expression of St. Sebastian who'd just received the 43rd arrow right where it hurts most.

But the next day, this was last month, St. Sebastian had made way for Bacchus -- minus the bottles of wine -- as he danced into the office announcing that it was the best buy ever.

With joy written all over his face, he said studied the pile of instruction books that came with the printer, and spent practically the entire night composing Christmas messages of highly questionable taste.

What, I asked, was so successful about having to cough up Rp 700,000. "Don't you see," Johan exulted, "with a dollar worth Rp 5,800, I spent only about $110. Where do you get a color printer for that amount of money?"

What he said was annoyingly correct. I was still sore about the fact I had to cancel a trip I'd planned because the confounded travel bureau charged in dollars, or rather, in rupiah according to what it was worth vis-a-vis the greenback at that particular point in time.

That damn rate has been changing from one minute to the next, but whereas last week it still sort of performed a yo-yo act, up, down, up down... it has now changed its rotten mind and decided to go down, down, down.

I could afford the trip, but travel agencies seem to be quoting everything in dollars these days and having to pay some five million hard-earned rupiah was just a bit too much, so I decided to give the tour a miss, and am presently looking at more reasonable options.

Actually, before the color printer saga, Johan had had another, similar, experience. He's a bit of a computer freak, and had for some time been grouching about his hard disk which has been showing signs of giving up the ghost.

So off he went to Glodok, the place where you can get all sorts of electronic gadgets, primarily thanks to many of them probably having fallen off the back of a truck.

He came back breathing fire and using language highly inappropriate for the prim pages of this paper.

He had trouble finding words: "Do you know, do you know what those bloody traders demanded? Dollars!" He settled down, still exuding flames, and went through the papers.

Then he came on to something good -- or so he thought: "Heeeh, here's something worth looking up." Sure enough an ad for handphones -- as mobile phones are popularly called here.

Now, that sparked my interest too as I had been thinking about investing in one for some time, but never got down to acting on it.

"I think I'll get one," Johan said. "Why don't you get one too, you've always been saying that you wanted one."

I was about to say that perhaps it could wait a bit, but then he started arguing about rupiah rates and dealers beginning to ask for payment in dollars.

"How do you know that the veggie vendors or the bakpau (steamed buns) man won't begin to ask for any currency except rupiah? I tell you, this is the time to buy things."

Off we went to a dealer next door, and about an hour later were the proud possessors of mobile phones, though -- between the two of us -- about Rp 1 million poorer.

I couldn't resist telling Johan that things like cars, mobile phones, computers, etc. depreciate with time, and he admitted that he was well aware of this.

"But what else is there to do? We don't know what's going on, currencywise, experts are shrieking about the absence of transparency and what not, but I don't think that we'll ever be informed.

I cannot really blame those dealers for what they're doing, you know, after all, they're really small fry. Others are doing the same thing on a far grander scale.

"If dealers had complied with the rates, that printer would've been well over a million rups."

So if you have a bit of lolly, spend it, and spend it on things that have a longish life. Of course in the long run, general use, wear and tear and so on will reduce their usefulness, but you would at least enjoy their advantages for a reasonably long time.

Besides, the value of that little nest egg you've been building at the bank has gone down by, well, maybe 70 percent, if not more. And another thing: you'll never be informed about what will be happening (this is the land of opaqueness, remember).

My next purchase will be a laser disk contraption.

-- Jak Jaunt