American politics and Vietnam today

This isn’t really about Vietnam but is kind of my formal exit from politics… Until that nonsense pulls me back in.

Here in Vietnam no one talks about politics, probably because there is little they could do about it anyway. But is there really anything Americans can do about politics? At least in the long run?

Having been away from daily political discussion has allowed me to look at American politics in a very different way. What I have concluded is that political parties and ideologies are no different than religion. If someone accepts a belief, lets say for example universal health care, is good OR bad, there is absolutely nothing that can be said to change that persons mind. That person will also spin information in ways that are sometimes incredibly unacademic to “prove” that their view is the best one, be that supporting their view or attacking their opponents. The way in which politicians make pawns of and/or belittle actual academics to their further their cause angers me to no end

Let’s take the new socialized health care situation. I am going to be honest, I actually have no idea what is in the bill, nor do I really care, and that also won’t be relevant for what I am going to say. Here is what will happen. Since the Democrats now have a super majority, the bill will pass and the US will have some form of socialized health care. Like all new laws it will receive mixed reviews. But since this law is blatantly socialist and will take years to iron out, hundreds of Republicans will use it as a way to win seats from Dems who voted for it. This will happen regardless of any objective research that comes out, because those studies won’t be mentioned in campaign ads and people are to damn lazy to look it up for themselves.

And to be honest with you I have no idea why Republicans are actually trying to stop this from being passed, as far as I can see it is the best chance they have to reverse the catastrophic damage Bush did and win some seats.

The other thing that has always been present in in American politics, and is very present in the new health care debate, is the “what if?” question. This brings me right back to Vietnam. In the 1960’s it was “what if this obscure third world country turns communist?” so we spent billions and 50,000+ Americans were killed, there was riots in the streets and all hell broke loose. Then we lost and they actually became communist. The country’s actual name is ”The Socialist Republic of Vietnam” guess what this socialist country doesn’t have? Free health care, free school, social security, unemployment benefits, price controls, and the list goes on. Remember the Hanoi Hilton prison, where McCain resided when he was in Vietnam? it is now a high rise office/condo building. In many ways it is much more capitalist, especially at a primal level than, than America is.

My point is that just because something is implemented, it does not mean that everything people say is going to happen will. In fact most of it probably won’t, especially in America where the balance of power is always shifting.

You know what you can do if things actually do get really bad? You can move out of the country, that’s right just leave, I did it and I am just fine. And since when the hell is it unamerican to go to unexplored territory and set up a new life for yourself, hell that is how the country grew to be what it is today. That rational makes fighting over politics pretty worthless.

To be honest I am happy for the break, because even if we Americans have freedom of press, our system is rigged so we break even in the end. I say forget about it, sit back, watch the fireworks, and maybe try to make some money off the idiots in Washington. That is my rational self interest.

Gun Control in Vietnam and why it works

I live in a somewhat slummy area of Hanoi. Most of our neighbors are very lower class and the houses are pretty much thrown together. We always lock our doors at night or whenever we leave because a break in may indeed occur. However there is one thing I am never worried about, gun violence. I would actually extend this to armed crime of any kind. This is quite different from America indeed, there was more than one occasion when I was riding the “L” in Chicago last summer when I would have felt safer if I were armed. Even Ann Arbor has a handful of armed robberies every year.

Gun laws are very strict in Vietnam, if you get caught with a gun, you go to jail. I have only seen two guns that were owned by civilians here and that was deep in the northern mountains. Here I am with one of the guns.

This gun was a flint lock variety and over 100 years old. I highly doubt the thing is very accurate over 10 yards, but the family still had to keep it hidden because if it was found by authorities, they would have gone to prison.

