Well, at least this speaks well of him not having been a corrupt minister who stole whatever funds he could during his tenure and stashed them in portable or overseas wealth. I'd find it hard to believe him fleeing to Europe with much money and then deciding to work as a courier just for kicks or cover.
An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
81–90 of 101 posts
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father had no trouble transferring his education into getting his PhD. My mother's skills carried her to a doctorate in nursing My uncle's medical skills carried over well enough for him to be an orthopedic surgeon My aunt's carried well enough to run her own medical clinic in Norway Do you think they're learning to count sticks or something to get their degrees in other countries? Why wouldn't thinks as internal…
Which country did they emigrate from?
Ghana
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>This was a short period of massive changes to logistics (better railways), society (electric lights improved factory productivity), and what was even possible to make (improved materials and precision machining). There have been just as many opportunities to raise productivity in modern times, with the development of computerized production, internet communication, robotics, rocketry and space-based industries, pla…
The changes in productivity due to computers, robotics etc. are probably closer in economic impact to the first industrial revolution than the second. The second industrial revolution increased demand for labor, raising wages. The first vastly decreased demand for labor, leading to falling wages, increasing inequality and social unrest.
All productivity enhancing technology, whether those that emerged in the first industrial revolution, second industrial revolution or information technology revolution, reduce the amount of labor required to do a task, and thereby increase how much the population as a whole produces, leading to wages increasing.
The decline in wage growth since the 1970s does not appear to be due to any special properties of more recent technological innovations, given countries like Hong Kong and Singapore, which were more restrained in their growth of labor regulations and taxation, saw massive wage growth into the 21st century.
It appears simply to be due to a huge transition to social democracy:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long...
Which has resulted in a larger portion of economic output being directed by coercive non-market forces, which are less efficient than the consumer-directed allocation of resources caused by market forces.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also fail to mention that not everybody is driven by money. Russian engineer and scientist knew pretty well that they could get better life conditions in the US for example, yet they decided to live their life in Russia. These are personal choice beyond what me or you think about, need to be respected. So said, many researcher today are paid very little and they could get a better pay in private sector yet they d…
>> yet they decided to live their life in Russia. These are personal choice Really? Anyone who thinks that America, or anyone else, has any sort of open-door policy towards immigration is kidding themselves. Setting aside whether a Russian engineer would be allowed to leave Russia, the process of immigrating to another country is never easy. It costs money. Lots of it.
Even without regulation, language is a huge barrier.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not transferable 1:1, some college / university are not even recognized abroad. I had a friend of mine from Thailand that couldn't get recognized her master degree in marketing in an European country. So she enrolled again to go through the same stuff she learned just to get the valid degree spendable in the county
My comment is saying they're not transferable 1:1 right there... Even between first world countries they're not transferable 1:1, even within single countries they're not transferable 1:1 But the reality is your friend had an incredible head start going over the same stuff she learned. There's this narrative that high educated people form 3rd world countries all have to end up in menial jobs because somehow a doctor/…
> But the reality is your friend had an incredible head start going over the same stuff she learned.
I wouldn't consider an head start to do again your degree once you've done it already in your home country
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Xenophobia has been an increasing concern in Europe in the last 10 years and nobody wants to admin it. There are "new-nazi" movement in Greece and Germany for example which of course target (not only but mostly) immigrants. I guess is totally disconnected from the language discussion.
Golden Dawn in Greece and AFD in Germany (although it should be noted that AFD is not quite the same. GD would be equal to NPD or similar). Both have about 10% of the vote more or less to give you an idea of the size. This is one of the most widely discussed political topics here and has been since at least 2013. I don‘t see how „nobody wants to admit it“. The Green party was recently at 30% and is now at 18%. The so…
Left and moderate politician know the issue, I'm saying normal people and far right won't admit it because they think since they live in their small bubble the entire country is the same.
There has been immense pressure in the last years against immigrants in Europe and is true in every European country. Le Pen in France (21% in the last presidential election, 33% on the second turn vs Macron) and Salvini in Italy (Lega got 17% in the general election) are far right and xenophobic parties too. They won't admit it publicly, but they are not even taking the distance from whom in their party are racist as that helps them on getting votes.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The changes in productivity due to computers, robotics etc. are probably closer in economic impact to the first industrial revolution than the second. The second industrial revolution increased demand for labor, raising wages. The first vastly decreased demand for labor, leading to falling wages, increasing inequality and social unrest.
All productivity enhancing technology, whether those that emerged in the first industrial revolution, second industrial revolution or information technology revolution, reduce the amount of labor required to do a task, and thereby increase how much the population as a whole produces, leading to wages increasing. The decline in wage growth since the 1970s does not appear to be due to any special properties of more rec…
It took over a century for the median wage in Great Britain to return to pre-industrial levels after the first industrial revolution.
> reduce the amount of labor required to do a task... leading to wages increasing.
I'm not aware of this "reduced demand leads to increased prices" economic theory. Can you tell me where I can read more about it? Great Britian increased it's total output while wages fell dramatically. I'm not sure your point is supported by evidence here.
How appicable are the stories of Hong Kong and Singapore to countries that aren't single cities that occupy unique geopolitical positions? Hong Kong is no longer a country. Surely this is a property of unique relationship with China. Surely many other characterisitics of Hong Kong are related to it's relationship with China.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would separate the topic of language and xenophobia. The language is hard and acceptance to speak English - while generally there - is not universal. However, the bubble of non English speakers, the bubble of xenophobic people and bubble of racists in Germany have not the biggest overlaps. Native languages in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japanese or China have a very long history and the countries are very confid…
Tourists don't have to learn the language if they are there. I was a tourist most of my travels in Germany.
They should but they do not need to. But we are talking here about some individuals being declared xenophobic because they did not want to speak English inside of Germany despite having English language capability.
Germany is very welcome to tourists, but we are 80 million country where tourism is a tiny fraction of our GDP. We are not Mallorca, Ibiza or the Bahamas. There cannot be an expectation that as a tourist you have an easy way there.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Believe me, I had no shortage of classmates who ended up starting careers in "boutique investment funds" paying not much better.
What roles were those? On bloomberg they said goldman sacs were paying $100k to junior bankers starting . https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-18/junior-ba...
100k for 95 hours a week, sounds like a great plan. You get paid double because you work double of the time.
And that's also a niche of the bankers, not everyone of them are ending up on top banks.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#901. The guy knows the value of hard work.
2. The guy was honest and didn't embezzle funds to retire in luxury.
I believe he will not only be ok but thrive.