Brooks uses U.S. demographics for the next several decades to project a reasonably positive future for the nation. He notes:
The U.S. remains a magnet for immigrants. Global attitudes about immigration are diverging, and the U.S. is among the best at assimilating them (while China is exceptionally poor). As a result, half the world’s skilled immigrants come to the U.S.
And he adds:
The U.S. now accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes.
This sounds like good news, even though Brooks doesn't mention that we get a lot of unskilled immigrants from Latin America. Keep smiling.
