There has been a lot of discussion since Athens about foreign swimmers training in the United States. Most of them attend U.S. Universities, receive athletic scholarships, and compete at NCAA's. Some notable examples include Duje Draganja (Cal), Fred Bousquet and Kirsty Coventry (Auburn), Markus Rogan (Stanford), and the South African sprinters (Arizona). Some train in the U.S., but don't compete for a university (Inge de Bruijn). All of these athletes benefit from U.S. coaching, from training with U.S. swimmers, and in some cases, from financial support provided by U.S. entities (athletic scholarships). They all turn around and then win medals for other countries.
A couple questions: 1) What do you think about this arrangement generally? 2) Is it of benefit or detriment to U.S. swimming to have these foreign athletes training and competing here? 3) Should we be giving athletic scholarships, which are a scarce resource in swimming, to foreign athletes who will represent their own countries internationally instead of U.S.-born swimmers who will represent us internationally?
I'm sure there are other issues, but these come directly to mind.
Okay, I lied about leaving it. I just wanted to respond. Pool_monkey, if you think people are poor because they won't work, I'd look at _The Working Poor: Invisible in America_ and _Nickel and Dimed_. Laziness isn't the problem.
Genocide: see Native Americans. But yeah, the founders were wrong and we've rectified those wrongs. That was my point, my response to people who were trying to say the founders were for low taxes and thus low taxes are good. And yeah, America is better than lots of other places and not as good as some others. When you swim, are you happy to be in the middle, or do you want to keep getting better?
Okay, I lied about leaving it. I just wanted to respond. Pool_monkey, if you think people are poor because they won't work, I'd look at _The Working Poor: Invisible in America_ and _Nickel and Dimed_. Laziness isn't the problem.
Genocide: see Native Americans. But yeah, the founders were wrong and we've rectified those wrongs. That was my point, my response to people who were trying to say the founders were for low taxes and thus low taxes are good. And yeah, America is better than lots of other places and not as good as some others. When you swim, are you happy to be in the middle, or do you want to keep getting better?