BWorld 77, Migration and housing

* This is my article in BusinessWorld last July 26, 2016.

Migration means mobility and freedom. The free movement of people along with their skills and talent, families and colleagues, culture and sports, science and technology, capital and investments, is the natural sibling of free trade of goods and commodities.

The world is far from real free trade in goods and free mobility of people, but the regional and global trend is towards more freedom, not less. The numbers to confirm this are freely available -- rising exports and imports, rising foreign investments, rising tourism.

While we are generally familiar with the number of Filipinos and other ASEAN migrants moving abroad, we are less familiar with foreign migrants who settle in the Philippines and other ASEAN countries. The numbers below are interesting. (see table)

The numbers show the following:

1. While there are more than 10 million Filipinos living and working abroad (workers and professionals, students, dependents), there are only 0.2 million foreigners who have migrated here, more or less permanently. The number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is only 2.3 million, not 10 million, as explained in the table.

2. Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia are the most migrants-friendly in the ASEAN. Perhaps they allow foreigners to own residential lands. These countries are also the top international tourism destinations in the region.

3. Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are the least friendly to foreign migrants. While the first two are weak in exports and attracting foreign investments, Vietnam’s case is weird because it is a big exporter, its annual merchandise exports is twice that of the Philippines, yet just a few foreign migrants relocate there permanently.

4. Indonesia has a different path in migration. Nearly two million in 1960, down to more than one million in 1970, and only 0.3 million in 2015. Meanwhile, the number of Indonesians working and living abroad is rising, similar to the Philippine case.

While short-staying foreign tourists and visitors would stay in hotels, migrants would stay in apartments and condos. They contribute to rising demand for housing. Filipinos who work and live abroad do not necessarily abandon or sell their houses and condos here, they keep these to stay when they come home, or allow relatives and close friends to use them.

The housing shortage is a big problem for the Philippines and other developing countries.

In a speech by Vice-President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Secretary Leni Robredo during the BusinessWorld Economic Forum last July 12, 2016, she said that the 1.4 million backlog as often reported could even reach 5.5 million, “if we will be able to have an honest-to-goodness inventory of all who do not have decent houses…. We are looking at a model demonstrated by Singapore and Hong Kong to be able to combat this problem.”

Data for Hong Kong is added in the table. Its 7.5 million local population + 2.8 million migrants + around 1-2 million tourists anytime (27.8 million tourist arrivals in 2014) is big considering its small land area. Yet housing is not much a problem there.

A quick solution to address the huge housing backlog in the Philippines is to encourage the building of more residential condos and townhouses not so much for ownership but for rental. There are at least two advantages for this.

One, more and more Filipinos are mobile these days. They may be working in Quezon City or Bulacan the previous years, they might move to Las Piñas or Cavite or Cebu in the next few years, or move abroad. Given the bad traffic condition in Metro Manila, living closer to work is a better alternative than driving long distance daily.

Two, there is less initial investments in renting than in buying a house. There is also less financial and emotional attachment to their previous house when they move out if the community has deteriorated, like getting flooded more frequently, more traffic congestion, more crime incidence, and so on.

What HUDCC and other housing-related agencies, local and national can do, is to reduce the bureaucracies and taxes for developers of condos and townhouses. These costs are ultimately passed on to unit owners, which they pass on to their unit lessors.

If there are more residential condos and apartments available, their price will naturally go down due to competition. Cheaper housing is one of the most important programs that any government can do for its people.

Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. is the head of Minimal Government Thinkers and a SEANET Fellow.

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See also:
BWorld 73, Transco and the big beneficiaries of feed in tariff, July 27, 2016
BWorld 74, Pres. Duterte's anti-corruption programs and Transparency Intl., July 30, 2016 
BWorld 75, How to profit from urban congestion, July 30, 2016 
BWorld 76, Solar can never power the PH and Asia, August 06. 2016

BWorld 41, OFWs, cheap oil and the TPP

* This is my article in BusinessWorld last February 04, 2016.

Labor mobility and migration across countries and continents is a result of push and pull factors in both the labor exporting and labor importing or receiving countries. Labor-surplus countries generally have lower wages and labor skills due to limited employment opportunities while labor-deficit countries generally have higher wages and skills training.

If labor migration is heavily restricted via multiple regulations and permits, taxes and mandatory contributions -- if not prohibited outright -- the wage gap and income inequality between the labor-surplus and labor-deficit countries will worsen.

If labor migration is less restricted, then the wage gap and income inequality between the two group of countries will narrow or lessen. And if such migration is fully allowed and assured, then global wages per industry and sub-industry, wages per skills levels -- other things being equal or held constant -- will move towards equilibrium or near-equality.

