Sunday, September 28, 2014

Important life Decisions -- by KMKaung--from my FB page

And to think, Ne Win's govt in 1980s, due to his daughter failing her entrance exams in UK (medical)--opened the door a crack for 6

SIX! in a country of 50 m to come to the USA.

I was supposed to study transport ecos.

but I figured the answer did not lie in good roads.

As I told Sean Turnell recently, even then, Fort Brag in South, military base, had closeup photos of the surface of the air strip in Myitkyina.

So I segued into the study of political eco systems (in secret) with the consent of my academic supervisors at Penn.

It's the system the system the system--

sorry kzo, it is NOT location location location for B.

You will see come 2015 and the boom will bust when investors etc realize that the system will not change after the so-called election.

--I hate to be a Cassandra and throw a wet blanket over everyone--but I am often right.

I come to USA to study transportation, and US transport, even in 80s, already broken and outdated (compared say to Japan)

and besides, as I just said, transport is not the answer, SYSTEM is.  As in Politico-Eco System.

The day I picked up Charles Lindblom's book Politics and Markets in van Pelt Library was the best in my life.

That is why I am drawn to the thoughts of David Simon (The Wire), Robert Reich and Joseph Stiglitz.

And I don't really think area studies has the answer, not for Burma, at least.

And at Penns van Pelt Library, I went into the aisle with shelves that slid on both sides on tracks on the floor, to look at the Burma books --that no one read.

Some of the pages were brittle and broke as I tried to fold down a small triangle to mark pages I wished to xerox.

It was a James Bond moment--what if the shelves slid back and crushed me?

But they did not.

In there, I even found an old photo, in the Pyidawtha Plan, of all places, of my husband (later estranged) and my ex sis in law at Mingaladone Airport abt to board a flight to Moulmein.

I wish I had xeroxed that page.

We all know the Pyidawtha Plan of 1950s of U Nu flopped because rice market fell due to end of Korean War.

Charles Lindblom, Samuel P. Huntingdon, Hanna Arendt, are impt intellectual influences in my life.

I don't think you can handle things with just economics

and I think the demarcation of the disciplines is very dangerous.

When I said "disciplines" in Burma at much vaunted Inst of Ecos, pretty face wife of nemesis did not even know I was referring to subject areas. 

And in 2008-09, when I helped write or compiled The Plan for Democracy and Development for the Burmese Exile Govt., the PR man changed "systemic" to "systematic"-- which is not the same thing at all.

But come 2015, the market in Burma will surely crash when the govt reasserts control--

therefore all I have to do is sit back, relax and enjoy the trip.

It will crash, just you wait and see.

I only hope a lot of innocent householders are not left holding a lot of kyats.

Caught up in the fever, many people say they don't see prices slowing down--but think about it, no boom can last forever.

Every boom busts at some point, esp. if it is Dutch tulip fever.

Think of China--how could it keep growing at 10% every year.

When I said this also, some fool did not understand growth rates.

The larger something is, the slower will be it's rate of growth.

That is physics and nature.

I'm tired of explaining.

Go move to Burma and China, pull your kids out of college and take them too.

Just when cronies are trying to leave.

Go figure.

Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.)

9-28-2014

Photo--Asian Correspondent--one of publications wh is non mainstream.





Ruth Prawer Jhabvala--I have a volume of her short stories--which I like a great deal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Prawer_Jhabvala