If high skilled labor leaves a poor country, but sends back remittances, is it good or bad for that country?
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

Remittances are usually consumed with basic goods and services. It amounts to economic relief, while a “brain” amounts to economic capital—meaning increase in local knowledge and sustained economic growth, often for far more people than the few recipients of remittances.

That said, if it’s a bad thing for the origin country it depends on there being opportunities in the country of origin for that “brain” to be of any use. Far too many countries, through economic failure, don’t offer opportunity, sometimes at all, so the potential of that brain would be underutilized. You could argue that underutilization is still better than not having that brain... but not for human kind in general.

I’d prefer the brains be free, and let the laggard country learn the hard lessons ie don’t scare away your brains.

It happens in the US. Flyover country doesn't have the latest greatest highest paying techie jobs. In the rural town I raised our kids the techie people coming back after college were those whose dads were doctors or lawyers with established practices. The same was true of a lot of the ambitious blue collar folks. Farming and agriculture were dying in the 70s, ag more slowly hung another 20 years.

In the US I was educated at my public university. The tradition of each US state having its own university is largely based on the land grant system ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university ).

I did feel a moral obligation to try to stay in the state that helped me so much, and did do so for the first five or so years of my career, but then it became clear that if I wanted to advance my skills I had to go elsewhere since we really did not have much advanced development going on.

I'm not sure where my sense of obligation came from, I'm pretty sure it's just my personal sense of what is right and what is wrong. No one ever told me I needed to stay in my home state to pay back what was provided to me.

I'm sure in a lot of other fields the university trained students for they would have to leave pretty much immediately since there was no local job market for such skills.

It points out another dilemma of educators: How do you know now what skills kids will need decades from now?

To me when we are talking about public funds a better effort should be done to match supply and demand. I think one of the reasons universities are so expensive is they support so many programs that in the end do not lead to careers since supply exceeds demand by so much. I think that's fine if you have endowments like Harvard and Yale have, but if we're talking about taking money away from taxpayers we need to be more responsible.

So, overall, I think brain drain is bad for the country of origin, but they need to match training with opportunity. If you train more specialists than you can absorb then they will leave. I personally would not have been opposed to some requirement to stay in my home state for a period of time but with ways to show that you really do need to leave if the opportunities just aren't there. All of this would be incredibly difficult to manage and would inevitably become bureaucratic but I think it'd end up being better than what we do now, which is quite random.

As for leaving and sending back remittances, I think staying home is more valuable to the home country presuming they are able to support the growth of local industry. Part of the problem we see with areas exporting labor and talent is they don't have a great tradition of capitalism (some parts of ex-USSR come to mind) or some areas have so much corruption that it's next to impossible for local industry to succeed (plenty of underdeveloped parts of this world have this problem). Given this, perhaps leaving and sending back remittances is the best one can do for one's home country.

Brain drain is basically terrible for countries. The top say 5% of driven, “smart” people drive the society and the economy. Without those people - I even call them “key population” - you have great people left over, but not people who are going to get much of anything changed. Brain drain is an absolute travesty for countries or rural areas.

When I go to hot cities like Austin or New York or Bay Area, people are refugees from rest of USA or rest of world. Those cities are teeming with top 5% in terms of driven / smart. There are exceptions. I do know some bright people just hanging out humbly in rural America, people much smarter than I was. One girl just left the army reserve and will become a schoolteacher. She was bright enough to go to MIT, off the scale intelligence, top few kids I ever met. Many others did in fact brain drain out of their hometowns - thinking of chemistry professor, bio stat professor, googlers, etc from rural towns I know. That’s the majority. Brain drain Hurts small towns and small countries. But that’s our modern world. It is polarizing into urban elite versus, or against, everyone else. And globally it will create elite countries and vassal countries. This is dangerous.

LCDFlight wrote:

Brain drain is basically terrible for countries. The top say 5% of driven, “smart” people drive the society and the economy. Without those people - I even call them “key population” - you have great people left over, but not people who are going to get much of anything changed. Brain drain is an absolute travesty for countries or rural areas.

When I go to hot cities like Austin or New York or Bay Area, people are refugees from rest of USA or rest of world. Those cities are teeming with top 5% in terms of driven / smart. There are exceptions. I do know some bright people just hanging out humbly in rural America, people much smarter than I was. One girl just left the army reserve and will become a schoolteacher. She was bright enough to go to MIT, off the scale intelligence, top few kids I ever met. Many others did in fact brain drain out of their hometowns - thinking of chemistry professor, bio stat professor, googlers, etc from rural towns I know. That’s the majority. Brain drain Hurts small towns and small countries. But that’s our modern world. It is polarizing into urban elite versus, or against, everyone else. And globally it will create elite countries and vassal countries. This is dangerous.

