Danish Law Would Discourage Future Nobel Prize Winners From Seeking Work

After the American Century

The Danish government has proposed rules for admission to the country that would discriminate against the vast majority of the world's PhDs. Notably, the new rules would favor only two of those who received the Nobel Prize in 2010. The restrictive regulations that the right-wing government has proposed would give bonus points to anyone with a degree from one of the world’s top twenty universities, as determined by the London Times annual poll. Restricting the list to just the top 20 schools is a serious mistake. It should include at least the first 200 schools, especially since none of the Danish universities are anywhere near the top twenty. The rather nasty implication is that foreigners  (or the Danes themselves!) with Danish PhDs are not really good enough.

In the London Times, DTU is ranked 122, Aarhus 167, and Copenhagen 177. As a group the Danish universities have fallen in the rankings considerably in recent years.

The danger of excluding Nobel Prize winners is by no means a hypothetical exercise. A few years ago, one of this year's winners, Konstatin Novselov was offered a position at the University Copenhagen, but his admission to the country became so snarled in red tape that he went to get his Ph.D. in Holland, at the University of Nijmegen. Just how many top quality doctoral students and faculty are lost in this way? Some never apply in the first place, because Denmark has become known as a nation whose government creates problems for non-citizens.

The list below includes the universities that the 2010 Nobel Prize winners either attended or now teach in.  I have put in parenthesis each school’s position in the London Times world ranking. Note that seven of the universities associated with this year’s winners are not even in the top 200 universities, much less the top 20.

Carnegie Mellon University (20)

Edinburgh University (40)

Essex University (not in the first 200)

Hokkaido University (not in the first 200)

Jilin University (China) (not in the first 200)

London School of Economics (86)

Madrid University (not in the first 200)

Manchester University (87)

MIT (3)

Nijmegen University (not in the first 200)

Northwestern University (25)

Peking Normal University (not in the first 200)

Purdue University (106)

Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka  (not in the first 200)

University of Delaware (159)

University of Tokyo (26)

University of Wales (not in the first 200)

The world’s top 20 Universities according to the London Times

1            Harvard University        USA

2            California Institute of Technology           USA

3            Massachusetts Institute of Technology    USA

4            Stanford University            USA

5            Princeton University            USA

6            University of Cambridge       United Kingdom           

6            University of Oxford             United Kingdom           

8            University of California Berkeley   USA           

9            Imperial College London  United Kingdom           

10          Yale University   USA           

11          University of California Los Angeles    USA

12          University of Chicago       USA           

13          Johns Hopkins University    USA

14          Cornell University            USA

15          Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Switzerland           

15          University of Michigan            USA           

17          University of Toronto            Canada           

18          Columbia University            USA           

19          University of Pennsylvania            USA

20          Carnegie Mellon University, USA

See also World University Rankings, 2011- 2012, elsewhere on this blog (October, 2011)

Perils of a Point System for Immigrants to Denmark

After the American Century

Danish politicians, particularly those on the right side of the political spectrum, are toying with the idea of introducing a point system for immigration. The idea is to admit applicants for residence in Denmark based on points that reward such things as advanced education, mastery of Danish before arrival, a strong knowledge of English, and specific skills.  The uneducated, and especially the illiterate, would be pretty much excluded under this system, unless they were excellent football players. The idea clearly is to attract those who can enrich the country and keep out those who would be a drain on its resources.

A related idea being discussed is to make new residents wait for several years before they are eligible for unemployment and some social services. People would earn points toward full membership in the welfare state after  two or even three years. This is a seriously flawed idea. Why should someone who is highly educated and skilled want to come to a country that will treat them as a second-class citizen for years? Danish society will not have paid for their education or training, yet it will immediately benefit from their contribution and from their taxes. It is hard to see any good reason for such a rule, or any way that such a rule can help attract the talented.

Furthermore, the logic of such rules could spread to the Danes themselves. Why should a new university graduate qualify for unemployment before he or she has worked for three years, just like the skilled immigrant? The only difference between them is that the native Dane has already cost society quite a large sum, so, logically, the native Dane should contribute for much longer than just two or three years before eligible for any benefits. I am not advocating this idea, merely pointing out that if the political calculus becomes that of only giving benefits to those who have earned them, then many unlucky Danes would perhaps never qualify for benefits from their own welfare state.

