Tag: United States
America’s Immigrant Brain Drain
“The United States boasts more international students, immigrant inventors, and foreign-born Nobel laureates than any other country. But thanks to our dysfunctional immigration system, the U.S. is slowly surrendering that advantage to other countries.”
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“Demand for H-1Bs far outpaces supply, and the annual cap of 85,000 visas has not changed in more than 15 years. Three-quarters of America’s H-1B workers are Indian. But thanks to caps on the number of green cards a given country’s nationals can receive each year, there is a massive backlog of workers waiting for permanent residency. It can take decades for Indians to achieve that status.”
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” It is not just foreign workers who suffer under the U.S. immigration system. American employers are increasingly unwilling to navigate such complex processes to hire foreigners, depriving them of employees who might otherwise be perfect fits. Envoy Global, an immigration services provider, reported in March that 82 percent of the employers it surveyed “had to let go of foreign employees in the past year due to difficulties securing or extending an employment-based visa in the U.S.” A similar share transferred foreign workers to an office abroad for similar reasons. And a staggering 93 percent of the businesses that Envoy surveyed said they were considering nearshoring or offshoring.”
https://reason.com/2023/09/26/americas-immigrant-brain-drain/
Oxford Debate: Has China’s Global Power Reached Its Peak?
Invasion of Iraq: How the British and Americans got it wrong
America’s potential Achilles’ heel in a cyber battle with China: Guam
“Chinese hackers have found a dangerous vulnerability in U.S. military computer networks nearly 8,000 miles from the Pentagon — on the serene South Pacific island of Guam.
They attacked essential infrastructure in the military outpost in May, infiltrating networks in the U.S. territory closest to China. Lawmakers and federal officials fear these attacks, which used a new method that allows intruders to linger undetected, could threaten security in the volatile region and sabotage any U.S. response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.”
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“Officials in Guam welcome the help.
“When it comes to not just cyber, but our critical infrastructure as a whole, it’s important to realize that we are isolated,” Scott said. “We have proximity to the pacing threats, and we don’t have a lot of the resources on our own to self-sustain.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/16/potential-cyber-threat-guam-00116354
Twenty years ago in Iraq, ignoring the expert weapons inspectors proved to be a fatal mistake
https://www.sipri.org/commentary/essay/2023/twenty-years-ago-iraq-ignoring-expert-weapons-inspectors-proved-be-fatal-mistake
The Iraq War and the Limits of American Power | Foreign Affairs Interview Podcast
Politicians Say They Want To Fight Climate Change. So Why Are They Fighting China on Electric Vehicles?
“Much of the banter surrounding the rise of China’s electric vehicle (E.V.) industry and the implication for the global economy is misleadingly alarmist. When our government gets involved in such narratives, it calls into question the sincerity of its insistence that E.V.s are essential to an existential battle against climate change. If China’s foray succeeds, the world gets cleaner cars and non-Chinese automakers are obliged to improve their own products.”
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“any related national security concerns are often rooted in misconceptions about the technologies themselves. It’s important to differentiate between civilian and military technologies. E.V. manufacturing primarily involves civilian tech that’s unlikely to have significant national security implications.”
https://reason.com/2023/09/07/politicians-say-they-want-to-fight-climate-change-so-why-are-they-fighting-china-on-electric-vehicles/
At G-20 and in Vietnam, Biden to sell American partnerships — all at China’s expense
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/07/g-20-to-be-bidens-newest-front-in-his-battle-with-china-for-economic-power-00114360
Biden admin to China: Hands off our tech but we’ll take your tourists
“Chinese “visitors” — a broad term that encompasses both tourists and longer-term students — were at the forefront of a boom in international travel to the United States in the decade before the coronavirus pandemic hit. They spent a record $34 billion in the United States in 2018 and another $33 billion the following year.
That fell sharply as both governments clamped down on travel during the pandemic. Chinese spending in the United States plummeted to about $11.4 billion by 2021, nearly all by Chinese students at American colleges and universities. It rebounded slightly to around $14 billion last year, with education still accounting for most of the expenditures.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/06/united-states-chinese-tourism-00113789