Robert Finlayson – Your monkey has been following reports that soon some foreign motor car manufacturers might be making very cheap, small cars here. That's jolly good because it will give lots of people jobs in nice, new factories, not to mention the inevitable network of places selling spare parts. It is what is known as Progress. Getting Ahead. Moving Up in the World.

Soon, everyone with access to a credit limit of around Rp 20 million ($2,340) will be able to own a four-wheeler, bringing an end to the discomfort and danger of transporting the family around on a motorcycle. Soon, we will all be able to join the ranks of the middle-class and the wealthy, who have been increasingly stuffing themselves and their large automobiles into Jakarta's limited road space.

This is a Tremendously Good Thing, partly because my middle-class friends, who complain about all the motorcycles jamming up the roads, will find they have a whole lot of new friends helping to keep the roads free-flowing (that is, extending the fantasy that cars are somehow not the problem here) and partly because it will prove that The Market is Always Right. The good people who run the car factories, as well as our wise and self-sacrificing elected members of government, fully understand the exceptional benefits that their initiative will bring to the people of Jakarta and know that the best thing to do is get out of the way of Progress.

I, for one, have unlimited confidence in the ability of Jakarta's government to deal effectively, fairly and efficiently with the forthcoming transformation of three hundred thousand motorcycles into three hundred thousand motor cars. Per year. For example, I am sure that plans are already underway to create an even greater network of elevated highways so that, eventually, the entire city will be under one enormous bridge. This will be a Great and Good Thing because we will be able to do away with the roofs on our houses, saving us a fortune, and build a few extra floors on to take them all the way up against the bottom of the jalan layang, promoting a renovation boom.

The economy will also benefit because cars crawling around the city guzzle around 12 liters of gas per 100 kilometers whereas motorcycles consume a mere 3 liters. This will do wonders for the resource sector as well as increase that warm, comforting blanket of pollution that we all know and love so dearly. There will be other unexpected side benefits, too. For example, in the unlikely event that the moratorium on deforestation actually works, we will nevertheless be well placed to keep our classy status as the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after those two giants of consumption, the USA and China. This will really prove to the world that Indonesia is no longer a developing country but has fully embraced the wisdom of the West. Everyone will be thrilled. All in all, I can see a rosy future for Jakarta's traffic – not to mention its citizens – and have nothing but praise for the titans of manufacturing and our wise leaders. Really, a job well done, chaps.

In order to prepare myself, I am going to build myself a small, car-shaped home out of palm fronds and park it in the road in front of my house. When all the rest of Jakarta's road space is taken up by stalled automobiles going nowhere, I will still have my own special place in which to while away the hours thinking I am actually going somewhere. Progress!