Climate Change "Agreement"

This is what will happen after years of debate.

*Nice visualization from The Economist

Other Side of Richard Fuld

Richard Fuld was a Lehman Brothers' CEO in time of bankruptcy. Since then, he has mostly ducked the spotlight, allowing an image of greed, arrogance and failure to cling unchallenged to his name.

This what he say, one year after Lehman's collapse.

Exclusive: Fuld says being "dumped on" for Lehman failure

Don't Panic, Huh?

Bank Century, Who's Fault?

For Bank Century's failure, who's the one that needs to be blamed?

Is it Bank of Indonesia? LPS? KSSK? Government?

It's Robert Tantular's fault, of course. He robbed his own bank and took people's money abroad. But, if we talk about the financial system, we need to find who has the authority to avoid that fraud from happening. Someone who has the control. Jusuf Kalla has his argument. He said BI failed to properly supervise Bank Century. To defend that, BI has his own version. BI argued a fraud that has been done by manager and owner is something they can't detect. They has a limitation in their monitoring procedure.

And, I have my own perspective. It's always unfair to blame someone. Punishment, and reward, are asymmetric. They can only be given after the event, not before the event. For example, if Bank Century fail because of lack of supervision, we can blame BI for their ignorance (if it's true). But, consider this, BI is so good so that they can prevent all banks from failure. Will they get the reward? I'm afraid not.

It also happens when we appreciate Densus 88 for their move killing the bastards, but never do the same thing for intelligence part who work at day and night prevent anything bad happening (so that bastards never do their crime).

Prevention is not something that can be appreciated. It happens before, not after.

Bank Syariah yang Sulit Syariah

Dengan mengambil suasana Islam, teller berjilbab, dan slogan bagi hasil, bank syariah beriklan mengklaim murni syariah. Bulan Ramadhan pun menjadi bulan primadona untuk iklan semacam ini.

Apakah packaging seperti ini membuat suatu bank menjadi bank syariah? Tentu tidak. Lalu, apakah yang dapat membuat bank syariah benar-benar syariah?

Secara garis besar, fitur utama yang membedakan bank syariah dan bank konvensional adalah prinsip bagi hasil. Bank syariah tidak mengenal bunga. Bunga dipandang sebagai riba sehingga menjadi haram dalam Islam. Yang dimaksud riba dalam bunga bisa berupa tingkat bunga yang berlebihan. Akan tetapi, mayoritas cendekiawan muslim memandang riba sebagai tingkat pengembalian yang tetap.

Islam menghendaki umatnya agar, ketika memperoleh return, mereka juga harus menghadapi resiko. Harus ada keadilan dalam transaksi komersial. Seseorang dilarang memperoleh keuntungan di atas penderitaan orang lain.

Sejarah pelarangan riba ini diawali pada zaman pertengahan Arab. Ketika itu, debitur yang tidak dapat membayar utang tepat waktu akan mengalami pelipatgandaan utang. Hal ini mendorong munculnya perbudakan bagi debitur gagal bayar. Islam sebagai agama yang memiliki visi moral melarang adanya praktek ini.

Namun kini, sudah terdapat undang-undang tentang kebangkrutan yang melindungi hak-hak asasi individu. Bank pun bisa menerima resiko gagal bayar debitur. Apakah pelarangan bunga ini masih relevan pada zaman modern ini? Hal ini pun masih dalam perdebatan.

About Unknown Unknown

A few years ago, I heard a statement in one press conference.

"There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know."

Somehow, It's got an award for "a baffling comment by a public figure"

"Under Maintenance" is Over

For a very long time, this blog is "under maintenance".
'Cause of a thesis and my attention to FB when I open the Internet.

Now, Jul 4th, 2009,
This blog is ready to be launched again. :D