As many of you know, I am of the firm belief that gun control in the US is a failed cause. Anyone who has any doubts about this, please look at the south side of Chicago, Detroit, DC or any other large city that has strict gun laws. The south side even has a ban on handguns, though you wouldn’t know it with all the kids getting murdered by gangbangers. There are two reasons why gun control won’t work in the US (and neither one has to do with the 2nd amendment, but since few of our politicians seem to care about the constitution anyway, the point is really moot), 1) there exists a thriving black market for guns in the US that will not go away even if all guns are banned for civilian use, and 2) the justice system in America is screwed up to the point that enforcing gun laws correctly is nearly impossible.

The latter point is something I want to expand on. In Vietnam, justice is swift and merciless. If you commit a crime, and are caught, you will be in prison within the month. If a cop says you did something, that is that and the cops can’t be found to have handled evidence wrong. So unless OJ bribed someone, he would have been guilty. Part of this swiftness is also due to the lack of frivolous lawsuits tying up the system, most people here don’t know what the hell a lawsuit is. Granted, if you are actually innocent, you are pretty much screwed, but the fact remains, the kind of crime that exists in America does not exist here. The fact also remains that in the US, for every one accused person that is innocent, there are at least 100 who are guilty.

The gun crimes that do occur in Vietnam also quite unlike the ones that occur in the US. In Vietnam it is usually rich people killing rich people, not poor people killing poor people. Why is it that way? I am not really sure, it may be because rich people feel they will be able to bribe someone if they get caught, and poor people think it is too big of a risk, especially considering there are huge incentives for turning someone in (you usually get some kind of kickback for your information).

Something that I am slowly learning is that ideology blinds people and stops ideas from being fully realized. Here is a great example of how gun control actually works, but liberals in America will never promote this model because in order for it to work, all the laws that they have enacted in the name of keeping innocent people out of prison would have to be destroyed. Those on the right would be opposed to this model because it takes away their guns, yet they still stand up for police officers who use excessive force and complain about crime in the inner cities being out of control. Libertarian folk will be against this model because they actually do read the constitution and will say this model is a violation of liberty all around, but what they cannot say is that it doesn’t work.

While I certainly sympathize with the libertarians on this issue, I also like living in a big city without worrying about a gun getting stuck in my face. So I guess I really don’t mind how they do business here.

F.A. Hayek and Vietnamese Traffic

As part of my reading for the free market internship program I was in this summer, I had to read the essay Rinkonomics: A Window on Spontaneous Order by Daniel B. Klein, which can be found here. When I got to Vietnam I realized how similar the traffic situation was here to the roller rink situation he described.

Vietnamese traffic is, at first glance, chaotic. There are few traffic lights and no stop signs. To make matters even more complicated, at least 90% of motorists are on motorbikes. Americans, who are used to a very structured traffic system, cannot understand why there are not massive collisions and bodies flying everywhere.

The reason may be best attributed to the Spontaneous Order theory, supported by F.A. Hayek and the Austrian School Economists. Hayek said “A spontaneous order is a system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error.”

Even though it seems like the chaos would result in many accidents, it does not because all motorists are pursuing their own self interest; Everyone wants to get where they have to go but no one wants to get injured.

It seems to me that while I do see many accidents, there are really no more than I see on a daily basis in big American cities. This is despite the fact that the traffic here is generally motorbikes which are certainly more prone to accidents than cars are, if for no other reason than they must be balanced and do not stop nearly as easily. However people go about their daily lives with relatively few problems.

Hayek himself noted that the market does occasionally fail. Hayek’s answer for why the market fails, was outside influences. These include increases in the money supply causing artificially low prices and interest rates, as well as regulations that also cause prices to be artificially high or low (ie farm subsidies).

The Vietnamese traffic equivalent to government intervention and regulations, are the western influenced roads and traffic signals. The majority of crashes occur on major roads, and those with stop signs and traffic lights. A common time for these accidents to occur on roads with traffic signals, is when people simply ignore stop signs or go early on a green and late on a red.

What happens on roads without traffic signals, is that everyone slows down and weaves their way through the traffic coming from the other directions and a spontaneous order, like Hayek described, emerges that allows for minimal accidents. Those who do not adapt to this order crash, or in business terms, fail.

