Englund

  Hoiana Shores Golf Club hugs picturesque beaches  about 40 minutes south of Danang. Tiger Woods-designed fairways and a $1.5 billion Trump resort are helping make Vietnam one of the world’s fastest-growing golf markets. While China’s Communist Party has long viewed golf as “green opium” and banned its members from using public funds to play or join clubs amid an anticorruption drive in 2015,  Vietnam’s Communist government has embraced the sport. It sees golf and its associated services as an economic driver that will help the country move beyond garment and electronics manufacturing. Bloomberg 25 September 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-09-25/vietnam-golf-tourism-boom-includes-trump-resort-tiger-woods-designed-course Resolution 68  Resolution 68-NQ/TW is a landmark directive issued by the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on May 4, 2025, which fundamentally redefines the private sector's role as a "core driver" of the national ec...

  Tehran’s demands for a full reopening of Hormuz include the US lifting its naval blockade on Iranian ports, the release of frozen assets and compensation for war damages. It has also called for a permanent end to attacks on groups it backs in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. “I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” Trump wrote on social media.  “Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years.” Shortly after his post, Trump added that Iran should also be held responsible for deaths and damage from conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza, where Tehran-backed militant groups operate. Bloomberg 11 August 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-11/trump-hardens-stance-iran-clouding-hopes-hormuz-deal Stockholmsbörsen går mot en avvaktande öppni...

In 1972 masterpiece, “The Best and the Brightest”, the journalist David Halberstam asked the central question about America’s war in Vietnam:  https://www.amazon.com/Best-Brightest-David-Halberstam/dp/0449908704 “What was it about the men, their attitudes, the country, its institutions and above all the era which had allowed this tragedy to take place?”  They were “the best and the brightest”, after all. Why did it happen? Halberstam’s answer, repeated by countless authors since, contained two parts: hubris and ignorance.   Robert McNamara, who as secretary of defence was one of the architects of the war, later offered substantial endorsement of Halberstam’s thesis. Writing in his 1995 memoir, “In Retrospect”, he lamented that he and other leaders were ignorant of Vietnamese history and of Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist motivations. They saw a monolithic communist threat where none existed From the time then-Congressman Kennedy visited Vietnam in 1951, during the height of the...

Resolution 68-NQ/TW is a landmark directive issued by the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on May 4, 2025, which fundamentally redefines the private sector's role as a "core driver" of the national economy rather than a secondary player. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/vietnam-communist-party-resolu-TysNnrPaTP2CUZJphv319w#0

If McNamara’s experience offers a core lesson, it is one that is simple to grasp but has too often gone unheeded:  if more high-level officials were prepared to resign for their convictions, citizens would be assured that those who remain truly believe in what they’re doing. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/fog-mcnamara-fredrik-logevall RE: Det är nog tyvärr inte sant. De som stannar kanske bara saknar McNamaras moraliska kompass.  McNamara’s kom att bli en av de drivande krafterna bakom stationeringen av amerikanska trupper i Vietnam och utökningen av de amerikanska bombningarna med Operation Rolling Thunder.  År 1967 överraskade McNamara genom att föreslå att stoppa ytterligare truppförstärkningar, inställa bombningarna av Nordvietnam och att lämna markstriderna i Sydvietnam. McNamara förklarade sin tidigare taktik för kriget som misslyckad.  Han lämnade Pentagon desillusionerad   https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara Capitalism Won the Viet...

China said it was examining a trade deal that the US and Vietnam clinched and would retaliate if its interests were hurt — a sign that tensions between Beijing and Washington risk worsening as more of the pacts are finalized. would    retaliate if its interests were hurt — a sign that tensions between Beijing and Washington risk worsening as more of the pacts are finalized. “We are happy to see all parties resolve trade conflicts with the US through equal negotiations but firmly oppose any party striking a deal at the expense of China’s interests,”  He Yongqian, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-03/china-vows-retaliation-if-it-s-hurt-by-us-vietnam-trade-deal https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-fall-of-saigon-50-years-on.html

  Financial Times 26 May 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/bd6b01c1-bd69-4d02-9b46-c4673cfb9a32 Vietnam Asia’s great success story https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/05/vietnam-asias-great-success-story.html

 Fifty years ago the last Americans were evacuated from Saigon, leaving behind a war-ravaged and impoverished country. Today Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, is a metropolis of over 9m people full of skyscrapers and flashy brands.  The country has attracted $230bn of multinational investment and become an electronics-assembly titan. Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and Western firms all operate factories there. In the past decade Vietnam has grown at a compound annual rate of 6%, faster than India and China. Vietnam’s growth miracle is concentrated around a few islands of modernity.  Big multinational companies run giant factories for export that employ locals. But they mostly buy their inputs abroad and create few spillovers for the rest of the economy.  This is why Vietnam has failed to increase the share of the value in its exports that is added inside the country.  If Mr Lam fails, Vietnam will muddle on as a low-value-added production centre that missed its...

