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Notes -
Isn't this also true on the level of cities & states in the US? CA/NY/TX soak up the top talent, but even within each of the states, the directionality of it is pretty stark.
They at least still pay federal Tax.
I'm confused. /u/gilmore606 was claiming that skimming the top off the rest of the world is immoral for other reasons. Your response is seemingly unrelated.
And surely the Chinese or Indian Silicon Valley bro is paying a bare minimum of $80K in fed taxes. More if you count various CA/local taxes in there.
When cities skim the top talent from the countryside at least they're paying taxes in the same country, which isn't the case for immigrants.
But the people in those cities will still absolutely complain about "but we're subsidizing the countryside", and feel justified waging the culture war against those who they no longer consider their neighbors despite having grown up there.
Which, come to think of it, "brain drain generates a surplus that keeps countries that were escaped from in poverty" is probably a pretty good feels-y argument for first-world nations propping up third-world ones.
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