Molson Hart

If we're talking about psychologically empty lands, why not Hungary? I don't know the history well enough, but Hungary was communist through 1989. All the ambitious Hungarians I know are here in the USA, not there. The few smart Hungarians I speak to living in Hungary have been

really unambitious, I find. Smart, capable, maybe even hard-working, but...there is no capitalist killer instinct. Surely Hungary, with all its psychological empty land, should be better than easy-life for past 100+ years America? But it's not like that.

You're making a lot of good points but a lot of it has nothing to do with what i meant. 1. I wasn't really talking about land prices. I was talking about the overall development of a region. Let's say we use GDP per capita as a proxy (i know it's a shitty metric).

Initially the USA was underdeveloped compared to Europe but the entrepreneurial people flocked here and changed it. Now China is still lower in terms of GDP per capita but as you said people move back. Obviously being underdeveloped is not enough, sometimes it's a bad signal.

As for Hungary, yeah i don't know. There's definitely issues with mentality there you're right about that. For me the most interesting question is why post communist China is doing better in this sense than post communist East EU. That part is probably more about culture.

“Cultural” immigrants, ie people who leave for a better cultural, not economic life.

Yeah i'm definitely not arguing with the fact that economic immigrants chose China (or SEA in general) over the USA. I guess i don't but the China is more developed part so i think it proves my point and you think it's not :)