America’s Longtime Sources of Power Have Turned
Weak
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-14/us-has-grown-weak-on-immigration-technology-education-rule-of-law
Historian Niall Ferguson:
By being able to import the world’s talent, the US has an almost unique source of power. More than half of unicorns (privately held startups worth $1 billion or more) were founded or co-founded by immigrants. China simply cannot do this — would you want to move there? Neither would the next Elon Musk. Nor the next Patrick and John Collison (the Irish-born founders of Stripe). Nor the next Apoorva Mehta (the Indian-born founder of Instacart). I could go on.
However, a shift from legal to illegal immigration, as the US has seen in recent years — culminating in 2023 with an influx across the southern border that may have exceeded the natural increase of the native population — erodes this source of strength by reducing the quality of the “human capital” being imported.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-14/us-has-grown-weak-on-immigration-technology-education-rule-of-law
Historian Niall Ferguson:
By being able to import the world’s talent, the US has an almost unique source of power. More than half of unicorns (privately held startups worth $1 billion or more) were founded or co-founded by immigrants. China simply cannot do this — would you want to move there? Neither would the next Elon Musk. Nor the next Patrick and John Collison (the Irish-born founders of Stripe). Nor the next Apoorva Mehta (the Indian-born founder of Instacart). I could go on.
However, a shift from legal to illegal immigration, as the US has seen in recent years — culminating in 2023 with an influx across the southern border that may have exceeded the natural increase of the native population — erodes this source of strength by reducing the quality of the “human capital” being imported.