There is one other scenario to consider as well. Suppose a highly trained person, say a physicist or surgeon, comes to Denmark and after two years still is earning points toward full eligibility. Before he or she can "cash in," however, a new job offer comes from a country without such silly rules. The physicist and the surgeon leave, and Denmark loses their services. Worse yet, they decide to sue Denmark for recovery of the value of the "points" they accumulated. Since the government has created such a system, these "points" will have a clear monetary value. Would not the European Court likely rule that at least some of the taxes immigrants paid for welfare services they could never enjoy ought to be refunded? 

This is just an example. Many other lawsuits could be imagined, as lawyers calculate the value of unused "points" lost. The lawyers and the accountants would make money. The government would have to hire more people to deal with the complaints and the lawsuits. And, of course, Denmark's reputation would be damaged by the controversy, regardless of who won the individual cases. A brilliant idea, obviously.

CRACPOT: Republican Party Needs a New Name

After the American Century

It is usually best to call things by their right names. There once was a political party in the United States called the Republican Party, which proudly nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. That party would never have considered nominating a bird-brain like Sarah Palin. It was called, affectionately, The Grand Old Party. It made mistakes, of course, but it was the essentially the party of the North, of development, of education, and of fairness, notably in the politics of Teddy Roosevelt. TR was far from perfect, but he did attack corporate monopolies, he often took the side of labor, and he believed passionately in conservation.

The so-called Republican Party of today is not at all the party of Lincoln or of Teddy Roosevelt. It is an angry party, a party of negative campaigning, a party that courts religious fundamentalism, a party that nominates candidates with extremist views. I strongly doubt that Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt would have voted for their candidates in the 2010 election. They were too modern in their thinking. 

The truth is that the Republican Party has become the Christian Capitalist Conservative Party, or CCCP . However, that abbreviation refers to the Communist Party in Russia. So we cannot use it. This new party has its power base is in the old confederacy. Get out a map showing where the slaves were most numerous, and it coincides perfectly with the states that are most staunchly Republican. I am not saying they are racists or that they are Bible beating yahoos, but they are strong in the areas where such people are to be found.

Indeed, if one looks at a map of the election results for the nation as a whole, broken down by county, it is immediately obvious that the Republicans are strongest in the countryside. The Democrats win Chicago, New York City, LA, Philadelphia, and so on, but they lose all those rural counties where people confuse socialism with any form of public services. 

So let me propose a new name for the Republicans, one that expresses their true nature:

Christian Rural American Conservative Party of Tea:   

CRACPOT

The name CRACPOT is accurate and descriptive. It is much needed in order to clarify who we are dealing with.

I therefore propose that CRACPOT be used from now on.

Women, Minorities, and Low Income Groups Voted Democratic

After the American Century

The Democrats lost badly in the House, but hung on to the Senate, as predicted here yesterday. (Indeed, while results are still coming in, it appears that I was nearly 100% correct.) Is there any silver lining for the Democrats? Yes. Women favor the Democrats by a sizeable margin, often as much as 15% more than men. Had only women been voting, the Democrats would have won the Senate seats in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

Likewise, African Americans voted Democratic by overwhelming margins, with typically 20% or less for Republican candidates. Asian Americans also tended strongly to suport Democrats, as did Hispanic Americans, who typically voter 2-1 against the Republicans. These three minorities are all growing, and will have more potential voters each year, The states where they are most numerous, notably California, will be even more bastions for the Democrats than they are already.

Republicans would have won even more seats if only those who made more than $50,000 year had been allowed to vote, or if only those over 40 had voted. In short, Republicans are in some danger of becoming the party of white, old people. You would think this group might want better and less expensive medical care, so part of this constituency could be won over to the Democrats if the new medical system proves a success.

To put this another way, Democrats did best among young people, and also with highly educated people, i.e. those with an MA or a PhD. As the population gets more education, if would seem, they will likely become Democratic voters. 

So, despite the defeat, there are positive signs. The Democrats will need to discover and promote better candidates that can appeal to these demographics.