...And somehow we are producing a huge amount of new inventions, discoveries, music, art, etc. etc. dumb, dumb americans and their kids

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Свободу попугаям!

Go to MIT or Harvard campus, you'll be hard pressed to see an American-born person.  Those are the future inventors, discoverers, musicians. . .

Have you seen the 2007 Nobel prize roaster?  Out of 6 US laureates 3 are foreign born.  And they are mostly baby-boomers.  Geometrical progression will follow. 

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412, that's not true.  I just went and looked up the % of foreign students graduating from Harvard's MBA program and it's 32%.  That means 68% were American born.  American-made smart kids that will become the next generation of over-privileged upper-class blue-bloods to inherit 95% of the wealth in this country while I'm taxed to death.  lol!!! just kidding.  You are wrong.

More importantly, besides all the smart kids that are born here and will grow up in what is basically the World's 'creative lab' (inventors, musicians), we will also continue to draw in the smartest around the world (eg. the 32% in Harvard that we sucked out of other countries - many will end up staying here).

What continues to make this country great is the influx of smart foreigners (that includes you too).

 

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"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

You may surely half that 68%, since that half will be naturalized Americans or legal residents, neither American-born.

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James Bond:

oh wait, here is where globalization meets what I said before about porn spreading to...uhm...Russia?

lol

James,

In one post you are complaining about the society not being conservative enough and in the next post you are posting a link with a self-descriptive name...

So which one is it?

 

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Sasha

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Work is a matter of taste. If you don't work you don't taste.

412:

You may surely half that 68%, since that half will be naturalized Americans or legal residents, neither American-born.

Why?  A naturalized citizen is as American as a natural-born citizen (with the exception of being able to run for President).  If you have American citizenship you are as American as anyone too. 

 

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Sasha

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Work is a matter of taste. If you don't work you don't taste.

gtSasha:

412:

You may surely half that 68%, since that half will be naturalized Americans or legal residents, neither American-born.

Why?  A naturalized citizen is as American as a natural-born citizen (with the exception of being able to run for President).  If you have American citizenship you are as American as anyone too. 

Hmm..  interesting turn of events :)

I said earlier in the topic that as long as the economy leads the world, education does not matter as much in terms of hurting the country in the obvious ways that James would understand.  Only in more subtle, cultural ones..  This is part of the reason.  Are smart people going to come and send their kids here to continue bailing us out of the education problem, or is it mostly going to be mexicans moving forward?  I agree with 412 that most of the cream of the crop are at least naturalized, meaning that it is yet another safety net to bail us out of yet another national failure.  But doesn't that safety net follow the dollar's value against world currencies?  After all, why do people come here if not to "make it" in life?  You can already "make it" just as well on half the planet, and rapidly growing territories .

While in the US the middle class is shrinking, and even those who remain are now less rich relative to the world as the dollar falls, and every economist worth his salt expects that to continue. 

Can we continue depending on the inflow of competence, or do we need to learn to create our own?  If the inflow keeps up, great.  But it is a mistake to depend on it in light of the world economic boom.  Your democracy, freedom, and pursuit of happiness, in all honesty, is singnificantly less attractive without a suitcase of cash to go with it.

And if it was, maybe to Cubans, north Koreans, or anyone REALLY repressed, those values can now be had in so many other places.  Hell, the US wants it that way,  as we should.  Just need to think ahead and compensate.

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

One thing I don't understand -

In Europe you see a lot of under-employment.  There economies don't have as many good jobs, but universities keep pumping out very educated people.

My question is how can their cost of living keep going up so much, if there aren't the high paying salaries to pay for that cost of living?

Either under-employment has disappeared since the last time I lived over there, or you are right that half the world now lives as well as we do here.  I seem to remember a lot of kids in their 30's still living at home because they didn't have the economic means to move out.  Same applies to Russia - either there is a growing middle class fueled by high paying jobs (economic growth), or is that not true?

 

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"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

James Bond:

One thing I don't understand -

In Europe you see a lot of under-employment.  There economies don't have as many good jobs, but universities keep pumping out very educated people.

My question is how can their cost of living keep going up so much, if there aren't the high paying salaries to pay for that cost of living?

Either under-employment has disappeared since the last time I lived over there, or you are right that half the world now lives as well as we do here.  I seem to remember a lot of kids in their 30's still living at home because they didn't have the economic means to move out.  Same applies to Russia - either there is a growing middle class fueled by high paying jobs (economic growth), or is that not true?

