According to the New York Times, even the ghosts in Vietnam are suffering from the effects of inflation: "August is the month when Buddhists ply the hungry ghosts of the dead with food and wine and cigarettes and honor them with paper offerings that represent the good things in life: cars, houses, motorbikes, stereo sets, fancy suits. But like everything else in Vietnam, these brightly colored offerings have risen steeply in price, and shopkeepers say people are buying fewer gifts to burn for the dead."
The article further states that the problems in Vietnam are self-inflicted, the result of:
"...an overheated economy as Vietnam raced forward with inadequate safeguards. Too much capital, particularly from foreign investment, has collided with bottlenecks in infrastructure and capacity...."
Bottomline: Vietnam is still a young and immature emerging market, experiencing its first serious economic (and political?) growing pains - much like Russia in the 1990s (which came roaring back a decade later...)