So here’s the thing. Popular economics (by which I mean the sort that someone with a low pass at maths O-level second attempt can just about grasp) suggests that if supply outstrips demand then prices fall. And presumably if there is no demand at all then supply pretty much dries up, since there is no point (or money) in providing lots of what no one wants. So I’m puzzled here in darkest Malaysia as I watch what is going on all around me. 

The area around the SW corner of Johor State, looking across the straits at their relatively new neighbour Singapore, is in a sort of building frenzy. In the midst of what was palm oil plantation and in some cases the remains of mineral extraction/mining, huge glamour projects are underway. Along one part of the coast an artificial harbour and marina have been created in what looks like an attempt to ape the resorts along the Mediterranean. Shopping (which here seems almost a compulsory national sport), cafes and bars are supposed to create a community feel focused around the craft bobbing on the advertiser’s blue water. Soaring above are futuristic tower blocks looking as if drawn from some children’s fantasy scribbles, as architects vie to outdo each other with vanity statement buildings. Hoardings promise visionary glimpses of paradise stretching along the coastline. And yet almost everything is empty. The swanky apartments are running at less then 10% occupancy – 10%! An acquaintance commented that he was the only one on his entire floor of his glitzy glass-and-concrete, marina-view edifice. The shops are empty, the marina likewise and needless to say the water, being where it is, is a soupy sludge rather than azure.