The economist of Cinta Laura

With Sjamsu

I can forgive you if you don't know who this year Nobel Laureates were. But if you don't know who Cinta Laura is, dude... get a life. She's the Indonesian Paris Hilton, in case you wonder. No, no... don't think of the video scandal. Cinta's still innocent. And she doesn't drive, yet.

Sjamsu just circulated the famous quotes of Cinta Laura. Thanks to someone crazy enough to collect them from various tabloids and infotainment interviews. We thought that some of her comments are examples of real-world applications of economic concepts. Here are some examples. I keep the Indonesian version because, well, it's hard to translate his words in any language to be honest.

Just a note: although the comments are in Indonesian, read them in English pronunciation.

Gains from trade:
"Bahasa Indonesia saya buruk sekali, jadi Cinta will be going to Australia to improve Bahasa Indonesia Cinta."

Efficiency and constraint (the government must learn how to do that):
"Dari kecil papa sudah punya banyak mobil waktu di German kita punya 5 mobil tapi karena garagenya tidak cukup jadi papa menjual mobil-mobil itu tinggal 2. Tapi aku paling suka yang Audi A4."

Comparative advantage:
"Kamu nggak cocok pake logat english karena kamu dari kecil tinggal di Indonesia," Cinta Laura told Samuel, a teenage newcomer artist who has an 'Indo' face but was born and grew up in Indonesia.

Intertemporal optimization:
"Banyak orang-orang yang ikut dunia entertainment langsung drop out of school, itu menurut aku that's really really stupid. Soalnya mereka nggak pikirin long term."

Coner solution in utility maximization (if one good is free, one will only consume that good and set the consumption of the other one zero):
"Aku kalow di dalam negeri sukanya liburan ke Bali karna aku punya apartmen disana."

Bequest in the overlapping generation model:
"Aku udah keliling keliling dunia, ke London, German and several countries karena papaku General Manager di Hyatt."

Survival model of firms -- heterogeneity matters:
"Not all beautiful people bisa menjadi famous."

Matching definition of transfer beneficiary:
"Aku gak suka dengan istilah boyfriend... aku lebih suka disebut teman dekat..teman buat punching, running, lari lari kecil ..."

What the f@!#???:
"Cinta mengucapkan selamat puasa semuanya. Rock on..!"