The micro-corollary of sovereign land sales: wooing foreigners to unsold properties
Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 9:54AM 
Again just back to a pet notion of mine: all this debt + demographic aging in the West is going to lead to some countries selling off or making available for sale things that otherwise would not be considered to outsiders they would also not otherwise tolerate.
Point came up in recent Wikistrat sim on the Arctic: Can you imagine China buying its way onto the Arctic Council by so bankrolling/purchasing/whatever a member state (bankrupt Iceland, independence-minded Greenland, etc.) that it effectively captures its seat. I know, it sounds impossible, but then you remember how America got its seat (Alaska). But then you say, those were different times when bankrupt states or overstretched regimes would sell off that which they could no longer manage/exploit/defend (like Russia on Alaska).
But then I wonder: why can't we collectively head back into that territory with all this debt and demographic aging in the West. Is this not the elderly couple downsizing their house - just writ large?
So you look at Spain right now, and the NYT headline reads, "Spain woos foreigners to thin its investory of unsold homes."
Now, Spain has always been sort of interesting on immigration - as in, innovative. They wooed foreign workers in the good times, and then subsidized their return home in the bad times. So now they're being aggressively innovative in the bankrupt times.
But it gets you thinking, huh?
Reader Comments (6)
If China were to buy anywhere it would be territory adjacent to them, like Pacific Russia. This would be much more logical than buying territory which very well might violate the US' Monroe Doctrine.
the Monroe Doctrine?!?!
the US government threw that away when it got into European affairs, like, about 1915, then compounded the felony in 1941.
It sure does get you thinking "out of the box"...the time of which I believe the world has entered. No question the economics of globalization has released again the genie from the bottle. Too early yet for answers but I can't wait to see the results from a Wikistrat sim on this.
Speaking of "out of the box" Tom have you encountered Ray Kurzweil's brand new book How to Create a Mind...your books & his over the past 10+ years have been the best I have read.
A good science fiction writer (Kim Stanley Robinson comes to mind) could probably make some good background material out of this--a future Costa Del Sol where the people represent a physical and cultural melting pot of generations of vacation home buyers. :)
I'm not sure I see Russia giving up any of its Pacific Coast territory, particularly to benefit a potential Pacific adversary.
Interesting times: Maybe one day the USA will sell Alaska to China--thereby China could get its seat in the Arctic Coucil.