  This week will see another Liberation Day—in Vietnam. I walked along the parade route leading to the former Presidential Palace, now Reunification Palace. In America we remember it differently. As Saigon fell, Operation Frequent Wind evacuated 7,000 Americans and locals. Helicopters ran in 10-minute intervals to the USS Okinawa and other ships in the Seventh Fleet.  The last helicopter out—the famous photo you may remember is from the Pittman apartment building the day before—left the U.S. Embassy around 8 a.m., evacuating the last of a Marine Guard. Later that day, North Vietnamese troops in a Soviet tank, and, with a hint of the future, an identical Chinese knockoff, busted through the gates and liberated the palace, ending the war.  It’s well beyond my pay grade to relitigate the Vietnam War, but there are so many lessons. The first was the damage to America’s national self-esteem. We lost. A major rationale for the Vietnam War was the domino theory—that saving South...

  Saigon changed hands with remarkable ease. Fears of street-to-street fighting proved unfounded. Instead, the Southern army simply melted away.  In a scene that would be televised around the world, a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the presidential palace where the cabinet of the old regime was waiting to surrender. In the absence of a more senior officer, the surrender was accepted by Colonel Bùi Tín, a journalist who many years earlier had witnessed the departure of the French from Hanoi.  Bùi Tín would eventually become disillusioned with the new order. He was destined to end his days in Paris, an exile from his homeland.  His memoir Following Ho Chi Minh is one of the very few inside accounts of life in the upper reaches of the secretive Vietnamese Communist party. Chris Mullin describes the last days of the Vietnam war and the aftermath https://www.amazon.com/Following-Ho-Chi-Minh-Vietnamese/dp/0824822331 Financial Times 12 April 2025 https:/...

Communist-ruled Vietnam last month appointed Luong Cuong, a military general and former director of the political department of the People's Army, as its new president. Nearly half of Southeast Asian countries are now governed by former military generals or military regimes, a concerning trend for democracy and human rights in the region, experts say. Only Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore have consistently maintained civilian control over their militaries, analysts note. "The appearance of sudden militarization in 2024 is a deception because the military's power in politics has always existed — though sometimes in the shadows,"  Deutsche Welle 24 November 2024 https://www.dw.com/en/why-militarist-leaders-dominate-southeast-asias-politics/a-70830831 Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the country's independence hero, General Aung San. Her father founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1947 Suu Kyi continued h...

A Chinese businessman persuaded officials to establish a special economic zone in a remote part of Laos.  The gamblers arrived first. Then came the drug runners, human traffickers and scammers. On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg Businessweek editor Matt Campbell about his investigation into the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone and how it became a criminal’s paradise. Bloomberg 20 August 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-20/inside-southeast-asia-s-hub-for-crypto-scams-human-trafficking-podcast Laos är ett relativt outforskat turistland som bjuder på en fascinerande blandning av gammalt och modernt.  Att sakta glida fram med båt längs den viktiga Mekongfloden och göra strandhugg hos minoritetsfolk är en upplevelse för livet.  Världsarvsstaden Luang Prabang är en riktig favorit med sin fridfulla atmosfär och mysiga kvarter med kaféer och småbutiker som flyttat in i de gamla franska husen.  https://lotustravel....

Twenty-four government inspectors — whose jobs are responsible for ensuring the health and safety of the banking system — are alleged to have taken Lan’s money to cover up violations. The woman behind Van Thinh Phat Group, one of Vietnam’s most moneyed real estate empires, now awaits a trial starting on March 5 — and a possible death sentence or imprisonment if found guilty. Bloomberg 3 March 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-03/vietnam-s-biggest-fraud-case-accuses-property-tycoon-of-embezzling-12-billion Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Minister of Defense Gen. Pham Van Tra participate in a ceremony officially welcoming Rumsfeld to Hanoi https://www.internetional.se/vietnamseger.htm#rumsfeld

What Hamas has done in the last two days was far more extreme than anything it had done before.  This was unmistakably a move designed to provoke a response, and ideally an overreaction.  Within Israel, the accurate historical comparison might be with the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in 1968.  That was ultimately a military victory for the US — just as Israel is prohibitively likely to assert its dominance before this conflict is over.  But by catching the Americans cold, and demonstrating that they didn’t have the control over South Vietnam that they claimed, it irrevocably shook politics back home. John Authers Bloomberg 9 oktober 2023 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-09/gaza-attack-won-t-disrupt-oil-markets-unless-israel-strikes-iran Själv var jag 27 år 1968.  Jag blev mycket förvånad över vad som då hände. Englund: De spred myten att FNL-gerillan representerade ett uppror i Sydvietnam, medan den i själva verket bestod till 90-95 procent a...

