The below is a story about someone in another "third tier" country who got a degree from a prestigious university but that degree did not help them get a job. Jo is the holder of a newly minted degree in English literature from one of the top universities in Laos. But the 22-year-old, who graduated only weeks ago, says he already feels "hopeless". Confronted with a barren job market, he holds no hope of finding work at home, and instead aims to become a cleaner or a fruit picker in Australia. His aspirations are low, but they reflect a hushed disenchantment spreading among his peers; the result of a severe and sustained economic downturn that has ravaged Laos for the past two years. "Every person in this generation doesn't believe in the government. They want to leave Laos, they don't believe anything the government says," he tells the BBC. "Most of my friends have the same thoughts, but we only talk about it privately. If you say bad things about them in public, I don't know what will happen." The economic crisis has been caused by a rash program of government borrowing used to finance Chinese-backed infrastructure projects which has begun to unravel. The crisis shows little sign of easing, with public debt spiraling to unsustainable levels, resulting in government budget cuts, sky-high inflation and record-breaking currency depreciation. Laos is one of the region's poorest and least developed nations. In a bid to transform the largely agrarian society, the past decade has seen the government take on major infrastructure projects, mostly financed by historic ally and neighbour China - itself on a lending spree since 2013 as part of its global infrastructure investment programme, the Belt and Road initiative (BRI). Laos has built dozens of foreign-financed dams to transform itself into the "battery of South East Asia" as a major exporter of electricity to the region. But oversupply has turned many dams unproductive, and the state electricity company sits in $5 billion (£4.1 billion) debt. The article goes on to explain how Laos has effectively become a subservient vassal state of China due to all the debt it took on. 'I feel hopeless': Living in a country on the brink, Alastair McCready, BBC News, October 8, 2023 I think it's important we pay attention to stories like this because this same sort of phenomena could play out in other countries in the future.
And how do we know it will not someday happen in countries like the U.S. or Australia? There are lots of people on the Left who seem to think that debt does not really matter. Or that more education is the automatic solution to any economic problem.
And there are lots of people on the right who think education is superfluous and science is a crock Gee I wonder which one……?
