It took a pandemic to stop the gluttonous consumption of other places, trips that relied centrally on the have-nots—armies of hotel workers, cleaners, food preparers, bartenders, pool attendants—to provide the lavish experience sought. The argument in favor of this juxtaposition was that tourists, however noxious, were propping up the GDP of places like Macau (51 percent), Maldives (32.5 percent), Spain (14.6 percent), and Italy (13.2 percent). It was, as neoliberal economics go, a top-down model, mere cents going to the worst-off at the bottom. – The Baffler