IMO things move in cycles and people will find that urbanization is fine when you're young but is very bad for raising a family. COVID-19 also shows how problematic dense urban areas can be. COVID-19 is also forcing people to learn how to work remotely. I think we may see trends shifting away from increased urbanization.

In France if you go to one of the best engineering schools (Polytechnique) it's free and you get a salary as a student, however you have to work 5 years for the public sector after finishing it. A friend of mine did so and ended up in the cabinet of Emmanuel Macron when he was industry minister. Now he has gone to the private sector.

A company can also pay the state to take you right away.

In France there is some brain drain, mostly engineers, we train a lot of them, but many go to other countries, especially to Silicon Valley. Finance students also go for the City or NYC. It's up to French companies to keep them here, or get them back, though, maybe by paying executives less, and engineers more.

In developing countries, forcing all students to work for the state after their studies might be a good idea though, both to seed their skills into the public sector, or make a career out of it and maybe lead one day, and there is also a better chance for them to take roots, found a family, meaning they won't be so eager to leave.

One thing to keep in mind is that people go overseas for different reasons, which are often unrelated to the job they do in either country. Middle class skilled people are unlikely to send back money - if anything (and particularly from countries where the future is uncertain) they're more likely to get whatever money they can out of the country.

People who go to another country out of economic necessity are often willing to do whatever work is available to them. In South Africa we had a receptionist at my office, who it turns out was a medical professional in Zimbabwe. She wasn't allowed to practise in SA, and was saving up to get the neccessary certification/license/whatever. Here in Hong Kong, it's pretty common for families with small children to have domestic helpers - mostly from the Philippines & Indonesia. Many of those have university educations, some left jobs as teachers, accountants, engineers, etc because it turns out the peanuts they earn cleaning and babysitting for some upper-middle class family in HK is vastly more than they were making back home.

So in those cases, the brain is lost to both countries.

The benefit of the knowledge those people have far exceeds any economic gains gained from their remittance.

So I'd say brain drain is bad.

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

The benefit of the knowledge those people have far exceeds any economic gains gained from their remittance.

So I'd say brain drain is bad.

OTOH, without certain conditions (capital, credit, a reasonable local market) those brains just can't develop there, no matter how good their knowledge is.

PPVRA wrote:

Remittances are usually consumed with basic goods and services. It amounts to economic relief, while a “brain” amounts to economic capital—meaning increase in local knowledge and sustained economic growth, often for far more people than the few recipients of remittances.

That said, if it’s a bad thing for the origin country it depends on there being opportunities in the country of origin for that “brain” to be of any use. Far too many countries, through economic failure, don’t offer opportunity, sometimes at all, so the potential of that brain would be underutilized. You could argue that underutilization is still better than not having that brain... but not for human kind in general.

I’d prefer the brains be free, and let the laggard country learn the hard lessons ie don’t scare away your brains.

Excellent post.
In India I knew of a doctor. After studying medicine he went abroad and worked there for maybe 25 years. With savings he returned to India to a place where business is possible and built his own hospital. All of this is more than 20 years back.

I heard of a high educated Indian that had a good job in the US. He wanted to start a company in his hometown. Strange enough, though that hometown is rather wealthy for Indian standard, it seems to be wealthy through remittances only. That guy ran around for a few months to get permissions. He got fed up and went back to the US.

Most of rural India doesn't allow businesses to prosper. As a rule: where there is industry, one can assume a culture that makes industry possible. Otherwise forget it. India has maybe 100 million domestic migrant laborers. (Who knows? It's a rough idea.)
I heard of educated people working as builders in Goa. There are more than a million unemployed engineers in India. Most won't meet Western standards in education, but they are not dull either.

Speaking of industrialized countries:
Somewhere I read in Germany having a connection to high speed rail is one of the preconditions for many businesses to settle.
50 years back it was common that an academic married somebody less educated. The couple could settle wherever the educated person got a good offer. If today a chemist marries a biologist the options to settle will probably be limited to a few very big cities. What if a chemist marries a doctor, but the doctor has strong ideas as to where he/ she wants to live?
Then there is a rumor that many businesses like to settle in Bavaria as this is the state with the least tax controllers in Germany. Then different German states have different difficult educational system.

