Up until last year, I was applying for faculty jobs in the US. With the news about the NIH funding being cut yet again, I ceased applying for the few advertised jobs.
This morning I was alerted to a 2007 paper by DrugMonkey. The paper is Heinig SJ, Krakower JY, Dickler HB, Korn D. Sustaining the engine of U.S. biomedical discovery. N Engl J Med. 2007 Sep 6;357(10):1042-7. [Publisher Link]
In it, you can find the following graph displaying the amount of NIH funding over the years. It shows in a graphic (duh!) way, why I stopped applying in the US:



The graph makes clear in what a serious crisis the US biomedical sciences are. There will be many more labs closing as funding is getting tighter and tenure will be denied because of lack of grants. The doubling of the NIH budget at the end of the nineties produced a huge surplus in biomedical researchers looking for permanent jobs now. At this crucial time for many scientific careers, the funding is dropping back to the level before the doubling. Obviously, this will have a huge impact on the entire biomedical research infrastructure. Funding has always been cyclical, but this time around the cuts are bad. Real bad.
Looking at this graph, why would anybody want to work in the US biomedical sciences today?