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Kennedy School economist George Borjas today ridicules Mexico's President Calderón for affirming a person's "right to work wherever one can make the greatest contribution." Borjas says that the hapless president listens too much to his "disingenuous" staff and has unjustifiably "invented a new 'right.'"
The BBC reports that European donors have unveiled a US$6 billion aid package for West Africa to "help halt the emigration of young people from the region," by creating "a Francophone West African bloc so prosperous no one will want to leave."
The New Republic's lead editorial (free registration required) blasts the now-moribund Immigration Reform Act for including a provision to admit hundreds of thousands of temporary workers each year. It bitterly condemns America's "unsavory tradition" of "importing non-Europeans to do the difficult tasks that our own citizens shun" as part of a "shadowy underclass".
Yesterday the New York Times profiled Lant Pritchett and sketched his proposal to create 16 million guest-worker jobs in rich countries for people from poor countries. His goal is to help people from very poor places make their lives better.
The latest Hudson Institute "Index of Global Philanthropy" just came out. It makes a very important point: that the United States gives an enormous amount of private, voluntary cash assistance to people in developing countries, far in excess of its official aid. Indeed, it shows that Americans give more to poor countries via private channels -- as a fraction of national income -- than any other rich country.
You might have seen a recent New York Times Magazine cover story (subscription req.) about Filipinos working overseas. It is a colorful portrait of what life has been like for the Comodas family, two generations of which have worked abroad.
Nearly every time there is a news story about the billions of dollars flowing to poor countries as remittances, someone worries that not “enough” of that money is being saved and invested. A case in point is today’s piece in the Washington Post. Latin American workers in the US will send home $45 billion this year, but “only a small portion … has gone to economic development.”
Every developed country was once a developing country; every rich country was once poor. In other words, we can relate to the experience of today’s poor countries because we’ve been there, done that. The better we understand what Americans needed back then, the better we will understand what citizens of today’s poor countries need from us now.
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