I read that many educated people left Greece, even doctors. Also many of the most motivated blue collar workers may have gone. But I'm only assuming this. But then didn't people vote for governments that preferred social spending with foreign debt over investment with tax money?
Migration is the possibility for people with drive to have a good life even though their (democratic or otherwise) government is a mess.

Brain drain is bad, no questions about it. Sure, they send money back home, but what when they retire or die? Then you have nothing (and as we see way too often in my country, the immigrants don't even leave money for their own retirement). If they stay in the country of origin they will create jobs and wealth which ultimately trickles down, lifting society as a whole.

It is similar to the "teach a man to fish" saying.

The important bit for us in the west is to provide sustainable help for those that stay. Development programs, microfinance and investment in infrastructure are all things that enable growth. OTOH, we should abstain from donating clothes and try to restrain ourselves from providing food aid to only the most critical cases. Donations only kill off local industry who would under normal circumstances have provided the same.

JJJ wrote:

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

The benefit of the knowledge those people have far exceeds any economic gains gained from their remittance.

So I'd say brain drain is bad.

OTOH, without certain conditions (capital, credit, a reasonable local market) those brains just can't develop there, no matter how good their knowledge is.

There needs to be a legal and capital system to promote investment. Too many countries are low on transparency international's corruption index. There must be opportunity to retain talent.

I wish everyone would read Adam Smith, Freedman, and Bernstein. It is far easier for a government to suppress opportunity than create it.

Lightsaber

VSMUT wrote:

The important bit for us in the west is to provide sustainable help for those that stay. Development programs, microfinance and investment in infrastructure are all things that enable growth.

In India an ear specialist told me that a foreign organisation financed hearing aids for poor people. He gave a poor person a free hearing aid, to which the poor man replied:
"And who will pay for the replacement batteries?"
The ear specialist told me:
"You can't carry the horse to the trough. The horse has to come to the trough itself."

Did China develop through foreign help?

The only foreign help that helps is if the IMF enforces the Washington Concensus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washingto ... Ten_Points

The only point I disagree are protective duties. For industries to build up there have to be protective duties. And I doubt they should be uniform. There is no point for an African country to impose import duty on plane turbines. They would still have to be imported. But for industries which do have a chance to develop protective duties are required. The British did this in India in the 1920s. They imposed high import duty limited to ten years on cement, paper, sugar and some other products. That's how India industrialized. Part of the profits were then used to support Gandhi.

I once met somebody from Kosovo. When I told him that I live in India he asked what I think of the British Empire. I said "Good."
He told me that after the war the UN was in the country. I'm not sure if the UN was only supervising the legal system or if they also were involved in the executive. At any rate, fitting for democracy, the parliamentarians had to elect if the UN should stay. Surprise, surprise, the politicians voted against supervision from outsiders. But that man told me:
"That was super. They should have stayed another 50 years,"

Unless politics interferes, there is no way that a society doesn't grow rich, as each society has plenty of people with drive. Proper regulation is required. And a functioning legal system. Protective duties and foreign direct investment is also good. But nowhere as important as a functioning legal system.
Foreign credit is often involved. But China teaches us that development is also possible if the poor lend to the rich.

Sokes wrote:

Did China develop through foreign help?

But China teaches us that development is also possible if the poor lend to the rich.

China received loads of aid in the past. I know my own country's foreign development organisation was involved, even if it ended a few decades ago (they also had a lot of programs in India BTW). China still receives some aid to this day, like the IPUs lowered postal tariffs for parcels leaving China, gained when they were still a developing country.

Sokes wrote:

Most of rural India doesn't allow businesses to prosper. As a rule: where there is industry, one can assume a culture that makes industry possible. Otherwise forget it.

You hit the nail on the head. You said a lot of good things on your post, but I only quoted this part for emphasis. I'm from Brazil and I cannot tell you how many similar stories to the ones you just shared happened here as well. Bureaucracy, bad regulations (not just excessive or not enough, straight up bad regulation), corruption of all forms, etc. It all adds up to poverty for most.

I've heard similar stories of people fleeing Argentina for Brazil and elsewhere, particularly during the early 2000s debt crisis. I hear it today from Venezuela. But this afflicts Brazil, too.

