More Newt

It turns out that the new ideas maven also does tired clichés:

Winning the challenge of China and India will require profound domestic transformations, especially in math and science education, for America to continue to be the most successful economy in the world and the best source of high paying jobs and enough economic growth to sustain the Baby Boomers and their children when they retire.

I'm consistently baffled by the invocation of China and India in this context; I'd love for somebody to write up a model for me in which the optimal level of US investment in math and science education is increased by an increase in the number of Asian scientists and engineers. If anything, it should be the reverse, right? If engineers are scarce, then a country with a lot of engineers will be a country with a lot of relatively well-compensated people. But if the supply of foreign engineers is going to increase at an astounding rate in the near future, then engineering won't be as relatively lucrative as it is today so it makes sense to cut back on our investment in educating engineers.