MA Governor Wants More New Tech 500
turnitover writes "Cryptically stating that Asia wants the U.S. to become 'the France of the 21st century,' Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made a public call for more innovation in technology, reports eWEEK.com. He urged more investment and development and, yes, a move to OpenDocument, as reported previously on Slashdot." From the article: "Underlining the challenge, Romney said leaders of one technology firm in Massachusetts anticipated that 90 percent of its skilled labor would be in Asia in 10 years. He also pointed to statistics that show the United States graduating only 4,400 mathematics and science PhDs each year compared with 24,900 math and science PhDs for greater Asia."
Just a few points... (Score:5, Funny)
OK....here's what I took away from this article:
Asia would like us to become the France of the 21st century.
Wow...one statement that manages to offend both the Americans and the French. Well done, sir!
China and India have a population a multiple of ours.
While I'm certain this statement is factually correct (it can't help but be), I nevertheless find myself wondering just what multiple Romney is alluding to here. Three? Ten? Two-fiths? i?
In foreign policy he [Romney] said we must win the war against a "radical jihad," but that we must enable jihadists to become part of the global economy.
Ahh...there we go...I bet the Islamic fundamentalists were feeling left out by this point. Nice to see Romney managed to squirrel in a jab at the boogyman of international terrorism during his call for more tech innovation....at this point, his speech is sounding spookily like a platform for running for office...
Romney, a Republican, has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate.
OK, now I'm scared.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Funny)
It's bad enough that we're losing high tech jobs, but if our women stop shaving and washing that will be the coup de grâce.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Funny)
That would be especially terrible since they are such fat slobs already. Eww.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Informative)
Multiples (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn it, Jim! He's a politician, not a mathematician!
As Barbie teaches us, "Math is hard." The other key lesson is that hard work is for the underclasses, not the ruling class. From this we learn why he wants more math and science graduates: so he doesn't have to do hard math for his own speeches.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:2, Insightful)
Closet monsters don't fly airplanes into skyscrapers.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, my odds of being "affected" by closet monsters is pretty high, too, since I have a two year old child. Oddly, I'm not afraid of either one.
Do you believe it is okay to use the fear of terrorism to coerce people into agreeing to or doing things that have dubious or no relation to terrorism?
The terrorists killing ou
Re:Just a few points... (Score:2)
Re:Fuck you Homer Simpson (Score:3, Interesting)
then spent a few weeks polishing up their war machine on Poland
And while they were "polishing up their war machine" on Poland, the French (and British) basically sat on their ass behind their fortified Magiot Line and did nothing to help their allies. Even though in 1939 the German military was not ready for war and the overwhelming majority of German forces were in Poland leaving the Western front completely exposed if the Allies had bothered to take the initiative to attack.
In fact for all the hoopla
Re:Fuck you Homer Simpson (Score:3, Insightful)
America was a part of the same treaties from WWI were we not?
We were part of the armistice that ended the war. But we weren't part an alliance with either the Allies or the Axis when WW2 broke out.
Were we not supposed to defend the same as Britan and France?
No, we were not. We were not part of any defensive agreement or alliance.
Just think we are making those same mistakes today. SDI? effective against small man deployed tactical nukes? how about bio agents poured into the water supply of a large
Re:Fuck you Homer Simpson (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, I forgot to shoot down a few of your other points in my last post. Allow me:
with the best weapons in the world when they turned on France
Actually, it's generally accepted that the French had better tanks. They just weren't forward enough thinkers to use them properly.
but they still fought against a vicious adversary until FORCED to surrender
Forced? The bulk of France was never invaded or occupied by the Germans. The Germans never touched their overseas empire. They didn't fight it out until the bitter end. They surrendered with Paris and most of the coast occupied. The interior of France was largely untouched. If Americans fought like that we would have surrendered when the British burned Washington.
To make matters worse after the French rolled over and surrendered a good number of them become active collaborators! The Vichy French Naval Forces stationed overseas (thus untouchable by the Germans) even refused to join their Allies in the fight against the Nazis. The British eventually had no choice but to destroy them to keep them from falling into the hands of the Germans. If that isn't French cowardice then I don't know what is.
Why don't you jizzbags ever call Japan sushi-eating surrender monkeys,
Because the Japanese fought until the bitter end and it took the combined blow of two atomic bombs and the intervention of the Russians to force them to surrender.
or the Germans spaetzle-eating suicide monkeys?
