Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home (bloomberg.com) 250
From a report on Bloomberg: U.S.-trained Chinese-born talent is becoming a key force in driving Chinese companies' global expansion and the country's efforts to dominate next-generation technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. Where college graduates once coveted a prestigious overseas job and foreign citizenship, many today gravitate toward career opportunities at home, where venture capital is now plentiful and the government dangles financial incentives for cutting-edge research. "More and more talent is moving over because China is really getting momentum in the innovation area," said Ken Qi, a headhunter for Spencer Stuart and leader of its technology practice. "This is only the beginning."
Chinese have worked or studied abroad and then returned home long enough that there's a term for them -- "sea turtles." But while a job at a U.S. tech giant once conferred near-unparalleled status, homegrown companies -- from giants like Tencent to up-and-comers like news giant Toutiao -- are now often just as prestigious. Baidu Inc. -- a search giant little-known outside of China -- convinced ex-Microsoft standout Qi Lu to helm its efforts in AI, making him one of the highest-profile returnees of recent years.
Chinese have worked or studied abroad and then returned home long enough that there's a term for them -- "sea turtles." But while a job at a U.S. tech giant once conferred near-unparalleled status, homegrown companies -- from giants like Tencent to up-and-comers like news giant Toutiao -- are now often just as prestigious. Baidu Inc. -- a search giant little-known outside of China -- convinced ex-Microsoft standout Qi Lu to helm its efforts in AI, making him one of the highest-profile returnees of recent years.
And yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:And yet.. (Score:5, Insightful)
you can blame the feds/states taking funding away and making them a business first. hey enjoy that tax break.
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Federal and state funding has not decreased, tuition has increased.
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student grants and supports are part of funding.
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In that case, include tax benefits as well. Those have increased by $25-30 billion since the early 90s.
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tax benefits only come into play once you are focused in making money rather than providing education. The tax benefits are a symptom of a broken system.
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I don't think anyone is claiming that the system is not broken. I'm just pushing against lack of government funding as being the culprit - if anything it has been an enabler of the massive tuition increases we've seen.
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its probably a circular argument as the universites complain that the reason for increase is lack of funding. :)
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I'd be more charitable about believing them if they hadn't sustained something like an average 7% increase over 30 years, whether the state funding was going up or down, and if the problem were limited to state schools. I think it's a complex problem, but easy loans and lavish spending on perks to make the schools appealing to wealthy international students seem to be large contributors. I'm not smart enough to resolve this, but at the very least I wonder why so much attention is spent seeking foreign dolla
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I know someone who hasn't looked at the numbers for federal/state expenditures on higher education or tuition increases.
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OK, I'll hold your hand for you, since you talk so sweetly:
Number of colleges in 2000 (technically Title IV postsecondary institutions): 6,479 In 2013: 7,236. Total increase of 11.9%. Source [ed.gov]
Number of college students in 2000: 13.2 million In 2015: 17.0 million. Total increase of 29%. Source [ed.gov]
But just so you don't accuse me of cherry-picking numbers, let's use the larger increase of 45% between 2000 and 2012 from Pew [pewtrusts.org] - they only consider full-time students.
From the same link:
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It's neat what you can do when you ignore the federal side of "Federal and state".
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There are obviously cases above and below the trendline. I'm talking big picture, not your particular school.
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you can put a price to everything... if you so choose.
Somebody would have to pay their tuition (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yep. feel the warm manna tinkling down on your head! In ancient times it had resale value.
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The schools didn't get that much more expensive to run either. Nor did the salaries go up all that much (the admin staff always made a tidy sum).
FWIW, The staff required to run the University is generally unrelated to the amount of staff that gets hired by the university. Not only do they make a tidy sum, but their ranks swell to consume all budget surpluses, but never seem to shrink at other times. It's a classic government bureaucracy...
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Well, in the end this whole thing cannot be fixed. It is just a sign of China being in ascend and the US being in decline. At the moment, (some) US universities still have an apparently superior product to sell, but that will change in the next few decades as of course some of those going back will become professors in China and eventually, the Chinese will get academic culture right enough to educate their engineers an scientists domestically. The biggest problems they probably still have are conformity an
Re:And yet.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Universities will not re-think allowing so many foreign students to take the seats of Americans.
The limiting factor for universities is not the number of chairs in the classroom. It is money. Since foreign students pay full tuition, they are helping to fund all the Americans paying in-state tuition or getting scholarships.
By "exporting" education, America earns billions of dollars and generates jobs for hundreds of thousands of university employees. Portraying this as a "bad thing" is idiotic. We should be working to make it far easier for foreign students to study in America.
