As Greece moves to a final attempt at a euros 53.5 bn bailout program, it is probably a good idea to recall what occurred here in Portugal when it accepted an austerity program with strict conditions in 2009 from the European Union. The statistical impact was spelled out by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho in a “State of the Nation” speech Wednesday night in Lisbon. Portugal was governed by a center-right coalition which did what the EU ordered it to do.

The price was very high. Having grown its economy toward European levels in the years before the global financial crisis of 2009, afterwards Portugal fell back to where it had begun as a new member back in 1986. Today, the Portuguese standard of living is back to where it started, at 25% below the European average.

Adding to the misery was a huge increase in Portuguese taxes since 2009, to cut the government deficit at Brussels' orders. Direct sales taxes which hit poor people hardest rose by over a third, to cover 75% of the EU bailout funds now paid back, a total of euros 60 billion out of euros 80 billion disbursed. Income taxes rose less sharply, up 11%. The poor were hit hardest. Only now is Portugal beginning to tax the tourism-linked real estate investment business, after foreigners were allowed to rent out their Portuguese holiday homes without paying taxes on the proceeds.

Portuguese gross national product fell 7% against that of the EU as a whole after 2010. The country's standard of living fell back to the level of more than 20 years before.

A symptom of woe was the resumption of Portuguese emigration after 2009. Portugal has the highest proportion in Europe of citizens who migrated to another country—higher than the countries of eastern Europe whose exodus to find jobs or economic opportunities is more widely known. Portugal lost about a half million people since the crisis, bringing its population down to 10.5 million, and falling. There are 5 million identified Portuguese who work or live outside the country, plus another 2 million who exited in the past 6 years with one-way tickets. Workers go to northern Europe, particularly France, and more educated professional people to Brazil where there is a common language.

It is fear of similar suffering that has kept the Greek Syriza led government from signing up for a bailout with similar conditions. A center-right coalition still runs Portugal, but polls show that it may lose its majority if a general election were held today. The respectable Socialists are polling 37.6% vs only 32.7% for the center-right. The less respectable Left Bloc has 6%, but to form a government the Socialists would have to either bring in a centrist party, or open the door to the fast-growing Portuguese Communist party, currently at 11%. The polls are hypothetical and there is no team of tie-motor-cycling hard-left outsiders campaigning in Portugal... yet.

A word of warning about the supposed return of upward movement in the Chinese stock markets which began on Thursday and boosted bourses around the globe, including on Wall St. The all-China index ostensibly rose another 4.5% on Friday. But the statistics are flawed.

The shares of companies which suspended trading in their shares after they plummeted are not being included in the index which shows the rise, be it the large cap all-China index, or that of Shanghai or “high-tech” Shenzhen. Nearly half of all listed shares are still suspended and the rise is mostly in large cap state-supported firms and banks. Shares can return to the market if they recover from losing 5% of their value in a given day, an operation which is separate from a listed company suspending trading to protect its assets.

I think the amount of capitalism being fostered by Beijing is extraordinary and also dangerous. Today I present an alternative model for economic development via stocks.

*The Singapore holding company Yoma Strategic Holdings (YMAIF) closed its books on the 2014-5 fiscal year. After taking over automobile and tire businesses last year and adding drink distribution businesses and the ownership of a shopping mall in Dalian (China), the founder, the Burmese Serge Pun, consolidated more of its interests in Yoma, YMAIF. It owns stakes in a telephone tower business and agricultural land mostly producing coffee for global companies plus a UHT treated milk company. The chairman and founder's son, Melvyn Pun, is about to become its CEO replacing the non-Burmese Andrew Rickards of Australia who is retiring. It partners with SPA (Serge Pun & Associates), the family enterprise of the Singapore based Burmese founder. The younger Mr Pun who takes over July 27 wants to match its real estate portfolio with a non-real estate one of the same size.

Besides property, Yoma already owns consumer businesses (like the recently opened Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise), logistics and warehouse facilities, and tourism businesses in Myanmar often operating alongside the Pun family's other holdings. Yoma offers balloon rides to view Myanmar's incredible Bagan Buddhist temples from the air. It also owns a tourism hotel in that holy city.

The first real estate gated township development in Myanmar, FMI City, near Rangoon, is now totally sold and leased on 465 acres of land. Its commercial leases include the first ever department store in Myanmar. There are 1345 additional acres for development as it grows. The Pun Hlaing Golf Estate with an 18-hole course designed by Gary Player is also now selling homes, as of Mar. 31. Star City, with 9000 apartments, and 10 mn sq ft of residential space, and 1.7 mn of commercial space is next to come out.

The ultimate in property will be Landmark Development with 2 mn sq ft of gross housing and commercial area including the Yangon Peninsula Hotel and a 5-star condo building, executive serviced apartments for business people working in Myanmar is being built in partnership with Mitsubishi Estate and Mitsubishi Corp of Japan, and Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels. Pun Hlaing will include from 2017 an international school which will be run by London's Dulwich College, itself a sub of Education Index Management. (There already is an international elementary school at FMI. Education is part of the Pun program.)

