The Hanoi elite are Soviet-trained apparatchiks who might as well be living in Novgorod '72. The South are a nation of shopkeepers lacking the ambition and imagination to compete at scale, never mind internationally. The most successful private company was built by expat Indians. Strivers head overseas and send back remittances. It's an inward-looking culture with poor education and command of English. They are too proud and rigid to do tourism nearly as well as the Thais. I won't complain abou…

Some assorted notes from Vietnam:

Channeling Matt Yyglesias: housing is the cause of all problems. It is hard to overstate how insanely expensive housing is in any capital city. Which is obviously going to affect urbanization. You have to get pretty far out in the suburbs to get anything reasonably priced but the infrastructure isn't there to support those kind of commutes. It's honestly a bit of a mystery to me because Vietnam lacks the usual culprits of zoning and NIMBYs that plague housing in…