Soros, Krugman, Popper, and the Lost Decade

After I read George Soros' piece that Paul Krugman recommended; I was reminded of a lost decade in my life. Karl Popper emphasized the Open Society, and now I know that I was the victim of Extractive Institutions in the country I was born. Mexico is not an Open Society.

Mexico has been ruled by strong men since before Hernan Cortes set foot there. Mexicans have lost great men fighting against injustices, I lost ten years of my life. The Latin American Lost Decade   was supposed to be my glorious first ten years of independent scientific work. When I was at MIT in the early eighties; professor Hung Cheng had a visitor from mainland China, who cried remembering how he lost his most important years to the Cultural Revolution.

I am not bitter; but I have to know where I am coming from.