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By "exporting" education, America earns billions of dollars and generates jobs for hundreds of thousands of university employees. Portraying this as a "bad thing" is idiotic. We should be working to make it far easier for foreign students to study in America.
It's good in that it addresses trade deficits, provides jobs & funding for local infrastructure.
What is "bad" is administration intervening in marking students to the same standard across the board, and reducing pass requirements for full-fee paying internationals. Turning a blind eye to plagiarism and cheating.
This reduces the reputation of the university and affects those that have graduated from it. Internationals don't care as they have their degree.
This is happening everywhere where exporting e
Here's an idea (Score:2)
The reason to bring those fol
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It turns out something around 90% Of them could not program (in *any* language) in a graduate CS course.
Well at least in this part there's nothing new and unusual. ;)
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Re:And yet.. (Score:4, Informative)
Just FYI. American schools do pretty well with better students, which isn't really a surprise, good students are easy.
It's our bottom 20% that fuck the average. They're functionally illiterate and innumerate. Bottom half+ are innumerate, but that's no problem for liberal arts majors.
Chinese grad students are still coming to the USA, just not in the numbers previously seen, going only to better schools.
Qualified American STEM students skip grad school because they want the money, now.
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Bullshit. US schools generate about 10x the number of PhDs vs. the number of research positions in academics.
If your going to end up in industry anyhow, why spend the time and effort to politik a committee of self important profs. Get on with it.
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Sure, I counter you anecdote with all the useless PhDs I've worked with over the years. Better than MBAs, but only when they're working in their field. PhDs outside their fields are a big problem in my experience.
3x? bullshit on that. In fact, in Engineering, the average industry starting salary for Masters degrees is higher than for PhDs. PhDs are overspecialized.
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Sure, I've supervised many PhDs from places like CERN. They were writing database code, feeding LP solvers, it was a step UP from the usual post doc work.
It's a great recruiting pool. A good percentage have the chops to become engineers (trolling Sheldon).
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Lets not drift all over the place with foreign students versus specifically students from China. Why could so many afford school in the US, well, because the government of China was paying and why were they paying because the government of China plays the long game, as well as the short and medium game. Train them in the US, to get a job in the US and to 'well', you get the spy vs spy ramifications. Why are the going back in numbers, maybe because the US is entirely corrupt and it is simply cheaper to buy w
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It's amazing how we can blame foreigners and poor people for everything. How are foreign students going back home after getting education abroad even a problem? We're actively trying to kick people out of the country under this admin and we're blaming them for leaving? Hell, it is not easy to be allowed to stay in America. Plenty want to stay and couldn't after exhausting all their options.
Also, plenty of Americans study abroad and move back home. Is that ok or not? If it's ok for them to do it, what is t
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Universities will not re-think allowing so many foreign students to take the seats of Americans.
Public Universities would prefer to have all foreign or out of state students. The tuition is far more expensive for an out of state student. Berkeley is probably the top public univ in the US. In-state (California resident) tuition is $14,068 while out of state tuition is $28,014. There's 30,574 undergraduate students. That's $13,946 more per student if they're out of state or $426m more income from just tuition alone income. Berkeley has expenses totaling $2.4B... so adding another $426m to the coffe
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"Universities will not re-think allowing so many foreign students to take the seats of Americans."
That just makes international universities more attractive places to attend.
There are plenty of seats in university lecture halls, and much open time in those halls for more lectures. It's not seats, it's your intelligence or lack of ability to pay. No one is taking anything from you.
This is like having a US commercial sports team reject international athletes. It's a less lucrative and interesting product.
Y
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These students bring money to pay for their education. So, no, the universities will not re-think their business model.
Of course, one option would be to make US university education much worse, then these students would go somewhere else....
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Universities will not re-think allowing so many foreign students to take the seats of Americans.
I guess Universities aren't those bastions of leftist ideology, because cash is still king.
Oh yes they are. Recently the University of California had a big raise in tuition. The UC Regents claimed they looked all over for money, looked all over for savings, waste, duplication, etc; and found no alternative to raising student tuition.
Less than a year later they are announcing their great new program to give illegal aliens in-state tuition rather than out-of-state. They had no problem finding the money for that. That was quite the political move given the above.
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University administrations never were, and college students rarely were, despite what the press told you. Many of the "radicals" of the 1960's were actually conservatives who believed what they had been told in government and civics classes in high school. You know, free speech, individual rights, etc. The groups tended to be co-opted by those with a better understanding of how group politics work, but the individual students were often libertarian (small "l") idealists. The anointed spokesmen, however,
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One system counts on human nature and works
...or at least that's how it fancies itself. :)
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Too bad about your denial.