This is why it's important for developing countries to follow the recipe of success "tried and tested" by South Korea, Chile, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. And stay away from the examples of Cuba, Venezuela, among others. The trick for countries like Brazil and India is making this happen in a democratic environment, whereas some of the countries I listed above were "lucky" to start on that path during dictatorships who had a much easier time implementing these reforms.

People need a decent business environment to beat poverty. That's why development grants, IMF loans, foreign aid, none of that stuff works in the long run.

@PPVRA:
I just googled it. A legislative period in Brazil's lower house (Chamber of Deputies) is four years. Half of Argentine's Chamber of Deputies is replaced in elections every two years.
I believe election every four or five years is common in democracies. I am not aware of democracies which has election every eight or ten years. And I believe that's the great weakness of democracies. If one rules four years of which three years are a global recession the people will have a very different opinion than if three years are during a global boom. Four, five years is not enough to see the long term good/ bad that comes out of certain policies. A party voted for five years to power has to be stupid to plan for a new railway that takes eight years to build. Give that money as subsidies and people will be happy.
Consider also the psychology of parliamentarians. In election every ten years at least the first six years they don't need to concern themselves with elections. I may be wrong in this, but I believe it should be tried.

Somehow in Germany parties never fail to get reelected after only four years in power. The consequences of policies become visible. I believe one must always reelect a government that was only four, five years in power. You may know the policies are miserable, but give other people a chance to realize it as well. It's a bad strategy for medium term, but I believe a good one long term.
I have to admit historical evidence from India does not support this last hypothesis of mine. Usually people follow a certain ideology. They may reelect a bad government again and again if they get subsidies high enough to keep them from dying. I'm more confident in my hypothesis that election every ten years is sufficient time for a politician to prove an ideology wrong.

Germany under Wilhelm I, Japan's Meiji Restoration, China today. Should we include Russia from Lenin till Khrushchev? It's true that many, if not most, rich countries became rich under authoritarian rule. But it's also true that 99% of dictatorships are scrap.
Did Germany, Japan or Russia have a happy end? Would a democratic government in China have downplayed the Corona risk?
If countries develop under authoritarian system, they need to know when to jump off. An authoritarian father can also have a successful child. But sooner or later he has to accept adulthood of his child.
I believe Russia after Khrushchev may have been wealthy enough for a democracy. To start a democracy when people struggle to such an extend that the old political system fails is difficult.

I believe in foreign intervention. A country proved itself incapable of self rule if it can't finance itself with tax and can't get credit any more on financial markets either. If I had to be a believer in self determination I would say they may carry on without being able to import required goods including medicine. That's their choice. Alternatively they may request the UN to rule for fifteen years.
However as I'm not a believer in self determination I'm afraid the ruling classes of that country may find a famine acceptable. Maybe the IMF is as good as it gets. What about the political left that holds the IMF accountable for suffering in a population? I better don't comment.

Should democracies allow citizens to vote for rule by the UN?

Found something:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmR1QRGeBV4

Sokes wrote:

@PPVRA:
A party voted for five years to power has to be stupid to plan for a new railway that takes eight years to build. Give that money as subsidies and people will be happy.
Consider also the psychology of parliamentarians. In election every ten years at least the first six years they don't need to concern themselves with elections. I may be wrong in this, but I believe it should be tried.

Thinking over it I got some more provocative thoughts:
The difference between developing countries and developed countries is that developed countries have delayed bribes and an unconstitutional pluralism that protects from too much populism.

What I mean:
If politicians would only focus on reelection they would introduce basic incomes. The party who promises the highest increase will gain a lot of votes from the lower half income group.
But a minister making pleasing policies for industries will get very nice advisory contracts (= legal and taxed bribes) if not reelected. Chief ministers may get high management positions. Being a politician may satisfy narcissistic needs better, but income will be better afterwards.
Then there are media. For Bilderberg conferences media moguls are invited. But their media never report what was talked about. I believe the media moguls get a say which policies or politicians should be promoted. Media moguls also have narcissistic needs and want to be flattered by other powerful people. So politicians have to listen to think tanks, Bilderberg, Atlantik-Brücke and if they want a luxury life after politics to business. What if a media mogul doesn't like a politician that works mostly with envy? How will such a politician do once he looses reelection?
While many of these measures are really bribes, they lead to pluralism and limit populism and are therefore most of the time a good thing.
For countries with raw materials or a big military industrial complex this pluralism can at times be bad.
See "Project for the new American century"


Speaking of protective duties:
India or even Egypt are of a size that makes it attractive for e.g. a car manufacturer to invest. To allow foreign direct investment is enough. No need for protective duties. What about Tunisia? Only extreme high protective duties can motivate an industry to start business with a small domestic market, unless the country is part of a bigger free trade block. I know small Austria delivers a lot of parts to German car manufacturers.

