Nevertheless, it's proof of the principle that an excess of talent doesn't help the economy.
I agree with that general statement. But even in a utopian laissez-faire economy, you'll have a mismatch between the number of people who want to do a job, who are trained for the job, and demand for the job. Human skills are not that fluid.
More importantly, those individuals are all going into those programs of their own free will, not because the government publicly announced they would pay every successful PhD graduate a $200,000 cash bonus. (In fact, much of the "investment" is loans that have to get paid back, or research projects that are actually needed.)
And considering it can easily take 5 years to get a PhD in the sciences, and we're dealing with decade-long trends, the basic concept of assigning causality to any specific administration makes no sense.
The argument is that putting more money into education will improve the economy. This doesn't appear to be the case.
The PhD example does not prove this conclusion, because "education" means much more than PhD's.
We also don't have a centrally controlled economy where the government is deciding in advance to produce 60,000 PhD's per year.
No, unemployment for college graduates is at 9.4% and 19% of them can only get work part time.
That is RECENT college graduates only. The rate for ALL college graduates is closer to 4%.
The challenges for recent grads is a temporary condition that's a result of the recession, and it's not the first time in recent history that this has happened.
It's not a failure of the educational system, it's malinvestment by the government.
It's a very small investment, especially compared to spending with bad multiplier effects like military.
I would hope that you would realize the fallacy of defending the regulatory system in the US by comparing it to Europe.
There's no "fallacy" at all.
Europe is a major competitor to the US, and nations like Germany are highly successful despite being more heavily regulated than the US. Or: China has fewer regulations in some respect, but is very unfriendly to businesses in other ways -- rampant corruption, a capricious government which does not tolerate dissent, dislike of foreign businesses, disrespect for intellectual property, a weak legal system with offers litte recourse (especially to non-Chinese entities), a poorly educated workforce and consumer base, terrible infrastructure....
Nor was the US all that great in the days of Less Regulation. Unless you like child labor, unclean food, banks operating with no controls, speculators cornering markets, rampant pollution, snake-oil "medicines," cars without safety standards or safety belts, and so forth.
The US has one of the most business-friendly economic systems in the world. The failure to understand that is a result of taking the system for granted.
No, Obama has added at least 21 new or higher taxes.
Most of those taxes haven't even kicked in yet. Saying that a tax which doesn't even start in 2014 affected the economy in 2009 is just funny.
And of the taxes that have already kicked in, most were fairly small and targeted -- again, tanning salons, tobacco, medical equipment.
As to the costs for Obamacare, anyone who actually has been involved in running a small business knows that health care costs were going through the roof long before Obama was elected to office. We may have a 1- or 2-year bump in some costs for a slice of small businesses, but if it does get costs under control (something that "do nothing" certainly would not), it'll level things out.
Companies hoarding cash, increasing productivity without hiring, and taking their profits overseas as a way to avoid corporate taxes are signs of a sick, sick economy and a regulatory system that is dysfunctional.
No, it's just a
recession. It's more severe than most, but this is all very standard behavior.
Because of the recent shock and shake-up in the economy, everyone is terrified they will lose their shirts (again) if they invest their cash. Individuals cut back spending and pay down their debts; companies don't hire, don't invest in capital, don't build up big inventories. This is rational for these individuals, but bad for the economy as a whole. This is why the government needs to borrow from the hoarders (banks and corporations), spend during the recession (and really, ONLY during the recession) on things with multiplier effects and overall economic value, like infrastructure spending.
The US is still a unified market, with reasonably well-delineated rules, a functional court system, a lot less corruption and bribery than most of the planet, a well-developed and reasonably well-educated workforce and consumer base, solid resources, a good transportation network, a reasonably good IT infrastructure, and a lot more latitude for entrepreneurs than most of the world.
Think of the innovations and garage-to-multinational successes of the past ~30 years. The Internet, digital distribution of content, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Dell, Google, Facebook, Amazon -- this is your idea of regulatory madness? Established corporations are terrified that some kid in his dorm room will make something with a $2500 3D printer that disrupts a multi-million dollar industry; is that typical of an economy that's cripplingly ossified by regulation?
Or do you genuinely believe that the economy is so fragile that charging an extra $0.61 for a pack of smokes is going to destroy every small business in the US?
And should I also assume you're OK with foreign ownership of US companies? Why should we regulate who runs our power plants, prepares our food or makes our cars?
By the way, small businesses have been hiring few people per business... since around 2000. I don't think that's a result of regulation, it's because of the increase in productivity.
Sorry, but if Obama really wants to see higher employment then he's going about it in a strange fashion. For everything he does that is supposedly to boost the economy he does three things that hold it back.
So your proof of this is one poll in one year, run by Public Opinion Strategies -- a Republican polling firm? Nice.