As I write this, we are already back at the airport, waiting to board our plane to Europe. What follows is a brief summary of what I was up to in New York over the past nine months, helping me explain to myself where the time has gone!
Two great comments
I don’t get all too many comments on this blog, so it’s all the more relevant to share two recent ones with my readers. “Lamb” commented on the NOA Building, a post from my Tokyo times. More recently came Michelle’s comment on the post I wrote about the Schomburg Plaza in Harlem.
Schomburg Plaza, New York
Yangon Facebook/Tumblr
To kick off the crowdsourcing aspect of our Yangon Architecture Guide, we launched Tumblr and Facebook pages. We are initially featuring some of the lesser-known buildings, and have already received great comments from from an extremely gracious generous gentleman called Harry Hpone Thant. I paste some examples below the jump.
Thein Gyi Market
Eurasianism 2005 and 2014
Courtesy of my friend Chris, I found this old blog post of mine dating back to 2005. In it I discuss Eurasianism, an ill-defined school of thought in post-Soviet Russian social science. Amid events in the Ukraine it feels strangely up-to-date today. I repost in full after the jump.
Zenkov Cathedral – Almaty/Kazakhstan (2005)
Mexico trip May 2014
Can Mexico transform its economy with the raft of recent reforms? I posted some observations from a research briefing I organised last week on the GFI website, a copy of which can be found after the jump.
Museo de Arte Moderno
Yangon Architectural Guide
This blog has allowed me to structure my explorations of the past one and a half years. One particular project originated from these and is now taking up more and more of my time: My friend and photographer Manuel Oka and I are currently working on an architectural guide to Yangon.
Update 20 May 2014: My close friend Elliott Fox has agreed to come onboard to help write and edit the book. Elliott has travelled to Myanmar on numerous occasions both professionally and personally.
Strand Hotel – photo by Manuel Oka
Piketty’s trickery?
Watching Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the 21st Century” make waves in this country has been fun and insightful, albeit time-consuming. The controversy the book has caused is telling of the political climate in this country. Perhaps this comes out “best” on Amazon and on Forbes.
Catch-up incomplete?
I went to an interesting presentation on the state of the Japanese private equity industry at Columbia the other day. Industry veteran Richard Folsom of Advantage Partners spoke about his fund, but it was really the comments of CBS professor Bruce Greenwald that I found interesting.
Unproductive machines?
1964 New York World’s Fair
Fifty years ago, the 1964/1965 World’s Fair in New York opened its gates. The event marked the final culmination of Robert Moses’s long career. The event wasn’t sanctioned by the Bureau of International Exhibitions and thus lacked the international allure of other Expos. I visited the area on Tuesday.
The New York State Pavilion
21st-century capital
Seldom does a book create such buzz as Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century” and rarely has a book faster been lauded as one of the decade’s defining books on economics. Much of the silence on this blog can be explained by engaging with Piketty’s magnum opus. I wanted to wait before posting anything before I would see the French economist speak at Columbia yesterday. What follows are some notes on the book and on issues beyond.
Thomas Piketty (left), with panelists Suresh Naidu, Victoria de Grazia and Thomas Edsall