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The geography of southern Italy, Croatia, and Greece place all three at a disadvantage compared to continental nations connected via road, rail, and canal. The

The geography of southern Italy, Croatia, and Greece place all three at a disadvantage compared to continental nations connected via road, rail, and canal. The Mediterranean is a comparative advantage that can be leveraged. The natural beauty that attracts tourism can help repatriate the talented diasporas. The question is whether brain drain, crime, and corruption are due to incurable pathologies or symptoms of transient disadvantages.

mschuster91 6y ago
> The Mediterranean is a comparative advantage that can be leveraged. How? There isn't much trade between Africa/Arabia and Europe other than oil, some agricultural products and used cars/outright waste. > The natural beauty that attracts tourism can help repatriate the talented diasporas. That's already the case in Croatia, many pensioners who worked in richer European countries retire back in Croatia because they can "live like kings" from pensions that would barely fetch a 1br micro apartment otherwise. For 500€ you can get a 75 m² flat in the center of Rijeka - in Munich that would be around 1500-2000€. And those in working age... it's rare for them to return to their homelands for that reason. > The question is whether brain drain, crime, and corruption are due to incurable pathologies or symptoms of transient disadvantages. Neither, in my opinion. "Incurable pathologies" is bordering on racism, but it aren't "transient" issues on the other side. What's needed is massive amounts of wealth redistribution across Europe, combined with throwing the whole lot of political elites into jail (and that's also sadly valid for Germany, just look at Andreas Scheuer or the MPs who allegedly got huge kickbacks for anti-corona masks). Basically Europe would need something like what the US did post-1945: a complete clean-up. Absent that, I'd also accept a revolution of the masses, but that isn't on the pipelines anywhere except in France...
- sradman 6y ago
  How? Subsea power cables, optical fiber, and pipelines (?). Midsize autonomous ships providing a cost effective alternative to truck and rail transport. Promotion of English as the lingua franca. Policies that attract new talent and promote the free movement of goods and people between new coastal charter cities. Partnering with people in the same boat (or sea). Adam Smith not only promoted specialization but also extending the "reach" of trade. Politicians have the power to ruin things but they only succeed when riding the coat-tails of talented makers. I'd focus on promoting the makers rather than punishing past ruiners. Nihilism is never the answer.
idownvoted 6y ago
I've long held the conviction that tourism is a toxic sector. If it grows too large a share of GDP, so much talent, money, and effort is sucked into tourism and away from society which otherwise would have found better use for it. Who builds the next startup, starts a franchise chain or scouts investors to build a new machine, if you can always double your salary by serving rich foreigners?
- paganel 6y ago
  > I've long held the conviction that tourism is a toxic sector. It's sort of a Dutch disease [1]. I've seen it happening from afar to Barcelona, which was on route to become what Berlin now is in terms of IT/programming back in ~2005-2006 but the ever increasing rent prices caused by tourism put an end to that (plus the 2008-2010 crisis, of course, which hit Spain especially hard). I had expected the same thing to happen to Amsterdam, but it looks like it managed to hold up better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > I had expected the same thing to happen to Amsterdam, but it looks like it managed to hold up better. Well... many of the German tourists only come to Amsterdam for smoking pot on a day or weekend trip, and the French additionally for a night in the brothels since sex work is banned in France, so all you need is a lot of cheap hotels with beds, no stuff like beach resorts or other... more high-class venues to deal with these people. Additionally, over the last years many of the "coffee shops" (weed shops) have closed down - in the early 2000s there were 280+ in Amsterdam, now there are 166. The government wants to introduce a "weed pass" that's only for Dutch citizens to further crack down on weed tourism: https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/corona-coffeeshops-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/corona-coffeeshops-101.htm...
  - idownvoted 6y ago
    Barcelona: Particulary sad. As a tourist one could sense the unworthiness of this proud city going thorugh this transformation. From something that stood on its own feet (rich, industrious history) and aimed at creating its own future (there are still some tech-giants left - although it feels like remnants of a once brighter outlook) into something dependent on wealthy foreigners, whether it is domestically unbearable rents or a battered public life because of agressive hawkers at day and aggressive thieves at night (which eye the tourists, but pollute the place for the citizens as well). I remember somewhere in the 2000s Barcelonians put out a map for visitors (domestic and foreign) of what kinds of robberies/con games to expect in what area. And then there was of course this guy: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/commuting-from-barcelona-a-london-worker-who-makes-it-pay https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/commuting-fro...

