It's funny how several posts assume that because the best research results happen at US companies, the scientists conducting that research are born-and-bred Americans and attended only US schools. My dad was a math professor for over 30 years and chairman of his department for eight years--most of his colleagues as far back as I can remember came from overseas universities. It's true that schools like University of Moscow, etc., are better than US schools--the American education system and its students are far behind the rest of the world. My dad would travel to European math conferences to meet the world's best mathemeticians, who are often from Russia and Eastern and Central Europe.
But why then do we still produce the world's best R&D and businesses? Well, it's not the quality of our schools. It's our legal protections, free-market economy and high standard of living. Top researchers and students from around the world immigrate to the US to advance their careers because here they can keep the fruits of their labor and earn as close to their market value as possible. I read an article about a year ago about how the US puts out thousands more patents every year than all the other nations put together. This is for the simple fact that: 1) international patents aren't protection enough for the researchers/companies to cash in on their R&D investment whereas US patent protections are better-enforced, and 2) many top researchers in other nations see the compensation for their efforts either taken away or limited by their foreign employers or governments.
Think about it: Say you're a guy in China, getting ready to go to college. You can't afford to go to a US college yet, so you barely get into a highly-competitive Chinese college (yes, their universities are very good, believe it or not) and work three jobs to make it through. Getting any less than top honors is not an option. Then, using your honors and top grades, you get your only ticket out of China. You get a scholarship to go to a decent US school for your Master's degree, and you work as a TA, making peanuts and getting a green card by working for a local company. Once again, nothing less than top honors are acceptable--no keggers and frat parties for you! You get into a good US university and finish your PhD. After a few years in post-doc, you get a job with a good research firm and are paid the equivalent of 200 times what you would have made in China with the same education. What's more, the quality of life is far better in the US, where you get credit for your discoveries, can travel and speak freely at scientific symposiums, and are completely free to build your own career however you want. Contrast that to China, where you would be controlled as a national resource and would have less political freedoms and mobility than the average Chinese citizen.
(This story is almost exactly my dad's story.)
This is why we see such a huge number of foreign-educated researchers in US companies and universities. Even though the world's best mathematicians may be in Russia and Europe, the vast majority of top foreign researchers aren't nationalistic enough to insist on staying in their birth countries and instead choose to pursue the US standard of living. So, before you claim how good Harvard, et. al, are, take a look at their faculty and student statistics and note the very high percentages of foreign-educated professors and students. Foreign universities are indeed better than those in the US, but our schools attract the business-minded students, while theirs tend to keep pure academics--scientists who are more interested in advancing their science than applying science to business.
So, as long as we keep importing the world's better minds in droves and exporting the less-demanding jobs, we'll keep our top economic ranking. And, if we fail to stay the best economy in the world, it won't be because our companies are exporting jobs. It'll be because our government's economic, political and social controls have gotten to the point where the US is no longer the most attractive place for the world's better minds to work. At that point, I wouldn't hesitate to emmigrate to whatever nation is then the best with the freest economy and political environment and the best standard of living.
(In other words, we're number one because we're the freest nation in the world--if we were to impose protectionist policies to restrict job exports or try harder to redistribute wealth, the end result is less freedom for and less attraction of the world's best workers/producers.)