Remittances of nationals who are working abroad are among the biggest sources of revenues of both governments and households for many countries in the world today. The top five in remittance inflows worldwide are India, China, Philippines, Mexico, and France. (See Table 1)

In Southeast Asia, learning the trade of labor migration rather quickly aside from the Philippines are Vietnam and Indonesia. From 2004 to 2014 or in just one decade, Vietnam’s remittances have expanded 5.2 times while Indonesia’s have expanded 4.6 times over the same period. Impressive.

In South Asia, besides India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal are also learning the ropes as well. Nepal in particular is very dependent on remittances, which comprise nearly 30% of its GDP in 2014.

In Africa, Nigeria’s remittances have expanded nearly 10 times from 2004 to 2014 and Egypt’s have expanded nearly 6 times. In Europe, Ukraine’s remittances increase over the same period was the fastest in the world, expanded by almost 18 times.

The Philippines’ remittances expansion over the same period was no longer huge as the big jump was experienced in the 80s and 90s. There are differences in the figures by the World Bank (WB) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

For instance, based on BSP data: 2014 remittances reached $24.35B (vs WB’s $28.4B).

For 2015, BSP’s forecast is $25.3B while WB’s forecast is $29.7B. The difference could be due to different accounting method used by the WB that applies to other countries in its global database.

It should be noted that the numbers are only for remittances that pass through the formal banking and remittance centers. They do not include money that are brought in personally by the migrant workers when they come home, or via relatives and close friends co-workers returning home.

Estimates of total remittances in the Philippines via formal financial channels + personal/informal channels range from $35 to $40 billion in 2015 alone.

The Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS), a new and independent, market-oriented think tank in Jakarta, is conducting a comparative study on labor migration by the Philippines and Indonesia, with the explicit goal of learning from the Philippine experience, especially in labor protection during and after deployment.

Based on latest available data from the World Bank, of the top 10 destinations for OFWs in 2013, four are in the Middle East, five in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) bloc, and Italy. (See Table 2)

The current low oil prices and approval of the TPP Agreement will have initial and short-term negative impact on the deployment of OFWs for two reasons.

One, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East economies will demand less foreign workers because of their shrinking revenues from oil exports. And two, the Philippines will temporarily lose out to Vietnam and Malaysia in some services and labor mobility as they are TPP members and hence, will benefit from lower tariff and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) by the big TPP economies like the US, Canada, Japan and Australia.

There are several policy implications and reform measures for the Philippines.

One, reduce the number of permits, procedures, taxes, and fees for both manpower agencies and the prospective OFWs as the competition from upcoming labor exporting economies will become more intense. In this aspect, the Philippines should follow the lead of Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Egypt.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) can shorten the process for private manpower agencies which have good track records over the past 10 years or more.

Currently, the procedures and permits required of new recruitment agencies and those that are 10+ or 20+ years old are the same.

Two, the Philippines should pursue its application for TPP membership. Thailand and Indonesia are almost sure to apply for membership in the next round of membership expansion, they will reap the benefits of bigger market access, both goods and services, to the richer member-economies of TPP.

Three, reduce the business bureaucracies, taxes and fees in the Philippines so that more businesses, local and foreign, will come and stay here. Then more and new local higher-paying jobs will be created, and this will help absorb the workers and professionals from the Middle East who are sent home due to cheap oil.

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the President of Minimal Government Thinkers, and a Fellow of the South East Asia Network for Development (SEANET). minimalgovernent@gmail.com

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See also:BWorld 15, OFWs, MERS-CoV and the DFA, August 08, 2015

BWorld 38, Climate change and the need for cheap energy, January 14, 2016

BWorld 39, Coal and renewables complement each other, January 26, 2016

BWorld 40, CCT vs other welfare programs, SSS vs pension deregulation, January 29, 2016

Migration 20: Overseas Employment, Positives Outweigh the Negatives?, October 09, 2013

MERS-CoV and OFWs, Part 3, September 04, 2014

Migration 21: Why Do Many Filipinos Work Abroad? January 14, 2015

Foreign Aid 16: ADB on OFW Remittances, March 21, 2015

Labor Econ 15: Wages in Asia, Robots and OFWs, April 30, 2015

Demography 25, Ageing societies, Japan's depopulation

Human population, whether rising or declining, should be left as individual and parental decision and responsibility, not government decision and responsibility. Should there be population explosion or population control/depopulation, it should not be government-sponsored.

Thus, in ageing societies, instead of government giving subsidies to households for having new babies, government can reduce income taxes, relax rigid labor laws, so that people will have more money for their kids, or they can hire a nanny to help them raise kids.

In countries where the growth of population is flat or declining, there are two solutions: have more robots, or have more migrants. Welfarism is an ideological enemy of free migration.

