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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Brain Drain |
| 2009-03-08 |
| When smart young foreigners leave these shores, they take with them the seeds of tomorrow's innovation. Almost 25 percent of all international patent applications filed from the United States in 2006 named foreign nationals as inventors. Immigrants founded a quarter of all U.S. engineering and technology companies started between 1995 and 2005, including half of those in Silicon Valley. In 2005 alone, immigrants' businesses generated $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers. Yet rather than welcome these entrepreneurs, the U.S. government is confining many of them to a painful purgatory. As of Sept. 30, 2006, more than a million people were waiting for the 120,000 permanent-resident visas granted each year to skilled workers and their family members. No nation may claim more than 7 percent, so years may pass before immigrants from populous countries such as India and China are even considered. Why does all this matter? Because just as the United States has relied on foreigners to underwrite its deficit, it has also depended on smart immigrants to staff its laboratories, engineering design studios and tech firms. An analysis of the 2000 Census showed that although immigrants accounted for only 12 percent of the U.S. workforce, they made up 47 percent of all scientists and engineers with doctorates. What's more, 67 percent of all those who entered the fields of science and engineering between 1995 and 2006 were immigrants. What will happen to America's competitive edge when these people go home? Immigrants who leave the United States will launch companies, file patents and fill the intellectual coffers of other countries. Their talents will benefit nations such as India, China and Canada, not the United States. America's loss will be the world's gain. luddites |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #12 CNN NEWS this AM > Guest Pert - proclaims US GOP IS NOW A HEAVILY FRACTURED, WEAK MINORITY PARTY. US DEMS = DEMOLEFT could score points vee RUSH LIMBAUGH by potraying the GOP-Right as dedicated or manic followers of LIMBAUGH = the MAHARUSHIE??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-03-08 19:03 |
| #11 They skate through school and get C's in (at most) Civil Engineering Hey! I was living in the fraternity house at the time! C's were like gold, man |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-03-08 18:12 |
| #10 Glenmore, I wouldn't try selling that to 3dc if I were you. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2009-03-08 17:18 |
| #9 In general, for equally qualified and compensated workers in this country, the corporations will take the citizens over the H1B visa. In your dreams. An America who has the 'go' will seek, just like the business, a better deal for himself. The H1-B loses their ticket if they jump ship. It's just as much about control as it is about ability. Businesses are loath to issue binding contracts to American workers because they count such items as liabilities not as assets [just look at Detroit] since they obligate the corp for financial compensation they could otherwise address by simple termination. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-03-08 16:00 |
| #8 And in the end, we as a country are better off if bright young Indians and Chinese come here and join us and add to our economy than if they go home/stay home and take their contributions to our economy with them. (Our livestyle and freedoms have tended to be addictive to immigrants over the decades - all my engineering profs were Russians or European Jews who fled Hitler and/or Stalin.) Outsourcing everything is even worse than outsourcing almost everything. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-03-08 15:18 |
| #7 Because a PhD in an 'easy' discipline does not prepare one for productive work at all, whereas if you have learned something productive you at least have a chance to compete with the foreigners who have learned it. In general, for equally qualified and compensated workers in this country, the corporations will take the citizens over the H1B visa. Any job can be outsourced, but your odds are better (still not good, but better) if you are good at your job. I wish I had an argument for your third point - it does appear we have already outsourced our government. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-03-08 15:13 |
| #6 So, Glenmore, why should an American get a PhD in a difficult discipline, when at any moment: a) He could be replaced by an Indian with an H1B visa, or b) His job could be outsourced to a team of programmers in India or China, or c) If he does succeed here in America, the government will tax and/or regulate his company to death? |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-03-08 14:47 |
| #5 WaPo gets one right. Just as our lesser lights don't want illegals from Mexico coming in and taking their jobs by working for less (or even just by working at all), our brighter lights don't want competition for the more elite jobs. They skate through school and get C's in (at most) Civil Engineering and expect to be paid to design the next generation of stealth aircraft or nuclear power plants. So they put up roadblocks to those who actually learned partial differential equations (mostly Asians). |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-03-08 12:07 |
| #4 As of Sept. 30, 2006, more than a million people were waiting for the 120,000 permanent-resident visas granted each year to skilled workers and their family members. You'll have to take that issue up with Nancy and Harry who are more interested in TEN million who didn't even bother to go through the entire process, but who they want to vote by the next election. The Nancy and Harry Show is not interested in people who won't be dependent upon them for their existence like good serfs. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-03-08 11:10 |
| #3 ed, I don't think India issues H1-B visas to foreigners like Dodd, Frank, Raines, etc. but it's a nice thought. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-03-08 10:58 |
| #2 So where are the H1-B visas for lawyers, politicians and investment bankers? |
| Posted by: ed 2009-03-08 10:30 |
| #1 And guess what happens when such intelligent, entrepreneurial types go home to discover a stifling bureaucracy, and an ignorant and superstitious government filled with socialists eager to redistribute their wealth? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-03-08 10:29 |