In Reply to: Poor posted by hotone on Wednesday, 12. May 2010 at 17:13 Bali Time:
There are the very poor, and then there are a lot of Balinese who live a hand-to-mouth existence. They might have a mobile phone (the land line infrastructure is poorly developed), and even a motorbike that they make monthly payments on (with 18% interest). But they have nothing behind that. If their family gets sick, something has to be sold to pay for medicine/treatment. There is nothing put aside for emergencies, they have no insurance, and they often don't own their homes (thanks to westerners driving up the land prices to something that can never be reached by the average person).
As others have said, some are better off and play the 'poor' card. But mostly, they don't have that much.
Balinese generally have a better standard of living than the islands east of Bali. Javenese, particularly those in Jakarta, "generally" have a better standard of living than Balinese.