The more the Lebanese immigrate, the more they harm the salaries of their compatriots abroad. Or so says a piece in the International Herald Tribune.

In “A buyer’s market in Lebanon“, Bloomberg‘s Daniel Williams writes that the brain outflow from Lebanon is a “double whammy”, where it is “drying up the pool of skilled workers inside Lebanon and reducing salaries for some Lebanese outside.”

Some numbers are thrown in:

Offers for top executives in the Gulf states have fallen to $4,000 a month from $10,000; for assistant general managers, they’ve halved to $1,500.

I guess this leaves the Lebanese working in the Gulf grappling with previously unthinkable tradeoffs: “Hmm, I wonder if I should tell my cousin to come and work with me in Qatar. I know it will be fun having him around, but I’ll keep him in Lebanon for now. I like to keep my salary the way it is”