Wednesday, June 18, 2008
PNG: Going below zero.
A few thoughts on the developing world, from a nation that isn't: Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Subsistence agriculture is tricky for classical economists. Working from a neo-classical point of view that has shaped the largest international development insitutions since the Bretton Woods agreement, subsistence living -- growing or collecting what you need on your own land, and taking a pass on the cash economy -- is a sort of baseline. It is the tabla rasa upon which development begins.
To techocrats sweating out the details of currency exchange and monitary supply from cubicles in Berlin or Washington or Tokyo, subsitence economy is like dark matter: We know it exists, but none of our instruments can detect it.
To villages that may go years without contact with outsiders or a national government, I imagine that the whirlwind of data in a Bloomberg ticker would seem quite a bit less real than the day-to-day work of pulling yams from the ground. But the subsistence economy in Papau New Guinea is not at all a blank slate. In a country of fantastic cultural and political diversity, these economies show quite a bit of complexity.
In this confusion, tragedy lurks: Despite village life's seeming naivete, subsitence is not a floor from which an economy can only grow, but a system in political and economic equilibrium, refined over millenia and by its own terms, highly efficient. In the South Pacific, village gardens provides a decent living to people, without the need for 60 hour workweeks. At least, it used to.
Change is here, brought on by haphazard national-level governing colliding with a world economy thirsty for PNG's lush natual resources. With is have come disruptive shocks to the economic and social life of PNG. While the economic tigers in Singapore, Thailand and coastal China rip along toward long term GDP growth, the rewards of development haven't materialized in PNG. But stunningly violent crime, AIDS and an unraveling of family life have certainly arrived. Things are bad here, and appear to be getting worse.
As it turns out, PNG's traditional subsitence economy was a long way from the bottom. So where do we go from here?... THat's another post.
Subsistence agriculture is tricky for classical economists. Working from a neo-classical point of view that has shaped the largest international development insitutions since the Bretton Woods agreement, subsistence living -- growing or collecting what you need on your own land, and taking a pass on the cash economy -- is a sort of baseline. It is the tabla rasa upon which development begins.
To techocrats sweating out the details of currency exchange and monitary supply from cubicles in Berlin or Washington or Tokyo, subsitence economy is like dark matter: We know it exists, but none of our instruments can detect it.
To villages that may go years without contact with outsiders or a national government, I imagine that the whirlwind of data in a Bloomberg ticker would seem quite a bit less real than the day-to-day work of pulling yams from the ground. But the subsistence economy in Papau New Guinea is not at all a blank slate. In a country of fantastic cultural and political diversity, these economies show quite a bit of complexity.
In this confusion, tragedy lurks: Despite village life's seeming naivete, subsitence is not a floor from which an economy can only grow, but a system in political and economic equilibrium, refined over millenia and by its own terms, highly efficient. In the South Pacific, village gardens provides a decent living to people, without the need for 60 hour workweeks. At least, it used to.
Change is here, brought on by haphazard national-level governing colliding with a world economy thirsty for PNG's lush natual resources. With is have come disruptive shocks to the economic and social life of PNG. While the economic tigers in Singapore, Thailand and coastal China rip along toward long term GDP growth, the rewards of development haven't materialized in PNG. But stunningly violent crime, AIDS and an unraveling of family life have certainly arrived. Things are bad here, and appear to be getting worse.
As it turns out, PNG's traditional subsitence economy was a long way from the bottom. So where do we go from here?... THat's another post.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Papau New Guinea
Actual conversation at anti-corruption conference:
Her: Yeah, I wasn't even going to come to this conference, because my husband just got shot in the head.
Me: Whaaaaah?
Her: Yeah, it was the funniest thing...
Me: Funny.... like how?
Her: Well, not funny ha ha, more like funny that it didn't penetrate his skull. Just went in and slid around a little. So he's fine now. Hard on the kids though -- they're 7 and 9 -- kind of freaked them out. But now they're fine too. It was at their school, so everyone heard about it. They were the news kids at school, and now everyone knows their names, you know? So they're fine.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Our Apartment
For those keeping score: this is what our apartment would look like if we had furniture, which we don't - all the pink stuff is fictional. Map is to scale, 1 pixel = 1 inch on full size image.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Recap
First, the drive: me, Kate, pickup truck, Uhaul trailer, everything we own. Not fast up the mountains! I kind of forgot about the Sierra Nevadas. They're hella steep. ( I never won at Oregon Trail either. ) So we're basically crawling for all of Friday, and go 300 miles. We stop for dinner and do the math and realize that with 2000 miles to go, we're looking at another 9 days of this at this rate. So we're out Saturday morning well before dawn, pedal on the floormat, 5 minute gas stops, chugging along at 65mph. We did 2000 miles in two days. It was epic. Also, we live in a truly beautiful country.
Second: the apartment. We'd never seen the place - no pictures, nothing. It's a long story, but here we are, we show up, and it's fantastic. Twice the size of our old (rather large) place, a proper (big!) office for me, in a beautifully walkable hood and three blocks from a lakefront park. Also, it looked like the guy we subleted from left in a hurry. Like a big screaming scrape up the hardwood hurry. And he's got this steal of a place, and other than a craigslist post (no pics) didn't do much to get someone moved in, even though he was paying double rent. But whatever -- he's off the lease, we're on, and that's that. But I wondered about the story. So we meet our neighbor, and he's like: "Yeah, what's up with the people that lived there?" We have no idea. "Oh, I just wondered because there was a CPD detective here talking to them, then they moved out that night." Don't want to know! Also, I have no idea how to furnish our giant living room. I'm thinking Bocce court.
Pics to come tommorrow.
Second: the apartment. We'd never seen the place - no pictures, nothing. It's a long story, but here we are, we show up, and it's fantastic. Twice the size of our old (rather large) place, a proper (big!) office for me, in a beautifully walkable hood and three blocks from a lakefront park. Also, it looked like the guy we subleted from left in a hurry. Like a big screaming scrape up the hardwood hurry. And he's got this steal of a place, and other than a craigslist post (no pics) didn't do much to get someone moved in, even though he was paying double rent. But whatever -- he's off the lease, we're on, and that's that. But I wondered about the story. So we meet our neighbor, and he's like: "Yeah, what's up with the people that lived there?" We have no idea. "Oh, I just wondered because there was a CPD detective here talking to them, then they moved out that night." Don't want to know! Also, I have no idea how to furnish our giant living room. I'm thinking Bocce court.
Pics to come tommorrow.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
We have arrived.
Hi folks. We're in Chicago after a two day, 2000 mile, slow speed, long haul dash across the West. We've moved in, ditched the trailer, and are working on getting internet turned on in the house. New apartment is great, and new neighborhood is fabulous in a hyper-yuppy kind of way. '
New details:
Eyler-Werve
2947 North Broadway Apartment 3
Chicago, IL 60657
New details:
Eyler-Werve
2947 North Broadway Apartment 3
Chicago, IL 60657
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