Actually the suicide monkeys part would be more appliable to the Japanese.... *duck* And see previous comment... the Germans fought until the bitter end. Germany was completely devastated. Tell me, was every major French city carpet bombed into oblivion when they surrendered?
Should the Vietnamese call us burger-chomping shrapnel-monkeys
I wouldn't blame them if they did ;)
It's even like this is unique to France. I've heard my fair share of jokes made at the expense of Italy because of their horrible performance during WW2. In fact, I recall reading somewhere that when the German ambassador told Churchill that the Axis had the Italians on their side, Churchill said "Good for you. We had them during the last war."
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure terrorists do lots different of things, but the chance of them happening to you, or even anyone you know, is fairly remote. You are much more likely, in all probablity, to get into a car accident this year.
Should terrorists be stopped? Yes. Do they have to be mentioned in every political speach for the next 10 years? No. Did they have any real relevence in this speach? No. They were just being used for the knee-jerk fear the word evokes.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Interesting)
"International Terrorism" is a boogeyman in that it is most powerful in its imaginary force. Besides, if terrorism were really all that we were facing, we could all win by ignoring them. After all, they would fail in their grand plan to terrorize us, right?
What is fairly funny is that the Bush Administration is doing as much of a "terrorist" agenga as Bin Ladin by using bin Ladin's threats to inspire terror that he will protect us from, especially if we give up essential liberty. Sounds sort of like Mafia protection to me. Or at least Pat Robertson recently became an international terrorist in terms of making international threats of violence against civilian leaders of other countries to further a political position. BTW, don't assume that I don't think that Clinton would have done the same as Bush, unfortunately.
Anyway, back on topic....
The real struggle we are faced with is one with two sides. One one side we have the Secularist West, and on the other hand we have those who want to see society built on a foundation specified in holy texts (we will call them scripturists). Islam is probably has a slightly stronger tendancy to the second side because the Koran reads like a manual for building a society (though there are plenty of Christians who take the Bible in this way too). Indeed I don't blame the scripturists because it is a natural conclusion to the basic assumption of a singular Deity with a knowable will expressed in scripture.
However, the main problem with the scripturist conclusion was made evident in the 13th century when a reaction in Islam against such pursuits as classical philosophy, mathematics, science, and the like swept through the Islamic world. Had the Church in Europe not started translating a great deal of works from Arabic into Latin, it is quite possible that the writings of great Classical thinkers such as Aristotle, might have been forever lost to us. Yet, this change was what directly led to the Renaissance and inevitably the rise of secularism.
Why did this happen? It happened because context is lost with time. So a fixed text, such as the Bible, the Rig Veda, or the Koran sufferes degraded interpretation over time. In Islam, often the first parts of Sharia to be watered down are the substantial protections it offers the accused. In Christianity, we have lost the link to the Platonists that was important in the Early Church, and we have adopted stupid other trappings as well (there is *no* basis to believe that the Early Church thought that the name "Lucifer" had anything to do with Satan-- it would have been more likely associated with Christ). Similarly, Hinduism (in my opinion) exists in a fallen state based on my study of comparitive Indo-European mythology. Yet the fallen interpretations of sacred text remain strong because they fill a deep need for comfort even if they are demonstrably opposed to truth.
Soviet/Chinese Communism is a form of scripturalism IMO in that it creates a religion of the state with rituals thereof and looks to certain static texts for timeless guidance on building their society.
Politically the scripturalists point to issues where they see social injustice and use these to try to rally support for their agenda. With Al Qaeda, these include injustices relating to the treatment and human rights of Palestinians, and other issues.
So what is the answer?
Part of the answer is that we need to take issues of social injustice in areas of our influence very seriously. This means among other things that we need to attach many more strings to aid we give Israel and withhold aid sometimes (as, to their credit both Presidents Bush have done but not enough).
The second thing we need to do is help build a system that admits of less social injustice in the face of globalism. This means that we need to reach out and help the Jihadists (including, say, Iran) to participate in a global economy. Same with scripturalist governments regardless of their religion. We already to this with China and it is having a positive effect. We need to extend that policy to Cuba, Iran, etc.
Quality not quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quality not quantity (Score:2)
Re:Quality not quantity (Score:3, Insightful)
There are pros and cons to getting a PhD and people weigh those before going into a science graduate program, and during their program. On the "pros" side you've got the joy o
Re:Quality not quantity (Score:4, Insightful)
2,500,000,000 / 300,000,000 = 8.3333 repeating
So, if they have 8 times as many people, they must graduate 8 times as many engineers right?