Serge Pun lured the Mitsubishi group into his businesses because SPA and now Yoma market Mitsubishi Motors and Hino cars in Myanmar, along with Bridgestone Tires, New Holland tractors, and spare parts for imported Volkswagen vehicles.

With so many changes in ownership plus a new S$735 bn loan facility, the latest annual report is not really comparable to that of 2013-4. What attracted me to the stock was the real estate and tourism arms but having some other businesses probably reduces risk. YMAIF revenues in 2014-5 rose 104% to S$111 mn. This is small cap although huge for Myanmar.

Per share earnings this year came to 2 Singapore cents/sh vs 1.32 last year. Current assets rose to S$342.5 mn from 176.2 mn, offset by current liabilities of S$73.3 mn this year and 42.4 mn last year. The company did a capital increase during the FY to buy out Pun holdings noted above. Non current assets rose to S$491.6 mn from 307.1 mn, offset by non-current liabilities this year of 28.6 mn and last year of 22.9 mn. After the Puns have taken their share, shareholders own S$661.8 mn in assets, vs only 371.5 mn in 2013-4.

Net asset value per share is now Singapore cents 38.3, vs a mere 32.1 cents last year, the upslope is considerable. There are 14 bn shares out.

While most numbers are up sharply, the gross profit margin fell last year, from 44.4% to 41.1%, still very high, as projects required marketing spending. The capitalization is quite low vs a debt of S$735 bn, which sounds hairy, but the p/e ratio is only 22.36, not high for building a country more or less from scratch as Serge Pun and his family are doing. (There is a second son, Cyrus, who will probably come on board too.) Melvyn Pun was granted a modest 2 mn shares upon being elected CEO.

While the bulk of the borrowing was from the private sector, Yoma also won $100 mn in loans from the Asian Development Bank and smaller amounts from the World Bank's International Finance Corp.

Since I share a birthday with Aung San Suu Kyi, (“The Lady” the Myanmar opposition leader), I feel a special link to what I still think of as Burma. She may be able to run in the elections due to take place Nov. 15. Serge Pun bluntly supports her.What really grabs me is that an expat who has made his fortune outside Myanmar is setting out to finance the modernization of his country after decades of its being shut off from the world by a military junta. I really want Serge Pun and The Lady to win success using private enterprise rather than a plan imposed from on high. The Pun clan are experimenting with a new way to modernize and democratize a country.

This is a penny stock listed on the main Singapore stock market, the only way into Myanmar. Of course it is high risk. It trades as Z59 in Singapore.

*Veolia (VEOEY) won a large contract to upgrade the Paris waste-water system run from Clichy by a local firm. The value is euros 79.2 mn. VEOEY is one of two private waterworks firms in France, so there is real competition for these contracts.

*An exec of Alibaba who formerly worked for Tencent (TCTZF) was arrested for allegedly accepting bribes. Doug Young, a respectable China hand writing in www.seekingalpha.comsuspects that TCTZF may have been the source of information leading the Chinese investigators to crack down on BABA. I think it is called competition. However now the Chinese sleuths are examining possible back-handers taken by people still at Tencent.

*Novartis (NVS) after winning fast US FDA approval for its Entresto drug against heart failure plans to offer an outcomes-based payment system for the likely blockbuster. It will charge insurers a low price for the initial dose followed by a second payment if the new drug keeps patients out of the hospital and save money thereby. However, pharma benefits manager Express Scripts is skeptical about the NVS scheme. Entresto is not the only factor affecting a heart failure patient's outcome, Express Scripts' Steve Miller told Bloomberg. The UK's NICE which creates the list of which drugs may be prescribed in the National Health Service, already bases payments on outcomes. I do not think it will become a burden on US insurance companies to do the same.

*Vale (VALE) rose over 4.6% on Friday while the Chinese stock market was in a recovery. This is not totally irrational, unlike the copycat boosts in bourses worldwide. If the Chinese economy manages to extricate itself from stock market gambling, China may resume boosting its economy with real estate and infrastructure investment, for which its needs include steel as much as speculators or government spending. VALE makes the cheapest landed iron ore going to Chinese ports now in Chinese-funded Valemax ore carriers.

*Oops. I misread when Investor AB (IVSBF) will report. It is this Thursday. IVSBF is the Wallenberg investment holding company, the closed thing to a “Scandinavian Fund” these days and invests alongside the Swedish bank SEB Bank. Unlike the other bank's holding company, Industrivaerden, Investor staff was not allowed to have conflicts of interest with the investment firm. We already are only allowed to buy vote-less B shares while the Wallenbergs own A shares with votes. But at least they use them to keep the investment managers under control.