ARTICLE: “Handled with care: Central banks try to make it cheaper for people to send money home,” The Economist 21 April 2007, p. 86.

Anything that encourages the global commute is good, and no, it is unfair to deride this flow of money as “forcing developing countries to self-finance their own developmental aid.” Only an ODA professional could make such a misguided remark (something I read in a New York Times magazine article about the stress the global commute puts on families). Believe-you-f--king-me, I understand the stress of a global commute, and I send all my money home too. Granted, I’m sitting near the tippy-top of the pyramid, but the motivations and the willingness and sacrifices are basically the same: we want better for our families and this is what we’re willing to do to make it happen. I remember my life of 9-5 in DC. I could have stayed there forever, as so many do. But I wanted something I felt was better and through which I could earn a lot more money, and so I moved my family from Blue State to Red, taking advantage of a far cheaper cost of living, and traded off the countrywide and global commute for the time with my wife and kids. Yes, a big driver on all that is my desire to effect change on a grand scale, but if I felt I could pull it off with young kids better on the East Coast, I would. But for now, the balance on that ledger says, live in the center, help on the aging mother-in-law (I married the only daughter), and make the sacrifices on time and distance. With your average global commuter, the choice is far more stark: either earn a whole lot more abroad or earn much less at home. This is not a new dynamic, even in a global sense. Who built out the American West? Freed African-American slaves, dirt poor Irish and German immigrants, and Chinese “coolies.” None of them were there for the sunshine. They were there, at enormous risk and sacrifice and often involving years of separation with virtually no contact with families, because it was the best deal going for them at the time. The best deal going for those on the bottom of the pyramid is often the frontier that needs taming, no matter where it is found geographically. More generally, globalization opens up frontiers all over the place and at all levels of skill and compensation, the global “talent hunt” on top and the global “labor hunt” on the bottom. In many instances, and at both levels, it’s travel or forget about it. Mexico gets $23 billion in remittances (trackable) now, up sevenfold in the last 12 years, with fees dropping by two-thirds. The banks are just catching up with the global commute at the bottom of the pyramid. Not exploitation, and not undue sacrifice. Just people looking for better lives through better opportunities, stitching together a global community one person at a time.