24,900 / 4400 = 5.66
Hmmmmm...It would seem that they only generate 5.6 times as many engineers. Only 67% of the number that we graduate, adjusted for population. Not to say that we shouldn't be doing better...I've no doubt we generate more lawyers than that! But it's just a scare number, not a real metric.
Re:Quality not quantity (Score:2)
All I could find was 1997:
Engineering Phds: 5980
JDs: 39,331
Source [aaas.org]
I don't think we need to worry about anyone overcoming our lawyer production anytime soon. =P
There's another angle to this... (Score:3, Insightful)
How many are foreign? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Duh! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well, Duh! (Score:2)
Re:Well, Duh! (Score:2)
Yes, but the chine$e keep $elling more $tuff than the US anyway.
Re:Well, Duh! (Score:2)
Um, so what? When ten times as many scientists invent ten times as many things over there, will you say that you are keeping up "percentage-wise"? When your citizens buy ten times as many things from them as they buy locally-produced things, will you say that you are keeping up "percentage-wise"? When your companies employ ten times as many people abroad as they do locally, will you say that you are keeping up "percentage-
Bad Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should compare the base population of "greater Asia" to the base population of the US... then the figure would seem incredibly skewed towards the US.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe our market is right and theirs is wrong, and what a country really needs for long-term prosperity is lots of lawyers and real estate agents. I guess we'll find out.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
I'd put the emphasis on the "crap" part. Most of what is out there are just variations on the real inventions of the past. Hardly surprising that most engineers and scientists pursue well trodden and well understood disciplines, but what we need is more trailblazers.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Percentages are really important. That the rest of the world combined designs and manufactures more cool crap than you guys do "alone" doesn't really mean anything; if you design and manufacture much more cool crap per person you stay wealthier per person.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
I would argue that in terms of quality both are competitive and it really depends on the item in question.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
What I was suggesting, however, is that quality is far more important than quantity. An engineer, be them American or Asian, who designs faulty products and structures should not be counted as an "engineer", even if they have a doctorate from some university. Thus a nation should not take pride in churning out some percentage of its population as engineers if those engineers are not qualified.
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:5, Funny)
I think.
Isn't it?
(looks at fingers)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
Hey, this is fun. We can make this number come out however we want!
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
For who?
But does an Asian PhD equal and American PhD? (Score:2)
It is easy enough in the US to obtain a doctorate from a relatively unknown college. I have worked with such people, and they are often quite lacking in the skills that would be expected from people with their supposed background. The quality of an American PhD relative to an Asian one might be quite significant. I haven't worked with anyone who received their PhD in Asia, so I can't sa
Refer to... (Score:2)
Refer to this comment [slashdot.org]. If you believe the poster is who he says he is (a non-American seeking a math/science PhD from a US college), you can accept his synopsis: the "dumb PhD" problem is only worse in Asia.
Re:But does an Asian PhD equal and American PhD? (Score:2)
Re:Bad Comparison (Score:2)
Population: US = 295,734,134 --- 4,400 is 1 in every 67,212
The United Sates has more than twice the per capita PhDs.
Too little, too late? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been part of the tech downturn at the time. Many of my ex-co-workers left the state because there were too few opportunities.
The state spent lots of money paying unemployment insurance, and the unemployed were effectively prevented from starting up their own companies because they would lose benefits the day they registered their company.
All these well qualified individuals could not use their skills during that time. Instead, they left for less costly pastures.
Massachusetts was the only state to lose population in 2004. And it wasn't losing those on the dole.
Re:Too little, too late? (Score:3, Interesting)
>the unemployed were effectively prevented from starting up their own companies because they would lose benefits the day they registered their company.
This, I think, is a key point and deserves amplification.
Not only can you not start your own business and still have healthcare (...unless you're on your spouse's policy ... ); you can't hire people without having to factor in healthcare costs, which terribly skews the hiring decision.
I know whereof I speak. I would happily hire 2 people to do the les
Housing costs are also a large problem (Score:2, Insightful)
The quality of the PhDs. (Score:2)
Re:The quality of the PhDs. (Score:3, Interesting)
The answer lies in a question: Would you want to undergo quadruple bypass heart surgery in a US hospital or one in Asia?