On western style roads, with predetermined turning points, much like the “Michigan Left” this system also fails quite often. I was a victim of this regulation. Normally making a left hand turn involves inching through on coming traffic, which is watching for such activity (looking out for their own interest) and swerve or slow down to avoid you, and then making the turn. As I was heading down a major road, traffic was flowing in a prescribed direction and places to turn were clearly marked. A man attempted to make an illegal left hand turn and I hit him, causing me more damage than him. Had the road been a normal Vietnamese road, I would likely have been vigilant of the intersection and known to look for anyone trying to make a left hand turn through the middle of traffic, but because of the regulations, I did not.

Risk also plays a vital role in the order of things. In business, making risky loans, making risky investments, or consistently breaching contracts, often results in failure. Here racing, taking turns too fast, or my favorite, texting while driving your motorbike, will result in a crash… or someone (ie George) getting pissed at your stupidity and knocking you into a parked taxi.

To be fair there are often things that happen, just as in a true free market economy, that also cause crashes, or failure other than regulation. The dog incident described in Getting Into Accidents, is one of those things. Though it could be argued that I should have been aware that hitting a dog with a motorbike is not like hitting a dog with a car, part of the trial and error process Hayek mentioned. This process has indeed made me a better driver, having now gone a month without an accident. However, regulation of Vietnamese traffic, just as in economics, has done much more harm than good.

Global Volunteer Network and why you shouldn’t join it or give it any money

Today I noticed that one of my facebook friends, who is pretty much just that, a facebook friend, not even an acquaintance, had posted photos of Indonesia, where she has been living since graduating in 2007. They looked pretty cool so I checked them out. I noticed one of the photos was of a classroom, so I figured she was an English teacher. I checked out her profile a little more and found out this was indeed the case, except that she was a VOLUNTEER English teacher, I am not sure what NGO (non governmental organization for those who don’t know) she is working for but she was a member of the group for the NGO “Global Volunteer Network” (It is impossible for her to be in this program as they do not have placements in Indonesia)

George has told me about these things and he has a love hate relationship with them. On one hand he hates them because they make you pay a ton of money to VOLUNTEER to teach and the owners of the NGO get rich off of your money, plus the money from donors, in this case Bill Gates is the largest donor. George loves them because he wants to open a school one day and cut expenses by having an NGO like this provide him with what is basically slave labor.

In general I hate NGO’s because not only are they filled with stupid liberals who don’t know how to do anything, but also because, especially in Africa, they often make things worse. All the while the people at the top of these things who pretend to be doing all this great stuff for humanity, are more often than not living high on the hog at the expense of those they are trying to “help”. George says that there is one NGO very similar to this that he has heard of where the owners are billionaires.

The scheme works like this, they provide you with a “job” housing, and some food, you pay for the rest, your airline ticket, extra meals, EVERYTHING. On their end they charge you WAY more than the cost of living and then pocket your money.

So when I saw that this facebook friend was supporting this organization I decided to look them up and see if they were up to the same thing, sure enough they were indeed. I found their page and under recent news it was announced that they had contributed $5000 to one of their sites, an orphanage, in Vietnam. Naturally I wanted to know more about the program in Vietnam. What I found out was almost appalling. The cost of volunteering for one month was nearly $1000. I asked George what living costs would be and he said, given what they were providing, no more than $250. So where exactly does the other $750 go? Remember this group is funded by Bill Gates and numerous other big donors, yet $5000 was all they gave to the orphanage in Vietnam, and that is only $500 more than what they net in a month with the 5-6 volunteers they have at the center, why is the orphanage not getting THAT every month no matter what?

