| > Yes and no. You're right, a government should provide mainly for its own people. However the stability of the whole world is important for national security and national prosperity. Again agreed, I think Nixon was the greatest recent president because he opened China and we are all still alive today. > The main problem is that mass immigration isn't a real solution, Europe and the US/Canada can't support the entire world's population. Agreed. > It's because the money isn't generally used as an investment, but rather minimum wage workers from the US/Canada send back money to their families, which merely supplements their income. On a whole the influx of money drives up prices, without contributing much to development. I'm not sure I see the logic to this. I guess the extra flow of American dollars into the country would make industrial exports more expensive, so perhaps that 1 job in America would cost the developing nation a fraction of a new factory job at home. Not really sure I see the net downside though (from POV of developing nation). Also this sounds like it would cause deflation in the developing nation, not inflation. > If you look at statistics as well, it's not the countries with the most ex-pats (and I mean as a percentage of population, not in absolute numbers) that are growing the quickest, but rather countries with a stable rule of law which make investment more attractive (and re-investment by those within the country). Are these two things mutually exclusive and how are they correlated? That's what I was trying to suggest, wondering if expats get to vote. > The problem is that as capital (and land) gets concentrated in fewer hands, the income earned from capital outpaces the income earned from labour, resulting in lower relative wealth for the labour side of the equation. Thomas Piketty explains this well, and has amassed a seriously impressive set of data to back up all his assertions. I can't dismiss Piketty's work but his data was all collected in the context of the current economic system, which I think has several flaws that negate overreaching conclusions (IDK if they are his conclusions or media's reporting). Namely the exponential-without-limit monetary inflation of fiat currencies by western governments.
Also land is a fixed resource so the appropriate way to fix this is really simple and well established: property taxes. If technology advances to the point that capital is basically free and labor is basically worthless...it doesn't really matter if the ratio stayed the same, IMO. At that point it will just matter how attractive, funny, creative, and good at sports you are. |