That's his point, but it's an irrelevant one to my argument.

The gains we get from paying for research are hypothetical. Research is an investment. Nobody expects it to turn an immediate profit, or even generate a revenue of any significance -- which is great, because it usually doesn't, and most academic research isn't commercially viable anyway.

When we pay for foreign students to earn advanced degrees, only to kick them out of the country once they've graduated, we're cutting off our nose to spite our face. Why are people having such a difficult time understanding this?