Enthralling

DMX came up in conversation the other day. Besides being a terrible artist, it looks like his personal standing isn’t much better. In fact, dare I say it, it may be worse. An excerpt:

“But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”

Right, exactly.
It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.”

Notes

So this is not very focused, but Ha Noi is somewhat the exact opposite of Sai Gon. Up here there are many lakes and parks, bridges going across the river, something that can almost be called an elevated highway, walkable sidewalks, and a police force that crackdown on things, including curfew in the backpackers’ district.

Sai Gon, though, has almost no bureaucratic taste to it, barely any bridges, no elevated highway at all, terrible sidewalks, hardly any police, and less cars. The city is nearly 800 years younger than Ha Noi, too.

Some unifying things going for them is expansions of infrastructure, including international terminals and metro lines. It’s an oddity that  both cities developed on only one side of their respective rivers. That will likely change, however, and for the better.

A sight to behold

What is better than a graph? A graph in motion! Here is some helpful information on banking, assets, and loans.

Then again

It’s every economists favorite past-time to belittle sociologists, but here Tim Harford gives some praise. All in all it’s the “what works best” thing going on. If that means economics needs to include sociology, so be it.

Yes, yes, no

It’s interesting how people have such a large distaste for anything corporate. Is it because there is no one person that they find it hard to have positive feelings for such a dynamic and efficient system? Microloans are the new “it” thing, but they do not provide solutions to developmental problems on their own. Lest we forget, second-time borrowers also have staggering default rates.

From the New Yorker:

“But thinking that everyone is, and should be, an entrepreneur leads us to underrate the virtues of larger businesses and of the income that a steady job can provide. To be sure, for some people the best route out of poverty will be a bank loan. But for most it’s going to be something much simpler: a regular paycheck.”

Whining about dining

In the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, food is served all at once so that everyone can enjoy their meal together. Here, however, that meme has not yet taken hold. Instead, dishes are brought out as soon as they are done being cooked, meaning that folks get to watch others chow down. Weird!

Counterintuitive

Why are Laos and Burma so much more appealing to visit than, say, the Philippines or Thailand? Because they are poorer. Megan McArdle brilliantly writes:

“Deep poverty is much more picturesque than moderate poverty. Poor countries have their old colonial buildings still standing, because no one had the money (or the reason) to tear them down and put up something bigger. The countryside is dotted with adorable houses made out of natural materials and natives wearing colorful traditional garb. Animals graze in verdant fields, besides teams of sowers and reapers. Middle income countries are smoggy, and almost everything looks like a cheaper, shabbier version of what you get in the US. Scenic landscapes are despoiled by cinderblock buildings with hideous tin roofs, or trailers; cities are choked with boxy modern buildings that look something like our housing projects. The genteel decay that looks gothic and intriguing on an old Victorian mansion just looks seedy when it’s eating away at badly poured concrete. Affluent Americans underestimate the utility value of things like having personal space, or an automobile.”

The importance of ports

Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York/New Jersey, Tokyo/Yokohama, Seoul/Busan, Taipei/Kaohsiung. All ports and all rocking cities to say the least. Connection?

Viet Nam still lacks a true deep-water port, which can have huge implications for future development. This is due to many reasons, including a lack of development, funding, stability, and geographical hindrances. The biggest problem today is the fact that, despite adequate support from financial sectors, there just isn’t a good place to put such a facility. All of the rivers and bays that could be potential ports are too shallow or fill up with silt too quickly for it to be dredged. Singapore has had a huge project into building its amazing port system, but they have more state control for one, and they are much more economically developed.

The benefits of such a port in Viet Nam would be immense, attracting more investment, cutting costs across the board, and increasing living standards within the country. Sai Gon, Hai Phong, and Da Nang already have ports, but they are not yet worthy of other world powers, and if Vietnam is serious about being a front runner in the new world economy, it desperately needs the rewards that a huge seaport can bring.

Dani!

Interesting for many reasons. Some points are succinct, like The Economist being very aggressive in its writing style. Not everything they write is perfect, but even they know that and willingly admit it in later issues. Still, it is some of the best news out there and serves a purpose.

Also, it goes to show that every stance should be reviewed again and again because you never know just exactly how you feel about certain things. Sometimes you have more information than at others. Who knew.

Hey, ho

Wow.

Winning line: “There is a ‘ho belt‘ phenomenon nearly synonymous with the ‘Bible Belt’.”

On a related note

Regardless of the cause, climate change is happening. It always does, but the current trend is that the poles are warming up rapidly and ice is melting, thus raising sea levels. What this means for the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam is quite worrying. Most of the land is only a few feet about sea level. Already there are many fluctuations depending on what season it is, wet or dry.

