I am really concerned about my grand children's future.

[olegramps]

We may very well see the day when kids start leaving our nation just as kids have deserted the small towns and family farms for better opportunities. Why not go to a more progressive nation that provides health care, better educations and working conditions that now exist here. Kids are encouraged to go to college and come out with 30, 40 and 50 thousand dollar loans and no job prospects.

I can't help from thinking how the working class deserted the unions when the swallowed the management's line that they would be well taken care of. Yeah, the suckers were taken for a ride all right. Without union protection their jobs were out-sourced, their pensions cut and health insurance canceled. If the workers were united they could have done much to stop the out-sourcing, exorbitant management compensation and tax credits for selling their jobs to desperate people.

Many of these dumb asses who don't even have a descent job are actually protesting against reforming health care. Even the more stupid assholes on medicare are saying they are opposed to government run medical insurance.

Some times it is really embarrassing to be an American when you see these ignorant assholes protesting to keep their lousy insurance with high co-pays, life time caps and restricted care while paying the top management million of dollars a year in compensation to screw them.

[imdjh]

1. Europe prays for the return of the Saxons from America.

But not as refugees seeking better jobs, as low level workers seeking the basics. They want their biologically and culturally related peasants back. And they only want us back if we accept that we failed.

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

2. Emigration from US already happening, in droves-- to Taiwan, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Chile

I'd say a good 10-20% of my schoolmates have emigrated. This is partly Asian-Americans who still have close family ties to places like Taiwan or China (and where the opportunities are fantastic), but to my surprise, it's mostly USAmericans going to places like Argentina or Chile, or to Europe. (USAans emigrating to Argentina-- that just shows you how bad it's gotten.) Lots going to Europe too, though nobody to the UK which is as bad as we are in the kleptocratic capitalism department. Mostly going to France (decent high-tech), Germany is very popular with the business and tech set, Scandinavia, Dutch, Belgians, even Italy and Greece.

You have to re-orient everything you do, learn a new language and conduct your business in it but truthfully, that's a tiny hassle for what you gain. I suspect we'll be seeing more and more young people doing this, leaving the US in the next 10 years because it's terrible for the new generation-- health care ridiculously expensive (with Aetna-type CEOs running a racket that steals from them), no jobs, a generally uncompassionate country with awful quality of life. Plus education is WAAAY too expensive here-- how in the world can a young family raise a kid in the States anymore? Private schools and universities can put you into the poorhouse, whereas if you're good enough, in Europe, tuition fees are minimal.

[girl gone mad]

6. Many of my friends have moved overseas..

but it is very hard to actually get citizenship in most places and you will still have to pay American taxes. I would love to be able to live in France, but the logistics aren't good right now.

[Louisiana1976]

3. And at this time, many from Mexico and other points to the south want to immigrate...

to the US for better jobs and other opportunities. If you're right and US kids start leaving for more progressive countries, the US won't empty out--it will re-populate with Latino immigrants.

[T Wolf]

5. Andthat will drive the racist pukes even madder. If the scenery wasn't so nice here,

I would encourage my daughters to leave for better places.

But, give the pukes another decade or so and this country will be complete trash, scenery and all.

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

10. Outstanding, Rethug heads explode a decade sooner as the US becomes majority minority

and the biggest irony, mostly because of GOP policies that push out young Americans-- health care and education being just too ridiculously costly for educated Americans to bring up kids here. I've had several friends move to Sweden, Germany, Italy and like countries, plus many to Taiwan or China. If their kids do well enough, they can go to the best schools without going broke, plus they won't effectively be subsidizing thieving CEO's.

As for the Latinos taking over, I say-- good. They are the indigenous, original people in this hemisphere after all, and before the US-Mexico War, that region was fundamentally part of Mexico (and Fla was part of the same grouping). After the war, many Anglos passed racist laws depriving Latinos of the right to their property and language, even physically evicting them-- a clear crime against humanity. With Latinos of the current generation returning to a region they've long been a part of, I say, more power to them. They've been here for millennia, eons even. Whenever I trek to Arizona for my jobs, I work with the Latinos and by and large they're friendly and hard-working people, but they know that they belong where they are. Many of them are full-blooded Zapotecs, Mixtecs or other-- no way they're "illegal" around here. So if they become the majority in the SW and Fla, in particular, I say, more power to them.

[windoe]

4. Great, more brain drain-that's all we need. nt

[imdjh]

7. Not much to worry about.

First off, it's not happening in any great numbers. Secondly, if the destinations are so fabulous then the immigrants coming to the US, many of whom are bilingual or trilingual (in addition to being willing to work for less) would skip right over the US to move to Utopia would they not?

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

8. It's actually happening in decent numbers

I'll try to track down the link, but a systematic study showed that close to half a million Americans (often young, educated) are leaving the country for "extended periods."

I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. On the one hand, we really are suffering a brain drain, and I don't like to see that. OTOH, maybe this is one of the few signs that our system is royally f***ed up and needs urgent change. If you were young and intelligent, why would you essentially agree to have your hard-earned income taxed by unproductive racketeers in the health insurance companies? Not to mention go broke putting your kids through college? So I can see the logic in people moving out of the United States.

