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Please excuse this more radical point, but part of me is ok with rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic population. (Out of necess

Please excuse this more radical point, but part of me is ok with rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic population. (Out of necessity.) We have a large enough population that there's no reason we should be hurting for talent, and part of me wonders how much of that disinvestment has been enabled by importing instead of breeding our needs. We're exploiting poor conditions in other countries in order to attract their best, as well as creating poor conditions here for natural born citizens to suppress their demands from resource owners.

gumby 9y ago
> rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic population. (Out of necessity.) But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley. > We're exploiting poor conditions in other countries in order to attract their best, as well as creating poor conditions here for natural born citizens to suppress their demands from resource owners. Well you could see it that way; in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange for significantly more interesting work environment; on the other hand my wife couldn't deal with the lower quality of life here (worse and more expensive medical system, worse food, schools, etc). I suppose if you have a zero-sum model and don't believe Adam Smith and David Ricardo on the benefits of free trade your position would make sense.
- pm24601 9y ago
  > But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley. This is a benefit. It would spread wealth and enable more people to be tech/entrepreneurial. > in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange for significantly more interesting work environment ... which should not be exclusive to silicon valley.
kamaal 9y ago
As somebody who comes from a country(India) that routinely loses smart people to the US, your suggestion is welcome. But, think of this from your perspective. You can try almost as hard as your want but there is no way you can build a system from which you can harvest disproportionate amount of smart people from a population mass continuously. The only way to get them is through immigration. Take your net population, Subtract the elderly, children and other dependents(people with medical conditions etc). Given poverty, lack of opportunity, overall direction in life, nature of human capital and personal enterprise. Only a very small fraction of people in any country eventually go on to do things of huge value for everybody else. The only way to get such people in bulk quantities is from outside your country. Forgive me for saying it. This immigration debate will go on forever, and people will keep talking of citizens vs outsiders debate, every time they miss out on a opportunity. But everyone deep down knows if the US has to keep its economic and military might, the only real way is to get those smart people, have them do something amazing of huge value and use that to keep your way of life going.

gumby 9y ago

> rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic population. (Out of necessity.) But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley. > We're exploiting poor conditions in other countries in order to attract their best, as well as creating poor conditions here for natural born citizens to suppress their demands from resource owners. Well you could see it that way; in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange for significantly more interesting work environment; on the other hand my wife couldn't deal with the lower quality of life here (worse and more expensive medical system, worse food, schools, etc). I suppose if you have a zero-sum model and don't believe Adam Smith and David Ricardo on the benefits of free trade your position would make sense.

pm24601 9y ago
> But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley. This is a benefit. It would spread wealth and enable more people to be tech/entrepreneurial. > in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange for significantly more interesting work environment ... which should not be exclusive to silicon valley.

kamaal 9y ago

As somebody who comes from a country(India) that routinely loses smart people to the US, your suggestion is welcome. But, think of this from your perspective. You can try almost as hard as your want but there is no way you can build a system from which you can harvest disproportionate amount of smart people from a population mass continuously. The only way to get them is through immigration. Take your net population, Subtract the elderly, children and other dependents(people with medical conditions etc). Given poverty, lack of opportunity, overall direction in life, nature of human capital and personal enterprise. Only a very small fraction of people in any country eventually go on to do things of huge value for everybody else. The only way to get such people in bulk quantities is from outside your country. Forgive me for saying it. This immigration debate will go on forever, and people will keep talking of citizens vs outsiders debate, every time they miss out on a opportunity. But everyone deep down knows if the US has to keep its economic and military might, the only real way is to get those smart people, have them do something amazing of huge value and use that to keep your way of life going.