Sometimes stewing leads to good results--from my memoir

I remember all the years in the 1980s when D would meet me at Trenton Train Station to visit his mother and the rest of his family in Princeton.

In the car, he would tell me about what had happened--for e.g U ZB came back from Burma and was steaming (in 1988) and I would steam some more.

Eventually all that steaming like garbanzo beans in Rumi's poetry who are pushed down by a ladle to cook some more,

became my Ph.D. disstn and more.

In my disstn I proposed a theory of why totalitarian countries do not develop, looking at Burma, the then Soviet Union, and Zaire, and management theory.

They don't develop because they hold everything down--

and they don't allow anything independent to grow or flourish.

Then they become victims of their own top down control/command economy.

I tried to explain this to some journalists, but they just looked blank when I said Planning Theory, Management Models, Development Models, defects of central planning.

A sort of summary is in my 1994? Asian Survey article--it is being cited a lot these days.

It outlines the "models" Burma has been following and why it all failed.

If you wish to talk to me about the current so-called reforms, message me and set up a formal interview.

I can tell you why it is so-called and not real, and also why if it goes on this way--

1.  the temporary hopeful boom will slump--probably after this 2015 so-called election.
2.  it will go the way of Russia, with a lot of oligarchs/cronies and pol section (read "Putin") fighting the oligarchs/cronies.

--and more pressing on dissent and media.

THE TEST--

Which general or crony (I just mis-typed "corny") has sent their kids to attend univ in Burma--

tell me that.

Then you can decide whether it has succeeded or not.

Where do they buy their property or keep their accts.

I have not heard it is in Burma.

I usually hear or read "houses in Shanghai, children at Shanghai Normal Univ., in Geneva, Singapore, in Dubai, in UAE." "They have all got US visas now."

Even Mr NW himself in 1980s went to W Germany to buy arms with a reported trunkful of gems, not his own kyats.  (Far Eastern Eco Review)

Go figure, I am sick of talking to "tango dancers"--they can dance with the Burmese bear till it slaps them wet wun poke te--taking off 1/2 their faces, break their backs or all slip on the floors--

it is not my concern--I am just an observer, not a dancer,

I did not make the slick dance floor, I did not tell them to wear high heels

I did not tell them "go tango with the junta."

copyright kmk
from my memoir A Front Row Seat.

4-28-2015