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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Here’s a question in response: would China have seen such a huge reduction in povery if it didn’t offer cheap labour in the first place?

    The main draw for foreign investment, capital inflow and trade, I would argue, was: (a) heavy investment in its stock of “hard” capital assets (i.e., great infrastructure); plus (b) an army of people willing to work for wages far lower than the countries making those investments (but generally higher than most of those people were making in agrarian sector).

    This is arguably one of the most important (and complex) things for the world to understand well. There are billions more people around the world who haven’t been able to escape poverty whose futures really depend on getting these kinds of policies right.




  • My grandparents worked 16+ hour days toiling away on a farm doing hard labour for like 60 years. They ate meat and potatoes for nearly every meal because grocery chains weren’t a thing for them (and they didn’t get a fridge until the 60s anyway). A bunch of their family members died of the Spanish Flu and other illnesses that we’ve since cured. That includes both my grandma’s parents when she was maybe 10. The highest-tech thing they owned until they were in probably their 50s was a 13-inch black and white TV that got like 2 channels with its bunny ears.

    If you’re saying my biggest issue is that the house I bought cost double or triple than they would have paid in inflation-adjusted terms, I’d say I came out ahead.