Thread: Other Nations Passing America By?

Listening to Laura Ingrham talking to Mitt Romney, telling him other nations are putting out "More Scientist, Engineers ect."...
I called her show, and TOLD her screener to INFORM Laura that AMERICA EDUCATES THESE PEOPLE!!!!!
Maybe if we STOPPED doing this, we would not be discussing this right now? Maybe?

True. We need to educate our own children first. For some reasons they deem American Children as not the nations children.

There is a large degree of truth to that notion. As the US *is* the higher education of choice for many internationally-bound students... even in fields like engineering/math/IT/etc.

Further, they *are* getting a partially US-taxpayer subsidized education as part of that 'deal'.

Is it any wonder that many Americans look at the current state of employment (with respect to many IT and related jobs) see the increasing competition for fewer jobs having generally declining salaries...and then say to themselves... 'no thanks'. I'll go do <something else> instead".

Many countries have been passing us by in agricultural expertise and innovation. Others can rely on labor that is much, much cheaper than ours. So, American farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place, with the mushrooming population of illegal farmworkers protesting in the streets for their "rights" and holding farmers hostage (figuratively)as they thwart advancement in technology.

I agree the world is passing us by and I do see the dilemma of Americans who recognize the fact they can spend years, put themselves in debt for tens of thousands of dollars and still loose out to foreign workers.

As for the farmers being between a rock and a hard place - I don't see that at all. Their greedy souls are the only problem here.

American farmers were very innovative and productive back when they actually tried to improve their way of farming. If they had gone with the thinking that cheap labor solves all, we would have had no innovation or machination in farming at all.

If the farmers wanted technology or machination, some one would come up with it. But no one is going to invent a machine farmers will not purchase and farmers - we're talking mostly big agribusiness - isn't going to invest in machines if they can get the government to continue to furnish them with subsidized labor.

When I said "between a rock and a hard place" I guess I should have explained it. There has been a fair amount of discussion here on the role of agribusiness in illegal immigration and I have been doing research. It seems that the United Farmworkers Union took some steps to guarantee themselves a place here and in the process thwarted a fair amount of technological research. The Carter adminstration also pulled the plug on federal research, leaving it mainly to state universities. What I was getting at was that other countries, either by improving mechanization--or---by getting really cheap labor, have been pulling ahead of us. That's what I wanted to tie in with "the world is passing us by" theme of this thread.

You're quite right that American farmers WERE very innovative--hopefully they will regain that momentum, But now they may have to import more machinery from other civilized countries. And that would be more economically viable than continuing to import large numbers of laborers.

Philip Martin at UC Davis, California seems to be the recognized expert on the agriculture and immigration equation. Google him.