Thought I would share a friend's story that was related to me last week: My wife and I had a friend over for dinner last week, our friend was originally from Cambodia and is ethnically Cambodian. We had never really talked about her life before she came to Australia, after all she has been an Aussie for over 20 years now, but over a bottle (or was it 2) of very good Hunter Valley red the conversation turned to gold and freedom.
Our friend took us back to her life in Cambodia, before she fled to Thailand. Being ethnically Cambodian and her family living in a rural area a long way from the capital, Phnom Penh they were spared the early bloodshed of the Khmer Rouge regime. Although as the regime run out of intellectuals and the Chinese merchant class to shoot they turned on their own and started hunting down anyone who was successful, even farmers, who were the ones they said they had come to power to protect.
Our friend fled with her savings, which were all in gold. When she got to the Thai border it was closed, but she did what people have been doing for 5,000 years and bribed her way over the border. But this is when the story takes a twist, she ended up in a UN run refugee camp along with thousands of other Cambodians, many of whom had been there for several years. Soon after arriving she was placed on a long list for third country resettlement. When she asked if could choose which country you went to she was told NO. But after much prompting she found out there was in fact 4 lists, a separate list for Sweden, Australia, Canada & USA. She asked if there was any way she could influence which list she ended up on, to which she was told “well you would have to have gold to do that”. At this point she found out not only could gold get you on the list of your choice but each list had a different value. Australia was the most expensive, followed by Sweden, then Canada with the USA being the cheapest. She was very surprised that Australia was more expensive (many multiples more) than the USA as to her they were both Western countries. It was explained to her that the market put a much higher price on Australia over the USA due to the chance of prospering once you got there. Well she paid up in gold for Australia, and has been a prosperous Aussie ever since.
I was stunned by her story, the free market of bribery and corruption was discounting the economic future of the USA over 25 years ago, this is even before Easy Al and Bonkers Ben started printing the US$ into oblivion.
Although on reflection I shouldn't be that surprised as my Irish ancestors came to the same conclusion over 160 years ago when they escaped the an Gorta Mór as they took the much more expensive and dangerous journey to Perth in Western Australia than going to New York as all of their relatives did.
PS: Whilst bribery and corruption are a terrible thing, they are even worse if you can't afford them.
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