Ordinary people with average income to spare often fancy the lives of the millionaires. The millionaires are pictured as living the ordinary people's dreams: a big house, fancy car and lavish dinners at luxury restaurants. They are the envy of all, given that they represent a tiny fraction of the world's 7 billion people.
In the globalised world, people around the world share a similar dream. Money isn't everything, but it's the only thing. So they say. That is reflected in two movies I saw last weekend: one was filmed in the world's most advanced economy, the US, and the other in least-developed Myanmar.
"Margin Call", set in the high-stakes financial industry, is a thriller entangling key players at an investment firm during a perilous 24-hours in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. In the film, bankers are portrayed as ordinary people. They are in a position to make easy money. Even when they create bubbles, when they are told to unwind positions, they are promised a special bonus - over a million dollars each. One banker tells his colleague that people blamed them for creating bubbles. But without them, ordinary people would have insufficient resources to buy houses or cars.
One banker opts out after the chaos, but admits that he needs the pending options and bonus. So he decides to stay for another 24 months.
Screened at the 10th World Film Festival in Bangkok, "Return to Burma" portrays the life of people in one of the world's poorest countries. They do not dream of a million dollars, just a better life, financially. From a border town near China, Xing-Hong has been a construction worker in Taiwan for 12 years. There he earns 30,000 kyat a day (about Bt1,000), against 3,000 (Bt100) kyat his brother makes in the same job at home. Returning home, Xing-Hong is invited to give a speech to the town people, who dream of getting work overseas. They know they have to invest for that: 1.4 million kyat for permission to work in Malaysia, about 4 million to work in Taiwan, and about 10 million in the US.
Those are the lives of people in the hometown of director Midi Z, a man who won a Taiwanese scholarship to study Chinese Mandarin. Midi Z had to work on weekends to support himself in Taipei, as the 200 Taiwanese dollar monthly stipend couldn't cover everything. Yet, he says he was lucky, when most of his relatives and friends were not.
Filmed after the 2010 election, "Return to Burma" tells us that most people there still have to light candles at night, when some electrical appliances from China become available (even without proper electricity supply). While men plan to work overseas, some women earn a living as prostitutes. Motorcycles are a must in the hilltown.
The documentary also tries to capture how Myanmar locals want to start up a business. A small electrical appliance shop could need 10 million kyat. A similar sum is required for a small peanut-oil extracting factory, including some 1 million kyat to pay to the government for the electricity meter. A tricycle taxi driver needs 3 million to buy a vehicle, or hundreds of thousands to rent one.
After the screening, Midi Z took questions from the audience. On how the election is changing the lives of people there two years on, he said while big cities like Yangon see vibrant changes, border towns remain the same. Still, he is optimistic that positive changes are around the corner. McDonald's will open, after the US lifted sanctions against the country. But the director is still worried about income inequality. Opening the door to foreigners could bring many changes and some could be positive, as Myanmar is desperate to resurface.
In the 1960s, Myanmar was one of Asia's leading economies. Its per capita income in 1960 was about $670 - more than three times that of Indonesia, more than twice that of Thailand, and slightly lower than the Philippines. However, the International Monetary Fund estimated that in 2010 Myanmar had Southeast Asia's lowest per capita GDP in purchasing power parity despite relatively good growth from 2000-2010.
Other changes could be negative. Myanmar is being urged to open its financial sector, even though the Central Bank of Myanmar was only recently granted some autonomy. Without proper planning, local banks could fail.
Hotel rates have skyrocketed by 350 per cent from 2007, but the minimum wage remains the same. If people cannot benefit from liberalisation, Myanmar will depend on external help. What if local resistance at home slows down the opening, will external support be maintained, and with weak domestic forces what will be the direction of the local economy?
Everybody wants to be better off. But it's important to know when enough is enough. The uncontrollable greed of some investment bankers is bringing down the US economy. It remains to be seen how the uncontrollable desires of its leaders and people will shape the new Myanmar.
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/27/how-to-know-when-enough-is-enough/
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