As for people moving in here-- well, the entire Southwest of the country used to be Mexico, culturally Latin American/Latino/Aztec/Toltec/Mixtec. Those people have always had a connection here, so of course they're moving in and have every right to do it.

[imdjh]

11. Ahhh, you were doing fine but then went over the edge.

A half a million young Americans taking some time over seas is hardly a major migration. Twelve to thirty million illegal immigrants in the US is a social, political, environmental, and economic disaster... not to mention a really big hostile act on the part of Mexico. If immigration is not controlled, then this country will have a level of population and population growth that will ruin it as we know it.

SO if a bunch of little citizens of the world can get permission to go to other countries to work, that's fine and dandy. But it's really not the same as millions of illegal immigrants gate crashing the US.

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

14. They're not just "taking some time overseas"

I'm not trying to imply an equivalence between the US border situation and US expats, I agree there's a difference, but you're underestimating the push factors spurring this level of emigration-- these are people formally classified as expatriates from the USA, i.e. living and working in a foreign country for five years or more. Hundreds of thousands leaving every year. Some do eventually return to the States, but an enormous number set down roots and don't return. Again, the reasons are fairly evident. By and large, they don't hate the country of their birth, but they have to work and raise a family, and if you're being robbed blind by Aetna and their cohorts, or sinking in tuition loans (not to mention your kids doing the same), it's not difficult to see why so many Americans see expatriation, and then emigration, as a smart option.

Even from personal experience, I have definitely seen this in action. Whenever we travel to jobs in Scandinavia or the Netherlands, it often feels like a trip through portions of Middle America, since we run into Americans everywhere we go-- and they very clearly indicate that they have no intention of ever returning to the States. (It's a big asset for us in any case, these networks of Americans overseas greatly smooth the process for building local networks.) Again, these aren't radical-fringers of any sort-- by and large, they're well-trained engineers, or people with a background in the sciences, business, computers or various trades, and they still feel very American even though they're speaking Swedish, Dutch or whatever. But they've concluded that economically speaking, the United States has become a lousy place to stay, and I don't blame them. I may not have made the same move, but I can definitely follow and agree with their reasoning. Their taxes may be a bit higher (though not nearly as much as many Americans think, given the multi-level taxing in the States), but rather than those taxes being used to fight idiot wars in Iraq and handing out billions in bonuses to corrupt usurers, they're used to help provide better health care and education, and make better cities to dwell in. And because they save so much on health care and education costs-- plus, drawing a salary in the Euro, worth much more than the dollar-- they're effectively doing much, much better than their counterparts in the States, economically and otherwise.

[HughBeaumont]

9. What's even more hilarious . . .

.. . . is that these very same protestors by and large CAUSED this shitpile by voting Reagan, Bewsh I and Bewsh II. 20 years worth of supremely damaging economic policy (not like free-trader Clinton was any better, but at least jobs were created on his watch), with wars and bailouts and other such waste amounting to over 70% of the National Debt. Three Republican presidents caused this debacle . . . and every stinking ONE of these duffers said YES to the Stenchonomic bullshit we're all suffering through today. How far could we have come had these men not hijacked the highest office of the land and willfully aided and abetted the Corptocracy's legalized loot-o-rama of OUR tax dollars?

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

15. Right on! The wingnuts have hoisted themselves on their own petards

Such an irony that their own kleptocratic, crony-helping policies are the very factors driving productive enterprises and people overseas.

[shimmergal]

12. The other aspects--job drain, education costs--

may be a different kettle of fish, but I'd like to see some state explore whether they could "buy into" some other country's single payer system. If it worked, it could spark a true "grass roots" wildfire.

It's lousy to come out of college owing so much in student loans, especially when they can't even be discharged by bankrupcy (maybe this needs to be challenged too!) However, that's not the only option. Community colleges are still by-and-large affordable, even with some upgrading to 4-year programs. And while in the past the school's ranking did make a difference in a person's future, it hardly matters anymore. If you can't manage an Ivy or one of a few other prestige univs., it's not going to make much difference where your degree is from.

[depakid]

13. "We may very well see the day when kids start leaving our nation"

Probably a wise decision....

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

16. Who is encouraging kids to get 50 k loans for college?

[Pangolin2]

17. We're already way past the typical lifetime of a powerful nation.

Anyone who thinks it will endure forever is just whistling Dixie past the graveyard in the dark.
:shrug:

[Muddy Waters Guitars]

18. Although China just keeps coming back again and again, doubt we'll do the same

That's the thing, there are some former powers who are sensible enough to step back, take a smart historical perspective, evaluate their blunders, reform and come back stronger. China's been a great power for more than a millennium. Some European powers (like France) have been powers for centuries-- they just keep resurging, because they curb their arrogance and continually reevaluate themselves. That's why they're able to come back strong again and again, if not to become great powers again, then at least to become respected and prosperous regional nations.

It just seems like the US right now at least-- it's caught in this arrogant, narrow-minded state of self-absorption with the most corrupt of corporations and the self-flagellating wingnuts preventing the self-examination that can improve the nation. Also preventing the crucial reforms from happening. So when our current unilateral power status falls apart (already has), I just don't see the US returning to power again-- we just have too many screw-ups mucking up the system. And too many Democrats who are too afraid to fight the good fight.