My Treasury is Cowboy
I was open to [new FinMin / Finance Minister] Purbaya’s monetarist idea until I heard that he plans to force banks to channel at least some of the 200 Trillion rupaih deposit into untested village cooperatives [Koperasi] as cheap and easy credit. To me, that’s practically flushing money down the toilet.
Timing of [stunning] budget for “Koperasi [village cooperatives] is coincidental with government’s decision to screen a video highlighting President Prabowo Subianto’s program achievements in movie theaters [XXI, biggest movie theater chain in Southeast Asia, owned by Sudwikatmono, long-time ally of Titiek Soeharto, ex wife of Prabowo], describing it as part of public communication efforts.
“We also see this as a form of public transparency. The public must know the programs that have been implemented and how they are carried out,” Communication Minister Meutya said at the People’s Representative Council Complex in Jakarta on Monday, September 15, 2025.
The one-minute video, which played before movie screenings, went viral on social media over the past few days.
It presented data on several government programs, including the Free Nutritious Meal program (MBG), which reportedly reached 20 million beneficiaries, the opening of 80,000 Red and White Village Cooperatives, and the operation of 5,800 MBG kitchens across Indonesia.
The Prabowo’s admin expects the $12 billion it has moved to state banks to spark an acceleration in plans to set up 80,000 village cooperatives across the country after a slow start to the flagship scheme, a minister said on Monday.
The "Red and White Cooperatives" are intended to drive growth and create jobs at a village level, as President Prabowo Subianto aims to lift economic growth to 8% from around 5% currently, a target he set during last year's election campaign.
In launching the cooperatives, Prabowo sought to explain why his government did so with a big bang.
He said the cooperatives will provide rice milling services so farmers no longer need to sell their grains for cheap to private millers.
Prabowo argued that there have been many cases where subsidised fertilisers ended up in the hands of brokers who resold them to farmers with huge mark-ups. There were also times when farmers had to borrow money from loan sharks because a family member fell ill.
“These (areas) are what we must address and we are addressing them with big steps,” he said, explaining why the cooperatives were launched at such a scale and in less than five months since the idea was floated in early March.
“We are a big nation, so we have to think big and have the guts to take big actions.”
The cooperatives initiative is just one of a series of ambitious programmes spearheaded by Prabowo since he took office in October.
"The money is now available at state banks," Zulkifli Hasan, a senior minister overseeing the cooperative programme, told, noting a slow start since the plan's launch in July.
"We ask for an acceleration in loan disbursement. It has been (some) months since the launch, don't let the money sit in the banks for too long," Zulkifli said, adding the government wanted 16,000 co-ops to be funded by the end of the month.
Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa last week deposited 200 trillion rupiah ($12.2 billion) of government funds with five state banks, saying it was to be used for lending.
The co-ops are expected to sell basic household necessities as well as subsidised cooking gas and fertiliser, among other businesses. Each one can apply for a loan from a state bank of up to 3 billion rupiah, with the interest rate capped at 6%.
Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Mandiri, Bank Negara Indonesia, and Bank Syariah Indonesia have identified more than 1,000 eligible co-ops that could potentially borrow 1.06 trillion rupiah, a government report showed on Monday.
On Monday, the finance minister told reporters that state banks could reduce the interest they paid on government deposits if the funds went to cooperative [koperasi].
Days ago, when first ever time meeting with lawmakers, he slam IMF for Asian Crisis 1998. “Don’t believe the IMF. If you want economic prediction, ask me. I know better,” he said, even though the lender’s 2025 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast of 4.7 per cent was largely in line with analysts’ expectations and reflected global uncertainty.
Mr Purbaya said Indonesia’s economy crashed during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s when it requested financial assistance from the IMF but did much better in subsequent crises without the IMF.
In his defense, over the past few years, the government has somewhat crowded out the banking system by nudging banks to buy government bonds instead of channeling credits to the private sector. So this really could cut both ways.
When Indonesian economists talk about sovereign debt, their biggest concern isn’t fiscal sustainability (whether revenues can cover debt repayments) but political sovereignty. The irony is that by focusing on politics over numbers, they often make both more fragile.
The comments provided a glimpse of the governing style of Mr Purbaya, 61, who was sworn in as Finance Minister on Sept 8 by President Prabowo Subianto, replacing Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati, one of the country’s longest-serving finance ministers who had won the trust of investors both at home and overseas.