Though India is huge, there is less electronics industry. The government at the moment tries to change this. Protective duties are required for some years.
What was first, the chicken or the egg? What was first, the electronic manufacturer or his required suppliers? Just like the first 50 planes of a new model are very expensive, so is electronics manufactured for the first time in a certain place.

I otherwise believe in free trade.
Maybe one can make a rule that only 20% of imported value is allowed to have import duty and that each industry can't get this protection for more than ten years. IIRC the British in the 1920s imposed 80% import duty in India only for selected industries limited to ten years. (I'm not too confident about the 80%. I read about it long back in a book in a library.) That worked.
Funny enough the British in the 1920s were still free traders.

If the country spent money on higher education and got nothing in return, it is bad for the country of origin.
If the country is a diploma mill, it is good for the country of origin and bad for the destination.

dtw2hyd wrote:

If the country spent money on higher education and got nothing in return, it is bad for the country of origin.
If the country is a diploma mill, it is good for the country of origin and bad for the destination.

I recently read that India plans to change the law so that Indian universities can cooperate with foreign universities. However ownership will have to continue to be Indian majority. Of course: Education in India is mostly a business reserved for politicians, similar to lodges and petrol pumps.

What I have observed: Consumer products with Indian ownership decrease in quality over time. E.g. a mosquito repellent may contain more water over time, cheese decreases in taste, toilet paper quality changes, ice cream decreases milk content.... I have not observed that washing powder or cremes from foreign manufacturers decrease in quality. Should Indian government limit foreign ownership in consumer brands to protect domestic capitalists or should the government limit domestic ownership to protect consumers? I speak of consumer products only and only until such time till a higher quality consciousness develops.

Sokes wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

If the country spent money on higher education and got nothing in return, it is bad for the country of origin.
If the country is a diploma mill, it is good for the country of origin and bad for the destination.

I recently read that India plans to change the law so that Indian universities can cooperate with foreign universities. However ownership will have to continue to be Indian majority. Of course: Education in India is mostly a business reserved for politicians, similar to lodges and petrol pumps.

What I have observed: Consumer products with Indian ownership decrease in quality over time. E.g. a mosquito repellent may contain more water over time, cheese decreases in taste, toilet paper quality changes, ice cream decreases milk content.... I have not observed that washing powder or cremes from foreign manufacturers decrease in quality. Should Indian government limit foreign ownership in consumer brands to protect domestic capitalists or should the government limit domestic ownership to protect consumers? I speak of consumer products only and only until such time till a higher quality consciousness develops.

India already had "infant industry" protections for a long time. This was blamed for delaying India's industrial development by decades. Ordinarily rich Westerners might think that is a good thing. But poverty was a terrible condition in India and decades were wasted (I recall 1970s being a typical example). Both India and China delayed their development for decades due to policy mistakes, which greatly harmed the people.

Limiting foreign ownership is a reasonable idea, but government ownership of business and excessive regulation has been blamed for severe industry failures in India in the past.

The best way to enforce quality is the way German or US governments do it. Transparent markets, safety regulations overseen by the government.

LCDFlight wrote:

Sokes wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

The best way to enforce quality is the way German or US governments do it. Transparent markets, safety regulations overseen by the government.

You are living in the glories of the past. There is really very little that is transparent about the US market, thanks to the lobbying and poor practices by the private sector itself. It is very hard to do well in the USA anymore if you are a start-up. Americans pay 2 to 3 times MORE for a typical mobile phone account (10-15 dollars a month in Europe and Asia and elsewhere). Why? What's so special about a 50 dollar American mobile phone account? Nothing, you just are being fleeced. What about air fares? Europeans pay far lower fares with far more protections on flyers rights. Americans pay a lot more with little rights, and the actual product on board is notoriously poor in US airlines. So where is the quality there? Do I even have to get started with the US healthcare system? It's been completely exposed for the fraud it is. Medicine? You pay 10 times more than everyone else. Food safety? US food is more toxic it has been shown than food in some third world countries. Everywhere you look, it's a crony free market system with the big guys over charging and under delivering year after year, while US workers pay more and more without a big increase in wages. Executives get millions when the times are good, and millions when they drive the company to the ground. Huh? Did that sentence even make sense? (But it's the truth). Final word to make my case: Boeing.