I think the answer is that a healthy capitalist system expects underemployment, even a certain level of poverty, as the society thrives in every other sense.  (Which is precisely why communism was so attractive 100 years ago before humanism and capitalism got married, spawning labor laws )

We also certainly help their "relative" growth by our negative growth (yes, I know the numbers say we have positive growth, but our REAL economy is multiplied by the coefficient of the falling dollar), and with our trade deficit, and out national budget deficit.

The sad part, is it doean't have to be this way.  We are doing it to ourselves.

Even in the poorest russian cities, you got $100k cars driving around all over the place, and I am not even talking about moscow, which by some quetionable measures is the most expensive city in the world.  Go-getters are fine in most of the world already.  US is still a haven in terms of making it a little eaier on the less ambitious.  But we don't benefit from the less ambitious, thats the whole point.  We currently depend on the inflow of go-getters to offset the failed education system.

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

Things are not that bad!  You are gonna need to provide some macroeconomic facts if you want to convince me that we have a failed education system and the youth of America are so useless than only immigratino can save us.  It's not enough to point to inner city schools of Oakland and conclude we are finished.  Even here in Georgia, in the suburbs, I see tons of smart kids and lots of parents complaining about how much homework the kids get.  Plus, there are now tests to calibrate the quality of education across the country.  Every parent knows exactly how well their kid is performing on a national average. 

Hey, on a side note, didn't you love Biden last night?  Talk about the old bitter guy who knows he's smarter than the rest of the candidates but has just given up on even really trying.  I like Biden.  If he were to TODAY say he was switching to the Republican platform I bet he would do better than staying a democrat.  He just isn't appreciated.  Looks like HIllary is still on top.  She's already painted herself the flip-flopper.

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"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

I can point you to a shitload of studies, I can talk about my own experience having attended school in USSR and the US, how it took me 6 f*cking years to catch up to what I already knew in math, and how i felt I was in a school for the mentally challenged until I got to college, how people can;t find their country on a map, or name theie secretary of state, how helpess and dependent on others people are here in terms intellect and solving problems, how narrow average Americans are in their range of interests and knowledge, how most professors at good colleges are foreign, and the very fact that there is aan unfulfilled demand here for geniuses in every single field, partially made up by immigration.

These things are obvious to me, and that's all I have to offer as proof.  At least google the studies, the testing of kids of equal age across industrialized countries.

You asked for "macroeconomic" facts?  You'll have them if people stop coming.  But even then, you'd say its something else.  You have faith that this is not the case, and you will rationalize it despite anything anyone can provide you in terms of evidence.

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

Some more food for thought:

1. Numbers of foreign students enrolling in the US schools are dwindling, for different reasons (cost, quality getting better in other countries' schools, difficulty getting student visas).
2. Number of foreign graduate students (namely Indians and Chinese) accepting offers from the US companies is falling, due to quality of living becoming better in their home countries, or possibility of finding jobs in Europe.
   

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James Bond:

 Plus, there are now tests to calibrate the quality of education across the country.  Every parent knows exactly how well their kid is performing on a national average. 

That is a huge part of the problem.  Instead of teaching the subject matter, the school year is spent teaching to the standardized tests.  The students learn nothing, rote memory doesn't last if you don't the context of the fact you were forced to memorize and if you don't know how to think.

As for parents and students complaining about the homework, I suspect both are accustomed to everything being handed to them without cost or effort.  When a little of either is required, they complain.

412:

Some more food for thought:

1. Numbers of foreign students enrolling in the US schools are dwindling, for different reasons (cost, quality getting better in other countries' schools, difficulty getting student visas).
2. Number of foreign graduate students (namely Indians and Chinese) accepting offers from the US companies is falling, due to quality of living becoming better in their home countries, or possibility of finding jobs in Europe.
   

Makes perfect sense.  Where is this from?  Or are these your thoughts?

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

man.  did you go to school in Oakland?  :-)

As Biden would say - don't let these facts get in your way:

http://cehd.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/Synthesis19.html

USA ranking in Reading for 9 year olds:  USA ranks #2 in the world.

Math % correct for 9 year olds in USA:   58% versus Math % correct average of all countries analyzed:  63%  (slightly below average)

Science % correct for 9 year olds in USA:   65% versus Science % correct average of all countries analyzed:  62% (slightly above average)

 (yeah, we can ALWAYS do a lot better, but we aren't a failure).  Anyway, you are right about high schools - we are dumbed down here in high school.  we catch back up in college and beyond. 

Now, I noticed some bashing in the article about USA needing help, but the statistics don't lie.

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"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."