There were several sites available to teach at, one being the orphanage. The others however were schools where kids pay to go. The amount of hours the volunteers work are slightly more than what George has now, and he makes nearly $1,500 a month. So now the school makes money because they don’t have to pay their teachers and the people who own the school, which in many cases is the NGO itself, get rich in the process. Even if the NGO does not own the school they get money from whoever does to find volunteers. Furthermore the site says that “As placements are not well resourced, you may like to bring items with you to help you with the activities you will be taking part in.” and the $1000 a month you are already paying, $750 of which basically disappears, is not nearly enough to cover basic supplies? I’m sorry but that is a crock of shit.

People, especially those “looking to help” are way too gullible. Hardly any of the foreign aid money or supplies we give to Africa actually helps the people there. In many cases, such as with clothing donations, it is simply stolen and sold for a 100% profit. In other cases, free food gives farmers an incentive not to farm, and that hurts the world. Most of the world’s food shortages have been caused by failed government policies and foreign aid, not weather.

Looking back through the “news” section of their website, there are listings of what money they have given and to whom. I can count a little more than $60,000 since December. In 2006 it was reported that they placed 2000 volunteers. That number has probably gone up but for sake of argument let’s say it has not. Now let’s say they make an average of $500 a month per volunteer, not including the money they save from having to pay them. That is $1 MILLION a month! So if they made $3,000,000 in the last three months why did they only give away $60,000? This is not counting the money that they receive from donors like Bill Gates, just the money they make off of volunteers.

So for anyone who is considering working for one of these things, please take the time to realize that your goodwill is being used for huge financial gain and you are getting a really raw deal. Teaching English here in Vietnam, or elsewhere in the third world, is a way to make a living but not a way to get rich, though you just might if you open a school yourself. In the end someone is making money so it might as well be you, as opposed to some jackass with an NGO.

People, and why it is best if we let them help themselves.

When I was in my second year at the University of Michigan (which was basically my first senior year as I was a transfer) I took the worst class I have ever taken. It was a history class called “American Foreign Policy” or something like that. At first I was very excited because I already knew a lot about foreign policy as it was a good half of my Political Science background, and I thought it would be great to take something that focused on it’s history. That was until I found out that it was cross listed with the American Culture department, which basically exists to indoctrinate students that all white men throughout history are the cause of all major disasters in the world.

This class was no different; instead of objectively studying foreign policy, the class focused only on the wrongs America has done. The professor (Paul Alexander Kramer), who is no longer employed by the University, kept bringing up the “white man’s burden” which basically was a policy that was put in place by a number of European nations and the US, to take it upon ourselves to “civilize” these people. I have a number of issues with consistently bring up this topic and the wrongs white American males have committed, namely that if a class was devoted entirely to the misdoings of any other ace or culture, that class would be considered “racist” and immediately banned

The biggest complaint I have however, is that people like the professor in question are also those that will argue for foreign aid to these countries. As far as I am concerned that view is a continuation of the aforementioned “white man’s burden” in that they feel these people need our help and money as they cannot earn it themselves. This view overlooks the fact that many of these third world countries, like Vietnam as well as many African nations, are full of people and resources that they themselves are fully capable of developing. It is also assumes that these people are somehow different and will not just live off the handouts we give them and will automatically change their lives for the better and therefore be more prosperous. This is pretty much the definition of racism.

The problem is that people are pretty much the same all over the world. For every “good” person, who may indeed use money, food, and other “given” things to better their lives, there are ten who are more than willing to accept handouts as a way of earning a living. It also ignores the fact that, if you take a random sample of people anywhere in the world, there will always be 20% who are smart, 20% who are dumb, and 60% that are somewhere in the middle. Just like in America.

For example; at the gaming center we go to they have employees who do many menial tasks including selling drinks to gamers. One of these individuals comes up to us every time and asks us “Samurai” which is a type of energy drink. Neither George or I have ever ordered a Samurai, and to the contrary always order a red Sting (a strawberry flavored energy drink) and a Pepsi respectively. We are also the only white people that frequent this establishment. Yet this idiot always assumes we want Samurai, which pisses George off to no end. I don’t care how much aid we give, this guy he will still be an idiot and fail.

