Commentaries (some of them cheeky or provocative) on economic topics by Ralph Musgrave. This site is dedicated to Abba Lerner. I disagree with several claims made by Lerner, and made by his intellectual descendants, that is advocates of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). But I regard MMT on balance as being a breath of fresh air for economics.
Monday, 21 December 2015
Amazing way to abolish poverty in less developed countries.
There’s a phenomenally easy way to eradicate poverty in less developed countries. I deserve a Nobel Prize for thinking of this. I’ll take Pakistan and the UK as examples, and it goes like this.
The entire population of Pakistan moves to the UK. Obviously that couldn’t be done instantaneously, but over five or ten years it could be done. And the entire population of the UK moves to Pakistan.
Since immigrants are amazingly productive (it’s racist to suggest otherwise), the new arrivals in the UK would all have the wages and output per head that are normal for a developed country. Any idea that Pakistanis would bring with them the political corruption and the poor levels of education that currently exist in Pakistan is racist, xenophobic, fascist, Nazi, etc etc. So clearly all the factors that currently explain poverty in Pakistan (genetic and/or cultural) disappear overnight when those migrants arrive in the UK.
As for UK citizens moving to Pakistan, they’d obviously retain the characteristics that make the UK one of the better off countries in the World, so “New Pakistan” (situated to the north of India) would immediately become a fully developed country.
What could possibly be wrong with that idea? What’s wrong will be obvious to tabloid readers, as to whether intellectual leftie broadsheet readers will be able to see what’s wrong, that’s debatable. “Out of the mouths of babes…”, as they say.
An example of "trahison des clercs".
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Agree with this method. I think we should do it right away. Only thing I would add if some people don't want to leave Pakistan, they should be able to stay.
ReplyDeleteThis kinda puts it in perspective
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE