The two are not mutually exclusive, and we therefore do not disagree. Companies will hire staff who provide a return on investment, wherever they are located.
***You just contradicted yourself. When someone gets hired overseas for the same job that an american got shafted over, it IS mutually exclusive.
That’s the nature of capitalism and that practice will grow human productivity more rapidly than hiring only domestic staff.
***Yes, that is the nature of capitalism. That doesn’t mean I am forced to merely accept it on the political plane, however. There is a wide continuum on the spectrum between Protectionism on one side, and Open Borders Free Trade on the other side, with FAIR TRADE striking a balance in the middle.
Well the opposite side of that same coin is that foreign companies hire US staff too.
***Yep, and then they promptly attempt to separate us from the rights delineated in the constitution, such as gun ownership, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, etc. An example, ongoing:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1811465/posts
Our founding fathers were very concerned about the preservation of our freedoms, and they were not nearly as concerned about being competitive in the international market place. The thing that makes us such an attractive country IS THOSE FREEDOMS, and it is also one of the things which has been breeding the economic benefits of prosperity. I see the issue as one of economic patriotism. If it is good for the US, then it’s worth trying to keep it around. If it’s not good for the US, then it’s worth it to limit the activity.
I doubt that kids are leaving engineering in droves in the United States because their jobs are not “safe”. I sat next to an engineer for AMD on a plane a couple days ago. He was taking his daughter to interview at UPenn, Princeton, MIT, and CMU.
***This is a classic fallacy. One anecdotal story versus droves and droves of others. I’m not going to bite. Since I didn’t post the statistics to back up my side and you didn’t post the statistics to back up your side, we end up going nowhere on it and frankly, I do not have that level of interest. I sit next to engineers every day of my life, and I have seen thousands of jobs going overseas here in the SF bay area. My engineering job basically went overseas as well.
She was on the robotics team and was studying electrical engineering texts on the plane.
***One smart kid. I’m happy for her. My advice to her is to go into something other than EE.
Most kids were playing their GameBoys or listening their iPods. I suspect most kids in the US avoid engineering because it is a lot harder than “communications” or whatever else is the course of least resistance on the way to a B.A.
***You are probably correct in that assessment. But when someone does bust their balls to get an engineering degree and the job goes overseas because that kid with the BA in business made a management decision, I stop supporting this activity.
I don’t think we are eating our corn seed.
***I do.
The analogy doesn’t work at all.
***that’s only because you disagree with it.
The corn hasn’t even been planted or grown IMHO.
***Wow, again you have contradicted yourself. Corn that is supposed to be planted in the ground is CORN SEED. If you eat the seed, you won’t be able to grow corn the next season. You just made my point for me. Thanks.
Most kids in the US don’t value hard work or education.
***I think they do, but they don’t want to waste all that time on a difficult degree just to have the job hoisted overseas. They’re not stupid, they’re street smart. It’s much easier to work hard at that MBA and be the one who sends the job overseas. Besides, what you’re saying is a value position that has no bearing whatsoever on whether H1B visas are fraud magnets.
I’m not sure I agree that the US is competitive in maths or the hard sciences compared to many other countries.
***That’s because we are eating our own corn seed. We are not putting resources into this area.
I don’t know whether our founding fathers thought much about competitiveness.
***Again you make my point for me.
I would suggest that international trade was such a small part of GDP that competitiveness was not very important.
***So would I. That would suggest that international trade isn’t nearly as important as those conservative core values that our country is built upon. All those smart people want to come HERE, and it’s for a reason. Because HERE is BETTER than THERE, wherever THERE is. I work with internationals from all over the world — Russia, India, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea, Germany, France, England, Canada, Mexico, Iran, basically everywhere. They study science in their own country and come here because they like it, our freedoms work better than over there to produce a better economy and working environment, and in several other ways the US is simply a better place to be. Most of the folks on H1B visas are living at a very low wage compared to their counterparts just 2 cubicles down.
Internationally competitive business didn’t seem very high on the list of priorities because it didn’t really exist yet.
***Again you make my point for me. Today we have internationally competitive industries all over the place, and yet MILLIONS of people still want to move to the US. That international competitiveness simply has not yet caught up with all of the other benefits that are generated by the USA, otherwise people would be moving to China by the millions. That means that our freedoms in this society trump international competitiveness concerns. For the great bulk of our country’s history, we were a poor country and some day we may be a poor country again. But we’ve always been a great country because of our freedoms; we haven’t always been a great country because “our economy is so good”.
Incidentally, that guy on the plane was born in Taiwan and is now a US citizen.
***So is my wife. I’m thoroughly familiar with the story. That doesn’t mean it bolsters your point.
He’s exactly the type person that cannot get into the US now. Had he stayed in Taiwan, he would be creating value there instead of here, as would his daughter one day soon...
***That’s a nonsense statement: “creating value”. Such a sentiment does not appear to be a major concern of our founding fathers, and I’m kinda glad it isn’t because it suggests that a person’s value is only measured in wealth or production of goods or some economic measurability. Baloney. He’s a citizen of the US so he has as much rights as I do and he is hoping his daughter does well in OUR COUNTRY. She won’t need an H1B visa, so your point starts to fall apart very rapidly at -40db/decade.