In my last few months here I have seen just how similar people are. Take the mountain adventure as an example; the family we stayed with is dirt poor, they literally have a toilet that is a hole that drains down the mountain. However that didn’t stop the father from kicking us out on what amounts to Christmas eve because we were kind enough to bring a homeless kid whose manners were not up to par with what he found to be “respectable behavior”. It also does not stop him from beating his wife and acting all macho. The kids and wife do not deserve this kind of treatment, but if we give them money do you think they will benefit? Or do you think the father will just take it and spend it how he pleases? I say let him poop in a hole.

Giving money to these people is not going to change the fact that this is a “machismo” culture, like most around the world, and the people here will not be any better off. Also what is going to stop the government from simply taking the aid we give to the people by raising taxes etc? What is going stop the CEO’s who we are bailing out from messing up yet again?

A little mentioned fact about Tibet is that before China took it over, it was a serious caste system. The ruling Lama class treated the peasants about the same, if not worse, than the feudal lords of the dark ages treated their serfs. While I doubt the current Dalai Lama would do such things, and the Chinese government are far from being saints, I am not too excited about Tibet returning to it’s former ways.

In Africa, there are people who make money basically getting clothing from charities in America and then reselling those clothes for a 100% profit. There are also farmers who have stopped farming because they can get food and money from foreign aid coming into the country. This basically means a whole generation has now forgotten how to farm, stopped innovating technology to better help them farm and has become dependent on the aid coming in.

No one asks, do they really deserve this? In America, people like the father in the mountains are thrown in jail and their children taken away from them. Here it is part of the culture. We take the kids away because we know that growing up in a house of violence towards women and children will, more often than not, lead to those children doing the same. Yet because these people have to use a hole as a toilet, we feel that they are disadvantaged and feel the need to give them money.

Screw that. A business does not care about people it cares about money, as do most people, including the ones getting handouts. Eventually people realize that doing business with a country that has no money or unions is more profitable than doing business with a country that does. The people that learn how to attract that business benefit, while those who don’t, fail. Figuring this out has nothing to do with race, gender, class or any other demographic. Just because someone is born into wealth does not mean they will keep it, conversely someone who is born into poverty will not always stay that way. Free trade is by far the best way to improve everyones lives, if a country or people are allowed to do business with little government intervention they will prosper, though not even that will change their culture. Saudi Arabia, and UAE are two of the wealthiest countries on the planet, women and minorities there ain’t doing so great either.

Conversely, giving people money will not change their culture or way of life, if anything it only extends the sorrows they face as there is no incentive to change. It is only when the people of the country themselves stand up and say “we have had enough” does a culture change. In America, it was not England, France or any other outside force that brought an end to slavery, large scale racism and discrimination against women, it was the people themselves that realized this was wrong. Later business realized that hiring minorities and women would bring more profit than only hiring rich men.

Third world countries are no different. Wars cost money, keeping people in line costs money. Say what you want about the revolution and it’s heroes, but the truth is America was founded because it was costing the British too much money to keep us in line. Same for most of the old colonized countries that are now independent. Many African state lines were drawn because the British, French, Portuguese and others thought they were doing them a favor by giving them their own countries, instead of letting borders be drawn out by war, as their countries were. The result has been massive civil war and genocide.

As for sweatshops, and other things that liberals tend to care about, the same thing will happen, eventually workers will get tired of the situation form unions, and perhaps eventually get more benefits. Then another country will realize that it’s people will work for pennies, which for the record is more than enough to make a good living in many countries around the world, and businesses will abandon the unionized countries for lower paying ones. The original countries will then experience what the US is going through right now.

The people of the US are not smarter or better than the people of any other country in the world. Our government might be more stable than some, but everyday officials in every level of government give contracts to people that will give them money or power, just like every other country no matter how rich or poor.

The people of Vietnam or any other third world country do not deserve a handout any more than the CEO’s of American banks. It is up to the people to make these changes for themselves, just as people all over the world have done throughout history.

