Do we have a better growth?

I have read in the daily the Point that Kalla, our Vice President, denies people getting poorer. He was citing that we do have better growth. Is it real?

I feel that economic burden is growing heavier and heavier. There were also series of suicidal actions due to economic problems. So is it a real better growth?

Remember the joke about the price? If you are asking about the price in the market and surprisingly found their price is very expensive, the answer you’ve got from the seller is “Go and buy it in the newspaper!” (Beli aja di koran!”) Sometimes they’ll add “I’ll buy that from you then!”.

“An economic growth rate of 6% means that the people are becoming more prosperous. Therefore any statement to the contrary is incorrect”, said Kalla. He was countering the issue raised by some generals who met the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that the people at present getting poorer due to the failure of the government’s economic policies.

Statistic is useful, but sometimes it does blinded people on the real problem. I am really an idiot in economic, I could not even manage my own balance properly. But it doesn’t seem to be an economic growth for the poor. Even as a middle class I feel like I am sinking! Stressing an economic growth while actually people do not feel like having it could probably indicate that the rich is getting richer. That’s the only probability, right?

We should be really careful with statistic, as we could see in the National Examinations. People are not seeing it as the way to improve the standard of education, but they were trying to produce the best evaluation by cheating! That was not the main and basic reason to the principle of national examination! It should be a tool to see how far a region was left behind the national curriculum standard. It would be helpful so that our students come out with the same average degree in knowledge when they enter the university.


Our habit to see things statistically while the procedure of producing the statistic was still vulnerable to mistakes could produce problems. We could be proud seeing all that growth in statistic while at the same time we are delaying doing the necessities to increase the growth.

Do we really have a better growth? Only God knows!