Never ending story

The overload work is now become my never ending story.. Because of it, I forgot about my kid's schedule on his taekwondo examination. Gee.. what kind of mother I am! I become more permissive about his school.

I have a lot of job pending lately.. and sure it start to drive me crazy. I should have delegate it to my staff but all I know it never works! What should I do? I can not keep complaining about my never ending story on my job, yet I love my job.

I thought I have bad time management. I don't have to bring my work to home while I can finish it at office.

Does it really matter..?

A friend of mine told me that there is no coordination in our office. Bad data management, bad connection, bad everything.. I see it in another point of view. Okay if we have bad coordination, bad management even bad working condition. But I love my job. I take it very seriously.. as serious as I consider my life. I grew up in this community, learned with this community, earned my money from it and so much more.

Statistics Indonesia, that's what I used to call my office. Everything about data macro or micro can be found or forced to be found. I had bad and good moments. Sometimes it feels like you're on the edge of the mountain but somehow you'll find yourself in the bottom of the sea. Things are changed.. the institution changed, I changed, everybody's change.. but my love remain the same.

I have higher expectation for my institution to raise it to higher level. I write this to let everybody knows that I never do my work as if it was nothing. I am a government employee and I take it very seriously..

It's Alan Greenspan

I just found out the book of Alan Greenspan yesterday at Gramedia Bookstore. The title is Abad Prahara. The book price is a hundred thousand rupiahs discount 20 % at the bazaar. I'm kind of interested to read it, but somehow I have made a little research on internet about Alan Greendspan.. and it's dissapointing...

He was blamed for the financial crisis for policies that he drawn when he was chairman of the Fed. Stiglitz and Krugman also blamed him for the same reason. Wow.. if two nobelist blamed for the same thing, it must be very wrong.

Government Spending.. Can we rely on this engine?

According to Keynesian, the GDP from expenditure side is explained as Y = C + I + G + (X-M), where C stands for Consumption, I = investment, G for Government Spending and (X-M) as net export.

Many economist said that Indonesia’s economic growth is led by consumption showed by its share on GDP (61% of GDP, 2008). But it will disturbed along the crisis since the investment (the share on GDP is 8%) is declining and so is net export. Indonesia is the second country in the fall down net export after Rusia.

In this global crisis situation, according to Keynesian, the government spending could be another way out as engine of growth. As we know, the government had given stimulus for about 73,3 billion to make the economy work, 12,1 billion of it is for the infrastructure development.

The rumor said that government will give stimulus package for government employee like remuneration package. They might be hope that this stimulus will run the economy as the whole. But can we rely on this?

When data speaks for itself, that's when you say nothing at all..

After reading and analyzing how top level decision maker in this country spoke up with figures held by central bureau statistic Indonesia, I begin to see the red line. They treated data in their own way not how it is generated. It makes the translation on data become multi translations. Sure, as a quotation said that statistics is the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions. (Evan Esar; 1899 - 1995).. but that can not be used as justification on what they did to data. They should treat data very carefully.

First thing first they have to be sure knowing what is the purpose of data collection, after that the methodology. Because, even they have the same purpose if the methodology is not the same, it could draw different conclusions. Say, the collection of Indonesia's population data. The CBS always take every 10 year population census and mid population survey between the census. They collected data by visiting every household, door to door. Meanwhile Dinas Kependudukan collected data based on report. They waited household to report to them about coming and incoming household, about death and birth. Those two kinds of how data collected are not comparable, not apple to apple. Unfortunately, there is still many decision makers, politicians, even researcher and college students blame the difference of the figures. Well, it looks like blaming is a habit of our society, but it won't solve the problem.

Let’s take a look on how they treat or use data. Nowadays, people start to respond on data. They begin to have self awareness on how figures presented. Many advertisements give fact findings by showing the survey result. Politicians also use it to make them look good or to let their vows look bad. And the data itself have nothing to loose but to be used.

It became a common model to have surveys that held by surveyor agencies. Like I said before, even the purpose is the same, if the methodology is different, it would draw different conclusions. The methodology includes the time reference, sampling, estimation method, and a lot of more. When these things happen, people get confused. People seem to loose confidence on data.

Now, what if the purpose is remain the same, the methodology is the same, including the sampling frame, time reference, etc and even the surveyor is the same person. The only thing that is not exactly the same is the institutions that held the survey. What will happen? Do the result the same or not?

The answer is yes the result is the same but the survey is useless..
Why those institutions held the survey with everything the same just to know the same thing and spent a lot of money. Just to prove that statisticians is a man who believes figures don't lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won't stand up either, Evan Esar said. In economics we call it inefficient.

That’s why we need a strong, dependable, trusty, independent institution to hold the survey and census. Especially the result of the survey will be used to draw policies. That will be the CBS role. Still, from statistic’s quotation “there are three kind of lies ; lies, damned lies, and statistics”. But data will speaks for itself, that is when you say nothing at all..

It's just slowing down..

I had this 'de javu' feeling couple days ago. Many indicators say that we are facing economic downturn. Start from the economic growth. Although Statistics Indonesia reported that 2008 economic growth is 6.1 percent, a little bit close to the target 6.2 by the government, it doesn't mean that it's the end of the world. Okay, we're not achieving the target but lets take a look other indicators. IHSG, although it was sharpening down but it's about to make more correction. Exchage rate.. it's fully influenced by global economic situation. Inflation rate, it's a little bit out of the track from inflation targeting that held by the central bank.

The concern of this economic slowing down is the unemployment rate. Statistic Indonesia have not announced it yet, but many experd already give their prediction. The unemployment rate is raising. The concept of unemployment itself is still in debate. According to Statistic Indonesia, people who work for less than one hour a day is considered as unemployment. How about people who have business like 'ojek' or just do a little trade at home? They are not considered as unemployment. So, if the unemployment rate is not raising up, it's just simply because there is shifting from formal job to informal job. We are not closing our eyes to the figure of unemployment rate supposed to be. But please be optimistic..

Back to the topic, when I read the headline of the jakarta post today, it is written that growth hit hard by global slowdown. Here's the quotation..

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported on Monday that the economy expanded 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 from a year earlier, slower than the annualized growth rate of 6.4 percent booked in the previous quarter.

Worse still, on a quarterly basis, the economy contracted by 3.6 percent in quarter four from the previous quarter, although BPS head Rusman Heriawan added that a similar contraction had occurred in the same period in the last two years.

”This was not surprising as the economy usually contracts in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, as industrial output slows and harvest time ends. But the crisis made the contraction (in 2008's fourth quarter) deeper."

Another victim of the global situation is our economic engine - export. By the crisis, the export is moving down. We still have another engine, the government spending. But how to make this engine more efficient to move on? It's the government to do list priority. It's just slowing down.. keep on moving, keep on optimistic and keep on working..

And it's all coming back to me now

Deciding one decision is not as simple as one two three. It takes a lot of energy to think and rethinking. When I have to choose between this and that, I will have the pros and cons table before making my decision. One thing for good is if it is not the right one, at least we've considered it again and again, and we'll feel no regrets.

Destiny, that's what I call if it didn't suit me at all. And I have to accept it, face it, live it. Never regret everything that you've decided, that's what my mom always told me. And I always believe that everything is happened because of something. And it's all coming back to me now.. face it!