Here are some old news reports.

(1) "Germany's 82 million residents will dwindle to 74.7 million by 2050 and their average age will rise to nearly 50, assuming unchanged levels of migration, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat. Some projections are even more dire, putting the German population as low as 65 million by 2060.

At present, the age dependence rate is 27.5 on average in the 28-nation EU, but Germany and Italy are well above that level. The rate is projected to jump to 49.4 in 2050, when there will be only two people of working age for every retiree.

Most EU countries have raised their retirement age to 65 or beyond and are making citizens contribute longer for a full pension - but further increases lie ahead."

http://www.interaksyon.com/.../aging-europe-needs-the...

(2) "Globally, an estimated 44.4 million people suffer from dementia and the figure is projected to triple to 135.5 million in 2050 as the population ages, Alzheimer’s Disease International estimates. Nowhere is the problem more acute than inJapan, where an estimated 8 million people have dementia or show signs of developing it. By 2060, 40 percent of Japanese will be over 65, up from 24 percent today, according to National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

When the national program, called Dementia Support Caravan, began in 2005, apartment managers were the first to join. They were dealing with tenants who complained about elderly neighbors banging the wrong doors, failing to sort bins, stealing newspapers and rubbing human waste on communal walls, said Hiroko Sugawara, who runs the program. Now demand is rising across corporate Japan." http://www.bloomberg.com/.../bank-tellers-serve-as...

(3) "Japan's birth rate hit a record low in 2014 at just 1,001,000 infants. When combined with 1.3 million deaths in the same year, that's a deepening population crisis. According to Japan's population institute, the overall population could dip to 107 million by 2040 — or 20 million lower than today.

At the same time, Japan's population is shrinking and graying, setting up a "demographic time bomb" that could radiate out globally through the country's Greece-level national debt and deep economic ties with China and the US." July 1, 2015.

http://www.businessinsider.com/half-of-japanese-people...

(4) "Despite an explosion in population greater than Malthus could have ever imagined, global living standards are higher than ever.

.. the precautionary principle, which this book rightly castigates. Based on a confusion between the sensible precept “be careful” and the nonsensical proposition that you can’t be too careful, it insists on taking the worst-case scenario as the outcome that should dictate policy. On that basis, one would never get in a car. And the massive technological advances that we have seen since the Industrial Revolution, and the reduction in global poverty that has followed, would never have occurred.

Another factor is the quasi-religious appeal of these prophecies, which may help to explain the papal encyclical to which I referred at the start. Even more recently, the Church of England at its latest synod called for all vicars to be trained in “eco-theology” as well as the Bible. It also called for churchgoers to do without lunch on the first day of each month, as a fast against climate change. Perhaps this should not be mocked: It might help combat obesity, which is probably more damaging than climate change.

“The End of Doom” is not quite in the same class as Matt Ridley’s classic, “The Rational Optimist,” but it is a good book and deserves to be widely read." July 27, 2015.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apocalypse-later-1438039375...

(5) "Only 1.001 million babies were born in Japan in 2014 — a record low — and 1.269 million people died.

That's an overall loss of 268,000 people, and a signal of a population crisis in one of the world's most developed and debt-ridden economies."

http://www.techinsider.io/herbivore-men-in-japan-are-not... 

"TCOR and later UNEP’s Agenda 21 adopted and expanded the Malthusian idea of overpopulation to all resources making it the central tenet of all their politics and policies. The IPCC was set up to assign the blame of global warming and latterly climate change on human produced CO2 from an industrialized expanding population. They both developed from false assumptions, used manipulated data and science, which they combined into computer models whose projections were, not surprisingly, wrong. The result is the fallacy of global warming due to human CO2 is a subset built on the fallacy of overpopulation."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/.../overpopulation-the.../

Japan depopulating, something like 100,000 to nearly 300,000 people a year. Japan will be forced by circumstances to have more migrant workers, and/or more robots. The same thing will happen to China. So the China commie government should be more realistic now -- it should not alienate big population countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines and Vietnam. Soon, these 5 countries will supply many of its manpower requirements. Or it may accept more people from Nigeria, Ethiopia, other African countries.

Migrant workers will eventually flood in, Japan will have no choice. Between ageing Japanese with dementia who cannot find their way home, would walk and get lost in the cold and die, and get foreign workers to take care of their ageing parents and grandparents, the latter should be preferable to more Japanese.

Liberalize travel and migration, relax those work visa restrictions. We should be moving towards a globalize and borderless world. That is what the Maddison data show -- as human population expands, as they move from one country/continent to another, to improve their lives and the new communities they adopted, per capita income rises. Visa restrictions and border sealing were 1900s thinking of governments that persist until now. But further human modernization, FTAs among countries, and demographic realities will force those governments to slowly tear down those strict border restrictions.

