We need a house to live in to protect us from feeling cold at night and hot at day. Then what we do to find one can be variational. We can rent a house, or stay with our parents or parents in-law. If we have a rich relative who owns more than one house, we can be allowed to stay in his empty house. If we are very rich, we can buy a very luxurious house. If we have a low income, we still can buy a house. The government gives subsidies for us to buy that small and 'cheap' house with the help of a loan from the government's banks. For a newly-wed couple or for a couple with one kid, having their own house is a pride. And having this kind of small, subsidized house is also making them proud. This situation triggers some businessmen to start their business of building subsidized housings, resulting some positive and negative effects.
The positive effects are, of course, the good and conducive business environments. Government's banks can circulate their money because they give loans to debtors and they charge those debtors some interest for that loan. Housing developers will often ask material distributors to supply things they need to build houses. Land owners are very happy to receive money from those developers who buy their land. The debtors, or those who buy the house, will work very hard so that they can get money for the monthly payment to the bank. Office employees and factory workers will have to be loyal to their boss in order to survive longer in working for that company. All of those conditions make the business really alive.
When it comes to talking about the negative effects, I don't mean to complain. I just need to elaborate things on my mind based on my observation. One of the negative effects is about the decreasing number of land. There are many wooded areas and paddy fields here in my town which have now become housings; either non subsidized or subsidized. Another negative effect is about the increasing number of people who want to look rich. Here in Indonesia, especially in my town, owning a house is already considered somewhat rich because if we own a house, we also own a land of which price is fantastic. It is a high pride for most people to be called rich.
And, in fact, there are some rich people who manage to buy a subsidized house while actually the market segmentation is for people with low income. So, those rich people who live in a subsidized housing will easily modify and beautify the building of the house, while some of their neighbors still live in their standardly built house with the struggle of financing the monthly payment to the bank. Those rich people who start to look poor in order to be 'able' to buy the subsidized house will feel the satisfaction of being regarded as the rich from their neighbors. That modifying and beautifying of the house motivates the neighbors to do the same.
If this situation continues and there is no control, let's get ready to welcome the more and more greedy people. Let's strengthen ourselves to say goodbye to green woods and paddy fields.
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