Brain drain from the US

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
24

Perhaps not to the French, but it has long been a symbol of immigration to Americans. FDR said it eloquently at the 50th anniversary of the Statue.

For over three centuries a steady stream of men, women and children followed the beacon of liberty which this light symbolizes. They brought to us strength and moral fibre developed in a civilization centuries old but fired anew by the dream of a better life in America. They brought to one new country the cultures of a hundred old ones…Perhaps Providence did prepare this American continent to be a place of the second chance. Certainly, millions of men and women have made it that. They adopted this homeland because in this land they found a home in which the things they most desired could be theirs—freedom of opportunity, freedom of thought, freedom to worship God. Here they found life because here there was freedom to live. Address on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. | The American Presidency Project

This belief was American Exceptualism, back when we at least tried to be a great nation in ways other than economic and military

I keep hearing this but doubt it. We certainly should enforce immigration laws and even deport those that break them, but the notion that this is a major or corrosive problem is not based on fact. There is little evidence that illegal immigrants increase crime (more the opposite) or use more public services than they pay for in taxes. And while they may decrease wages for produce harvesters, dishwashers, and menial construction laborers, they also increase the number of businesses in these areas. I think a pretty good argument can be made that it is better to have lots of entry level jobs for people to enter the job market than to have fewer such jobs at higher wages.

The point of METAR is to detect trends and risks. Note the link in the OP about American scientists moving to the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

Perhaps the next big advance in DNA editing or RNA vaccines will come from Germany rather than the US. Or perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if China surpasses the US in AI and nanotech.

Top young Chinese scientists are returning home from Cambridge, Massachusetts – a city that houses some of America’s most renowned universities – at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, according to a new study. US research hub at heart of brain drain for scientists returning to China, study finds | South China Morning Post

Our study reveals the widespread fear among scientists of Chinese descent in the United States arising from conducting routine research and academic activities. If this fear is not alleviated, there are significant risks of underutilization of scientific talent as well as losing scientific talent to China and other countries. https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2216248120

Meanwhile, India has initiated an aggressive program to get US trained scientists and engineers to return to India.

The trend of losing US scientists to other countries (particularly China) began in 2018. Who was president then?

image
image726×480 31.9 KB

It wouldn’t surprise me if future historians see this result as Xi’s greatest victory over trump and the beginning of the end of America’s economic dominance.

5 Likes
25

Fake passports very likely don’t work anymore. That’s because the passport booklet itself isn’t really the “passport” per se. It’s the entry in the computer database that is verified when crossing a border that counts. Now if you can get a fake passport AND a fake entry into the database then you might be able to manage. At least for a while. This is also why passports from certain countries (that are willing to issue fake passports with a fake database entry) can’t be recognized anymore.

2 Likes
26

Good to know, thanks. We happily have a cybersecurity specialist in the family. Who knew that college degree would have such high returns!

IP,
kidding…assuming our passports are not pulled, in which case the gloves come off :grinning_face:

27

It is corrosive not because of petty crimes and etc, (a song and dance done to further oppress and exploit illegal laborer-aliens) but because heedless lawbreaking, such as illegal entry, is inherently corrosive to the crucial sense that in the USA we obey the law, and our laws are not in or out of existence based on whims.

The central fact of illegal aliens is that flagrant law-violating employers are not libable under the law for attracting and hiring illegals, the crucial unspoken hidden ignored largely bi-partisan intention of Congress for decades.

The knee jerk left’s fierce defence of rights for illegal aliens makes them into chumps — yes, defend defenseless people, but prioritize recovering control of immigration from exploitative employers/industries.

10 Likes
28

There are always nuances. Adultery is against the law in Florida yet from what I’ve heard it is a hobby in The Villages. Sex outside of marriage is against the law in Minnesota. I bet most reading this thread used marijuana before it was legalized (or wished they had).

Laws are typically enforced to the degree that the miscreants cause harm to society. Illegal immigration has generally been to the benefit of society. That’s why even a staunch conservative like Reagan gave amnesty to the undocumented rather than do a massive deportation like the current nut case.

Ethics test. I’m sure that if you saw someone breaking in to your neighbors house you would call the cops. If a local landscaper was using illegal workers just to stay in business because no one else wanted the job, would you turn him in?

I wouldn’t. Nuances.

2 Likes
29

Somewhat tangentially related, legislation is working it’s way through Congress to require verification of a person’s citizenship to vote. The states are crying that the government has not set up an easy means to verify people’s citizenship status. Verifying a person’s “legality” has the same problem: try and verify it, because US citizens are not, so far, required to have a stack of documents verifying their citizenship. The last place I applied, in 2006, after WPI went toes up, only required driver’s license and SS card. I can see the Federal government putting the burden of proof on the applicant for a job, or to vote, because that is easiest, for both the government, and the “JCs”.

