Glimpses of Nepali Syndrome

After a longer than expected dormancy for this blog, I am prompted to add a few hastily written lines because of all the glimpses of Nepal in the experiences of other countries. While our political circus doesn't seem to end, the bigger problems that afflict us aren't going away. In the meantime, there are examples of future burdens from others' to hark back to Nepal. 

Here are two bits that I came across today. The first an obvious parallel of the Nepali situation from a NY Times article on globalization and aging: 

Today, nearly 12 percent of Spain’s population is foreign born. Among the arrivals are hundreds of thousands of Ecuadoreans (many of them female caregivers for elderly Spanish) whose absence at home increases the median age of Ecuador’s population. More than one in 10 Ecuadoreans has left in search of work, and the loss of so many of the country’s youngest and most enterprising workers means Ecuador has little chance of developing. Recently, its president initiated the Welcome Home Program to lure emigrants back with tax breaks and money to start businesses.

And the second article about the basket case of Europe, glorious Greece, which is less obvious in its relationship to the Nepali situation. Yet, I recognized how the professions trying to maintain their monopoly power over certain basic services hinder economic growth. In Nepal's case the resistance to market-based economy also happens to come from transportation syndicates, that try to monopolize the trucking markets and routes, at the expense of the consumers and businesses.

That is what happened this summer when the government took on the trucking industry. Greece has issued only a few new licenses for truckers since 1970, though Greece’s economy has more than tripled in that time. This created a hot market for the licenses, which have sold at prices approaching $500,000. Not surprisingly, experts say, trucking costs in Greece are far higher than anywhere else in the European Union.

The IOBE report found it was more expensive to truck something from Athens to Thebes, about 45 miles, than from Athens to Rome, a distance of more than 600 miles. Businessmen say it is cheaper to ship goods here from China than it is to move them from Athens to the island of Rhodes, 285 miles away.