"a lot of American geeks just don't work very hard"<p>Another perspective could be that (most) Americans who work hard don't become geeks, because the rewards aren't commensurate with other professions.<p>If you're interested in reading some support for this position, you might check out a recent RAND study that concluded that "cience and technology performance, but said the slow growth of U.S.-born technical workers "will change when the earnings and attractiveness of S&#38;E (science and engineering) careers improve."<p>A summary is available here:<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-engineer-jobs_N.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-engi...</a><p>The full RAND study is at:<p><a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241/</a>