Fed official: U.S. must focus on education, immigration
Nashville Business Journal

While the country braces for the remainder of a busy hurricane season that ends in two months, the economy will continue to be battered by "tempestuous" market forces beyond 2008, a top Federal Reserve official said Thursday.

"Our movement through the muck and flotsam and jetsam of the credit and housing debacle will be sluggish, and it may take some time into 2009 for us to get the economy up to a snappier cruising speed," said Richard Fisher, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Fisher made the remarks in a luncheon address sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership.

In order to help push the country through the current recession and better compete in the global economy, Fisher called on the eventual winner of the November presidential election to deal with two key issues: Education and immigration.

Fisher noted that Texas has surpassed California as the country's top exporting state in areas such as high-tech products and semiconductors, and particularly in industrial engineering, medical and construction services. Services sector exports now account for nearly 50 percent of the country's total exports, which reached $1.1 trillion in 2007, buoyed by the depressed value of the U.S. dollar.

He cautioned that the country must increase education standards in order to keep up this important export trend based on "brain prowess."

Fisher also said the country needs to adopt a "sensible" approach to immigration. To illustrate his point, Fisher noted that 55 percent of engineering master's degrees awarded by Texas universities go to foreign citizens, while 75 percent of engineering doctorate degrees go to foreigners.

"These same skilled immigrants must wait up to 10 years for a green card.While the U.S. is turning away the best and brightest other governments are thinking proactively to take more of them in. Australia recently announced it will increase its pool of skilled foreign workers by 30 percent," he said.

"We need an immigration policy that encourages the cream of the crop of foreigners to stay here and help us build our economy," he concluded.
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