You could make the argument in 1945, even in 1960.
But it's a proven fact now. Capitalism has raised over a billion people out of poverty in the last 20 years.
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Adam Smith even has a footnote in Wealth of Nations where he explains why higher education doesn't have in a Capitalist way, because people choose the school with the best education that they can get access to, they don't choose a different University if there is a sale somewhere else. So he recognized that it needed public funding.
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American universities are private institutions, moron. Their only beneficiaries are its charter and institution, as directed by their board of directors.
Communism (Score:3, Insightful)
China is not, nor have they ever been, communist (Score:5, Interesting)
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Imagine that. A communist country overtaking a capitalist country in terms of innovation and quality of living. This goes against many discussions I have had here.
They do not have us beat in quality of living. Not yet, anyway. And perhaps never will with the number of mouths they have to feed. But they are certainly doing well in the innovation department.
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If students want to go back there, then the quality of living must be quite adequate.
I'm not saying quality of life is bad in China - just that it is not on par with the US. At least not in my experience. If you make enough money, then you can live incredibly well there. Going out to eat is dirt cheap in China, for instance. Unless you go to really fancy restaurants all the time. You could probably afford to have some cleaning staff and things like that to compensate for the other areas of life that aren't quite as nice as the US.
Quality of life in China (Score:3)
For the tech elite, quality is good. Main issues is uneasiness about the government and being able to breath.
But for the bottom 80%, they are still an underdeveloped and struggling.
Mind you, I would not want to be poor in the USA either. But certainly the bottom 50% of non-US western countries lives better than most Chinese.
Space race? (Score:2)
The soviets did get to Space first so not like being beaten by Communists is something new for USA
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How they got tested before for years before university. Who got into university and why. What was done in lectures and given to study. What lab equipment was used for that generation considering the gov, mil, science, consumer products in the USA at the time.
Say from the 1980's to 2017.
Once China fully understood how the US education system worked and sorted populations over a generation. What created the best creativ
What they learnt. (Score:3)
Not entirely true that the Chinese students did not pick up anything about freedom, democracy and the civil society. That is why the Chinese government has started to actively discourage western education as leading to "cultural incompatibility".
China is changing again, fast. And this time not for the better. Xi Jinping is taking them towards a dark place. Total control by a hierarchical party, enforced by all encompassing technology. Social media is a tool for control, not freedom, if used "correctly
Re:What they learnt. (Score:5, Interesting)
The only remaining "civil society" in China is communist.
The generation of students who got back in university in China after the Cultural Revolution by passing university entrance exams had to be good Communists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The students that got allowed to study in the USA for years could only be very good Communists. They would have not been allowed to go to the USA if they where not fully treated to stay loyal to China.
Re "What will happen when, inevitably, the economy stops growing so fast and corruption becomes more obvious?"
If a person wants to keep their education, uniform and rank, good city living conditions, healthcare, pension, keep good standing with the Communist list party they don't show up to protest.
Take part in a protest? All the normal things a person worked so hard for can be removed during one interview.
Education? No graduation, no results can be found. Address? Not in the good part of a nice city anymore. Healthcare? Much less. Pension? Much less. Wage? Reduced to minimum. Show a good attitude by denouncing others and some of that quality of life will be restored.
Every protester is turned into an informant.
East Germany had its Zersetzung to change minds about freedom and democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
China is changing in the way it never lets a protest start by going after everyone who protests. Not just all the CIA, MI6 backed protest leaders.
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Obviously, this must be blasphemous heresy. Well China is not really communist. They are some hybrid construct and basically do their own thing. And while there are very stupid things done there for ideological reasons (Ban pornography in a country that has overpopulation? Does not get any more stupid than that....), they are also doing quite a few things right. Of course, with the planned "social score", they just may go into full-blown fascism. But then they may not and actually make it work somehow. (Fas
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Imagine that. A communist country overtaking a capitalist country in terms of innovation and quality of living. This goes against many discussions I have had here.
Innovation... you may have a point (as the old joke goes, Chinese R&D: Remember and Duplicate).
However quality of life, a skilled engineer isn't a highly paid thing in the US. You can eek out a life and a career with an average house and car if you're smart and a little bit lucky. Engineers are not paid well, they aren't respected and aren't desired (by employers or the opposite sex).
Being a western level skilled engineer in China gives you a good house, nice car and makes you very desirable to th
Re:Communism (Score:5, Interesting)
Stalinism is only one of many proposed models of communism, albeit the one with the greatest success.