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See also:
Demography 21: China Overtaking the US' GDP Size in 2014?, May 02, 2014 
Demography 22: Japan's Depopulation and Migration Policy, May 11, 2014  
Demography 23: The UN, Depopulation and Climate, May 03, 2015 
Demography 24, The Maddison Project data, August 13, 2015

Liberty in the Philippines

* Reposting this  article from the ISIL. Thanks Joe for this opportunity.
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BY JOE KENT - JANUARY, 13TH 2015

Nonoy Oplas is an economist in the Philippines, and the President of Minimal Government Thinkers Inc.   Over the past five years, he has established network and alliances with other free market-oriented think tanks in Asia and other parts of the world.  Nonoy was interviewed by the International Society for Individual Liberty about liberty in the Philippines.  He blogs at funwithgovernment.blogspot.com.

Joe: What does the average person in the Philippines think of government and liberty? Is there any possibility for change?

Nonoy: The average Filipino would think that government regulations, subsidies, taxation, etc. are the answer to most problems, but also think that many government officials and employees are corrupt.  So they demand less corruption or “better governance”, not less governance.

However, liberty and economic freedom are accepted unconsciously.  People always go for bargains and cheaper prices when they go shopping or buy groceries.  They want freedom to buy and sell anywhere they want.

Joe: Are the ideas of liberty spreading in the Philippines, and if so, how?

Nonoy: Yes, even unconsciously.  They want freedom of expression, no censorship in the things they read and write on the web.  Conscious political liberty is still small though; people who explicitly demand less government.

Joe: Why do so many Filipinos go overseas to work?

Nonoy: Both supply push and demand pull. Supply push, many Filipinos want to try working and living abroad for higher pay, a new environment.  Demand pull, many foreigners want Filipino workers than other migrant workers.

Healthcare for instance, Filipino nurses and physicians are more warm in taking care of their patients, so hospitals in Saudi, UK, US, etc. prefer Filipino health workers.

Joe: Are there other factors as well? For example, do government policies have anything to do with the many Filipinos going overseas for work?

Nonoy: Certain government policies actually limit or restrict the potentials of migration of more Filipinos.  Like it imposed a ruling in Hong Kong that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) should get this much as minimum wage there, and so on.  So some Hong Kong employers stopped getting OFWs and got Indonesians, Vietnamese, or other nationals instead.  I made a blog post on migration (here).

Joe: What policies are damaging to the people who are attempting to start a business in the Philippines?

Nonoy: Protectionist policies of the Constitution.  Some sectors are reserved exclusively for Filipinos, and some sectors allow foreign investments — but only up to 40% of total equity.  Then there are bureaucracies in national and local governments, both requiring their own set of permits.  Also multiple taxes and changing policies midway.

Joe: You mentioned permits.  What are some examples of permit requirements that prevent the average person from starting a business?

Nonoy: I wrote this two years ago but the type of bureaucracies still apply. http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2013/02/business-bureaucracy-6-presentation-at.html

Joe: Is property rights abuse a problem in the Philippines, and do you have any examples?

Nonoy: Yes.  A clear example are the squatters and illegal settlers in private lands.  They come in droves, and many local governments do not drive them away because they are a big source of votes and political supporters.

Joe: I guess I mean, does the government ever take private property in the Philippines?

Nonoy: No, no instance of the Philippine government taking over a business or private property that I can remember.  The most that government does is to stop the construction of a building, or prevent the transfer of property ownership if there are active tax and other cases involved.  Or harass the owner(s) of a business if they happen to be a strong political enemy of those in power.

Joe: What other challenges do Filipinos face when it comes to individual freedom?

Nonoy: External factors, the foreign aid bodies and multilaterals (UN, WB, ADB, IMF, USAID, etc.) who think that governments should keep expanding.  They hire many academics and consultants who justify big government.  Internal factors — the populist belief that for many problems in society, more government regulations are the answer.

Migration 23: Why Do Many Filipinos Work Abroad?

Still here in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was asked two times by two friends that question, why do so many Filipinos work abroad?

Good question and they are referring to the estimated 10 million Filipinos who work and study abroad, including their dependents. Yes, the 10 M includes children and dependents, university students, they are not all workers and managers as often implied by many articles. The National Statistics Office (NSO) data says that there are only 2.3 million OFWs in 2013.

First table below, Distribution of OFWs by Place of Work, 2013.

More OFWs data here, 

http://census.gov.ph/content/statistical-tables-overseas-filipino-workers-ofw-2013 

The quick answer to the above question I think, is that the phenomenon is both supply push and demand pull. 

