How do you explain US exceptionalism over the last 75 years?

spectastic said:
people want to put money in the US market instead of china, even though China has much higher GDP growth and rapidly closing the technology gap, because of freedom and it has the best academic institutions?
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Not sure the case.

China is at a different cycle, like the US from the end of civil war to 1980s, rebuild the empire kind of mindset. Their investments are low return but solid, not profit seeking.

Yes, I wouldn't put my own personal money into China for sure. But obviouly folks like Elon and Walton, will need the consumer expousure.
 
TheDawn said:
Yeah I am aware of all this. I am trying to explore the reason WHY STEM talents are not cultivated right here in the USA. STEM talents recruited from WWII (can't really blame the USA; they were getting slaughtered in countries like Germany and Italy under the Nazi regime) eventually grew old and retired and yet the pool of STEM talents dwindled and reached a point where USA has to always actively recruit again from the world. WHY?? WHY didn't we cultivate our own STEM talents locally?? This is my question. Your answer of fearing that they would push for changes doesn't cut it. It's the intellectuals with liberal arts degree that "think too much" and push for changes. STEM talents don't, relatively speaking. Knowing STEM just allows one to do things faster and do things better so WHY didn't the USA cultivate local STEM talents?

Personally, I think it's just cultural differences.
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I explained it, it's cost benefit. Much cheaper to entice foreign talents than educate our youth.
However, your question will make sense in the coming decade or two because America's bright light has taken a serious toll, what with Trump's white nationalism that shocked the stem providing world and the media loop of mass shootings and obsession with weapons that truly scares foreigners who have a choice to get their PhD in the US or not. Being in Singapore, I can confirm that many greater Asian talents have opted for the island state or Australia to study and join start ups.
America is still attractive, not for its freedom, but for its enormous investment capacity, unmatched anywhere else. It's a risk taking country in which failure is part of success, where considerable cash is available for just about anything and everything happens above board. In the rest of the world, including Europe, funding is risk aversive and rarely enough to sustain a project. The talent is there, but the expectations can be overwhelming, the overthinking becomes an impediment, the fear and shame of failure discourages entrepreneurship.
 
VicBee said:
I explained it, it's cost benefit. Much cheaper to entice foreign talents than educate our youth.
However, your question will make sense in the coming decade or two because America's bright light has taken a serious toll, what with Trump's white nationalism that shocked the stem providing world and the media loop of mass shootings and obsession with weapons that truly scares foreigners who have a choice to get their PhD in the US or not. Being in Singapore, I can confirm that many greater Asian talents have opted for the island state or Australia to study and join start ups.
America is still attractive, not for its freedom, but for its enormous investment capacity, unmatched anywhere else. It's a risk taking country in which failure is part of success, where considerable cash is available for just about anything and everything happens above board. In the rest of the world, including Europe, funding is risk aversive and rarely enough to sustain a project. The talent is there, but the expectations can be overwhelming, the overthinking becomes an impediment, the fear and shame of failure discourages entrepreneurship.
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Like I said, I don't think it's an issue with cost but of culture. When it comes to investment in education, America is actually one of the top countries in the world when it comes to spending on education. Teachers in America are one of the highest paid in the world. America is one of the few countries in the world that actually has a dedicated school bus system where it buses children to school for free. It's also one of the few countries in the world that provides textbooks and teaching material for free to schoolchildren (at least that's how it was when I was going to school) and those are high-quality textbooks too that are hardcover with quality binding. And the school buildings in America are some of the best constructed in the world, compared to school buildings in other countries including China. USA didn't really skimp on costs when it comes to education but the problem is its emphasis is on liberal arts, sports and entertainment and just not enough on math & science. Math and science are just not supported or respected. LOL It's not "cool"; it's nerdy; it's ugly and etc. The cool kids play football or basketball or do cheerleading. They do not study math and put on those nerdy goggles to study science. Those are for the nerds that are just weird. It's the public perception and image. America is very image-conscious.

It's slowly changing now as the government is trying to change the mass' perception of math & science, to cultivate people's interest in studying it or at least supporting it starting with children. So it's a good start and hopefully we will cultivate more STEM talents locally instead of relying so heavily on foreign talents.
 
longandshort said:
This is true but there’s a big difference between being a local vs global favorite. The US is firmly a global favorite, and immigration policy ebbs and flows with the political climate. Even with that the US has a much better immigration policy than the vast majority of the world.
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Funny you say that because when my wife and I left Hong Kong for Shanghai in early 2000, we entered with a 6 months tourist visa and settled there. She worked for a start up, I worked on a furniture project, we rented an apartment, had our belongings shipped over, opened a bank account and no one ever cared about our residency or work status. Even we were surprised at how easy it was to live in China which, at the time, was booming. We were aware that at some point we would need to formalize our status (we were illegal immigrants after all), but left after a year when the start up ran out of funding.
 
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