Let me flip it around for you.

Would the country benefit if skilled young people started fleeing it? People that you've invested decades of labour and education into?

Surely, this would be great news for the ones who remained. Why shouldn't we pursue policies that result in just that?

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If net emigration of that demographic wouldn't be a net benefit, why do you think the reverse is a net harm?

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Saline9515 4 hours ago | parent [-]

A democratic State is supposed to work in the interests of all of its citizens. Degrading the economic environment to lead young graduates to "flee" is clearly against this mandate.

The strategy that you mention is however used, with success by countries that are either dictatorships (e.g Algeria) or that have too many men, due to archaic sexist traditions of aborting females (e.g India). Maybe you'd prefer that the USA become more like those two examples?

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donkeybeer 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You failed to understand a warning vs an endorsement.

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amanaplanacanal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Some folks are basically against all immigration, not matter how you frame it.

Which seems weird to me as an American. All of our ancestors were immigrants, immigration is what made the US what it is. It feels like they want to turn the US into something completely unamerican.

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Saline9515 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The framing is weasely. Saying that black is bad does mean that white is good. If you need such argumentation to "prove" a point, maybe you are wrong from the start.

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Balinares 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Strong disagreement -- your point sounds more weasely to me, to be honest. The situation as described is zero-sum; a talented youth leaving place A in favor of place B leaves the same amount of talented youth in the overall picture. If their departure is detrimental to place A, then the value that goes missing in that place does not vanish, it ends up in place B.

So, the point stands. If talented youth left the USA in significant numbers, would that be detrimental or beneficial to the USA? And you can feel either way about the answer there; however, you then can't have it different for talented youth leaving their own current home to bring their talent to the USA. Not in good faith anyway.

	▲	Saline9515 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The problem here is that you allude to a vague definition of what is good - "the USA" is an abstract idea. Is it the people living in the USA? The citizens? The State? The companies? The US stock market? A benefit for companies can be a big problem for citizens - environment, or privacy come easily to mind. It is also context-dependent: is there a real unsatisfied need for skilled professionals in the sector that affects everyone in society (e.g in healthcare)? Otherwise the added workers will just push down the wages for the other workers - but companies and investors may benefit, true. However, should a State policy be decided for the interest of companies against the citizens? Why is there even a need to vote then? So yeah, oversimplifying a situation and then implying that if A is bad B should be true is sophistic, sorry. I could do the same, and ask if skilled immigration is good, why not remove quotas and let 3 million Indian ninja/x100 software engineers in per year. If not, how much is the right quota? How do you define it? And you're back at the start.