The Almighty Dollar Thread

[ctuser1]

How would you rate our current trend as being an attractive country?

My view is that the US has taken a strong reputational risk in the last couple of years, but it's still a long way down. I'm afraid of standards slowly eroding up until it's too late, like a frog in boiling water. We won't be able to fully assess the hit until much later.

Migration is a very good proxy for US Competitiveness compared to the rest of the world.

I don't think, however, that being immigrant friendly is the sole reason for US Competitiveness.

For the last few decades Canada and Australia have allowed in far more migrants relative to their population. That has it's benefits. Australia has had a 30 year expansion - and my "guess" (not substantiated by economic research) is that probably has something to do with their high levels of immigration.

However, even with that Australia is not quite as innovative as US. There is a huge "internal" and cultural driver to US competitiveness - it is okay to "fail" here!! That is different from the rest of the world!!

The biggest stupidity we have going around in the US is that our healthcare mess have made it extremely difficult for people in their prime innovation age to take risks. THAT is the probably a much bigger threat in my opinion than xenophobia - although xenophobia do figure very high up there as well!

[Paul der Krake]

How would you rate our current trend as being an attractive country?

My view is that the US has taken a strong reputational risk in the last couple of years, but it's still a long way down. I'm afraid of standards slowly eroding up until it's too late, like a frog in boiling water. We won't be able to fully assess the hit until much later.

Migration is a very good proxy for US Competitiveness compared to the rest of the world.

I don't think, however, that being immigrant friendly is the sole reason for US Competitiveness.

For the last few decades Canada and Australia have allowed in far more migrants relative to their population. That has it's benefits. Australia has had a 30 year expansion - and my "guess" (not substantiated by economic research) is that probably has something to do with their high levels of immigration.

However, even with that Australia is not quite as innovative as US. There is a huge "internal" and cultural driver to US competitiveness - it is okay to "fail" here!! That is different from the rest of the world!!

The biggest stupidity we have going around in the US is that our healthcare mess have made it extremely difficult for people in their prime innovation age to take risks. THAT is the probably a much bigger threat in my opinion than xenophobia - although xenophobia do figure very high up there as well!

The US is anything but friendly to immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of highly skilled professionals want to come here despite the immigration system, not because of it.

[ctuser1]

The US is anything but friendly to immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of highly skilled professionals want to come here despite the immigration system, not because of it.

Legal immigration "system" is a mess. It is very unfriendly on that metric and you are absolutely correct people come in "despite" the "system".

Culturally, however, US is very friendly towards immigrants (as is Canada, which I know a lot about; maybe also Australia, which I don't know much about).

Let's just say immigrants don't come here for the "system" - but for the culture of innovation that accepts immigrants just based on their ability to contribute.

You need to go through that stupid "system" just once in your life for however long it takes - maybe 15-20 years even (as is the case for most high-skilled immigrants from India) - and then you get to live in the most innovative culture!! That is the draw for immigrants.