Seen as a surprise pick by markets, Mr Purbaya has aligned with the President’s desire to grow the economy at a faster clip than its current 5 per cent rate.
The removal of Dr Sri Mulyani, who at one time served as an IMF executive director, came after two weeks of often violent protests and unrest across the country. Initially triggered by fury over big allowances for legislators, the protests later broadened to target many issues, including government spending priorities.
The abrupt removal of Indrawati as Indonesia’s finance minister is bound to rattle global investors, who saw her as a voice of fiscal responsibility as Prabowo’s administration continued to push for bigger spending.
Beyond advanced financial literacy, two skills are essential in SMI’s post: saying no to the president when he wants to eat too much cake, and forcing him to swallow a bitter pill when needed. SMI has increasingly failed at the former, but her replacement promises neither. This is like replacing a worn-out wheel with one of those cheap vulkanisir wheels. I hope we haven't run out of luck because otherwise, we maybe in for a rough ride.
A liquidity injection of this magnitude from the finance ministry is unprecedented. [Former FinMin] Indrawati preferred to keep the reserves on standby to help with government financing when interest rates were too high. Is this really how monetarism is supposed to work in practice: bankers flush with new funds but with no idea where to channel them?
I'm not sure if he realizes this, but Purbaya seems to be usurping Airlangga Hartarto’s authority by creating a debottlenecking task force that was once formed by and operated under the coordinating minister of economic affairs.
If someone is investor in Indonesia, he or she should be happy: more money means higher asset prices. But my sense is our sluggish growth is mainly weighed down by weak demand. Pumping in more money (translate: gov pressures banks to lend) without boosting demand feels like a recipe for spiking banks’ NPLs.
[Prabowo's ] populist, project-driven and fiscally expansionary approach has been unfolding in an inherited fragile institutional environment, putting pressure on Indonesia’s longstanding foundational pillars of economic resilience: fiscal discipline, central bank independence, private sector dynamism and a vibrant middle class.
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If you feel powerless to help Gaza, you still has a choice: donate. When so much of what exists is false, authenticity is a powerful weapon we can wield that the state never could. So if you feel lost, hopeless, depressed, angry and afraid, I implore you to return - again and again - to the feeling of love that exists within you that brought you here in the first place. It is only through this that we can remake the world. To redress Gaza's famine, displacement, and destruction, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations - UN agencies, international and national NGOs - must be allowed to deliver relief at scale. To salvage Gaza's people from the devastation inflicted by Israel, it must be unified with the West Bank to form an independent and sovereign Palestinian State, not to be parceled and colonized by the former.
Please keep donate Gaza especially if you, as reader, has [background] International Relation [whatever universities]. IR Graduate means [you must, at least] get some semester [about] studying Middle East [in macro, not specifically Gaza].
We need more people to share fundraisers instead of only talking about Gaza. Some people think that those in Gaza don't need money but that's wrong. Almost everyone lost their source of income while essentials, food & medicine get sold for astronomical prices. So I put my attempt in all social media as I can, in twitter / X, in substack [since October 2023 I put link donation], in bluesky or bsky, in threads, in instagram.
Link to donate World Food Programme - Palestine appeal: click here
[Daniel Brühl]
Most campaign shared or circulated in social media are for REAL people in Gaza. They're legit. There are a lot of small campaigns for struggling families. This is their only lifeline. By donating & sharing, you are literally making history and alleviating part of their pain
Please do not rely on me alone for sharing your campaign. I'm only 1 person and sometimes I'm not online which is unreliable. I never ignore anybody on purpose but I have a very limited capacity & very little energy and time.
[Refaat Alareer IF I MUST DIE] Refaat Alareer was extremely hungry, November 2023, days before killed by Israel airstrike. If November 2023 already [one-by-one Gazan] extremely hungry, imagine August 2025.
![[RENEW] 'Babel', 380 Languages IF I MUST DIE of Refaat [by 3200+ Translators, Socmed Users]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jwSl!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc25bd266-d4e2-4169-a5e4-e901227a8b0c_725x560.png "[RENEW] 'Babel', 380 Languages IF I MUST DIE of Refaat [by 3200+ Translators, Socmed Users]")
Dec 9th, 2023, New York City, 4.10am —- with update total languages to be 310 as of July 1st, 2024, 3.52am New York City, and then, to be 350 languages as of July 28th, 2024, 1.37am ====== newest update as of July, 3rd, 2025 [actually already 384 languages but let I keep saying 380 to pretty number]
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