Supply push, many Filipinos want to try working and living abroad for higher pay, have a new environment, join other family members, relatives or friends who are already there, accompany some kids who study abroad, and so on.  

Demand pull, many foreigners want overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) than other workers from other countries. Three examples. One, Filipino healthcare professionals like nurses and physicians are generally known to be more warm in taking care of their patients, so hospitals in Saudi Arabia, UK, US, etc. prefer Filipino health workers. Two, many Filipinos can speak and understand English is another important factor, easily trainable. And three, many maritime companies like cargo ships, cruise ships, want Filipinos because they are more used to riding or navigating boats. We are an archipelago of 7,100+ islands and islets, so for many Filipinos to move from one island to another, riding boats, small or big, is a common experience.

A common follow up question is, Is the Philippine government producing policies that encourage more Filipinos to work and live abroad?

I think the reverse is true, that certain government policies do not encourage but actually limit or restrict the potentials of migration of more Filipinos. Two examples. One, the mandatory trainings and seminars by TESDA, a government training agency and sometimes long waiting period to get training schedule; seminars by POEA and OWWA, the government deployment and welfare agencies, a then waiting period after finishing the training and actual deployment,  And two, the PH government imposes certain rulings like in HK, OFWs in household work should get this much as minimum wage there, and so on. Some HK employers say they already paid a lot to  the HK and PH manpower agencies, they give decent room to their helpers, etc. So giving a mandatory high minimum wage is additional cost to them, so they stopped getting OFWs and got Indonesians, Vietnamese, or other nationals  instead.

Employment, whether local or international/migrant employment, is a private contract between the employers and the potential employees or workers. Governments should not intervene in the pricing of labor especially with foreign employers in foreign countries. Governments should focus on the enforcement of those contracts, that the provisions are implemented and violators, whether the employee or the employer, are sufficiently sanctioned or fined, for breaching the contract.

Overall, I wish to see the full freedom of mobility of people across countries and continents, like more Filipinos moving into many countries abroad, temporarily or permanently; foreigners moving into the Philippines, whether temporarily or permanently. The only things or acts that should be limited and restricted, are acts of crime against persons, properties and liberties. Thus, no killing, no stealing, no abduction and trafficking of people, no destruction of private property, no unnecessary censorship. In short, no harming of other people. Whether they are in the Philippines or abroad, whether they are Filipinos or foreigners.
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See also:
Migration and Freedom 18: Getting a Philippine Passport, July 18, 2012 
Migration and Freedom 19: PH Immigration Bureaucracy, September 08, 2012
Migration 20: Overseas Employment, Positives Outweigh the Negatives?, October 09, 2013
Demography 22: Japan's Depopulation and Migration Policy, May 11, 2014

Migration and Freedom 16: Mobility and the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem

(This is my article for the online magazine last night. I did not put the graphs in the original article, I only added them here, from a web lecture, The Heckscher-Ohlin Model,  http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/katal/opiskelu/ka6a/heckscher-ohlin.pdf)

http://www.thelobbyist.biz/perspectives/less-gorvernment/1269-migration-mobility-freedom

Migration = Mobility = Freedom

THURSDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2012

Migration, whether short-term or long-term, allows an individual or a household, to pursue their dreams in other places or countries which they think they may not be able to pursue in their current work and residence. Thus, migration represents mobility across regions, countries or continents and hence, expands individual freedom.

The expensive welfare system in many rich countries though results in one bad policy: migration paranoia by their governments and certain organized sectors in the destination countries. They think that in general, new migrants are just welfare seekers, and the labor unions think that new migrants are out to steal their jobs even if many of them are not willing to do "dirty work" at lower pay.

In international trade economics, if factors of production (labor, capital, technology, etc.) are mobile and free to move across countries, there will be factor price equalization (FPE) among countries, the FPE theorem. A labor-deficit or shortage country cannot always use robots and machines to do certain jobs, they need to import workers and managers from other countries. Taking care of the sick and aged for instance, cannot easily be done by robots, an economy must import nurses, caregivers and other health professionals from other countries. The migrant workers will receive higher pay (high compared to the prevailing wages and benefits in their home countries, but may be low temporarily in the host countries). The outflow of some workers will result in reduction in labor supply and hence, partial increase in wages in the country of origin. When this process continues over the long term, and skills training keeps improving in labor-surplus economies, like the ocean around the world, wages and benefits will somehow equalize worldwide.

If there will be FPE, poverty will be eradicated. Only the lazy and highly irresponsible people will become poor, and they need not be bailed out or subsidized with various welfare programs because they have willingly chosen the path of laziness and irresponsibility. Then all the complaints and advocacies of the bleeding heart activists, trying-hard and hidden socialists, and social equality campaigners will be answered. No need for higher or new taxes, new UN and foreign aid central planning like the MDGs, new government bureaucracies and their endless global junkets.