The delta is the most productive land in the country, so if that base is lost in the next hundred years, it could spell disaster, or if not that at least much pain. This is also ignoring the fact that millions of people call the delta their home, though the severity of such problems depends on its swiftness.

Cool! Or shall I say warm?

From Scott G. Borgerson’s Arctic Meltdown:

“The private sector is investing billions of dollars in a fleet of Arctic tankers. In 2005, there were 262 ice-class ships in service worldwide and 234 more on order. The oil and gas markets are driving the development of cutting-edge technology and the construction of new types of ships, such as double-acting tankers, which can steam bow first through open water and then turn around and proceed stern first to smash through ice. These new ships can sail unhindered to the Arctic’s burgeoning oil and gas fields without the aid of icebreakers. Such breakthroughs are revolutionizing Arctic shipping and turning what were once commercially unviable projects into booming businesses.”

The power of incentives once again proves to be damn powerful, quick, and efficient.

Wearing helmets

A big social awareness campaign in the States is to make sure that when kids ride bicycles they wear helmets. No one ever wears a helmet when biking around the city. No one.

Kids are young, have a lot of potential, are small and vulnerable to damage, and have their entire lives ahead of them. This makes them prime candidates for insurance, which comes by way of helmets. This goes for bikes and motorbikes.

Now, the situation is a lil different for motorbikes because the kids aren’t themselves tooling around on them, though they certainly will in the future if they make it that far in life.  Parents do not purchase kids helmets even though it is their responsibility to drive their precious, slimy bundle of love abouts. You’d think that the children would come first, but as of yet they don’t. Seeing a child with a helmet is still very much a rarity, and a sad one at that.

Yikes, bikes

Single speeds serve a purpose, but they are not as cool, dynamic, or useful as their geared brethren. For one, single speeds are slow! They do not economize on the speed that you have already attained. What a shame. Really, it is. I’ve seen a guy on a geared bike keeping pace with motorbikes in the city, but all the folks riding single speeds are on jaunts that are faster than walking, but only moderately so. Surely any form of bike is enjoyable and a step up from walking, especially when multiple people can hop on, as is the standard here. But it must be kept in mind that gears work wonders.

It’s also weird how there is, for the most part, only one size of bike. Kid’s bikes are taking the world by storm, but VN is not privy to that awesome fad. All over the place wee children who can’t even come close to sitting on the seat use adult bikes to get around. Their perseverance is laudable, but for bigger folks it can be annoying because the bikes are too small. So it goes.

Uselessness of horns

Like car alarms, no one cares about horns because they are abused to such a great extent. The usefulness of honking decreases as others take part. So, using a horn is a Nash equilibrium that carries some pretty hefty externalities, such as making me go deaf or lose sleep when I want to nap on a bus ride. So sad.

Can you hear that?

Because it is probably Toni Braxton’s Unbreak My Heart or Seasons In The Sun by Terry Jacks. God awful in every way imaginable.

Troubles back home

Lest we forget, America has 1 out of every 100 adults in prison. Yikes! That is pretty frightening. There are many reasons for it all, but one of the scarier things is how inconsistent we are as people in doling out sentences. It is almost unfathomable. Democracy is not the end all be all that some think it is. This holds true for juries as well.

We are all supposed to be equal before the law, but how true is that even today?

The battle of the century

Chopsticks or knives, forks, and spoons? Which is better? Who knows! Well, at the cheap eateries around town they offer both and the youngins prefer the spoons and forks. I gotta say, they have a leg up. They are so versatile and easy to use it’s kind of hard to beat. Chop sticks are nice for some things, but they only work well in bowls, and even then they can be trying. For now there is a happy mix, and I’m happy with it, too.

Mobility

A lot of Vietnamese haven’t been around their own country. If you mention a place, a big place like Ha Noi or Hue, a majority of people go “Oh, I’ve never been there.” I guess that’s what having a dynamic economy provides, travel for business and pleasure. I think it’s a good thing.

Hop on in

Private bus companies have huge fleets of 12 to 15 passenger vans. They are great for getting around and are pretty dirt cheap. One of the nice things is that they also stop along the way to pick up other folks who would like to get on.

Last week some friends and I were coming back to the city from a national park and didn’t have tickets, so we just flagged down a bus. From the looks of it there was no room, but a slick man in charge of the operation insisted that there was. The five of us piled on in after stashing our bags in the back. There were already 16 people stuffed in, and we had no problem getting in.

All along the way back we picked up people and dropped them off. The operation ran like butter. It’s exciting stuff, and who doesn’t mind having 25 people sharing such a lovely experience?