mschuster91 6y ago

> The Mediterranean is a comparative advantage that can be leveraged. How? There isn't much trade between Africa/Arabia and Europe other than oil, some agricultural products and used cars/outright waste. > The natural beauty that attracts tourism can help repatriate the talented diasporas. That's already the case in Croatia, many pensioners who worked in richer European countries retire back in Croatia because they can "live like kings" from pensions that would barely fetch a 1br micro apartment otherwise. For 500€ you can get a 75 m² flat in the center of Rijeka - in Munich that would be around 1500-2000€. And those in working age... it's rare for them to return to their homelands for that reason. > The question is whether brain drain, crime, and corruption are due to incurable pathologies or symptoms of transient disadvantages. Neither, in my opinion. "Incurable pathologies" is bordering on racism, but it aren't "transient" issues on the other side. What's needed is massive amounts of wealth redistribution across Europe, combined with throwing the whole lot of political elites into jail (and that's also sadly valid for Germany, just look at Andreas Scheuer or the MPs who allegedly got huge kickbacks for anti-corona masks). Basically Europe would need something like what the US did post-1945: a complete clean-up. Absent that, I'd also accept a revolution of the masses, but that isn't on the pipelines anywhere except in France...

sradman 6y ago
How? Subsea power cables, optical fiber, and pipelines (?). Midsize autonomous ships providing a cost effective alternative to truck and rail transport. Promotion of English as the lingua franca. Policies that attract new talent and promote the free movement of goods and people between new coastal charter cities. Partnering with people in the same boat (or sea). Adam Smith not only promoted specialization but also extending the "reach" of trade. Politicians have the power to ruin things but they only succeed when riding the coat-tails of talented makers. I'd focus on promoting the makers rather than punishing past ruiners. Nihilism is never the answer.

idownvoted 6y ago

I've long held the conviction that tourism is a toxic sector. If it grows too large a share of GDP, so much talent, money, and effort is sucked into tourism and away from society which otherwise would have found better use for it. Who builds the next startup, starts a franchise chain or scouts investors to build a new machine, if you can always double your salary by serving rich foreigners?

paganel 6y ago
> I've long held the conviction that tourism is a toxic sector. It's sort of a Dutch disease [1]. I've seen it happening from afar to Barcelona, which was on route to become what Berlin now is in terms of IT/programming back in ~2005-2006 but the ever increasing rent prices caused by tourism put an end to that (plus the 2008-2010 crisis, of course, which hit Spain especially hard). I had expected the same thing to happen to Amsterdam, but it looks like it managed to hold up better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > I had expected the same thing to happen to Amsterdam, but it looks like it managed to hold up better. Well... many of the German tourists only come to Amsterdam for smoking pot on a day or weekend trip, and the French additionally for a night in the brothels since sex work is banned in France, so all you need is a lot of cheap hotels with beds, no stuff like beach resorts or other... more high-class venues to deal with these people. Additionally, over the last years many of the "coffee shops" (weed shops) have closed down - in the early 2000s there were 280+ in Amsterdam, now there are 166. The government wants to introduce a "weed pass" that's only for Dutch citizens to further crack down on weed tourism: https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/corona-coffeeshops-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/corona-coffeeshops-101.htm...
- idownvoted 6y ago
  Barcelona: Particulary sad. As a tourist one could sense the unworthiness of this proud city going thorugh this transformation. From something that stood on its own feet (rich, industrious history) and aimed at creating its own future (there are still some tech-giants left - although it feels like remnants of a once brighter outlook) into something dependent on wealthy foreigners, whether it is domestically unbearable rents or a battered public life because of agressive hawkers at day and aggressive thieves at night (which eye the tourists, but pollute the place for the citizens as well). I remember somewhere in the 2000s Barcelonians put out a map for visitors (domestic and foreign) of what kinds of robberies/con games to expect in what area. And then there was of course this guy: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/commuting-from-barcelona-a-london-worker-who-makes-it-pay https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/commuting-fro...