A cousin concept of FPE is the commodity price equalization (CPE) theorem. If goods and services are free to move across countries, then products that are produced abundantly in one country resulting in cheaper prices can be exported to countries which have small or zero production of those goods and hence, prices there are high. Again, like the ocean around the world, commodity prices will somehow equalize worldwide. Whatever price differential across countries will just be due to transportation or shipment, storage, insurance and related costs. The existence of local trading monopolies and oligopolies can also account for such price differential but we will assume that such practices are kept to the minimum.

Both FPE and CPE are offshoots of the Hecksher Ohlin model of comparative advantage (CA). It took off from David Ricardo’s theory of CA and the model says that “countries will export products that use their abundant and cheap factor(s) of production and import products that use the countries' scarce factor(s).” (Wiki definition)

Migration paranoia, like climate paranoia and population paranoia, are of the same ideological DNA. All of them hate spontaneity and natural path of nature and human evolution, so all of them have one solution: more or big government. So government will control migration, and visa, more than a dozen types of visa -- migrant, dependent, student, working, visitor, training, etc. -- was invented by many governments. This is a big milking cow for many governments as there are plenty of direct and indirect fees to get a visa, lots of revenues that go to the governments’ treasury. And lots of possible extortion opportunities are opened up for the different government migration bureaucracies, like the Bureau of Immigration, POEA and OWWA.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats, both socialists and democrats (and greenies, etc.) in Europe, other dominant political parties in rich countries in Asia, have invented various migration controls and regulations. There is discrimination and double standard, of course for their migration policies. European countries may impose strict and rigid migration and visa granting policies to many Africans, South Americans and mainland Asians, but not from oil-exporting Middle East Asia and North Africa. My Venezuelan friend was jokingly bragging his passport to us in our training in Sweden in 2003, he said that he does not need any visa to go to France, Germany, Italy, etc. because of Venezuelan oil, petroleum.

I got my second, multiple entry 10 years US (visitor) visa in April 2010. My first US visa was given in 2000. When I went to the US embassy for the interview for my second visa, I noticed that about 95 to 100 percent of the interviewees that day were smiling after the short interviews, usually only about 2-3 minutes on average. Meaning the US embassy was literally giving away (i.e., approving) US visa that time (or until now?) as the US was in deep economic recession then. So one lesson here is that economic hardships can prod a slightly migration paranoid economy to relax its visitor/migration restrictions to encourage more foreigners to visit their country and spend money there.

My last trip to Europe was in October 2008, I attended an FNF political seminar in Germany for 8 days, then I applied for 4 days extension to visit a friend in Bavaria (who then brought me to a glacier in Austria, nice), total of 12 days. The German embassy here gave me a Schengen visa for exactly 12 days, single entry.

One fear of the locals in host or destination countries is that migrants might abuse their expensive welfare system. While one long-term solution is to reduce the lenient welfare and subsidies given by the government to the sick, the unemployed and the young, the locals should also realize that migrants are taxpayers too, they contribute to the fund that their governments use for their welfare and pension. Migrants are usually willing to work on tasks that the locals would shun. Where there is more production of goods and services, there is more wealth in the economy. Both the migrants and the locals will benefit.
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See also:
Migration and Freedom 8: Denmark's immigration policy, May 17, 2011
Migration and Freedom 9: Immigration bureaucracy, July 19, 2011
Migration and Freedom 10: Multiculturalism and the Norway massacre, July 25, 2011
Migration and Freedom 11: Two migration theories, September 03, 2011
Migration and Freedom 12: Visa-free entry in Asia, October 24, 2011
Migration and Freedom 13: Travel Tax Robbery, December 06, 2011
Migration and Freedom 14: Shrink or Abolish the POEA, January 01, 2012
Migration and Freedom 15: Visa Free for Filipinos, January 02, 2012

EFN Asia 4: Migration and Freedom, Jakarta Conference

The 11th Economic Freedom Network - Asia Conference here in Jakarta ended last night. Below is my article yesterday posted in the lobbyist.biz with original title, Migration and Freedom)

Jakarta, Indonesia – “If goods are not allowed to cross borders, soldiers will.” And “If goods are allowed to cross borders, then workers and entrepreneurs who create those goods be freely allowed to cross borders as well.”

The first quote is from a French free market intellectual in the 17th century, Frederic Bastiat. The second is from Simon Lee, a young intellectual from Lion Rock Institute, a free market think tank in Hong Kong. He showed that quote from Bastiat in one of his presentations in a conference here.

