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U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

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271–280 of 459 posts

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#271
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left mainly because of housing prices, the difficulty of being a freelancer, the 49.5% income tax after €78k, the 36% unrealized capital gains tax and just everything in life like supermarkets or public transport being so much more expensive than other European countries. I took a big pay cut moving to Southern Europe, but post-tax I earn the same and everything is just so much cheaper. I honestly have a significan…

Did you get a local job, or are you taking advantage of geoarbitrage via a foreign remote job?

In the process of setting up a company to do consultancy services for Dutch companies, but eventually want to shift to local companies once I get to learn the language, culture and business.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#272
post #227
post #163

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

European researcher here. There is an other thing that should make America worry. Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields. That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...) My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is b…

Hi, I looked into joint collaborations between many countries and EU, but honestly I didn't really find anything EU-China that was interesting, most funding agencies do not fund collaborative projects EU-China, or maybe I'm missing something, in any cases it didn't strike me. If you have some examples I would be curious.

There are way more opportunities with other countries that I'm aware of, mostly EU-EU.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#273
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you move? I understand you're retired: that changes the situation somewhat. When I lived in Amsterdam, we were renting a flat. The gentleman we were renting from told us our rent easily covers all his expenses in South East Asia.

Spain. And I have to apologise, I call myself retired but in reality I'm just unemployed. It's more of a year long sabbatical, but I jokingly call it retirement since I moved to Spain and many Dutch people do so for retirement. I'm planning on setting up a company here. Spain isn't great for being employed or freelance (autonomo) but if you set up a limited liability company (SL) and work from there it is not that ba…

>>Tax on investments are averagely taxed compared to other countries.

That is only if you haven't accumulated wealth yet. The combination of quite high capital gain tax with sky high wealth tax, pretty high income tax isn't very attractive if your plan is to accumulate some wealth. If you just want to make enough every year to live there I guess it's reasonable though.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#274
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also flies in the face of China's currently accelerating pace of research and breakthroughs by producing insane numbers of STEM majors and PhDs

Yes. I think well meaning people in the west are looking for a silver lining and in the process overcomplicating a rather simple issue: the US government is cutting spending everywhere while its electorate demands even deeper cuts. The money has dried up and people are leaving. (One of my best friends was a nuclear medicine phd who left his cancer research lab after covid to work at a VoiP company, so i too have anec…

Sigh.

The US is in a weird spot. The electorate does not generally want education and research cut.

Republicans here have convinced their base that education and the educated are bad, which has fed their desire to cut academic funding and research at all levels.

That is to say, the federal government doesn't have a popular mandate to do any of this. They simply hold all levers of power through a slim majority of the voting populace.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#275
post #227
post #163

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

European researcher here. There is an other thing that should make America worry. Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields. That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...) My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is b…

I certainly believe you, but you're missing the point of the current administration goals. Trump wont be around in 10 years when the consequences of their actions become clear. In fact, he is gone in 3 years, and the admin is only concerned within that timeframe. Their strategy is quite clear: please their base while simultaneously positioning the family for influence on a global scale.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#276

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

>Academia is a badly broken system,

Why do you feel like you can state this like its fact?

Just to save you energy, state that you are conservative first before writing fan fiction fantasy like that, because it will save people a lot of time assuming that you are speaking some sort of facts.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#277
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also flies in the face of China's currently accelerating pace of research and breakthroughs by producing insane numbers of STEM majors and PhDs

Which breakthroughs, specifically? There are no Chinese institutions pumping out nobel prizes. Zero.

Idk man, i dont keep a list of China's breakthroughs handy. You can find the same results on google that I can.

And I wasn't aware that breakthroughs needed to be nobel laureate worthy at a minimum to still be considered breakthroughs.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain. And I have to apologise, I call myself retired but in reality I'm just unemployed. It's more of a year long sabbatical, but I jokingly call it retirement since I moved to Spain and many Dutch people do so for retirement. I'm planning on setting up a company here. Spain isn't great for being employed or freelance (autonomo) but if you set up a limited liability company (SL) and work from there it is not that ba…

>>Tax on investments are averagely taxed compared to other countries. That is only if you haven't accumulated wealth yet. The combination of quite high capital gain tax with sky high wealth tax, pretty high income tax isn't very attractive if your plan is to accumulate some wealth. If you just want to make enough every year to live there I guess it's reasonable though.

I future-proofed myself by moving to a region with a €3M exception. So that I have a long way to go before paying wealth tax.

CGT is progressive and around 20%, compared to other European countries that is fairly average. Some Eastern European countries are at 15%, Belgian is going to 10%, Switzerland differs per canton.

Also, no CGT for fresh immigrants if you are able to use the Beckham law.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#279
post #24

The scarier part is that a lot of people will see this as good news.

Why? If they instead move to EU, that's a win for EU.

EU unfortunately doesn't have the economic investment in education like US for a lot to justify the move.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#280
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European researcher here. There is an other thing that should make America worry. Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields. That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...) My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is b…

> So congratulations to the Trump team: your stupidity and your hate for intellectualism is directly fueling new technologies to the country you consider 'your enemy'. Do we have any evidence that they actually consider China (or Russia) to be "the enemy"? They are fellow authoritarians, with a shared goal of normalizing domestic political suppression.

It’s both.

Every authoritarian country thrives on “we’re surrounded by enemies, enemies everywhere” trope.

But, of course, all those glorious leaders happily shake hands and dine with each other, patting their backs and sharing ideas on how to keep peasants in check and themselves in power.

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