<p>@b@r!um: I don’t really see how our culture of strong work ethic, at least if it is measured by number of hours actually present at work, in any way speaks poorly of us or our education system. Who cares if the Germans have more free time? Obviously Americans don’t. I think Americans should be proud that we are willing to put in so many hours at work, producing more for the general welfare.</p>
<p>Also, to preempt where I think you’re going, your textbook should also mention the law of diminishing returns. The Germans and French will have relatively high output per hour since they are working fewer hours, and will only have time for the most important and profitable tasks. Americans, on the other hand, will have time to do the less profitable (but perhaps still important) tasks, and will therefore reflect a lower output per hour.</p>
<p>GDP per capita, the measure of productivity we are using, is derived from GDP. Your economics textbook should give the formula GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Expenditures + Net Exports. Our trade deficit is actually a drain on our GDP (and thereby our calculated productivity), although it improves our standard of living. And the importation of cheap goods is hardly the “exploitation” of poorer countries. What are we supposed to do? Demand they start doing our banking and advertising services for us, even though they do not have sufficiently skilled labor to provide those services? In buying their industrial output, we’re promoting their development from agrarian to industrial societies and helping them to progress. I don’t know what your solution is.</p>
<p>@EricLG/Brooklyndad:
If you look at the link I provided, it’s gross. Since the goal of education from a taxpayer’s perspective (if we ignore its civic functions, which have yet to be raised in this thread) is to improve the overall productivity of a society, the overall production of the society is a fair measure of the education system’s effectiveness.</p>
<p>@gypsyblue:
Looking at Vancouver’s visible minorities, we see that they are overwhelmingly Asian. Remember, I attributed our deficit to Hispanic migrants. 61% of American Asians have a bachelor’s degree or better, well above our national average. If the American trend holds true for our Canadian neighbor, it’s relatively large Asian contingent is an asset. Moreover, Canada has the luxury of a relatively secure border, and is able to prune its immigrants carefully. It will of course select for the most educated immigrants. For example, 56% of migrants to Canada hold college degrees. The United States, with its unsecured border, lacks that luxury. So immigration in Canada is a net positive for education (which many Canadians are unhappy with, because it depresses the wages for highly skilled labor) while immigration in the United States lowers our overall education levels but uses its immigrant labor to fill in lower cost jobs and thereby improve the standard of living for the natives.</p>
<p>EDIT: Wow, this is an extraordinarily long post.</p>