Chris Blattman

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The solution to our financial woes

Most days the only NYT columnist that doesn’t give me indigestion is Frank Rich. But Thomas Friedman is on to something here:

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.”

7 Responses

  1. “Most days the only NYT columnist that doesn’t give me indigestion is Frank Rich”, Hey- what about Nicholas Kristof?

  2. i’m the first anonymous. just a thought, maybe, just maybe, those indians have such high savings rates not because they’re indian but because of their different economic circumstances. friedman’s “analysis” has more to do with racist stereotypes of immigrants as penny pinchers than it does with any real solution to the crisis. he is a very stupid man.

  3. Sounds like someone's a little unfamiliar with the "acculturation" literature from sociology & epidemiology. (Well. Or I suppose familiar, but skeptical.)

  4. Leave it to Friedman to propose this rubbish policy advice based on nothing more than essentialist stereotypes.

  5. Indeed, although politically impossible in the light of the populist, nativist movement’s ascendancy, letting immigrants in (with limits on access to welfare, etc) WOULD be a good idea; no need to single out Indians — Silicon Valley’s great success stories included plenty of immigrant from China and all over Europe too.

  6. Reminds me of a mayor of Schenectady, NY – an old industrial town wrecked by GE’s restructuring – who attempted to recoup degraded parts of the city by attracting immigrant groups in Queens with very cheap houses in need of renovation. I can’t judge how successful the plan was, but I am certain it couldn’t have done any harm, much to the contrary…Anyway, that is not a bad idea, imo.

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