Too high a price to pay

Too high a price to pay

I believe many sectors of business will be badly affected by
the present monetary crisis. Let us take, for example, the travel
bureaus in our country which are almost entirely dependent on
outgoing Indonesian tourists and, to a lesser extent, on the
incoming foreign tourists, who need guides or inland tours
arranged by travel bureaus.

However, with the exchange rate at more than Rp 10,000 per
U.S. dollar, many would-be tourists cannot possibly pay expensive
tours and travel, a fact which has resulted in many travel
agencies going bust!

For many years, I subscribed to Reader's Digest at the yearly
subscription rate of Rp 47,400, but this was before the crisis.
When the reminder to renew my subscription came, I was surprised
to find I would have to pay Rp 275,400, or 5.7 times the old
subscription price. I understand why there was a rise -- the
agent in Jakarta has to transfer the subscription amount in U.S.
dollars and the exchange rate of the rupiah against the U.S.
dollar is still fluctuating -- and that it is a matter of course
that the subscription rate has been raised accordingly. Anyhow, I
regret that I have had to terminate my subscription.

I cannot help wondering that the agent of foreign magazines
and other foreign reading materials will have a hard time to make
ends meet, with the many employees the company has to keep
business running.

If I refer to my experience during the Great Depression of the
1930s, when the prices went up with inflation, there came a time
of deflation when prices of commodities went down because the
purchasing power of the people became weaker daily when
unemployment was rampant. I vividly remember that at that time I
could buy a meal of nasi pecel, rice and vegetables in a peanut
sauce, for just 0.5 cent of a guilder.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta