This quote of James Hacker in a piece at Axios caught my attention:
While lots of New Yorkers are leaving, “out there in Bangalore and Ukraine and Natal, there are people who want to be New Yorkers” who will gladly take their place, bringing their ambition and brainpower.
Leaving aside for a moment that Bangalore is a city, Ukraine arguably a country, and Natal a territory, I’m curious about the selection process that would be used. About 70% of the people in the province that contains Bangalore are literate (mostly not in English), most Ukrainians are literate (probably not in English), and in KwaZulu-Natal hard to estimate but probably no greater than 50% (again mostly not in English). I’m a bit curious as to what Dr. Hacker thinks this very diverse population will do.
Anyway, I wish the resettled speakers of Kannada, Ukrainian, and Zulu the best of luck. They’re going to need it.
Yes, I’ve heard for years that the best investment banks, advertising agencies, law firms and industrial concerns headquartered in NYC have targeted Bangalore, Ukraine and Nepal for recruitment.
That’s “Natal”—it’s a territory of South Africa. A key point is not only that the people from those places speak languages other than English but that the languages they speak are so different from English and from each other. That presents a problem an order of magnitude more difficult than the problem the Eastern European Jews who arrived in New York around 1900 faced. Most of them spoke Yiddish which is actually quite close to English. At least by comparison with the separation between Ukrainian and Kannada (a non-Indo-European language).
Why would they want to stay in NY when they could go to another US city that is cheaper with less crime?
The real point is that Mr Hacker beclowns himself. What sane person would make such an excuse?
‘While lots of New Yorkers are leaving, “out there in Bangalore and Ukraine and Natal, there are people who want to be New Yorkers†who will gladly take their place, bringing their ambition and brainpower.’
Considering that the vast majority of these immigrants will be starting out at the bottom economically and will either have learn English or end up in language enclaves, I doubt that they’ll be contributing very much to the tax coffers of NYC anytime soon. But they’ll be reliable Democratic votes.
I don’t know that they can find jobs in the garment industry or the shrinking service sector.
Maybe they could serve as domestic help for the A listers like Hispanics in California.
I’d hesitate to compare the groups mentioned to Jews, who are historically merchants and prosper everywhere they settle.
But the landlords in NY will love the idea of HHS filling all those empty apartments with qualified recipients.
Do we know any powerful politicians who would like to help
Struggling landlords in NY?
“the best investment banks, advertising agencies, law firms and industrial concerns headquartered in NYC have targeted Bangalore, Ukraine and Nepal for recruitment.”
Of course not. They had to go to Harvard and Wheaton to find the geniuses who destroyed the world economy in the aughts. Hiring the first hundred Ukrainians in the phone book would have probably gotten us better finance professionals.
Steve