Godless Commies?

I went to an elementary school that was about as redneck and backwards as you can get. The vast majority of kids came from conservative families and went to church regularly. However looking back the school did a great job acknowledging that religion did indeed exist while not overly mixing it with school functions. Christmas plays were secular, but it was acknowledged that it was also Jesus’ birthday. Similarly the Jewish and Muslim kids, and there were a few, got Jewish and Muslim holidays off. On the day before Jews fast, the Jewish kids got to eat a big bag of chips during class. If anyone bitched they were told to shove it. This is pretty much how they deal with religion here in Vietnam.
One reason that America gave for the need to abolish communism, was that they did not believe in god and would suppress religion. Because in politics EVERYTHING that your enemy thinks must be wrong, we did stupid things like put “In God we Trust” on our money and add “One nation under God” to the pledge of allegiance to show that we did, in fact, believe in God. Nowadays America has turned this into a battle yet again with the religious right pushing for stupid laws that restrict basic freedoms because their religion says it is a sin to be gay or be “obscene,” overlooking the fact that the constitution, not the bible, is the supreme law of the land. On the other side stupid liberals sue governments for displaying mangers on Christmas or schools for “forcing” kids to say the under god line because that is somehow promoting Christianity, overlooking the fact that Christmas is actually a public holiday that is also a Christian holiday and that saying “One nation under God” doesn’t really equate to prayer by any religions standards
So one would expect that this country of communists would be even more strict about separation of church and state than liberal America, right? Well not really. First off religion is certainly not suppressed here. Every house and hotel has a Buddhist shrine. This is for good luck, the people may not be that religious but good luck is always a great thing to have. The shrines are usually dedicated to an ancestor, and food and drink that the ancestor liked are offered as gifts. Last week the family who owns the hotel I stay in had a celebration for the anniversary of the death of one of their relatives.
There are also plenty of Christians here, and to be honest the Christians here probably follow that religion a lot more closely than the Christians in America. Similarly I would think that Buddhists in America follow that religion more closely than the Buddhists here. On Christmas we encountered a pack of evangelical Christians spreading the good word everywhere, some of them even wore communist stars.
We went to a Buddhist grave yard which was very interesting not only because the graves were all little alters, but because these were people, from the north, who were communist and whose graves were clearly religious. There were even some graves of people who were Christian that also were Buddhist shrines. Really a cross on top of a Buddhist shrine (see picture above). Today George went to visit some of his wife’s family in the countryside and saw a very old Christian church, untouched by the communists.
Possibly the most telling example of how Vietnam feels about religion is found on the grounds of the Ho chi Minh museum. Here is this big museum, decked out with the hammer and sickle and communist propaganda everywhere, and right in front of it is a Buddhist temple, two in fact. Seriously this area is their national mall. Can you imagine the liberals outrage at two Christian churches right on the national mall? And these people are communist. I don’t know what the significance of the first temple is but the second is the famous one pillar pagoda, made to look like a lotus blossom.
The pagoda is actually the second one pillar pagoda, the first was built long ago, then as the French were leaving in 1954, they destroyed it. Ho Chi Minh then came in and rebuilt it. Yes that is right, the godless commie Ho Chi Minh used communist funds to rebuild a religious temple, that was destroyed by our allies, the French. So clearly it was absolutely necessary that we intervened in their little civil war after that because the communists were going to destroy religion… oh wait.
If religion is the opiate of the masses, it is a drug these communists have certainly decriminalized.

The News, and how Americans don’t get it

There is a lot of things that I like about America, and many things i am sure I will come to miss during my stay here. One thing I will not miss though is American Cable News.

