> "There's millions of people unemployed in this country, why not find which ones of them know basic skills like math and science and train them in house to wri

> "There's millions of people unemployed in this country, why not find which ones of them know basic skills like math and science and train them in house to write python or java or whatever?" Because the lead time to go from "has basic math and logic skills" to "competent programmer" is on the order of years, if not over a decade. Do you want to put someone on your payroll for years before you see one tiny iota of productivity out of them? Or worse, have them be a negative drain on your productivity? > "but lets be reasonable, ordinary Americans built this country and they're the reason Silicon Valley exists in this country and not someplace else" This isn't true. The US has been extremely reliant on skilled immigration as its power base throughout the 20th century. Immigrants are over-represented in academia as well as all corners of basic research, they are also over-represented in the industries that spawned Silicon Valley (i.e., the defense and aerospace R&D that gave birth to both the funding, cultural, and educational foundation that birthed the semiconductor industry, followed by the software industry). > "You could easily teach someone to code by October 2013 if you started now." Then do it. I challenge you. Starting today, from someone with the proper high school level education but no relevant college education (i.e., no STEM degree), develop someone into a competent programmer capable of writing production-ready code by the end of October 2013. Put your money where your mouth is.