Dagens 27-åringar är födda 1996. De var 10 år 2006. Sedan dess, fram till nyligen, var räntorna låga eller negativa. Dagens 27-åringar tycker därför att räntorna i dag är extremt höga. Men räntorna är inte extremt höga. Ganska normala faktiskt, eller låga om man räknar räntorna minus inflationen, realräntorna. Se t ex Krugman: Are High Interest Rates the New Normal? https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/10/krugman-are-high-interest-rates-new.html Dagens 27-åringar har också lärt sig att aktierna alltid stiger. Vad förvånade de kommer att bli om det skulle gå utför. När de tänker på utför tänker många av dem på hur härligt det var att åka utför i Alperna. Själv var jag 27 år 1968.  Jag blev mycket förvånad över vad som då hände.  Riksbanken chockhöjer räntan från 0 till 2,5 procent DI/TT 25 Januari 2023 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/01/riksbanken-chockhojer-rantan-fran-0.html

  Låt oss för att komma i stämning börja med öppningsceremonin som enligt det officiella protokollet gick till så här:   De omkring 3 500 deltagarna samlades i stora mässhallen till en öppningsceremoni med följande program.   Den röda fanan (kör och unisont) under inmarsch av en fana.   Arbetets söner (unisont)   Tal av partiordförande Olof Palme   Potpurri på arbetarsånger   Tal av FNL:s representant Madame Thi Binh, PRR:s utrikesminister och chefförhandlare i Paris   Befria Södern, FNL:s nationalsång (kör och unisont) Läs  mer här Bo Södersten, gift Friggebo, om löntagarfonderna Ett genomförande av den arbetarstyrda ekonomin fordrar långtgående reformer, bl a måste den nuvarande kapitalägarklassen pensioneras och produktionsmedlen socialiseras. Finns det något som vi kan lära av Stalin är det hans tes om nödvändigheten av socialism i ett land. Under resten av 70-talet och 80-talet är den enda realistiska linjen att arbeta för socialism i et...

 The white sandy beaches of Bermuda probably spring to mind, or else the private banks of Switzerland? In fact, the world’s most affluent are increasingly piling their wealth into American states. That is according to claims from the Tax Justice Network’s latest Financial Secrecy Index Vietnam has a financial secrecy score of 81 – but it ranks 24th on the index, owing to its relatively smaller influence on the world stage. South Dakota is a sparsely populated state in the American Midwest – close in size to Romania but with fewer than 900,000 residents. So what is the reason for the South Dakotan trust industry’s rapid expansion? The answer is favourable tax laws and deregulation, experts say. There is no state income tax in South Dakota, and trusts can be held secretly. Alaska, in 1997, passed a law allowing the creation of domestic asset protection trusts. This means someone setting up a trust can also be the beneficiary, allowing the person to shield their assets from creditors...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mknTDi70KFE

He served as a Marine guard at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon when the South Vietnamese capital fell in 1975 and, decades later, as an Army foot soldier patrolling the mountains of Afghanistan. “The same thing that happened in Vietnam is happening here,” said Mr. Nicholas, now 68 and living in Green, Ohio. “They’ll say we accomplished great things,” he said. “I say we accomplished nothing.” WSJ 26 April 2021 american-vets-see-echoes-of-vietnam-in-afghanistan-withdrawal-plan-11619446397

The domino theory — the idea that setbacks can accumulate quickly and catastrophically — is one of the most controversial ideas in U.S. foreign policy. It guided a half-century of statecraft during the Cold War, only to be rejected by many historians of that conflict The domino theory became infamous thanks to the Vietnam War, which the U.S. fought in part to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling. President Dwight D. Eisenhower  coined  the phrase in 1954, in explaining why losing Indochina would be so disastrous A principal reason President Harry Truman provided aid to Greece and Turkey in 1947 was  fear  that other parts of the Middle East and Europe would find it impossible to resist if these countries succumbed to Soviet pressure or communist subversion. The U.S. war in Vietnam may have bought time for other parts of Southeast Asia, but the price, in human and strategic damage, was astronomical for America itself.  Hal Brands is a Bloomber...