Monday links: Vietnam, China interest rates, corruption, Snowden, Japan and more

13 January 2014 15:39

Are China's interest rates too high, or too low?
Corruption in Indonesia and India may be way higher than estimated: why graft is so hard to calculate.
As Myanmar's economy develops, its old buildings suffer.
Vietnam's prime minister has delivered a new year's message on the need for reform, a speech 'unprecedented in its intellectual force and clarity. Among other things, it called for greater democracy, accountability, and transparency, as well as the need for a more competent, disciplined, and market-regarding state.'
This doesn't seem terribly scientific to me, but FWIW: a map of the world's most and least emotional countries.
Edward Snowden deserves clemency. No, he doesn't.
Government spending dragging Japan back to economic health, says the NY Times.
'As a historian, he had the finest prose style since Gibbon'. A new book of letters reveals the the private Hugh Trevor-Roper.

'Down and out down under'