Having met some really, really, really scary medical students who were near graduation at a prestigious school in the U.S. I can honestly say I think I'll go to Europe for any surgeries. When a med student does not understand why you should wear gloves while handling DNA samples and equipment and calls his mother to ask what he should do when his car gets a flat tire you sort of lose c
England of the 21st Century (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't a better analogy be, "the England of the 21st century". After all we do have troops in the same cities around the world (Baghdad, Kabul) as Britain at the turn of the 20th century. We did take the position of world power from the British. Much of our common law is based from British law. But hey, the sun never sets on the British Empire....
IANAH (I am not a historian) (Score:2)
They're Not Looking at the Full Picture (Score:5, Funny)
That's as may be, but it neglects the fact that the US produces virtually all of the world's Intelligent Design specialists. And that's where the future is, not in the witchcraft practices of math and science.
Er.... WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
He also pointed to statistics that show the United States graduating only 4,400 mathematics and science PhDs each year compared with 24,900 math and science PhDs for greater Asia."
Correct me if I am wrong, but since greater Asia has a population of 4 billion [wikipedia.org], as opposed to the US's 297 million [wikipedia.org], that is a pretty favourable ratio in favour of the US ( about 2.5 times as many graduates per capita ).
Even if he only means "Asia" as in "China and India and Japan", the US still has more graduates per capita.
How many PhDs do we need? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How many PhDs do we need? (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, my position is backed by the earning potential of PhDs and other technical workers. These people would make more money by becoming plumbers or roofers. Obviously, US industry does not think that technical careers are worth very much; if there were really a shortage, the pay would be much higher.
Currently, there's supposedly a shor
Re:How many PhDs do we need? (Score:2)
1) Up the average pay to encourage more people towards them.
Why would I want to spend upwards of 10 years of my life (4 years BS, 2 years MS, 4 years PhD
Innovation is more important than anything else (Score:3, Insightful)
What does throwing money at a problem accomplish? (Score:3, Interesting)
How does paying specific teachers more really solve the problem? I could be wrong here, but doesn't it just say that better paid people are happier?
Besides, if you think about it, don't teachers already want to teach AP classes as is? I mean, they usually have the smarter kids, that are more worried about their futures. Therefore, on average, the students that are most likely be hard working and willing to learn, not just to goof off and get a diploma.
From this logic, teaching AP sounds easier and more rewarding...
Re:What does throwing money at a problem accomplis (Score:2)
Teaching anybody anything is challenging, but teaching highly intelligent and highly motivated students is a special sort of challenge. By offering incentives we get teachers who may not have considered taking on this challenge
Re:What does throwing money at a problem accomplis (Score:2)
No, we don't need any more bachelors in engineering and science at all. We already have far too many. Look at the typical salaries for these professions: they're very lo
Re:What does throwing money at a problem accomplis (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right; western society (especially the USA) really *should* recognize the importance of scientists and engineers, but currently, it does not. I simply don't see this changing any time soon. Business is far too powerful here, and greed is all-consuming, so that businesses try to screw their employees as much as possible and keep all the profits for the owners or top execs. Other professions, such as do
Re:What does throwing money at a problem accomplis (Score:2)
Re:What does throwing money at a problem accomplis (Score:2)
I think teachers should be paid more in general, not just the top ones.
That's Not Cryptic (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only cryptic if you don't understand that France is a former world power that has been permanently eclipsed economically, technologically, culturally, and militarily, and it has an almost obsessive desire to act as if it is America's nemesis, complaining almost reflexively of most of America's moves on the international stage.
That's not to say that the French aren't nice people, nor that I wouldn't love to hang out on one of their topless beaches, nor watch Paris's nightly display of lights, but in the realpolitik world, France doesn't matter! Thus their desire for a strong, core European Union, which along with Germany, they hope to dominate, to unite Europe as a strong and meaningful entity on the global stage.
You will know that the US is screwed when it seeks to create a transnational government with Canada and Mexico.
Re:That's Not Cryptic (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL. about 10 years then? (Score:2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4407300
Re:That's Not Cryptic (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting numbers (Score:3, Interesting)
What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt this will change until it's too late.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:2)
Hysteria sweeps MA (Score:2, Insightful)
These sound an awful lot like the kind of things they said after Sputnik went up in October 1957. Back then, politicians fanned those flames too. Mind you it got us to the Moon and made Neil Armstrong wish he'd stayed on the farm, but still the motivation behind it turned out to be a little overdone. The Soviets burned themselves up just trying to keep up with us technologically.
