Upon visiting the supermarkets, a sticker shock: Asia’s cheapness has been arbitraged away. Globalization may have braked inflation in the first world, but it has fueled it in the third: prices have converged. Living in Asia used to cost a very small fraction of living in Europe – between a tenth and a quarter. No longer: food is now nearly the same; rents are only about half. To me, this dwindling cost differential is no longer worth living without theater and opera and museums. To many others it is just the opposite: Europeans are settling here in record numbers; they will arbitrage the last 50 cents away. They don’t need the museums or the opera. And personal services are still cheap here: an important consideration for those who need them.
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