Simon and me are among the hundred-plus participants, speakers and moderators from many countries in the 11th Economic Freedom Network (EFN) – Asia Conference held here Sultan Hotel in the capital city of Indonesia, October 6-8, 2010. The theme of this year’s conference is “Migration and the Wealth of Nations”. The main sponsor is the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) and co-sponsored by six other free market-oriented think tanks – Institute for Economics and Social Research (LPEM, Univ. of Indonesia), Freedom Institute, Indonesian Institute, Atlas, Fraser Institute, and the International Policy Network. The first three are based in Indonesia and last three are based in the US, Canada and UK, respectively.

I was invited in the conference to be one of the 9 moderators in 9 panel discussions in the two-days conference. I moderated the panel on “Preparing migrants before departure” and the two speakers in the panel were Dr. Arianto Patunru, Director of LPEM and Economics Professor at the University of Indonesia, and Zubair Ahmed Malik, former VP of the Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The two speakers gave productive and engaging presentations as they gave their own country experiences in migration of their people to other countries. Indonesia and Pakistan are the world’s 4th and 6th biggest countries in population size, with estimated 2010 population of 231 million and 170 million, respectively. With such a huge population, it is expected that many of their people will be seeking work and other opportunities abroad.

Migration happens because people want freedom. Economic, political, cultural, religious, personal freedom. If they are not happy with their current state in their home province or country, they seek an opportunity to move out and start a new life. This is a perfectly rational human behavior and thus, restricting such freedom by individuals is not an appropriate role or function by governments. Unless of course, if some individuals have committed some crime against their fellows in their home country, they should clear their names first or serve the penalty before moving out.

Remittances by workers abroad to their home countries is growing to several hundred billion dollars a year now. In the Philippines alone, remittances by OFWs through the formal financial system was $17.35 billion last year, and is projected to possibly reach $19 billion this year.

People mobility across countries and continents is a fundamental human rights. With continuing innovation and modernization in information and communications technology, in aviation and the airline and related industries, the opportunities for people mobility is getting bigger and bigger. Some households and firms abroad want more new workers; some workers and managers in other countries want new jobs with better pay and working environment. Some students simply want to learn new things abroad.

It is good that the FNF has initiated this kind of regional conference. FNF is a good ally of freedom-loving people and independent institutes in Asia and other parts of the world.
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Among the old friends in our Asian liberty forum discussion yahoogroups who came here in Jakarta were -- Barun, Parth and Bibek (India), Xingyuan and Jude (China), Wan and Shankaran (Malaysia), Arianto and Luthfi (Indonesia) , Minh and Ha (Vietnam), Simon (HK), Gorawut (Thailand), Carlos and Alvin (Philippines), Robin (Nepal), Seyitbek and Michu (Kyrgyztan), Jyoti (Australia-Thailand), Tom and Kelsey (US), and Alec (UK).

Aco Patunru was a big guy in the conference, he gave the welcome address in behalf of the Indonesian co-sponsors, he presented a paper in a panel discussion (I was his moderator :-)), he talked again in the plenary on the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) 2010 report, and he gave the intro message of the EFW 2010 Report Indoneian edition.







I told Luthfi I was super-impressed. The Freedom Institute could be the biggest free market think tank in the whole of Asia. They also have a creative source of funding. They put up a political consulting company that's making good money, and that company mainly finances or subsidizes the operating expenditures of the Institute. They also get some individual donors but not much.

There were two highlights of the farewell dinner last night.

First, the reading of the Conference Resolution on "Migration and the Wealth of Nations". The hudred-plus participants of the conference have issued a collective statement that migration is freedom, that government restrictions on the freedom of mobility of people should be relaxed. Simon Lee read the official, 2-page statement. It will be available at the EFN website soon, www.efnasia.org. Also the previous presentation materials.

Second, the live band singing and dancing. Freedom Institute got a local band playing beautiful Indonesian songs. But since the participants come from different countries, there were soon Indian songs, Chinese songs, Nepalese songs, and of course, western music. Many young participants, mostly university students who attended the 2-days Libertarian Youth conference before the EFN conference, also held in the same hotel, led the dancing. Lots of food, lots of singing and dancing, very merry atmosphere.

The EFN members' and observers' meeting will be held today in the same hotel. I told Jyoti, Gorawut, and Rainer Heufers that I cannot participate in the meeting. I left my wife at the hospital last Wed morning when our new daughter was only 2-days old. Have to be with them tonight and thus, must fly this morning.

