On a recent trip to Jakarta, I experienced firsthand what an infrastructure bottleneck feels like. My driver told me the city is only third in global traffic-jam rankings, trailing Mexico City and New Delhi, but what was a 40-minute ride when I lived there in the mid-1980s took a dispiriting 2? hours. It¡¯s not exactly the image evoked by the current nation-branding campaign: ¡°Remarkable Indonesia.¡±
As we crept along the highway, I learned that the congestion that day was due to street protests by factory workers calling for a 50 percent raise from their current $220 monthly wage.
Sharp inflation has seriously reduced purchasing power following the government¡¯s decision earlier this year to slash fuel subsidies. Nonetheless, in the end the factory workers only got an 11 percent raise from Jakarta¡¯s popular Gov. Joko Widodo, known as ¡°Jokowi,¡± who is widely expected to become Indonesia¡¯s next president after the 2014 elections.
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