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Well, it's a more complex economic thing from what I'm learning. It's a systems issue rather than a discrete resource/physical capital/human capital thing, ultimately it comes down to incentives. If you have an extremely educated workforce but broadly no incentive to invest in the future, no way to capitalize on those hypothetical investments through access to market, for whichever reasons, then trying to tweak one variable like education will just overflow your shallow tub and the water will spill into countries that do have incentives and where the feedback loop works. If that system breaks down, even for developing countries, it's worrying. For example Canada has a highly educated workforce with mobility, and has hamstrung itself by disincentivising productive investments, instead overvaluing real estate to the point where people entering the workforce now might not see a path to owning even a small condo by their 40s, unless you have a particularly rare and valuable skill, luck, or money from parents, which isn't a high prospect for the circulation of financial prosperity. So we're just subsidizing U.S growth at this point, and so are many other countries, even though we and many immigrants would (often but not always) rather live here, either because this is where our lives are or this is where the vibes are, which is tough to reconcile if there's next to no economic opportunity inside the country. This happens on a micro level as well, my home city's highest prospect is basically moving to a different city; people can be highly educated there, but unless you're going back into the academic system and your highest goal is basically getting a mcmansion (but probably not an actual mansion) you're gunna have to go elsewhere. Electricians probably do just fine though, nothing against that, but it's not really a force for innovation. |