If I get your drift, you’re saying that the advantage to Ireland was that people educated and improved themselves and then went home where they and their skills attracted new investment, etc.

Does this mean that the U.S. ought to begin to close its borders and to encourage people to go home? Would that amount to a sort of back-door foreign aid where we supplied skilled returning nationals rather than impersonal aid or foreign investment? Just a thought.

Nikos: “Post a ‘PS’ that says that Nikos wrote you in an email that he loves nother’s posts there too, and that he’d love to thank and praise him via email? If we could only figure out a non-public way to exchange addresses?â€?

The threads are starting to talk to each other while maintaining their own unique voices.

Thanks for your post, nother.

Because remittances represent private money sent personto-person, they benefit the poor directly and as poor people determine they need it— on demand.

From the viewpoint of financial service providers (FSPs), transferring remittances

can be a lucrative business. Western Union’s dominance in this market has earned the company hefty profit margins, estimated to be 150 percent higher than those of the average US commercial bank. Attracted by this profit potential, smaller providers have begun to explore market segments not yet penetrated by the global giants, often by targeting particular diaspora communities and/or by improving domestic transfer services in developing countries.

Financial service providers that cater to the poor have been drawn to the money

transfer market because it offers them the opportunity to fulfill their financial goals as well as their social objectives. As a fee-based product, money transfers can generate revenues and bolster an FSP’s bottom line. From a social perspective, money transfers allow FSPs to deliver an additional service demanded by low-income customers, at a cost potentially lower than that of mainstream providers. In addition, remittances could be transformed into savings accounts, building a credit (payments) history to eventually qualify for a loan, pay insurance premiums for the migrant and his/her family back home, etc. Bringing remittances into the formal financial sector will help both the remitter and the receiver.

We’ve done a paper on how pro-poor FSPs might enter the money transfer market in their respective countries (http://www.cgap.org/docs/OccasionalPaper_10.pdf) We’re also finalizing a more detailed operations guide for FSPs, and that will be available in 2-3 months. Finally, we’re launching a fund for technical assistance to help institutions develop new or improve existing money transfer services in emerging markets.

Once again, you speak to the heart of the issue with the depth and compassion of your heartfelt observations.

Thank You.

I hope you changed names to protect the innocent!

I lived and worked in Brasil for a while during the 1980s. I was privileged to be earning my wages from a US firm in American dollars at a time when inflation was 1,000%. That’s right. One thousand.

Your friend is right to say that we just don’t understand. Conditions in other countries are beyond our comprehension. You have to see it to believe it. Its been a while since I’ve seen. And though I have some serious health issues right now, I will be going to a remote area in El Salvador this summer to refresh my memory.

The real tragedy about US citizens complaining in any way about immigrants, legal or not, is our refusal to accept how our policies and actions have created an untenable environment in the homeland’s of these people.

We are a people that never accepts responsibility. We are the masters at being narcissistic abusers that always feel the effects of our own behaviors as some kind of victimization. What pains me about that analogy is that in the world of psychology there has never been a case of curing someone of narcissism. Is the world doomed at our hands? Not if enough of us who aren’t narcissistic can stand up and get the abusers out of power. It has to be done with relentlessness. You have to have the strength to ignore their cries of victimhood and claims to enlightenment. Don’t be fooled again. We simply have to hold people, ourselves, accountable, draw the line and don’t let anyone cross it without ramifications. It a tough row to hoe. So far, I haven’t seen a critical mass of people willing to do the work. I haven’t even seen a commanding leader that calls for us to do the work.