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Asia's poor toil on oblivious to world economic crisis

JAKARTA – Oblivious to the global crisis, food vendors, cleaners and gardeners at the Indonesian Stock Exchange struggle to make ends meet on a few dollars a day while brokers gamble millions inside.

"I have no idea about what's happening," said Firman, one of the army of cleaners who service the bustling exchange, as he swept the marble lobby and emptied standing ashtrays outside the trading floor.

The 28-year-old who earns 30,000 rupiah (three dollars) a day rubs shoulders with some of the elite of Jakarta's business world, but he doesn't know them and he doesn't care very much for what they do.

"I'm just an ordinary man, I don't understand their business," he shrugged.

Indonesia's stock market has shed 12.5 percent of its value since early October and almost 50 percent since the start of 2008, buffeted by the global economic meltdown which has hit share prices around the world.

Trillions of dollars have been thrown at failed banks and frozen financial markets in the biggest challenge to free-market capitalism since the Great Depression.

Cashed-up Asian economies have fared relatively well and Indonesia's is still expected to post growth of around six percent this year.

But as credit dries up and investors lose their shirts on Asia's fickle share markets, life is only set to get harder for the roughly 70 million Indonesians who earn less than two dollars a day.

"What I'm doing now is just enough for today," Firman said, adding that he couldn't comprehend the sheer volume of rupiah being exchanged every day on the Indonesian bourse.

"I know that they're trading shares inside this building but I don't understand what that means exactly. I can't imagine doing business with that kind of money."

Outside the high-rise stock exchange in Jakarta's business district, 43-year-old gardener Ari watered the decorative plants and tended the lawn under the blazing sun.

"It makes no difference to me," he said. "Everything is just as difficult as before."

He said he earned 22,000 rupiah a day and the world economic crisis hadn't touched him. What concerned him more was a 30-percent hike in the price of subsidised fuel in May.

"It's difficult as I haven't had a salary rise despite the fuel price hike. It used to be enough to feed my family but with the fuel hike it's very tight," the father-of-two said.

He offered a word of advice about frugality which the rich executives of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns might wish they had heard before the economic whirlwind sank their firms.

"Poor people like me need to be smart to manage our limited money. If we cannot eat tempeh (soybean cake) we eat only rice and vegetables," he said.

To help pay his rent of 300,000 rupiah a month and put his daughter through school Ari does extra gardening work in his spare time. But he insists he is not greedy and he wishes no harm to others.

"I don't have other skills but I do have the spirit to work hard to raise my family as far as it doesn't harm people," he said.

Despite his poverty he has no ambition to be a rich Wall Street banker. Money is nothing without your health and the health of your loved ones, he said.

"Even a rich man will never feel satisfied with all that money he has. They stress out easily and get sick," he said.

"I simply want good health for me and all of my family."