Steve

1 Like
30

This sounds an awful lot like a national ID card, which the majority of the people against immigrants and demanding proof of citizenship are against, mostly due to paranoia.

For me and my family, we all have US passports, which implies US citizenship.

1 Like
31

Comparable to a national ID, but not the same, in the minds of the mob.

Two other election law policies are supported by even more Americans – requiring photo identification to vote (84%) and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time (83%).

Poll results matter to TIG. Piece on the news in the last two days showed some 80% of his base, favored cutting off aid to Ukraine. So, Ukraine’s independence became expendable.

Steve

32

How could you possibly know for sure? And even if they are illegal, they filled out a W4 with a fake SS number on it (often reused from someone who is already dead, because the verification systems often still allow those to be entered and used).

And even this one, you can’t always know for sure. It might be that their cousin who is staying by them locked himself out and is trying to get in through an open window.

Reminds of a story that happened to me about 50 years ago. I was living in NYC and was doing something at the kitchen sink that had a window above it. I glanced out the window and saw a RAGING FIRE in two windows of the apartment just opposite us but 2 floors up!!! I grabbed the phone and called the fire department and told them that an apartment building across from me is ON FIRE. They sent 5 trucks, REALLY 5 of them including a hook and ladder because it was a typical NYC 6 story apartment building. Anyway, they investigated the area and the building had no fire at all. It was simply a reflection of a neighbor to the right of me playing with his grill and using excessive amounts of lighter fluid. His grill flashed a medium sized fire, and the reflection in the windows of the apartment building REALLY looked like a huge fire raging inside. In the end, everyone had a good laugh, the firemen gave me a tour of their trucks, and shortly thereafter they all went back to the first station to wait for a real fire. You can’t always know for sure!

2 Likes
33

YES, BUT!, the majority of the people became paranoid about national ID after a large scale campaign, one I watched come down (lotsa pseudo Christian shrieking about the Book of Revelations and people being forced to
“bear the mark of the beast” (= secure ID’s from Drivers Licenses to Fishing to Gun Permits, all, you see, a satanic plot), and I strongly expect that that insanity was paid for and pumped by exploiters of illegal immigrant labor.

2 Likes
34

Laws have the bad habit of remaining on the books long after they become obsolete. Adultery is one of them. A good idea might be to revise every law on its every 10th or 25th anniversary. Pick a number.

The Captain

2 Likes
35

It seems you have never experienced a hypothetical before.

Suppose you did know for sure.

Flyerboys is arguing a black/white view of the law. Things are either legal or illegal, there is not grey, so laws should be enforced consistently. I am suggesting there are nuances in the law that affect the degree to which it is enforced. We want laws against spousal abuse to be enforced rigorously but generally look the other way about those smoking weed.

Law enforcement had previously looked the other way when a landscape company hires a few illegals that keeps them in business, thereby providing jobs for citizens. That strikes me as being reasonable.

With that intro I’ll try the hypothetical again. Suppose you did know with certainty that a restaurant had undocumented workers. Would you report it to law enforcement?

36

And you can kiss the mushroom industry goodbye without illegals. No way to get someone to deal with that smell if they have legal options for work.

IP

37

That’s so true.

If the hardest, smelliest, sweat-inducing, dangerous jobs paid the most, or even well, we wouldn’t have to depend on poor, oppressed, often immigrant workers to do them. But we would have to reward the owners and executives less and that’s not “Capitalism” (Cheap Labor Capitalism)

Instead, we shame them for being poor and unable to lift themselves up by their boot straps, or deport them to keep them desperate and willing to accept low pay.

4 Likes
38

How can you KNOW that?
You can’t even KNOW who has a driver’s license unless you are a relative or a police officer making an authorized stop.

39

Yep I know indirectly of one scientist with permanent status in the US sitting on the Canadian border because they won’t let him back into our country. He went to a meeting in Canada. Now he is split from his job and family.

1 Like
40

You don’t have to know. You just stiff all immigrant looking people the tip and sign off with a menacing threat…

Lots of nastiness out there.

3 Likes
41

Sure, you can do that if you want but that’s not the same as reporting them to law enforcement. Which was the original question.

1 Like
42

Check this madness out:
The administration is firing health/medical researchers AND warning them to stay away from foreign recruiters because, well, because we do not want you working for anybody else either…
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/doh-nih-warns-fired-researchers-to-be-wary-of-foreign-recruitment

4 Likes
43

Expect the wall to be finished on the Mexican border and built on the Canadian one. Not to keep anyone out, but to keep us serfs in.

2 Likes