US Sport Cars Back to 70’s

It’s already 2009 but it feels like 1969 for the US muscle car fans. Because the legendary models are being revived again. Yes the big three—Ford, General Motors and Chrysler decided to remodel their sport cars to which one that resembles again the 70’s model. They are Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Corvette.

Forget about the global crises for a while. Turbo is prohibited for American engine, they prefer the naturally aspirated one, so no wonder that US muscle car has big size engine and it means the fuel consumption make you to empty every pocket you have, but that’s the price to feel again the legend.

Unit Linked Insurance Plans, So Far in Indonesia

Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIP) is a life insurance policy that combines insurance and investment. It means that if you buy the policy you get both the protection and the investment. Supposed if you pay Rp 1,000,000 per month, your money will be allocated into two accounts, the premium account and investment account, let’s say the allocation is 70:30, so the Rp 700,000 allocated to pay the premium and Rp 300,000 to pay the investment.

MacBuntu, Fill Your Ubuntu With Mac Lookalike Widget

Have you ever seen a Mac? Cool isn’t it? You’ll be amazed with the view of the desktop, the animation and the widget. Well, if you want to have a Mac lookalike, there are many transformation pack for your Ubuntu desktop, the famous one is Mac4Lin that could transform your standard Ubuntu to a cool Mac lookalike.

But if you don’t want an extreme Mac look, but still want Mac’s gadget on your Ubuntu (the Intrepid one I mean), you could have it without downloading the Mac4Lin or even adding a repo. Here’s the way.

Obama’s Gadget, Should It be Connected with Nationalism?

Barack Obama (timesonline.typepad.com)

There are two gadgets that Barack Obama famous with (at least on my opinion). They are Nintendo Wii and Blackberry.

One of Obama’s campaign says, “Turn off the TV, turn off the video games and start make history”, well it didn’t address straight to the Wii, but in the video it shows a Wii-mote (not a Dualshock or X-Box Controller). And the new President of USA has decided to bring the Wii to the White House.

Takaful, an Introduction

Brief Explanation

Takaful means a scheme based on brotherhood, solidarity and mutual assistance which provides for mutual financial aid and assistance to the participants in case of need whereby the participants mutually agree to contribute for that purpose (Takaful Act 1984, article 2), for short it is an Islamic Insurance, which still bring sharia principles within which are the main differences with the conventional insurance. It’s been practiced for about 1400 years, historians believe that Muslim of Mecca and Medina has started a kind of mutual insurance, and it developed again with trade between Arabs and Asians which require a great time and length that increase the risk of robbery and loss.

Indonesian Gas Price: Decreasing is Also a Dillemma

Today is 1 day before the D-Day….hey, what are we talkin’ about?

I’s about a signal of gas price cut by the government, Vice President Jusuf Kalla gave the signal about that. He stated that at 15^th of January the gas price would be cut down again.

At the end of 2008, Indonesia has made some policy to cut the gas price, from Rp 6,000 at May, reduced to Rp 5,500 at 1^st of December, then about two weeks later, the government cut down the price again to Rp 5,000.

People would be glad with the reduction, but when there is a glad, there is a sad, who are the unhappy ones? They are gas station owners. They think it’s all too sudden, since they still have the old stock and they should follow the government policy to sell with lower price. Some of them even had lost about ten millions rupiahs because of the reduction.

The Twelfth Black Monday

Suddenly, I feel aghast after surfing in the cyber world this evening. The world stock market crash news is the reason. When the energy crisis and global food crisis still being unsolved problem for mostly countries in the world, they are inflicted by investment & banking crisis. Then I run into 19^th October 1987 when the same things occurred because the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 508 points to 1739 (22.6%). That moment has been called as the Black Monday. Furthermore, at 28^th October 1929, the world was shaken by devastating of stock market in United States. That moment was called not only Black Monday, but also Wall Street Crash of 1929. And now, the twelfth Black Monday has come!

Incongruity of LPG’s Pricing by Pertamina

Firstly, I’d say congratulation to madam Sri Mulyani Indrawati as her achievement to be 23rd most influential woman in the world from Forbes Magazine version. Wish it can give positive externalities to Indonesian economic growth in the future.

Yesterday, I got an invitation to attend live talk-show broadcasted by Astro Awani, titled ‘Mengukur Kinerja Presiden (Measuring President’s Performance)’. That program was attended by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Mr Purnomo Yusgiantoro supported by President’s Spokesperson Mr Andi Mallarangeng, and two panelists, Mr Anis Baswedan (Paramadina University Chancellor) and LPEM FEUI economist Mrs Hendri Saparini. It discusses about national oil subsidy and other alternative energy. The discussion consist of five segments. The most interesting segment for me is the fourth namely the raising of LPG’s price.

Haram is Inappropriate for Smokers

Last night I saw the television program talked about Islamic law (makruh or haram) against smoking among the ulemas. They debated about Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) decision to prohibit smoking by labeling it ‘haram’. Their reasons approximately similar with something written in this blog. However, there is a side which refused the ‘haram’ label since this country isn’t the islamic monarchy yet. So, the government will take the role to make a policy about smoking. This side is agree when smoking should be labeled ‘makruh’. So, what’s my opinion?

Nope, I’m not a smoker that try to make approbation in this case. I’ve stopped smoking for last three years and I agree if smoking can damage the body health although I don’t have capacity to say it since I’m not health expertise. I just feel charitable since that normative thing is debated. Honestly, I never believe that people will always obey to instigation, even it’s religious instigation! In other words, fatwa is not efficient to reduce the smokers. For me, when we make some policies, we gotta know about our constituent behavior. Our people may be religious, but they are human. They will look for the space where they can do it (smoke). The negative incentive or obvious punishment must be applied for the smokers, since we live at the earth, not heaven.

Love & Security Market Line

A while ago I got two ‘outflows’ from my closed friends about their romantic story. The stories has similar plot about the beast and the beautiful. The beast here is not only on my friends’ face, but also their financial condition. So as the beautiful. However, the ‘beautiful’ species here is little bit different. The first beautiful is the heredity of the legislator in this republic, the second one is the heredity of one of the biggest furniture entrepreneur in this republic.

The big deal is the princes above don’t know what to do to reach their dream. Every night, they dream their respective woman. It seems like they just have a little bit chance since they don’t have similar value with their dreams. As you know that, the dating in Indonesia can be analogized as supply-demand law in classical economics. Here, I don’t wanna give an obvious solution for them all. I’m not a Don Juan that can vanquish all the women in the world. I just wanna share my unique idea about choosing the women love by using CAPM