From eWeek: Underlining the challenge, Romney said leaders of one technology firm in Massachusetts anticipated that 90 percent o
A Note on the PhD Rates (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe Asia should stop handing out FREE school (Score:2)
Here in the US, a few lucky folks get free scholarships, but that's tough to do and not the norm.
It's obvious: to balance things, Asia will have to switch to a money-based system of education. Besides, there's only so many jobs to go around anyways, so there's no reason to educate hoardes of poor children. Where is the WTO when you need them??
number of PhDs is a good indicator of ? (Score:4, Informative)
China makes, and for some time, has made its fortune making things...from cheap plastic toys to electronic components, circuitry, you name it.
The US (and several other advanced economies) have made their fortunes, for the most part in the last 30+ years, not from manufacturing (which has been in decline in the US since the 70s) but from the conceptualization, specification, packaging, marketing, and just moving the objects. The US will no more become a manufacturing powerhouse than China will start cranking out Google (granted, a lot of PhDs there), Madden NFL, G-Unit, and Spiderman 3. That's where the US is making its $billions these days.
Will China move up the food chain economically? Of course. Will they turn the US into a satellite economy? No. The US spends a lot because it makes a lot. There are a host of economic factors that can't be adequately explored here, but our money isn't going to up and fly away to China.
Perhaps, if this bandwagon jumper is so concerned about America's economic future, he should convince his fellow politicians that it's bad long term policy to create massive national debt that is bought up by the Chinese with all their new manufacturing profits. That's more of a financial danger than getting out-PhD'ed.
Let me guess ... (Score:4, Insightful)
No? You mean that the Ruling Class isn't flocking to the sciences? How many of Governor Romney's children has he convinced to make a future in science and technology?
Let me guess: his kids are being groomed for careers in law, finance, and government as befits their station in life and more realistic estimates of long-term prospects.
I wonder why he's not advocating more of the Great Unwashed go after those jobs in competition with his own ...
Oh, wait a minute!
If we REALLY want more math and science grads... (Score:2, Interesting)
The credentials of some of the offshore people are not all that great. I know someone who was an IT worker in India at age 15. His labor was being sold to US companies who were told he had a BSCS. Employers could hire US high school students with alot less muss and fuss; the
Getting a PhD doesn't pay anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Many would say that you don't get a doctorate degree for the money alone. It was not the main motivation for me either.
Please ignore Romney... (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in MA, and Romney has been one colossal pain in the ass.
The man is a calculating, cold, arrogant, mean, power-brokering son of a bitch.
forgot to mention... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except along the way he was accosted by a bum who asked him if he was running for President or not (I'm dead serious) and was nearly attacked on one of the subway platforms by a woman who was in the news for keeping about a hundred cats in her house (a fair number of them dead, and a bunch of the dead ones in several freezers.) MBTA and State Police took care of both problems.
Adding insult to injury, a reporter asked him how much the fare was, and he said "a buck". Except the MBTA has been $1.25 for over a year. The MBTA comissioner became enraged when reporters made something of it. "The governor can't be aware of everything". Except it was a MAJOR issue in the eastern end of the state- the rate hike affected commuter rail, bus, and subway customers.
It pretty much proved that not only did he not give a shit about issues that affected citizens in his state, and that he could barely be bothered to take the subway for one stop- he didn't even pay for the fare himself.
Just Remember... (Score:2)
Romney's part of the party that is responsible for supporting and enlarging the outsourcing wave. The Other Guys were the ones who wanted to institute measures against it during the last presidential election. This is just posturing on Romney's part for his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008.
The France of the 21st Century? (Score:5, Funny)
Bounties (Score:3, Interesting)
We had a program like that at my kids' high school. There was a lot of competition as a result for slots teaching the AP classes.
Too bad that the teachers with math and science degrees didn't have the political clout to get those slots. The ones teaching the AP sections may not have known anything about the material, but they had great lesson plans!
I hope that the (former) teachers with math and science degrees are happier in their new jobs, whatever they are.
Re: (Score:2)
Good! (Score:2)
Because we Asians want to get more of the US PhDs being churned out each year.
Muahahahahahha!
i have the solution. at least part of it. (Score:2)
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:5, Insightful)
But will people pay the taxes to do it?
The reality is that people simply don't want to pay for anything. They expect services from the government yes, but in the end, for a lot of things, they'd rather pay no tax than have some services.
