Jared Bissinger ended his excellent BSC presentation on doing business in Myanmar with this quotation: “For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law.” It’s variously attributed to a host of South American dictators – Brazil’s Getulio Vargas by the BBC in 2005, for instance, and Peru’s Óscar R Benavides by the Economist in 2012. Jared’s point was that it could also be uttered by any number of contemporary Myanmar leaders. Now far from a socialist period that was deeply hostile to private-sector endeavour, and pulling ever further away from a junta era of flagrant crony capitalism, the country continues to be characterized by generalized elite hostility to level-playing-field regulation of commercial activity. Land grabs are a routine feature of rural politics, business licences still tend to go to friends of the politico-military establishment, and even the constitution hampers entrepreneurial drive. Meanwhile, ordinary people find it hard to make a living. For reformers, the political economy of Myanmar’s transition generates many of the most difficult challenges.