SE Asia as a whole has been improving, including countries that never participated in the retiree scheme. Thailand has been relatively stable and hasn't been invaded by foreign powers and is a big hub of manufacturing. It'd be more surprising if they didn't grow these past 20 years.
The snide "hmmmm" doesn't contradict anything I've said. Only incredibly poor countries do it. Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it. And plenty of countries went directly from poor to rich without taking in retirees. See: Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan. If anything, countries that take in retirees seem to lag compared to those who don't.
And decisions of government officials taking a cut of money from visa approvals for retirees really doesn't have anything to do with the agency of the people. There's a reason countries get rid of these policies: locals don't like it. No need to continue to assert that forcing yourself on unwilling people is good because their rents go up.
>Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it.
Based on my research, there are a few countries which tightened their retirement visa requirements, but getting rid of it outright is actually quite uncommon. You talk as though this is a common thing. Can you name 5 countries that outright eliminated their retirement visa program? (Not just "considering it", actually eliminated it)
Why would they tighten it up? It's supposed to be great for the economy. It wouldn't make sense to do that if it's good, would it?
And there's virtually no country that doesn't let people with absolutely massive amounts of money buy their way in. 50 people a year buying top floor apartments in the middle of town in cash affects things far less than 150000 people a year happily paying quadruple what locals would pay to rent a normal apartment.
The snide "hmmmm" doesn't contradict anything I've said. Only incredibly poor countries do it. Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it. And plenty of countries went directly from poor to rich without taking in retirees. See: Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan. If anything, countries that take in retirees seem to lag compared to those who don't.
And decisions of government officials taking a cut of money from visa approvals for retirees really doesn't have anything to do with the agency of the people. There's a reason countries get rid of these policies: locals don't like it. No need to continue to assert that forcing yourself on unwilling people is good because their rents go up.