I am super-grateful to Jyoti that she invited me to become one of the panel moderators in the conference. And of course the FNF for holding this kind of annual conference and for sponsoring my trip :-)
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See also:
EFN Asia 1: From HK to Phuket to KL, September 16, 2006
EFN Asia 2: Hayek in Asia, September 20, 2010
EFN Asia 3: Conference in Jakarta, October 06, 2010

Migration and Freedom 4: Filipino entrepreneur in Germany

There was this interesting news story shared by a fellow listed in one of my various discussion googlegroups, about an entrepreneurial Filipino in Germany.
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LAID OFF PINOY OPENS RESTAURANT IN GERMANY

ABS-CBN News, June 03, 2009

A Filipino cook who lost his job due to the global economic crisis used the opportunity to open up his very own restaurant in Gummersbach, Germany.

Alex Latag started "Pinoy Chawking", the very first Filipino restaurant in Gummersbach, with the money he saved from working as a cook in a Chinese restaurant.

"Nabigla din ako. Ang tao biglang dumadating. Maganda pero alis-dating, alis-dating," Latag said.

Pinoy Chawking attracted not only the attention of Filipinos but foreigners as well as the restaurant offers its clients an "eat-all-you-can" promo for 5.95 Euro.

"Pagka-almusal namin nag-decide kaming pumunta dahil that is very new and it's really exciting to learn and to hear na mayroong Pilipino na mago-open ng Chawking," said a Pinay from Bonn, Lourdes Wobel....
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I went to Gummersbach, Germany, last October 2008. I attended the FNF-IAF "Civil society and local government" seminar at Theodor Heuss Akademie. It's a small but nice city, not far from Cologne and Bonn.

This story above is another proof that nothing beats entrepreneurship. When people are not happy with their jobs, whether in private corporations or in government, the opportunity for them to leave and become start-up entrepreneurs should be there, easily. No subsidies, but no unnecessary bureaucracies and fees either.

And we go back to classical liberal philosophy.

Lean state, limited government, free market, individual responsibility. The rigid labor protection laws that many labor unions seek will ultimately hit them back should some of the laborers decide to quit being an employee and become an employer himself/herself someday.

The threat of good employees leaving them anytime to join other companies or put up their own company (as becoming an entrepreneur is no longer very bureaucratic) will also force many employers to treat their good employees well, pay them well. Only the lazy and irresponsible will be threatened with not being hired or being laid off anytime.

That makes the liberal ideology beautiful. It's just a question of whether liberal parties and liberal political organizations stick with that liberal tradition or not and embrace the populist-socialist philosophy of big and intrusive government that often rewards individual irresponsibility with subsidies and welfare.
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On October 17, 2006, I wrote this.

Globalization = Mobility

I like travel, domestic and foreign alike. Transporting myself from one place to another is very liberating because it allows me to observe other people's culture, economic systems, and natural environment. But very often, I do not have to transport myself to those beautiful or enchanting places. Technology brings those sights in front of me through the internet, magazines, newspapers, and other media. Or friends who have seen those places narrate to me what they have observed, showing photos from their digital cameras or posted in their own blogs and the web.

People want mobility; they aspire for it. The more mobile you are, the more freedom you have. You can escape or avoid unsightly or undesirable neighborhood, residential communities, schools or workplaces, and go to other places. Such mobility is not contained within the country, but across countries.

Some people tend to associate "globalization" only with capital movement across countries, and the perceived exploitation by foreign capitalists of local workers and the environment. Hence, the opposition to "corporate globalization". The implication is hard lobbies and political pressures to their governments to control and minimize the inflow of foreign capital and foreign technology into the country.

But globalization is mobility not only of capital, but also of labor, music, dances, sports, education, technology; activists, capitalists, professionals, entertainers, athletes, and so on. When cable tv and the web brings us exciting races in Formula 1 or Tour de France, or the triumphs of Michael Jordan and Roger Federer, or the live concerts of Eminem and Shakira, or the latest bombings in Iraq and Israel, that is globalization. When many of your countrymen move abroad to work or study, or the famous white sand beachs and mountain resorts in your country attracts lots of tourists and vacationers from abroad, that's globalization.

Many people on their own want free mobility as much as possible. But governments, backed up by certain protectionist interests, dislike free mobility of people, goods and services. Visitor visa system, high import tariffs rates and other import restrictions, not only restrict freer mobility of said people and things, but also bring in cash to the state for the official and/or personal expenditures of politicians and bureaucrats of such countries.

Mobility means freedom. Freedom or liberty means the absence of external coercion on men and women by others. Various forms of restrictions to mobility of people, goods and services constitutes varying forms of government coercion. People should assert their inherent right to mobility. Only the threat of a potentially harsh environment (economic and natural) in destination place should prevent people from moving away, not government.

(See also, Migration and Freedom 3: Remittances and Guest workers, March 25, 2008)