Second -- and I know you've NEVER thought about this -- consider how much money they remit to India!

I am aware. Indians are the largest diaspora in the world, so they do remit a lot. However, you misunderstood one thing.

The $125 billion is not the entire sum of remittances to India from all countries, not just the USA. In 2016, 26% of remittances to India were from the UAE, compared to 22% from USA.

The link you provided from 2022 says 22% of remittances were from the UAE while only 18% is from the USA. It says that the later amounts to $16 billion.

A lot of the Indian nurses with funny accent you see in the West are from Kerala, a south Indian state. They are mostly Christians and they are the only ones who are ready to take up such jobs, wiping people's butts and taking care of them. They are exploited by Indian hospitals so they try to get "experience" in the Gulf before migrating to the West.

Kerala is ruled by Communist goons who have chased all the industries away with their mafia tactics. The youth are unemployed after acquiring useless degrees and are addicted to drugs and alcohol. The nurses and other Keralites remit money to India to help their relatives complete their education, clear debts, and find jobs in other states.

It's not just Kerala, expats from other states also try to improve their parent's living standards and make investments in India while living abroad. They also invest in real estate and in businesses.

You can live a very comfortable life in India with just $1000 per month - far less than that if you have your own place and can work from home. Things are extremely affordable. India has a lot of poverty so assistance from foreign-based Indians is very important.

So all that money didn't leave the US, a lot of it goes back to the States and funds its functioning, whereas a significant chunk of the remittance is from the Gulf countries.