About prisoners, the old and the sick

About prisoners, the old and the sick

WE READ THAT IN THE United States there are approximately 2.2 million people dedicated to capturing and keeping 2 million prisoners behind bars. Imagine what it can mean for any country to capture even 1% of that market.

Other buoyant markets are those of the elderly care industry, whose demand in developed countries grows as the ratio of the number of young to old decreases. So are those in the long-term care industry, where continuous advances in medicine seem to generate almost infinite demand. 

It is strange then the insufficient attention that developing countries give to these services when negotiating their trade agreements, considering their current and competitive salaries, and that, on the other hand, it does force them to open up to the services sector via banking, insurance, auditing, etc. 

As an example, the economic impact to a poor country of a school that annually graduates a few thousand excellent bilingual nurses, to work around the world or in their own country, could exceed the benefits that a trade agreement would have on its agriculture and manufacturing industry combined. By the way, nurses would cancel their educational credits, perhaps even more easily than economists like me.

Furthermore, given the tensions that occur when millions of people seek to emigrate in any way to the labor markets of developed countries, in order to produce family remittances, it is surprising not to hear that the best way to avoid this illegal immigration, which is often destined in one way or another to care for prisoners, the sick and the elderly, it would be sending this same clientele to developing countries to be cared for. 

A real opening in services would allow poor countries to access sources of sustainable economic growth, while at the same time it would alleviate the pressures that the costs of caring for prisoners, the elderly and the sick exert on the finances of developed countries, to such a degree that They even threaten to make their own economies unsustainable. 

New ideas? No way! Papillon was sent prisoner to Guyana and Australia was founded with exported convicts. There are already European governments that pay in one way or another for the stay of their elderly in places like the Canary Islands, and history is full of examples of those who had to go to other places due to diseases such as tuberculosis.

Translated by Google from El Universal