I just read an article in the German FAZ on the fact that qualified foreign graduates from universities need to earn 85k EUR to be able to stay in Germany. If not they have to leave the country. Something the parents of YouTube co-founder Jawid Karim did in 1992 when they left Germany for the US.

In view of the fact that every year Germany loses about 150k highly qualified and educated people who prefer to work in other countries, Germany seems to have not understood how important it is to attract and keep engineers and scientists which is entirely surprising to me.

I myself left Germany many years ago (for other reasons actually) and heard of the brain drain problem that they have. The fact that they have not recognized the strategic importance of human resources at all is sad on one hand, but also funny on the other as they begin putting billions into universities of excellence. After hearing this last news, it appears as if politicians in Germany hardly ever have a clue (and certainly not do now) what is needed to keep Germany competitive in high-tech. I also had to laugh out loud last week when a politician from a major party - and even the head of a state - was saying on TV that there would be still a big difference between a German and a Chinese or Indian engineer. Dear Mr. Politician, I recommend you actually inform yourself before you make such nonsense statements. It is proven that the quality level of engineers and scientists in India and China is at least as high as in Germany. BTW, who do you think it is that keeps Silicon Valley alive with highly qualified engineers? Mainly Indians and Chinese and a few Europeans next to a few Americans. One can only hope for the sake of Germany's competitiveness that such politicians are soon replaced or have little influence. I fear that will not be the case and many more will leave.