Category: Remittances

The dark side of the moon

17 July, 2009 (10:09) | BoP, Global news, Microfinance, Nepal, Qatar, Remittances, Theory | No comments

We just want to help you, here in the employment zone
 
As the world globalizes information – which also implies globalizing capital – we observe a mobility of labor unprecedented in global history.  With that labor mobility comes the ebb and flow of people and money – people moving to cities to earn money, then sending [...]

Dead-drop housing: Part 2, the surcharge

16 June, 2009 (09:18) | Immigration, Phoenix, Remittances, Slums, US News, Value Chain | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
 

The amazing race starts here
 
In yesterday’s post, we followed the Phoenix police (via a horrifying Wall Street Journal article), as they intercepted a human smuggling ring funneling illegal immigrants on the northbound flyway into the jobs of America.
 

Finding a way in is only the beginning
 
Essential to this value chain is conveniently [...]

Dead-drop housing: Part 1, the value chain

15 June, 2009 (10:20) | Immigration, Phoenix, Remittances, Slums, US News, Value Chain | No comments

Essential to the tradecraft of espionage is the dead drop.  When Person A has something to convey to Person B without making direct contact, or even necessarily knowing who Person B is, the parties can use a dead drop.  A pre-specified location – a tree bole, a fake rock on the front porch, a sneaker [...]

Capital’s underground river: Mexican remittances

8 June, 2007 (09:51) | Capital markets, Markets, Poverty, Remittances, Subprime, World markets, World news |

Even as an enormous underground river of people flows south to north across the American continent — the vast human tide of illegal immigration from Mexico –

Flowing north across the Rio Grande

it is counterbalanced almost perfectly by another vast underground river flowing north to south: a flow of capital, in remittances from workers [...]