Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

https://blog.jim.com/economics/the-cure-for-iq-shredders/https://blog.jim.com/economics/the-cure-for-iq-shredders/THE CURE FOR “IQ SHREDDERS” (CITIES)

from Jim’s Blog

Our best hopes for a high tech future, for avoiding a dark age, are consuming the genes needed for a high tech future. Smart people go to Hong Kong and Singapore and fail to reproduce.

Singapore has taken numerous measures, similar to those of the Nazis and Emperor Augustus, to improve fertility, which will doubtless be as ineffectual as those of the Nazis and Emperor Augustus.

Just as the cure for Chinese poverty was to import the economic laws and customs of Hong Kong into Shanghai, the cure for Singaporean infertility is to import the marital laws and customs of Timor Leste, where women cannot own property, because they are wards of their parents until they become wards of their husbands.

Dubai already has a system where low status expat workers are effectively wards of their employers. This typically applies to Indian construction workers (who are all male and unaccompanied by their wives and families) and Filipino “maids”, who are all female and normally single when they arrive. If an employee’s sponsor is her employer, the employee is effectively a ward of the employer. A higher status employee usually has the free zone authority is his sponsor, not his employer, even though his employer asked the free zone to sponsor the employee so the process looks very similar.

An employee sponsored by her employer normally resides in accommodation provided by the employer. The employee cannot change jobs without her employers permission. If the employer dismisses the maid, he normally cancels her visa, her bank accounts, her phone, and gives her a ticket back to her homeland. He has to give her a ticket out, because he paid a deposit to obtain her work visa, and because if she fails to leave by her employer’s fault, the employer is in trouble. If the employer cancels his employees visa, he is supposed to provide the employee with the means to leave. Often however, she fails to show up by her fault, in which case the employer still loses his deposit, so if he can, he drags her off to the airport whether she will or not.

Male Indian construction workers seldom do a run. If fired, they leave without any drama. “Maids” frequently do a run and fail to show up at the airport, because the usual cause of a falling out with her employer is raging hormones. If she does a run, her phone stops working, her credit cards stop working, her bank account stops working and if she does not withdraw any money in her bank account in a timely fashion, she loses the money. She cannot get a new phone, bank account or legal accommodation, and is subject to a large fine for every day she fails to show up. If caught, and unable to pay the fine, goes to jail for considerable time, then is sent out of the country and forbidden ever to return.

https://blog.jim.com/economics/the-cure-for-iq-shredders/THE CURE FOR “IQ SHREDDERS” (CITIES)

from Jim’s Blog

Our best hopes for a high tech future, for avoiding a dark age, are consuming the genes needed for a high tech future. Smart people go to Hong Kong and Singapore and fail to reproduce.

Singapore has taken numerous measures, similar to those of the Nazis and Emperor Augustus, to improve fertility, which will doubtless be as ineffectual as those of the Nazis and Emperor Augustus.

Just as the cure for Chinese poverty was to import the economic laws and customs of Hong Kong into Shanghai, the cure for Singaporean infertility is to import the marital laws and customs of Timor Leste, where women cannot own property, because they are wards of their parents until they become wards of their husbands.

Dubai already has a system where low status expat workers are effectively wards of their employers. This typically applies to Indian construction workers (who are all male and unaccompanied by their wives and families) and Filipino “maids”, who are all female and normally single when they arrive. If an employee’s sponsor is her employer, the employee is effectively a ward of the employer. A higher status employee usually has the free zone authority is his sponsor, not his employer, even though his employer asked the free zone to sponsor the employee so the process looks very similar.

An employee sponsored by her employer normally resides in accommodation provided by the employer. The employee cannot change jobs without her employers permission. If the employer dismisses the maid, he normally cancels her visa, her bank accounts, her phone, and gives her a ticket back to her homeland. He has to give her a ticket out, because he paid a deposit to obtain her work visa, and because if she fails to leave by her employer’s fault, the employer is in trouble. If the employer cancels his employees visa, he is supposed to provide the employee with the means to leave. Often however, she fails to show up by her fault, in which case the employer still loses his deposit, so if he can, he drags her off to the airport whether she will or not.

Male Indian construction workers seldom do a run. If fired, they leave without any drama. “Maids” frequently do a run and fail to show up at the airport, because the usual cause of a falling out with her employer is raging hormones. If she does a run, her phone stops working, her credit cards stop working, her bank account stops working and if she does not withdraw any money in her bank account in a timely fashion, she loses the money. She cannot get a new phone, bank account or legal accommodation, and is subject to a large fine for every day she fails to show up. If caught, and unable to pay the fine, goes to jail for considerable time, then is sent out of the country and forbidden ever to return.