China describes its own system as a form of market socialism, but in fact it's probably better thought of as a kind of state capitalism [wikipedia.org], with a parallel private sector in which the state freely interferes to suit public policy. While it's not a system I'd want to live under, it is undeniably successful.
I'd describe the ideological stance of China's ruling party as post-communist Burkean conservatism. The emphasis is on getting the institutions they already have to work rather than pursuing Utopian schemes. Instead of using ideology to make policy decisions, policy decisions are made pragmatically and later rationalized, a stance described by Deng Xiao-peng's famous slogan, "Practice Is the Sole Criterion for the Truth".
"Communist China" might well be the least ideological and most pragmatic society ever devised. This makes them formidable, because there's really nothing they can't do if it suits their purposes. For example President Xi is currently reducing state intervention in private sector businesses, something that would have been heresy in pre-Deng China. But it's not because he thinks it's right, it's because he thinks it will bring the country greater wealth. However that wouldn't stop him from nationalizing a business if he thought it was useful -- or more likely quietly forcing it to follow state directives. That wouldn't be wrong to their way of thinking.
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Re:Communism (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, China is struggling with providing health care to its population too, but they have an interesting approach: they're focusing a lot of their efforts in prevention and reduction of chronic diseases to buy them time as they build out their health care delivery systems.
It's interesting to compare China vs. Russia, both post-communist states. China may have problems, but Russia is a basket case. China has a persistent corruption problem with officials charged with regulation; Russia is an outright kleptocracy. I think the difference between the two countries is this: mineral wealth. In Russia they can squabble out of riches they dig out of the ground, but if things don't work in China they've got nothing to squabble over.
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or more likely quietly forcing it to follow state directives
We do this in the US as well. We call it the Law, as passed by legislators bought by their donors. Same deal, but we have better packaging for you.
Following state directives does not mean it is bad either, for example, Chinese businesses now have to follow the labor and environment rules a lot stricter than a few years back due to public complains about these issues.
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You make a good point, but it's important to note that "law" and "political authority" have different characters in the US and China. In the US even law is constrained by higher law and precedent. Lawfully constituted authority is checked by an independent judiciary and independent institutions like the press.
You can think of it this way: the US system is designed around constraining a worst-case government, the Chinese system around enabling a best-case government.
The problem is that nobody ever has a b
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You can think of it this way: the US system is designed around constraining a worst-case government, the Chinese system around enabling a best-case government.
Fortunately, Chinese culture historically has recognized that the ruler must serve the needs of the ruled to some extent, so you can have these long periods where everything is basically stable, and leaders can feel shame if the people say they are not doing a good job, but the lack of checks and balances gets you occasional things like 20 million peo
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China is a state capitalist system built on top of a stalinist system built on top of a fascist dictatorship built on top of a really shitty 2000 year long absolute monarchy. Their culture and state institutions have inherited a lot of garbage.
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Largely accurate, except for the shitty 2000 year old monarchy part. From the decline of the Roman Empire until around 1800, China was arguably the most effectively governed society in the world. It was certainly the richest and for most of that period the most technologically advanced.
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OK you're seriously not up on your technology history.
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Yes, keep telling yourself that. Right up until you begin to starve.
Fact is China was the most advanced nation technology-wise on this planet for quite a while. Although they then remained stagnant on that level for many centuries and that is the reason they were eventually overtaken by the west.
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China describes its own system as a form of market socialism, but in fact it's probably better thought of as a kind of state capitalism [wikipedia.org], with a parallel private sector in which the state freely interferes to suit public policy.
Let me add that as the age of "big data" matures, I would be surprised if this approach will not make free markets obsolete. "what? 50 years ago they didn't actively manage things?!"
Re:Communism (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the governance of the Communist Party of China is opaque, it's supreme authority is not the President or General Secretary. Theoretically it is the thirty member politburo, but in practice it seems to be the seven member Politburo Standing Committee, whose votes in effect have force of law.
PSC members are chosen to provide an extensive array of party experience, representing expertise in local and regional government, internal party affairs and national security, and by that very nature represent deep and extensive connections throughout the party. It's not a bad way of doing things if you want them to be stable, but because the actual practice of power operates outside the formal Constitution of the nation or party it's hard to know for sure exactly how stable China is.
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Patents and copyrights do a lot of harm. Jefferson always made a point of publishing any invention he made, or bought, free of charge in all the big city newspapers.
Of course he died bankrupt.
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No country is purely "communist" or "capitalist" or "fascist" or "democratic".
Well, actually no country is democratic, period. Last ones I heard of were ancient Athens and Syracuse, right up until the free democratic citizens of Athens decided to conquer and enslave Syracuse - and got virtually all their men of military age killed.
