You haven't been to Asia recently, have you? :) I, unfortunately, can't help you with your problems in your post-communist country. Whichever it is -- I'm sure

You haven't been to Asia recently, have you? :) I, unfortunately, can't help you with your problems in your post-communist country. Whichever it is -- I'm sure it's size is comparable to Korea and or Japan, but it lacks the productive output of those two East Asian countries. And let's say that at the end of World War 2, all of these countries had equal opportunities. So it's not a good example. Back to my point. Asia is becoming insanely wealthy -- and very, very fast. East Asia is already there, and so are places like Singapore. Also wealthy economies are not zero sum games. As wealth distribution equalizes, everyone suddenly has access to the same online courses from Stanford, the same iPads, the same this and that. As the US starts to fall behind, it won't be interesting for people to immigrate to the US. They will want to stay home where their friends and family are. Finally it's not an optimistic statement when you have given up on your own people and suggest that your country's STEM problems will be solved by bright people coming from outside the country. That seems to be just delaying the inevitable slide backwards. I'm all for the US being competitive and so on, btw. But things in Asia (and India) are REALLY speeding up. Don't be the ostrich here.