You brought up costs and benefits. I was pointing out some costs and some benefits tend to be ignored. Sorry if that doesn't fit with your exact agenda but I consider these at least as important as what you bring up...the importance of which I have already acknowledged.

As to education, that is one area I find interesting regarding science and math. I also sometimes toss around the failure of America to train scientists, mathematicians and engineers adequately.

But then I see what my step daughter studies and what I see high school students do visiting labs I have worked in. They learn more and in more depth about science than I ever did at their age. Are NYC schools that much better? I know a great deal of problems with the NYC school system and I spend a lot of time criticizing it. But maybe I'm wrong if you don't see the same quality in the education in your area. I also saw very excellent university education and grad school education in the public univerity system in California. It seemed comparable with what I saw at the second best university in Japan. Alternatively, you and I when we criticize our nation's educational system compared with other nations may be wrong.

We clearly lag when it comes to languages. But what about science and math? Why do so many scientists from all over the world come to our insititutions to study and work?

And, of course, we have indeed lost a great deal of our blue collar jobs to overseas. But there are a lot of well trained blue collar workers who are unemployed who could be retrained for new manufacturing jobs.

To me, the more we focus on why NOT to do something, the less likely we will succeed. I like focusing on HOW to do it.

But again, all I did initially was point out that there are costs and benefits that are not well factored into the equation.