All these stories have one thing in common: these people are in the early or late thirties but unmarried/uncoupled, alone, paying rent & living alone in a city & so when the pandemic came the allure of the city disappears & only costs show up. Nothing wrong about coming home but
These adults represent the trends we see about millennials (older millennials shall I say) & that we treat our thirties like our twenties, prolonging life-long choices such as finding a life partner, a career to stick around & also investing in the future beyond the short-term.
All choices have costs. If they are lucky, parents live close to the city & nice & they get along with & basically providing the nuclear family that they should already be creating on their own. I wonder if going home helps them realize that they have to make adult choices soon.
Or it is just a crutch for them to flee to safety & stability & then return back to the way they were when being alone in the city is safe & fun again until another shock occurs. These stories aren't unique, they are the story of our generation & basically the future of us. Scary
Scary because we are all Peter Pans. We want to have fun & not grow up & learn & live whimsically & not make choices that are consequential for life, something people used to do.
And being free has costs too of course. If you don't commit, u don't have commitment. Feedback loop
An essay by Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, on what it's like to be 44 & living like u're 24 in New York City.
She refused to grow up: no husband, children, real estate, stocks, bonds, 401k, emergency funds, savings account.
She said, "It's not that I have not planned for the future; I have not planned for the present."
She hadn't planned for growing older (her friends all moved on beyond 24 w/ kids etc) & she said this:
I lived with intent, but at all specific, & had no ability to compromise.
I have not disciplined myself into the kinds of commitments that make life beyond the wild of youth into a haven of calm.
And I have spent that freedom carelessly. Would I do anything else? I did not expect, not ever, to be scared to death.
I made a career out of emotions.
Her bio:
Born in Upper West Side, educated at Harvard, published a book that became famous at 27 & got tons of $$$ for it & spent it all on drugs & fun & designer clothes. Wrote memoirs on addiction w/ mixed successs. Went to Yale Law School & worked as a lawyer & later writer.
Somehow her essay stuck with me & I remembered it. She was a great writer, quite honest & raw in her ability to reveal her vulnerability.
Don't forget that she was wildly successful in her youth & had plenty of talent & beauty.
Still, aging scared her. 44 going on 24 is no fun.
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This article in the FT doesn't make any sense. The author argues that Modi fails to create job for low-skilled people, esp labor-intensive manufacturing. It also faults Modi for its high-end growth (services, high-tech, infra, etc)
But then it ends with saying, well, don't bother to even develop manufacturing and just work on service exports.
Btw, all the critiques of India makes sense. The issue I have with Rajan and also Congress is their solutions.
They don't have one. Literally. Rajan tells India to forget about trying to do manufacturing & focuses on services.
India exports a lot of services. Manufacturing is the weak spot, not services!!! And if u want a lot of jobs, u need labor-intensive manufacturing.
A country with such a large population needs to growth via all sectors - services, manufacturing, agriculture etc. You can't leapfrog development & go to services.
India & the Philippines have tried that. Not working & hence need to include manufacturing & infrastructure building.
Who likes higher fuel prices in Asia??? Well, no one except Indonesia and Malaysia and by that I mean exporters.
The biggest deficit as a share of GDP goes to Thailand but mostly in LNG. Second is South Korea.
Obvs this is as a share of GDP. Higher fuel costs = higher import costs = someone has to pay for it & eg higher inflation or higher fiscal costs.
Who likes higher food prices? Well, a few - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and India. Obvs this is EXPORTERS only who gain. EM has high food as a share of consumption basket. But net food exporters have levers to pull. They can BAN exporting of food.
Who is most vulnerable? The Philippines. South Korea imports a lot too.
Putting food and fuel together as a share of GDP: Who is most exposed?
Well, South Korea and the Philippines. KRW doesn't like this news.
PHP doesn't like it. One caveat is that SK is much richer so can afford it more than say PH where this will hurt more.
Did you know that South Korea exports more to the US now than it does to China?
Actually, it isn't alone. A lot of Asian countries, due to supply chain reshuffling and also geopolitics and industrial policies, are exporting now more to US than China.
Why is South Korea doing more trade with a country far away than a country next door?
First, growth of exports to the US is faster than exports to China. In fact, China hasn't been importing much more and it is Korea that has been importing more from China for goods such as intermediate goods etc.
This has raised a big concern in Korea that China is a competitor & it's hard for SK to compete with its industrial policy and subsidies.
And so South Korea has 1 lever it can pull that is better than China - GEOPOLITICS. South Korea is an ally to the US. And as a country w/ a US FTA, it is being favored.
Whether it's the Chips Act or the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the whole point is to exclude China.
Indonesia elects a new president in a week. The leading candidate is riding high on Jokonomics, or the continuation of his policy & popularity, as Jokowi's eldest son is VP.
Prabowo promises 8% average GDP growth or Jokonomics. How realistic & what is Jokonomics anyway?
While people believe that Prabowo is the best bet of doing more of what popular Jokowi has done for Indonesia in the past decade & he promises the highest growth, Jokowi 10-year only produced 4.2% GDP growth on average. Stripping out 2020 (Covid), it's 4.9%. No where near 8% 👈
Indonesia elects a new president next week to replace Jokowi. The leading candidate - Prabowo - is riding the president's coat tail as many hope that he is the best hope for continuation. But what is Jokonomics exactly? From 2014 to 2023, Indonesia grew on average 4.2% per yr👈.
If we strip out 2020, which economy contracted, then under Jokowi, the economy grew 4.9% on average (4.2% if we don't strip it out).
So that's sub 5%. In fact, GDP barely deviates from 5% level. So why do people think that Prabowo is the key to escape the middle income trap?
Pres Jokowi's biggest accomplishments come from the fiscal side. Indonesia got investment grade in 2017. By weaning Indonesia slowly off expensive energy subsides, the expenditure side was contained. And with the commodity boom, Indonesia fiscal positions were leaner than most.