Quote of the day--Dr. Findlay was my MA supervisor in
Rangoon--He suggested the topic of price of capital (interest rates) in Poland
and Burma (during the socialist period) when capital was allocated from the
center and was supposedly free.
Quote from NYTS article by Thomas Fuller, see links
below--June 5, 2015
Begin quote--
“The seed capital of the Burmese economy is heroin,” said
Ronald Findlay, an economist at Columbia University who was born in colonial
Burma, which the military government renamed Myanmar in 1989. “If that’s an
exaggeration, it’s not a huge one.”
end quote
I have heard it even fuels art prices, and I first heard
this in 2006 when an art gallery owner/curator explained it to me.
By now it is enmeshed in the system.
In 2001, an at the time new arrival from Burma said in her
presentation at the Burmese Democratic Govt in Exile meeting at the Bowen
Building in Washington, DC (The Burma Fund) that prices fluctuate with the
opium harvest, not the rice harvest as previously.
I do not know what to say.
The newest rumor is that the economic adviser was given 10
acres of land to keep his mouth shut.
Whose land? The
farmers' land.
I personally prefer not to be a part of it.
I instinctively distrust all booms.
KMKaung (Ph.D.)
6-6-2015
FB
