Africa Is Mars

Mars is undoable. Mars is undesirable. There is this funny thing called gravity. The human body does not do well in the absence of gravity. Send robots. They are gravity neutral. But people? Africa is plenty undiscovered. Plant a trillion trees instead. Save this very planet instead.

When you plant the Australian eucalyptus in a new climate, there is havoc. Imagine a microbe from Mars coming over to earth. What could happen?

The best point for rockets are one step further and one step closer. I am all for robotic mining of the asteroid belt. Countries used to go to war over spices. Gold is the new spice. I am all for internet access on every point on earth through 10,000 or more satellites.

But I am all about Africa, not Mars. Ray Youssef has an edge over Elon Musk in that regard. Mars might be Elon Musk's masterstroke in marketing, not an actual place he wants to go to. Look, Mars! He says. And then builds boring tunnels and exciting cars.

Both Ray and Elon are immigration success stories. Both are out of Africa. Elon might look like he has white skin, but you just have to read his life story to realize the sickness that was apartheid also brutalized him. Elon grew up in South Africa. Ray's parents came from Africa. Ray is a New Yorker. And now Ray is America's gift to Africa. These two inspiring entrepreneurs are in stark contrast to the stupidity emanating out of Washington. So much garbage is being talked about immigration. To Ray I might say, go back to Africa. But looks like he is already there.

Africa Is Mars https://t.co/fjH9jnKbcQ @elonmusk @raypaxful @Tesla @SpaceX @paxful @skyzer4ever @boringcompany @BTCTN @blockchain

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 20, 2019

Money Moved, Value Created

The biggest development economics story of my life is something I was never taught in any of the textbooks in high school or college. No development economist, many of whom do originate from the Global South, was able to foresee that remittance will play a much bigger role in development than foreign aid or even trade.

Aid is big, trade is much bigger, but the biggest of them is remittance. And we have to put remittance in a separate category from trade because we have still not achieved that stage in human evolution when we might realize a completely free movement of people all over the world will immediately add a few trillion dollars to the global GDP. Money moves. Goods move. But people get clamped down. That is where we are.

What is remittance? People move from poor countries not always to the richest countries. More often they move to slightly richer countries. They work the lowest-paying jobs. They save money when saving might be thought of as impossible. They pay shark rates to move money. And they send money home. This has been the greatest driver of development in the past few decades. No economist was able to foresee it.

There is enormous value created when you make it possible for people to move money. And that is elemental. That is not even banking. When you make that movement instantaneous and free, the value is so, so much larger. And the Blockchain promises to do that. The Blockchain is going to be more revolutionary than the Internet. The Internet has been the appetizer. The Blockchain is the meal.

Money Moved, Value Created https://t.co/YS6qahAsUP @raypaxful @paxful @skyzer4ever @msantoriESQ @ChrisConeyInt

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 18, 2019