As many of you know, the only decent way to get the news, especially world news, in the US is to listen to the BBC or go to their website. This is because all news organizations in the US have become sensationalized. For some reason Americans insist on hearing about the latest crap on Britney Spears or whoever rather than what is actually happening in the world so that is what CNN and MSNBC and FOX cover, maybe with a different slant but it is all the same crap. Then Americans act surprised when other countries think we are a bunch of stupid rednecks… Really? Is it THAT surprising? Remember four years ago when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and totally owned them for what a crappy job they did? Sure they got canceled but nothing has really changed in coverage, and it doesn’t have to be that way. There is CNN over here too, but it is different. It is a world version of CNN so they actually report the news instead of the latest OJ Simpson trial.

In America everything has to be sensationalized, every issue must have a winner and loser RIGHT NOW. The other day, while at Beer Corner, talking with a bunch of Aussies about the pros and cons of America; George brought up something that happened in his class. A little girl, who was Catholic, was telling him how her church had a Santa Clause come in and give them KFC vouchers for a kids meal or something. George said it would make news in America because all the fundamentalists would freak out about a Santa in church. But I disagree, the reason it would make news is not because of fundamentalists; after all there are plenty of fundamentalists in other countries even Vietnam. No, the reason it would make news is because Americans like hear about stupid things that are not important.

Really, all this “culture war” crap doesn’t exist in other countries, or if it does it comes second because it is not important. The world is not going to end if gay people have a parade or if a city puts up a manger, so why the hell are we A. suing each other over these things and B. allowing these stories to dominate our news media? Seriously this is what Americans fight about, and it is these issues that get ratings, and that is why we look like stupid rednecks to the rest of the world.

As I was saying I am pretty disappointed that I get better news in a socialist republic, than in a country where the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights is the freedom of speech.

The Communists AGHHHHHHHHHH… not so much

I entered grade school just as the Berlin wall fell, so I missed out on all the “red scare” propaganda that my father’s generation had to put up with. Now the fear mongers have recognized that it is those damned terrorists that we need to worry about and we can’t carry toothpaste on the airplane. Now it seems the Vietnamese commies don’t pose that much of threat, as if this third world country could have ever mounted an offensive attack against the US. As most intelligent Americans know, we have nothing to fear from the allegedly communist countries out there. China is the best example of this. China is growing at an astronomical rate and the government, though openly communist, knows that it must continue to do so if it’s people are to prosper. I recently befriended a Vietnamese stockbroker and he told me that Vietnam is actually right behind China in growth of GDP (Though the 7 year old Vietnamese stock market is still very unstable, kinda like *cough* Wall Street *cough*).

That being said, Vietnam is officially a Socialist Republic, though I would say that the people here are communist like Jon Stewart is Jewish. I guess you could say that they are “culturally communist.” I will deal with religion in a later post but I think it is a good example to use for this case. Many “Christians” in the US only go to church on Christmas and Easter and certainly do not live to the standards that religion demands, yet when they are asked their religion, they say “Christian“ without missing a beat. The same is true for economic philosophy here; the government and the people are obviously not communist but they still claim to be.

Because the country is so capitalist, seeing all the communist stuff here is pretty funny. For example all of the government officials wear uniforms that look like the ones the communists wore in 1980’s spy movies. Next to beer corner is a school that pumps out communist propaganda and songs from a loud speaker. The songs are especially funny because no one can understand the words because they are not using the tones correctly when they sing. The flag of Vietnam is red with a big gold star in the middle, bringing communist imagery to mind (I also find it very amusing that there are many street vendors that sell t shirts with the flag and even Ho Chi Mihn’s picture).

My favorite so far has been the Christmas decorations. Over one of the main streets here there are banner-like Christmas lights with different Christmas objects in the middle. One is a snowflake (by the way it doesn’t snow in Vietnam), one is a Santa Clause, one is a Christmas tree, and one is a hammer and sickle. Now really think about that… communist symbolism to celebrate a Christian holiday that has turned into a secular holiday based around the buying of goods. If that isn’t a sign of “cultural communism” I don’t know what is.

Beer Corner Capitalism

Investor Jim Rogers has been quoted as saying “In the 19^th century the smart investor moved to London, in the 20^th New York, and in the 21^st he will move to Asia.” Jim Rogers himself has moved to Singapore. The reason this quote sticks out for me is not because I have met successful investors, but because it is very hard to describe where I live.

