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"With an emphasis on training scientists and engineers, China’s ability to innovate is expected to continue swelling rapidly. The U.S. lacks the education needed to produce world-class engineers and scientists, and post-9/11 immigration barriers have kept out international scholars who would fill the void."

The U.S. lacks neither the native talent nor the means of producing "world-class engineers and scientists." What it does lack is any commitment on the part of what I'll call the "government-academic-industrial complex" to invest in the United States or its citizens. Research and innovation follow flourishing industry and manufacturing. You cannot maintain and develop a base of engineering and technological talent if you are hell-bent on off-shoring all your productive industries.

Young people don't train for jobs in industries that don't exist, or exist in only the most vestigial form while management figures out how to get that over to China, too (with, as your GM example attests, taxpayer aid). No sane person, who wants a livelihood that will allow him to live decently and raise a family, invests large amounts of money and time obtaining training for a career in which jobs, if not off-shored outright, are likely to be "insourced" to foreign nationals - courtesy of visas procured by the armies of lobbyists "American" corporations unleash on a gullible and venal Congress.

Even our publicly-funded universities, founded to educate citizens to contribute to the progress and prosperity of the nation, are in alliance with corporations. Rather, they are investing in China, and the education of the Chinese students in China, while their own states languish economically. ( See, e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QOTZy_VQM )

No nation that has foolishly decided to reduce itself to a "service economy" + financial sector is going to be a fount of innovation, or maintain any kind of technological edge. There is absolutely no mystery as to why the U.S. is declining as a technological power, and no, it's not because, as some would have you think, that are children are all lazy morons and all our schools abominable. U.S. schools vary greatly in quality, and the poor performers drag down the national average in international assessments. Dis-aggregate the state and group data and you will see we have plenty of kids right up there with the best of 'em - more than enough young people, bright enough, and well-prepared enough. Too bad their elders have decided that short-term profit-seeking is more important than long-term national interest. No amount of nattering and babbling about "improving science and engineering education," or importation of foreign scholars, is going to change that.

Source Plummeting off Another Pedastal, China Fills the Void Again:

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