Even if the US slips behind and loses its position as the worlds biggest economy and/or science nation, Americans will still not reform their education system. This is because in the end, beneath all the rhetoric, all the patriotism, all the pride, all the manifest destinies, there has been only one true constant in America. The Buck.
And more correctly "My Buck". And no american will fork it over without a danm good reason.
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:5, Interesting)
1. It seems to be pretty much ignored thus far, but the U.S. definitely has state sponsored higher education. I claim this, because pick a state, put "University of" in front of the name, and wham, you have the name of a real university, which probably receives a lot of funding, grants tuition discounts to in-state residents, etc., etc.
2. The tax issue -- let's get this straight. If you have a Ph.D. in the maths and/or sciences area, let's just pull a number out of nowhere. You have a 'right' to command a wage near $75K, say (more or less, depending on the field, but yeah). Now, let's suppose you're Jimmy, the 'average' American citizen. Wait! You only make $45K. Why will you be excited to pay for some kid to go to college so he can make more with your money? That's going to be an exciting bill to pass... Why would you vote for someone who takes that kind of money from you?
3. The prestige factor -- let's suppose we jack up taxes so that anyone who wants to go to a PhD program can afford to. Well, that's a nice sentiment. Then what? The first response is probably that anyone without a PhD gets the shaft, both in finding jobs and in compensation, because now PhDs are a dime a dozen. Since they are a resource in greater supply, demand goes down, as does compensation. Suddenly, the average citizen has extra letters to put to their name, but their standard of living probably doesn't significantly change as a whole.
The wonder and curse of the free market system is that people will pay what a degree is worth for people who have it (compare all those jokes about engineers and liberal arts majors involving asking for wanting fries with that). If there was a huge shortage of qualified PhD holders, having a PhD would be like a ticket to big money, and there would be huge incentive to get them. I don't see that as being the case -- in our society, if you have one, you make more, but not a ton more (in fact, I remember being counseled when graduating with a BS in CS that pursuing an MS or a PhD full time was not cost effective, as you never made up the time * salary in terms of the difference in remuneration went).
If this was really an issue, it would correct itself. What we *should* be concerned about is if big tech companies bring foreign PhDs into the states to do their research, and I don't see that happening much, other than those that are in fact better and brighter than the American counterparts. Free market wins again.
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:4, Interesting)
This has actually been one of the traditional reasons for the vibrancy of the US economy. As a lot of academic US workers are trained abroad, the US has not had to go to the expense of educating them. Other countries have.
This is the "Brain Drain" effect, where, it is argued, the US economy is buoyed by the educational expendature of less wealthy countries. There's a certain element of truth to this.
I wonder what will happen if US academic graduates begin to emmigrate overseas? Will the Brain Drain effect be felt in the States too?
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:3, Funny)
One merely needs to look at the White House to find the answer to that question!
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:2)
If people want to go to school they can go to school, there is just a large lack of motivation on the p
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect you're wrong. What I actually suspect is that children today are raised on the idea that college is just another stage in schooling, and not something to be strived for. So they go, they get their four years of drinking, partying, and football, don't learn anything, then get a job they're not actually qualified for, despite the piece of paper that says they are.
College i
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more, it's not even tax deductable. By the time you get to the point where you even have enough after-tax income to pay for the schooling, you have enough income to be disqualified for the tax breaks -- the ceiling doesn't go up with number of dependents.
Re:Educational Costs a major issue here (Score:2)
If it is, it's like the software business, with the government playing the part of Microsoft. The analogy's not perfect, though; it's still possible to avoid paying the "Microsoft tax," and Microsoft doesn't have a police force to come after those of us who avoid it.
Re:Asia wants the U.S. to be France? (Score:2)
We have a winner!
Seriously, nothing gets by you, does it?
Re:Good Point... (Score:2)
Re:Making America the next France? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:vs. California (Score:2)
I don't know if you were referring to RTP / Raleigh / Durham when you said "I-95 corridor" but that area is becoming a hotbed for the biotech / pharmaceutical industry. All of the local business magazines have been saying for a couple of years now that this area is becoming less and less of a telecom / software oriented area, and more biotech / pharma. The main companies getting
Re:4,400 - 1 (Score:2, Funny)
Re:4,400 - 1 (Score:2)
Well, I can understand your sentiment, but I'd move to a country that is *not* high on the list of countries for the US to invade. As soon as the Canadians get tired of giving us their water, electricity and oil, I bet they'll be the target of a "liberation" exercise...