Word: rupiah
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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President Sukarno apparently believes that a government that prints money can also take it away. Last week, faced by skyrocketing inflation that had already run the dollar value of the rupiah to 155 on the black market (against the official rate of 11.4 rupiahs to the dollar), Sukarno demanded action from his Finance Ministry...
...Overnight all 1,000-and 500-rupiah notes were arbitrarily cut to one-tenth of their value (though smaller bills were not changed); 90% of every bank deposit over 25,000 rupiahs was frozen, so that the money could be seized for obligatory long-term loans to the government, and banks were closed for two days to straighten out their accounts and report to the government. A new exchange rate of 45 rupiahs to the dollar was proclaimed. All this was done to the accompaniment of denunciations by Sukarno of "vulture capitalists." Added he: "Whoever scoops up wealth...
Despite a climate in which anything grows, despite proven oilfields, brimming natural resources and a population of 87 million. Indonesia is mired by pocket-sized rebellions, technical ineptitude and whimsical administration. An overworked printing press has lately shot the rupiah (legally pegged at 11.40 to the dollar) as high as 200 on the black market. Commodity prices have risen 40% since January. And while its economy was deteriorating at an accelerated rate, its politics and its government were at a standstill...
...venerable Indonesian tactic of sabar: the quality of biding time, to let the opponent make the mistakes. Unfortunately, in Western eyes, sabar is sometimes indistinguishable from paralysis. Sukarno was making mistakes, by leaning increasingly on the Communists and by straining his already weak economic position (last week the rupiah shot to an alltime high of 61 to the U.S. dollar- v. 11.4 for the official rate-on the free market). But it seemed clear that it would take more than sabar to bring him down...
...scholarly Colonel Barlian in South Sumatra also went into the business of army-managed barter and invested the profits in schools, roads, barracks. The operation was scrupulously honest. When Djakarta challenged Simbolon's operations, he produced bank records to show that he had not diverted a single rupiah...