I'm trying to find a video I watched recently, which was an urban planning expert addressing the work of a Youtuber called Economics Explained. You wouldn't be surprised that Economics Explained is the kind of neoliberal dingdong of an economist who wants to tut tut, shake his head, and murmur, 'well, but if we change anything, the chart will be wrong,' and I don't actually care much for his takes. It's great, I can punch 'economics explained is' into youtube and the bulk of the first hits are 'here's a thing this cretin got wrong' from things like actual economists.
And anyway, one of the things EE does videos about is the brain drain and resource curse, and I'm just once again struck with how absolutely desperately this mindset needs to look at a thing that is done to people, by people in other countries. The phenomenon is easy:
- A country has a resource (young people, material goods)
- Other, richer countries, take those things
And economists are like 'how could this possibly be, what a strange effect where the countries with desireable things lose them and rich countries get them.'