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.