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Losing Their Minds
Wall Street Journal ^ | August 19, 2004

Posted on 08/19/2004 8:27:16 AM PDT by Niks

If you had to go by the headlines, you'd be forgiven for concluding that the Old World's best and brightest all look down on an intellectually inferior America. But the truth seems to be that Europe's brightest minds are concluding that the U.S. is the place to be -- at least when it comes to the sciences.

Plainly it's something that worries official Europe, which explains a recent conference in Paris dedicated to the subject. According to a European Commission survey, more than 70% of the EU-born recipients of U.S. doctorates between 1991 and 2000 planned to stay in America. Already some 100,000 European-born researchers currently work in the U.S., and the European Commission frets that by the end of this decade Europe will have 700,000 fewer scientists and engineers than will be needed to compete in the global knowledge economy. To put it another way, many of them will be here.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academia; aliens; braindrain; doctorates; eu; europe; science; trade

1 posted on 08/19/2004 8:27:16 AM PDT by Niks
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To: Niks

"To put it another way, many of them will be here."

Hehehe!


2 posted on 08/19/2004 8:29:53 AM PDT by rj45mis
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To: rj45mis

In other words... The best and the brightest are already here, and the rest of them are over there.

Well, if the best and the brightest like America well enough to stay here. Then that must mean only the idiots that remained in Europe hate us.

That makes me feel a whole lot better.


3 posted on 08/19/2004 9:30:22 AM PDT by coconutt2000
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To: Niks

Any college grad can attest: the worldwide Brain Drain floods American universities each year.

Conversations with these foriegn students reveals that many have NO INTENTION of returning home after they've tasted American freedoms.

How 'ya gonnna get 'em to come back home to a gray backwards culture, after they've seen keg parties, giant libraries, poolside barbecues, American girls gone wild?


4 posted on 08/19/2004 9:55:21 AM PDT by moodyskeptic (www.WinWithHumor.com)
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To: coconutt2000

LOL!! I didn't think of that. I feel much better too. Thanks!


5 posted on 08/19/2004 10:37:44 AM PDT by Niks (.)
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To: moodyskeptic

I think what they love about the USA is that you can make a living without the government taking most of it away. Why spend all the money on education and then get so little back in return. My French friend tells me that no one wants to work in France. Why bother?


6 posted on 08/19/2004 10:41:11 AM PDT by Niks (.)
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To: Niks

"the U.S. is the place to be"

Gasp! Say it ain't so. What about the European socialist paradise? What about the free medical care, free education, the lavish pensions, extra vacations, and the 35-hour work weeks? How can this be?

Surely, the European socialists are not penalizing success and crushing ambition.


7 posted on 08/19/2004 11:30:15 AM PDT by Owl558 (Pardon my spelling)
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To: moodyskeptic

One of my tenants here in Brooklyn was from Argentina...a very comfortable middle class girl who came here to get her Masters degree in Fine Art from Pratt University...she was here for 9/11...I stopped to talk to her in the street that September...things in NYC seemed bad...we were still flinching every time we heard an ambulance or a helicopter...I asked her if she was afraid for her safety in NYC and would go back home...she said that she felt far safer in NYC than she did in the streets of Buenos Aires...she said there was major crime and kidnappings going on there...I was surprised because so many foreigners seem to come here to exploit our country but still look down on us...anyway she wound up marrying an American boy and is currently teaching in a private school in Manhattan's upper East Side (Dalton)...she's now part of the American Dream.


8 posted on 08/19/2004 1:01:55 PM PDT by foreshadowed at waco
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To: foreshadowed at waco

Bless her.


9 posted on 08/19/2004 10:05:54 PM PDT by Owl558 (Pardon my spelling)
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To: foreshadowed at waco

thanks for that story. I had many conversations at Art Center College in Pasadena with foreign born auto-design majors who were sponsored by overseas auto makers to attend school here.

They whispered that they were gathering pals, planning to start a design group here in SoCal. They couldn't stomach going back to a dreary world and committing bad design under obligation.

These talented people were Incubator Conservatives. Like immigrants from the Balkans, Asia or Cuba, they make for solid Americans.


10 posted on 08/20/2004 1:54:42 PM PDT by moodyskeptic (www.WinWithHumor.com)
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