I am in what is known as the “Old Quarter” of Hanoi I honestly cannot compare it to anything in the US and I have a hard time comparing it to anything in Europe. The closest place I can compare it to is the Little Italy depicted in the Godfather part II. The streets here are narrow and there is constant economic activity. The same type of activity that sprang forth in New York of the early 20^th century brought about by the economic upturn of that city. The more rich investors that moved in, the more opportunity there was for poor Italians to gain employment and trade.

The people George and I hang out with are primarily other Expats who teach or have similar low end jobs. Thing is though, a $1400 a month job here will allow you a very high end life style and you will still be able to save at least $500 a month. Hardly living paycheck to paycheck, especially for a young adult. For example I go to the bar every night and my bill has never been more than $0.75! The “Bar” I go to is one of four unnamed establishments that act as cafe’s during the day and bars at night. These bars/cafes are known collectively as “Beer Corner”. They are all open air establishments and you sit in little plastic chairs like little kids use for playing house. Beer Corner itself is an example of how the country has benefited from opening up to capitalism, less than 10 years ago the entire block would have sold for less than $100,000. Today one building is worth over $500,000.

Those of you who know George know that he is an exceptionally lazy human being, one evening he took this laziness to an extreme. We were sitting at Beer Corner after we finished work and George proclaimed “I am hungry but I don’t want to move” I told him this may be a problem but he assured me it would not. Soon a woman wearing a traditional Vietnamese hat and carrying two baskets attached to a wooden board appeared selling star fruit and George purchased a kilo, for what I am sure was a dollar at most. Then another woman appeared selling what were basically sugar donuts for about $0.10. Then a teenage girl came by and made us an egg and sausage sandwich with delicious French bread right on the street for about $0.75. Earlier that day we took our motorbikes out to the countryside to go two tracking like we used to do when we were in high school. As a result my shoes got pretty dirty. But that was also not a problem because just as we were finishing the sandwich, a shoe shine boy appeared and cleaned them up for about $0.25, a modern day Ragged Dick if you will.

For those that don’t believe in trickle down economics take this as an example of why it works. In America where I would be making less compared with the prices, I would never indulge in a shoe shine, nor would I buy that much food from three different people from one meal, I also would not be at the bar every night. But since I am making enough so that these luxuries are now affordable I am taking advantage of the situation and so are many others, and the result? The people here prosper.

Fun with the Black Market

Several years ago I went to Europe. Changing money in Europe was a depressing experience. You would go to a bank or an American Express and hand over 2 dollars and receive 1 pound or 1.5 euro, depending where you were. In Vietnam it is much more fun because at a bank for 2 dollars you get 32,000 dong (pronounced dowm, say dow like the stock exchange followed by an m sound as in Matt).

However, if you know George, you go down to the open air cafe and have a coffee or beer with a guy named chew-key, or uncle key. Then you give chew-key 2 dollars and he gives you 34,000.dong. But chew-key is not the only game in town, there are small “gold shops” all over the city that will give you a better exchange rate. But here is the good news for Vietnam, despite the ridiculous exchange rate it is not that much better on the black market which is an indication that the currency is doing well.

Money is far from the only thing exchanged on the black market. George, through a connection, was able to buy a police issue license plate for his motorcycle. The plate allows him to legally break the few laws that are in place, such as the helmet law. For those of you that know George, you know that he is rarely happy with what he has and always wants something better, the license plate is no exception. George is currently trying to trade in his blue police plate for a red military plate and even more power. George tells me that in the south, near Cambodia, all kinds of commodities, oil, cigarettes, even fruit, are smuggled across the boarder to be sold at higher prices in Vietnam. George claims that these smugglers are some of his favorite people in Vietnam and has promised that I will meet them later in the trip. Be sure to stay tuned for that adventure.