Okay, what's going to keep us up so high?

The chef eats his own cooking

News: Indochina Capital Vietnam Holdings Limited is the largest (and LSE quoted) managed fund of Indochina Capital, whose non-executive chairman is Dr Marc Faber. It has just announced that it bought 60,000 of its own shares on Friday. That looks like putting your money where your mouth is.

More on Faber and Vietnam

Marc Faber is, it seems, chairman of a company called Indochina Capital and this report of a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City in April quotes him as saying, "Among emerging economies, Vietnam has the most potential for development."

In an edition of his GloomBoomDoom report dated May 2003 he remarked, "Vietnam... is developing rapidly and will, in my opinion, with its 80 million very hard-working and thrifty people, overtake Thailand economically within the next ten years or so." For those who may be considering subscribing to his newletters, it's interesting to see an example of his reporting style.

Globalisation - a race we can't win

To put it another way, how much more does a Chinese have to earn, to live well and still undercut America?

In the sheet below, I compare six countries in terms of nominal per capita GDP (in US dollars equivalent). These have to be reinterpreted in terms of purchasing power parity, i.e. if local prices are lower, you can enjoy the same things for less money. (Nominal and PPP terms are taken from slightly different IMF surveys, but you get the idea.)

The last couple of columns answer the question, "How much income would each national need, to match America's standard of living?"

Doubtless there's problems with the methodology - PPP may well change as each country's nominal GDP increases. And it seems clear that the whole world can't live exactly like Americans do today. (It's also interesting to note that pricey, high-tax countries like the UK and Japan can't catch up with the USA without exceeding the latter's per capita GDP.)

But on these figures, China could match American living standards, on a quarter the income. So the low-pay trading advantage it enjoys is huge now, and is likely to remain so.

And look at India and Vietnam - they'd only need about one-fifth American per capita income to have the same in PPP terms. In fact, they could out-compete China in labour costs, which is one reason for China to move away from labour-intensive work like trainer-stitching, and towards heavy industry.

So Vietnam undercuts China undercuts America...

And given India's enormous population, its higher proportion of cultivatable land (compared with China), its well-established political and legal institutions, and its many millions of English-language speakers, it may be that India is the economy to watch this century.

IMF per capita GDP figures quoted from Wikipedia here (nominal) and here (PPP).

'Nam for investors

Hard on the heels of revelations about Marc Faber's investment in Vietnam, here's a story about how Vietnam (and the Philippines) is attracting interest. A South Korean shopping centre in Ho Chi Minh City - who would have expected that in 1975?

Nostalgia apart, let's look at the economic implication. The article notes this development as "yet another sign of the region’s increasingly affluent middle class showing a growing preference for made-in-Asia products". One can only hope that the East creates enough demand, fast enough, to take over when America's wallet finally fails.

More on Marc Faber's investments

Bloomberg quotes Marc Faber as saying that US stocks are more reasonably priced than other markets after the recent fall in the dollar's value. When you read on, you find he means they're less outrageously priced, but still overvalued.

So where does he think your money should be?

"Faber recommended investing in "depressed assets,'' citing the Middle East market and the Detroit property market. He also said farmland in Argentina and Brazil is a good value and property in New Zealand and Australia may be a sound investment because of their proximity to China. [...] he has large positions in real estate and equities in Vietnam."