Indonesia set for fuel price increase

Every country has its tension points that can get people going. In the US the subject of abortion can get people fired up, in China its WWII history. Here in Indonesia the price of rice and fuel is what people react to, often violently.

Indonesia is an oil producing country, but cannot produce enough to meet its domestic needs. It has to import oil and that means spending the countries precious money, which itself has been declining to buy foreign oil and then sell it to locals for less than they paid for it. It's an economic mess and one part of the answer is to cut back the government subsidy on cheap petrol. This makes perfect sense to me, but not to many people around the country who want cheap petrol and screw the consequences.

President SBY has announced there will be fuel price increases starting October 1st. I understand the poor will definitely suffer, unfortunately if something isn't done quickly all Indonesians will suffer for a much longer period.

There have been news items on national TV about street demonstrations that have so far been peaceful. I can tell how this will go, watching the news I think hangers on will probably start tearing the place up and causing havoc, probably in Jakarta. You sense the same things during elections when dump trucks full of teenage boys decked out in one party's colors go riding around town. I would like to ask some of these students what their plan for the future would be if we are going to chuck economic sense out the window in favor of feel good subsidies.

The new rules go into effect at midnight on Friday.