Wednesday, February 11, 2009

How to solve the financial crisis . . .

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

Continued:
NY Times

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WRONG. What we must do is stop immigration, legal and illegal for as long as we don't turn the economy around and maybe for ever. Immigrants were needed for a longest time but today we are only importing poverty by such massive immigration as is done in the west nowdays. There are too many of them and wrong kind on top of it. The west must change their ways. Reduce and stop immigration and concentrate on helping other nations where they live and work. Of course the issue is very complicated but the bottom line is that if this is not done in some 50-100 years there will be no west to speak of. It will become an extension of the east/orient. Do we want that? Do we must do this in the name of political correcness and human rights etc. etc. Especially not in the name of "growth" of our econpmy. Time is ripe and right that we grow as much as we can with our own people (sustainable growth/economy), while we help everyone in their place of birth and life. The world will be a much better place for evryone and everywhere.