Germany is significantly better in environmental and worker and consumer rights being in the EU, but their companies and corporate culture has also taken a big hit in recent years. Scandals, frauds, corruption. We can start from the car markers and their lies and misleadings about emission standards. Or we can talk about the engineering and corruption disaster that is Berlin Brandenburg's construction and concession. German pharma has also been seeing some skeletons come out recently.

And then back to the US, let's not even start with the regulations "overseen by the government". The government plain and simple just looks the other way, we all know why. There have been two major financial crises in the US in the last twenty years and virtually no one in business or government paid the price and was held to the laws, and their companies were "bailed-out". Now I for one am not against bail-outs per say to stave off a major emergency, but to me, a bail-out should mean your business is finished once the crisis is over. To be sold piece-meal to new investors, and by allowing a special incentive for new players from scratch to come in. Bail-out should not mean we give you cash to write-off your bad decisions and then you can carry on as usual.

Sorry, there is nothing worth emulating from either economic system as they stand right now. That is not to say I have some other example to put forth. Really, everywhere you see in the world, the system is rotten to the core and sadly it will take massive event to shake it clean. Maybe this is it.

Derico wrote:

LCDFlight wrote:

Sokes wrote:

You are living in the glories of the past. There is really very little that is transparent about the US market, thanks to the lobbying and poor practices by the private sector itself. It is very hard to do well in the USA anymore if you are a start-up. Americans pay 2 to 3 times MORE for a typical mobile phone account (10-15 dollars a month in Europe and Asia and elsewhere). Why? What's so special about a 50 dollar American mobile phone account? Nothing, you just are being fleeced. What about air fares? Europeans pay far lower fares with far more protections on flyers rights. Americans pay a lot more with little rights, and the actual product on board is notoriously poor in US airlines. So where is the quality there? Do I even have to get started with the US healthcare system? It's been completely exposed for the fraud it is. Medicine? You pay 10 times more than everyone else. Food safety? US food is more toxic it has been shown than food in some third world countries. Everywhere you look, it's a crony free market system with the big guys over charging and under delivering year after year, while US workers pay more and more without a big increase in wages. Executives get millions when the times are good, and millions when they drive the company to the ground. Huh? Did that sentence even make sense? (But it's the truth). Final word to make my case: Boeing.

Germany is significantly better in environmental and worker and consumer rights being in the EU, but their companies and corporate culture has also taken a big hit in recent years. Scandals, frauds, corruption. We can start from the car markers and their lies and misleadings about emission standards. Or we can talk about the engineering and corruption disaster that is Berlin Brandenburg's construction and concession. German pharma has also been seeing some skeletons come out recently.

And then back to the US, let's not even start with the regulations "overseen by the government". The government plain and simple just looks the other way, we all know why. There have been two major financial crises in the US in the last twenty years and virtually no one in business or government paid the price and was held to the laws, and their companies were "bailed-out". Now I for one am not against bail-outs per say to stave off a major emergency, but to me, a bail-out should mean your business is finished once the crisis is over. To be sold piece-meal to new investors, and by allowing a special incentive for new players from scratch to come in. Bail-out should not mean we give you cash to write-off your bad decisions and then you can carry on as usual.

Sorry, there is nothing worth emulating from either economic system as they stand right now. That is not to say I have some other example to put forth. Really, everywhere you see in the world, the system is rotten to the core and sadly it will take massive event to shake it clean. Maybe this is it.

Astonishing post. Yes, the US has ridiculous problems. But its prosperity has been a total success, and people who doubt it merely reveal that they are not fluent in the numbers involved.

My hope is the future in India and China is successful and wealthy. Will they reach 60k USD GDP per Person, maybe. Hard to say if it takes 30-50 more years, but with drastic improvements to rule of law it is possible. Nothing to emulate... SMH. You must have never experienced poverty if 60k per capita GDP means nothing to you. Hospital nurses slightly above average make $100k in the US. You sound like a Lazy, rich complainer. Sorry to be angry but development economics is a significant moral issue. I don’t like to see ignorant policies hurt people. Many have suffered in USSR, India, China because of dysfunction and false policy superstitions. To look at persons from those countries who live in the US, it is unbelievable the wealth and success they enjoy here.

Money isn’t everything, but without it, it is hard to run a society that works for the people.