A generation later, Athens was an oligarchy much like present-day USA, and Syracuse was ruled by an iron-fisted tyrant.
No one has tried democracy since, except the Swiss, who are
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Wisdom. China used to lean WAY more communist economically. Centrally controlled economy just like the CCCP. It was a clusterfuck. Now, economically at least... in some ways... they're a lot more capitalistic. Probably not AS capitalistic as the USA though. There's a lot of state-run business. Then again, there's also a lot less regulation.
No place is a pure democracy. Democratic... the -ic part is important. It's got some nice features pertaining to the subject at hand. The difference between saying "I'
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You do understand that people can lie (Score:2)
Indians to the rescue. (Score:3)
You... (Score:2)
Time was (Score:2, Interesting)
"No worries!" proclaimed the coastal elistists, "for American freedom entices the whole world to flock here!" Well, in principle yes. But given the
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That within a generation the best of the best in China would want everything China did not have thanks to their free education the USA.
China did not send over its most susceptible students. It sent over its smartest and only the most loyal.
They took back everything they could extract from the USA and return to China with every useful aspect the US education system gav
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Given restrictions on US side, this is good (Score:5, Interesting)
From the viewpoint that the US is not highly welcoming of highly educated US-educated PhDs and Masters from other nations, unlike most EU nations and Canada, it makes sense that they would return to China, where they don't prop up failing fossil fuel industries and have high speed rail, instead of trying to remain in a country in denial that it's the 21st Century already.
Now, this does point out that it would be in America's interest to encourage highly-educated US-educated PhDs and Masters recipients to remain, via expedited citizenship procedures, as occurs in the EU, UK, and Canada. But that's just an objective viewpoint.
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ROTFL, so you think the Chinese return to china because they want to be more ecological through use of high speed rail (which is in itself an interesting worldview, that high speed rail is at all particularly ecological).
Do you actually KNOW any Chinese?
Have you ever been to China?
Do you have the slightest idea what the world outside 'Murica is like?
Just wondering, because your statement above would seem to imply you dont have a clue.
They leave the USA because they can get much better treatment, more job pr
Seeds of our own destruction (Score:2)
Re:Still many benefits in US (Score:5, Interesting)
We do a lot of business in China, and to retain good employees we basically pay double the going rate. If you are talented, you can command a big premium there. I wouldn't want to be a worker on the factory floor, but skilled technical people can do very nicely.
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double the going rate of US?
sign me up.
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No. China. You can live very well in China for a lot less than you can in Silicon Valley.
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Louis XIV lived for a lot less than he would pay in rent in Silicon Valley.
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in both cases, income inequality to the rescue.
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And the thing is, that is just capitalism at work. All those going back will be going back to deals like the one you describe. The ones that are not very good will stay in the US.
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We do it because we have a lot of Chinese customers and so it helps to have software developers and engineers locally. Of course everything is ultimately driven by cost, so I guess you'd say we use Chinese employees to serve the local market because it is very cost effective. As you suggest, we did not open a factory there simply to save on costs to our other markets.
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Thats what made and kept the USA great. Only the very best got into a top US university after years of testing and only the very best grades.
Wealthy parents could buy into a university for generations but that did not alter the intake by using scholarships only for the best of the best. That did not exclude the
Re: Enjoy shitting over a hole in the ground (Score:2, Insightful)
It is absolutely true that Chinese stuff *has been* inferior copied CRAP.
But... you don't expect that to be true FOREVER, do you?
If you are old enough, consider the development of Japan. After WW2, they produced pure junk, and badly copied junk at that. In the 1970s Made in Japan was the punchline that Made in China is now. But by 1980, Japanese was a solid brand. Innovation too. The thing is, first you crawl, then you walk, then you run. China is no longer in the crawling phase.
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I am mostly familiar with this in regards to cameras and optics but I get the impression tha
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Indeed. You start learning by copying. Also, quite a bit of Chinese stuff is pretty good these days, look for example to all kinds of steel-wares. They are still lacking in the very top quality range, but for most applications that level of quality is not needed.
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Again, quite droll.
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Very droll!
Re: Ever Freer Markets (Score:2)
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America was just a hotel to them.
And now it's getting to be more of a hellhotel, they are off. Good for them.
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Talking about shitholes and "street shitting", have you taken a walk in San Francisco lately?
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China only sent over its smartest and most ideologically trusted students to the USA. They returned with all the US gov, mil, academic methods and did not change politically after years of study in the USA.
The best US education on offer was just used to build China up. The US educated its competitors for free always thinking it would export democracy back into China.
The CIA did not even get to tem
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The funny ones are the ones that cheer on their own downfall. Like this one.