I am not talking about the Romain Empire, I am talking about the American Empire. There is a saying in Sanskrit - 'VinashKaley Vipareet Budhdhi'. It is such a precise statement if you know Sanskrit. It somewhat means that at the time of great calamity, brain stops working. We are at a juncture in history when we can make or break the American Empire. All signs point towards it demise. Lowest levels of personal savings since the Great Depression. Highest level of bankruptcy ever. Highest rate of foreclosure ever.

But all this is reversible. Once Americans cut back on their erratic expenses, we would be good. There is something else which is eroding this country and no one talks about it. What has made America the Super Power at the first place? Its immense human capital. But wait, its not all about the American brain. Its about all the brains from all over the world who grow up living the American Dream and find their home in this land of opportunities. This is called Brain Drain all over the world. But now we are seeing reverse brain drain. People from different parts of the world are leaving for their homes or finding other places. This is resulting in not just American loosing its advantage but other nations catching up faster. No one is talking about that. And on top of it, we are going to add 30 Mil illegals into the system. That is 10% of the workforce. So we are loosing the smartest at an alarming rate and adding the least competent in today's information world at a catastrophic rate.

As we saw the Wall St choking because of bad sentiments in the week, we are seeing choking in the flow of best brains to America. Americans have one of the lowest per capita debt in developed world. But that is changing at an alarming rate. We are adding personal debt and govt debt at a pace never seen before. We are not moving towards doomsday but rather zooming towards it.

The current generation is born with a sense of entitlement. They seem to be out of touch with the realities of the economy. There is no way we would see jobs returning to US. They did not leave because Americans did not want to do it. The jobs went offshore since it made more business sense. Financially and in terms of skills as well. So if we want to bring jobs back, we need to make American salaries lower than Asian and Americans more skilled than Asians. With the level of current Mathematical skills, the second option is not possible. So the only way to bring jobs back is to reduce the salary. So it means yes, we can bring the jobs back but the salaries need to be cut by more than 50% to make it competent for businesses to bring it back. So job loss is permanent. Reverse Brain Drain is going on at a rate faster than Brain Drain has ever been. So loss of skilled people is permanent. Means we are letting skilled people go away, adding more unskilled to the country( illegal immigrants) and we are incompetent. What does all this indicate? That we are heading towards disaster. And what are politicians bothered about? Climate Change.

You know why I wrote this? Because I am soon going to be a part of the reverse brain drain.

- Tarun

2 comments:

Aathira Nair said...

I was just thinking, would everyone be just moving back and heading home as soon as disaster strikes?

Or will it be a common notion that this would be a good time to move towards those degrees which everyone has been putting off for later. Be it that MBA or MS, or maybe even a PhD.

In my view, makes sense this way, as its already seen that studies usually tend to take a spike in the graph when the economy is going through a rough/(grinding) patch.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for visiting Aathira.
I think it would be a personal preference to make a decision either to stay put or head home. The position at work is also a criteria. If you are aware there would be serious job cuts in your organization, then I think this option might be a consideration for some.

As for education, I still believe it varies on each individuals financial, need, and location spectrum. Here in the US, education is so expensive that during economic turmoil and job redundancy, many might opt out. Personally, I would wait and not further my studies at this time of difficult economic turmoil. Personally. This time is when every one of us re-prioritize I guess.

xoxo