1/Alright, let's talk about Southeast Asia! One of the most interesting stories in the world that tons of people are

2/When most people think about economic development, they think of China. But Southeast Asia is coming up!

Already Singapore is super-rich, Malaysia is on the cusp of being a developed country, and Thailand isn't too far behind!
3/But the really encouraging sign is how nearly every poor country in the region is now growing steadily and exponentially.

The star performer, of course, is Vietnam, where incomes have almost quintupled since 1990.
4/And watch out, here come Indonesia and the Philippines!
5/And you know what? It's not technically in Southeast Asia, but it's really close, and its economic situation looks very similar, so let's include Bangladesh!
6/Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are all growing rapidly as well.

Pretty much ALL of Southeast Asia is growing rapidly.

What's going on? What is the region getting right??
7/The simple answer is: Export-oriented manufacturing.

All of these countries have a lot of manufacturing exports, usually of labor-intensive goods like clothing. Even Indonesia, whose industrialization took a big hit after the 1997 crisis.
8/As China becomes more expensive, companies are looking for cheaper places to make things, and retailers are looking for cheaper places to buy things.

Southeast Asia (+Bangladesh) is fulfilling much of that demand.
9/But what policies did the Southeast Asian countries do in order to hop on the manufacturing export train?

They did a lot of different things...but maybe in the end the most important factor was that they were in the right place at the right time.
10/Southeast Asian countries are close to China, where the supply chains are trying to relocate out of.

They have cheap wages.

And they have huge nearby sources of investment -- Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, with whom Southeast Asian countries have close ties.
11/So what does this imply for other regions -- particularly Africa -- that need to develop and industrialize?

"Be in the right place at the right time" is pretty useless advice...
12/What Africa really needs is a "seed" of development. One or two countries that get rich before the others, like Japan and Singapore did in Asia.

Those early leaders can then be sources of inspiration, ideas, expertise, capital, and market demand for all the others.
13/Perhaps Ghana could be one seed of African development?

https://t.co/f5ydiLgpDv
14/Anyway, the amazing growth of Southeast Asia is a testament to the success of decolonization and of globalization.

It's one more big step toward making the entire human race materially comfortable and secure.

(end)

https://t.co/cqXNjLxxHJ

More from Noah Smith 🐇

Time for panel #3: Big Tech and regulation!

I will be live-tweeting again, and you can also watch video at either the Twitter or Facebook links below!


Kaissar: Every industry gets regulated when it gets big. The question is what kind of regulation Big Tech will get,and whether the companies will be proactive in shaping it.

Kaissar: More profitable companies have higher returns. Why? Maybe it's a risk factor, because more profit = higher risk of getting regulated.

Bershidskyis showing a diagram of GDPR complaince pop-ups. What a massive ill-conceived bureaucratic mess.

Ritholtz: It's 2018 and we're still talking about Facebook privacy settings?! If you're still giving your personal data to Facebook, you just don't care about privacy!
When Republicans started to believe in racial bloc voting - when they stopped believing that nonwhite people could ever be persuaded to vote Republican - they started to see immigration as an invasion.

This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.


Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.

Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.

But they decided against this, and...here we are.

What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?

Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.

As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.

(end)

More from World

Watch the entire discussion if you have the time to do so. But if not, please make sure to watch Edhem Eldem summarizing ~150 years of democracy in Turkey in 6 minutes (starting on 57'). And if you can't watch it, fear not; I've transcribed it for you (as public service). Thread:


"Let me start by saying that I am a historian, I see dead people. But more seriously, I am constantly torn between the temptation to see patterns developing over time, and the fear of hasty generalizations and anachronistic comparisons. 1/n

"Nevertheless, the present situation forces me to explore the possible historical dimensions of the problem we're facing today. 2/n

"(...)I intend to go further back in time and widen the angle in order to focus on the confusion I  believe exists between the notions of 'state', 'government', and 'public institutions' in Turkey. 3/n

"In the summer of 1876, that's a historical quote, as Midhat Pasa was trying to draft a constitution, Edhem Pasa wrote to Saffet Pasa, and I quote in Turkish, 'Bize Konstitusyon degil enstitusyon lazim' ('It is not a constitution we need but institutions'). 4/n
Niger state shares borders with Zamfara, kebbi, Kaduna & Benin Republic. Terrorists from Niger republic and Burkina faso easily move money and arms across the borders of Kebbi, Zamfara and Benin R into Niger state. According to UN over 900,000 people have been displaced in B'Faso https://t.co/65YEMJhqDp


Niger, Mali and Burkina faso are weak countries populated by Shell terrorists who have now found a safe haven in the forests in Kaduna and Niger state. Birin Gwari, Mokwa forest, Nanati forests, Kanji lake areas.

No decent human resides permanently in forests.

We are facing both external and internal threats from these weak and failed countries we are surrounded with. As a senator you know that a FG police system with less than 300k officers can't actively police the landmass and borders in the North.
Form your state police now!

You and other senators should scrap the FG police system and devote the unaudited security votes and constituency allowance to policing your corridors and forests. Let the airforce bomb them and put your rangers in the forests. Issue an ultimatum for those in the forests to leave

You are all living in a dream if you think the current police structure will become efficient overnight.
Budget, Personnel, Technology, Equipment, Surveillance..It's impossible.
Form your state and community police and flush out the terrorists.

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