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Comment by slt2021 | Hacker News Reader

slt2021

Romania is wasting taxpayer money to groom bright students and then let them leave Romania for some higher GDP country

I would downvote you, but I won't, and instead I will leave a reply.

I was one of those students who left. Romania did not waste any more taxpayer money on me than on other students, and that money that it spent was really meager by any Western standards.

My kids now go to public school in NYC. The city spends north of $30k for each of them [1]. Yet, if they decide to leave the US nobody will complain that they were groomed with precious taxpayer money, and they betrayed the trust placed in them. It is understood that every person has the right pursue their own happiness the best way they can.

[1] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/funding/funding-our-sch...

În general, SUA nu are o problemă de "brain drain"

If they did, I'm sure you'd hear this complaint a lot more.

I'm assuming you went to a good school in Romania, with good teachers. Well the teacher's salary might be the same as any other school, but the quality of your teachers came at the expense of the quality of teaching in other schools.

You are a product of a neo-colonialist system.

In the age of knowledge work, brain drain from poor countries to rich countries is no different than stealing oil or gold resources.

Yes it works well for you, but that's because system is setup in that way.

Global capitalists are sharing a little bit of value with you so you remain content, while raping your country of all future potential by brain draining the nation.

In case the country decides to develop itself, instead of being a colony: they quickly reverse the election results and appoint their colonial administrator as president.

If you don't see the neocolonialism here, how capitalist is raping the future of your nation, I don't know how else to explain it to you

So what you suggest instead is that smart people from poor countries should stay where they are, even if it means they won't get the opportunity to fully use their talent (because that would be expensive, and the country does not have the money for that)? Like, maybe someone could go to USA and find a cure for cancer, but it's better if they stay in Romania and become e.g. a teacher instead?

During communism, many countries were literally surrounded by barbed wire to prevent their smartest people from escaping. But that didn't make those countries prosper. Yes, the smart people remained there, but they were not allowed to use their skills fully, so it didn't make a difference.

> If you don't see the neocolonialism here, how capitalist is raping the future of your nation, I don't know how else to explain it to you

You think communists raping you with a barbed wire is better? Maybe for the communists, but not for the people.

I think what China and India are doing is The right approach.

Gainthe knowledge, experience from capitalists, accumulate initial capital, then go back and build your own country once you have a name and expertise, connections, little bit of capital.

It doesn’t make sense for a Romanian to continue working for a capitalist and paying taxes that fund the genocide and oppression overseas. You are only making Zuckerbergs of this world a little bit more rich, instead of uplifting Romanian youth who are craving for someone like you to come and share expertise, knowledge, skills, jobs, etc.

Just bounce and lift up your own nation and be a hero for your own people, because for a global capitalist you are nobody - just another cost center and a line item in Excel spreadsheet, a potential for future cost cutting and offshoring.

A capitalist will forget about your existence after another round of layoff, but your own people will praise you forever

I think people who benefitted from elite-tier education in Romania, should feel some sense of civic duty to give something back to the country and to the education system, that sacrificed tens lf thousands of school students, and instead focused on providing You an elite olympic tier knowledge

By the way, China is for all practical purposes a capitalist country.

> go back and build your own country once you have a name and expertise

I agree that this would be a great outcome. But whether your country allows it or not, that depends on the country, not you.

Re China, I believe there is misunderstanding. China has free market economy, but China does not have big oligarchs running the country, the opposite of US.

In China, political and economic leadership are separate. Country is ran by the party, while economy is ran by small-med-large companies fiercely competing among themselves. Any oligarch trying to get political influence is quickly shut down (jack ma).

USA on the other hand are fully ran by the oligarchs, every single politician is beholden to special interest groups representing the big corporate capital, and nobody cares about the common man. Anyone trying to break into power representing the common man, at the expense of the big oligarchic capital, is quickly shut down (bernie)

The usual calculus here is that they don't capture ALL the upside of that training, but they capture plenty of it.

That's a problem with the opportunity in the country rather with the schools. Being able to produce exceptional students is an advantage, now figure out how to make them stay.

Romania was structurally handicapped after joining EU: they were forced to de-industrialize and lost their competitive manufacturing sectors, because Romania was not allowed to compete with other EU members.

I've seen this claim a lot, about various countries, but couldn't find any more detail on what the mechanisms of forced deindustrialisation might have been.

It's pretty typical for post-communist countries to lose their industries after being exposed to international competition, and probably even more so if you enter an open market like EU, but I wouldn't call it forced

UPD: ah, OK, they were indeed forced to privatise their industry, and it probably wasn't very competitive

you can judge policy by its outcomes, the countries that underwent neoliberal "privatisation" were deindustrialized, while countries that did not embrace neoliberal policies - managed to preserve their marquee industries and manufacturing, over time adapting and modernizing manufacturing to modern standards.

USA wastes 1076x more money and us that have to live here could only hope most US-educated kids would please go elsewhere :)

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