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The Demoralization is just Beginning

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#431

Post by tomhoward »

LeroyRaz wrote: post #423
tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

Your claim that good economicts "know there is no free lunch" is completely false, unsubstantiated and actively misleading. Many impressive economists believe there are policies that could massively improve the worlds economy, but that implementating these policies is a coordination problem / hard to overcome lobbying / politically intractable, etc... Radical Markets is great book on exactly this topic.

I’m just saying every perceived benefit has some kind of cost or perverse consequence, eventually. Please feel free to point to a specific example of a policy that has been successfully implemented that contradicts this principle.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#432

Post by hyperman1 »

flyinglizard wrote: post #410
foven wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, when you write an article like this foretelling the doom of the american economy, why would you think you are able to brain drain any country? What stops the countries you are trying to drain from offering better incentives to stay?

At this point in time, US is the global leader in personal freedoms, culture and financial opportunities. These are the things people are looking to immigrate towards. Personal freedoms can't be manufactured. They are a product of the underlying system governing a country. The US has very strong institutions and legal framework in the form of the constitution (again, at this point in time; I expect the current admin…

As an EU er: fat no on this one, sorry. Personal freedom is available in most western countries. Hollywood is in decline for a while now, with in the EU at least a lot of local productions going mainstream.

The big pros of the USA are 1) the unified market, where everyone shares the language, most laws and regulations, a lot of culture and political vision. Also 2) the ability to take risks. Starting a company is easy, and failing it is not carreer-terminating. You don't need a piece of paper for absolutely everything.

Also, I've learned first French and later English, by osmosis, as that's the language of whatever came into the country. I noticed recently I am starting to osmosis-learn Chinese now, and I am not the only one. Also, I've seen brain drain to the USA in my student years, but today, people also choose to go to China

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#433

Post by KaiserPro »

tromp wrote: post #374
KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

Small typo fix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Yup sorry, Marshall the man, not Martial the state.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#434

Post by Mordisquitos »

jgilias wrote: post #397
tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Brain drain, despite the name, is not really a zero-sum game. The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country. I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a success…

> The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country.

How many Europeans who emigrated to the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries returned to their countries after making it big in America? Is any of Europe's economic development since then attributable to them?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#435

Post by tomhoward »

energy123 wrote: post #415
tomhoward wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is basically an argument that China should become more like North Korea rather than the other way around. How exactly? I’m no pro-China advocate (I’m Australian and live with the mixed outcomes of our ties with China, and I have no strong feelings about what Australia or the US should do with respect to China or anyone else). But (leaving aside arguments about their “true” motives and assuming good faith), Chi…

Because China allows brain drain, seeing it as an eventual source of innovation, but North Korea doesn't. Building walls to keep people in doesn't work. There are many industries in China that only happened because of brain drain. If they followed your argument and stopped people from leaving like North Korea, all those industries wouldn't exist and they'd be a poorer country. Their missile program wouldn't exist or…

That’s not my argument at all. You’re responding to a straw man interpretation of what I wrote.

I’m saying that for a country like the US, the idea that brain-draining the best from the rest of the world will have unmitigated positive outcomes is false.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#436

Post by chazhaz »

rsanek wrote: post #400
pif wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That takes planning, money vision and time. And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans, unless you either make huge efforts to ensure everyone gets their fair share (see Scandinavia) or you have a good plan for people being rich with not too much effort (see Switzerland and other tax havens). Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too la…

income inequality today is about the same as it was 100 years ago. https://ourworldindata.org/how-has-income-inequality-within-...

...and about twice what it was 50 years ago. How have Sweden, Japan, France, etc. managed to keep income inequality around postwar lows while America hasn't?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#437

Post by nosianu »

ryandamm wrote: post #16
coliveira wrote: post #10

The big mistake of this kind of analysis is to assume that it depends only on the desires of the US. But other countries have agency too, they can also decide to be first class economies. The current status of China is due to its focus on achieving greatness. There's not much that the US could or can do to derail China from its achievements. Let's stop trying to block other countries and step up to work harder.

China has major structural weaknesses in its economy that are currently overshadowed by the US cr*pping its own and its allies’ pants. Specifically: there is not much of a home grown consumer economy; they have driven growth too heavily on exports and infrastructure build, leading to a massive overhang in building, a housing bubble that is teetering dangerously close to unwinding, and a major shortage of domestic con…

Again this focus on the financials, exactly what is criticized. What do they matter when they have sooo much of the real economy, of the world's manufacturing?

On the one hand you have a bunch of virtual numbers, on the other one you have a large number of top factories, scientists and engineers (they days of copying are long past). You would go with the virtual numbers if you could choose?

Even if finance completely collapses and all money vanishes, they will still have all those real things. Restarting finance from there is far, far easier than the other way around. Too much magical thinking around "money".

PS: I don't like the article though. Lots of... "statements", let's put it that way.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#438

Post by jgilias »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #434
jgilias wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Brain drain, despite the name, is not really a zero-sum game. The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country. I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a success…

> The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country. How many Europeans who emigrated to the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries returned to their countries after making it big in America? Is any of Europe's economic development since then attributable to them?

I don’t know. But I don’t think that matters to the discussion. The world is a much different place these days. A lot more connected.

Also, most of that emigration was more like “famine-drain”.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#439

Post by agumonkey »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

But smart people stuck in bad countries would not be able to work and thrive or maybe their ideas would get locked somewhere ?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#440

Post by RivieraKid »

This started out interesting but then the red flags started to pop up. Going to jail in Europe for posting memes, gold standard, salivating over doing something that benefits the US and hurts countries that are already poorer than the US.

He has strong opinions on economics, but doesn't understand it. His points about economics are partially true but either subtly incorrect or interpreted incorrectly.

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