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Debugging Indian Computer Programmers
Life as an immigrant programmer is full of culture shocks both minor and major (would you know the first time around how to dress when flying from Bombay to Pittsburgh via Los Angeles, in winter?), and much of the book is devoted to outlining some of the shocks that Indian programmers face, even in immigrant-happy America. Buying a car to rely on for daily transport -- on American highways, no less -- is just one of the things many programmers like Sivakumar have to face shortly after arriving; he explains that one of the reasons certain makes of car (chiefly Japanese) are popular among newly arrived H1-B workers is that their expected resale value is high. When your employment is at the mercy of a short-term visa, and the cooperation of a sponsoring company, similar logic informs all kinds of decisions.
The "Did I steal your job?" in the title is the real question raised by this book: Sivakumar rallies evidence that the answer is a resounding No. Despite the vitriol raised by H1-B visa holders (and the H1-B program itself), he argues that the immigrant workers drawing ire from many Americans (who see the immigrants as encroaching unfairly on "their" jobs) not only contribute real money -- billions of dollars -- to the U.S. economy, but are one of the reasons that the U.S. high-tech industry is as successful as it is and has been.
He asks pointedly "[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or grandparents were immigrants too?"Sivakumar's argument has three pillars. First, that high-tech immigrants (including H1-B holders) are one of the key ingredients in the continuing success of many American companies. These aren't foreign workers who simply happen to land jobs in the U.S.; each H1-B visa holder has at least 16 years (often more) of formal education, and an American company sponsoring his or her application. (That education usually comes "free" to U.S. taxpayers, he notes, not at the expense of public school budgets or student loan subsidies.) Sivakumar contrasts both the generous immigrant policies and world-leading software industry of the U.S. with the policies and software industries of Europe, which tend to be more restrictive and less successful, respectively.
The second part of his argument is that H1-B immigrants, though motivated by a desire to improve their own lives, end up contributing disproportionately to the U.S. economy -- something Americans should be happy about, not resentful. Indian programmers in particular end up spending much of their salary on necessary (and less necessary) material goods both for their personal use and as socially obligated gifts to family members, increasing the retail take of U.S. companies from AT&T to the local car dealer.
More significantly, H1-B workers, as legal immigrants to the U.S., have the dubious privilege of paying the same taxes as other Americans (and more than most), with a far smaller chance of reaping their benefits. Most are single, and send no children to the U.S. schools they help underwrite, and most will never collect on the Social Security system or medical-care systems their payroll taxes help prop up.
Third, Sivakumar points out that Indian immigrants are often among the inventive and entrepreneurial class which provides jobs in the first place, citing -- besides a litany of Indian company founders and inventors -- a Berkeley study showing that in the boom years of the 1990s, "ethnic Chinese and Indian immigrants started nearly 25% of the high-tech start-ups in [Silicon] Valley." That's nearly 3000 companies, employing on the order of 100,000 people. The market capitalization of Indian-founded or -run U.S.-based companies is nearly half a trillion dollars. Job creation is an economic complex that requires funding and expertise, and Indian and other immigrants contribute to -- not subtract from -- the creation of jobs for other Americans.
Sivakumar is polite, almost apologetic at times -- and more optimistic than some of the things he's experienced as a hired-gun programmer might lead you to expect. Though he maintains that the book is not an autobiography, many of the experiences in it are things he himself encountered; some of them are funny, others either frightening or simply sad. In particular, he makes note of one place that programmers and other tech workers are likely to run into "racially abusive" hostility -- namely, Internet message boards. As he puts it,
"You meet these people every day of your life, and they probably would smile at you at your workplace or even would greet you. They show their real face in those discussion forums. These online discussion forums are great tools for those who want to hide themselves from the public but would like to spew their venom."
Given the hostility faced online and (less often) in real life, sometimes Sivakumar's politeness goes what struck me as too far; I was surprised to read his conciliatory advice to Indians treated suspiciously on the basis of their skin color or accent in the panic-prone modern America to "please accept it," rather than to bristle. That might be pragmatic and sensible advice, but America will be a better place when it's unnecessary.
This book makes no pretense of being an authoritative work on cultural differences, but Sivakumar does delve into a few of the gaps between American and Indian aesthetics, habits, and mores. Sexually explicit entertainment is far more accessible in the U.S. than in much of the world, and in India in particular; he labels the usually short-lived exploration by some new immigrants of the seedier side of American entertainment "The X-Rated Movie Syndrome." On a different note, vegetarian food isn't easy to find in company cafeterias, which means for many Indian programmers one of many small barriers to acceptance by their coworkers, because they can't simply order off the menu at a company cafeteria.Even trivial aspects of daily life are sometimes imbued with cultural meaning: after being advised by a friend to "walk smart" (that is, confidently, not quietly or humbly) along company corridors, he writes "It sounded true to me, and I was prepared for my next American adventure. 'Alright, I am going to walk straight and smart as of tomorrow!' I tried recently only to have my colleagues comment that I walk like President Bush."
Despite a casual style and sometimes distracting use of jargon ("Dude" is funnier in the title than when it appears several times in the text), the content of Debugging is serious. Sivakumar and other immigrant programmers are not abstractions or hypotheticals: they're designing processors, programming systems of all scales, and bringing the results of high-end education worldwide to places like Palo Alto, New York and Austin. They're also facing an anti-immigrant backlash that ranges from merely spiteful (the usual) to actually violent (thankfully uncommon). Sivakumar's experience in the U.S. isn't wholly negative -- he's quick to point out otherwise -- but includes cavalier treatment from co-workers and landlords, and even harassment from a flag-waving driver gesturing obscenely (and blocking his car) on the streets of New Jersey. That's the sort of experience most light-skinned, native-born Americans are lucky not to face on a daily basis.
Losing friends and neighbors to the terror attacks of 2001 isn't something that happened only to American citizens, and Sivakumar was touched by both; five residents of his New Jersey apartment complex were killed by those attacks, along with the wife of a friend. In this and other aspects of life in America, he justifiably considers himself a part of the U.S. high-tech economy, not a mere visitor, and uses the second person when talking about the American software industry specifically. If you're an American by birth, realize that Sivakumar is an American by choice (even if he has ties and loyalties to both India and Sri Lanka besides), whatever his visa status says.
This is also a funny book, in parts -- in particular, Sivakumar's experiences ordering lunch in an American company cafeteria made me laugh. (Pronouncing "milk" with an emphasis on the "l" rather than the "i" is a matter of spoken convention, after all, not a rule of nature -- but a short "i" will get you a carton of milk faster in an American company cafeteria). The author's graceful levity is welcome, and it helps to defuse the natural anger I felt at some of the odious treatment he describes.
The writing is understandable throughout, but Sivakumar is clearly a programmer writing, rather than a writer who happens to also be a programmer; much of the text is awkwardly phrased, and dotted with avoidable errors in spelling or diction. (One that stuck out: in more than one place, the name of fellow H1-B immigrant Linus Torvalds is rendered "Linus Travolds.") The chronology of Sivakumar's own story is not always clear, either; he mentions offhandedly at one point early on that "[b]y the way, my wife had come from India and joined me by then"; a clearer timeline would help in unifying the anecdotes which make up much of the book.
Sivakumar is also guilty in places of wielding the same kind of broad brush he sees being used to paint Indian programmers; he provides cultural sketches of several other groups that may be meant merely as casual observations rather than any sort of final word, but end up doing the same disservice as any other stereotype. (Of his first trip through customs, he says "That was the first time I ever talked to an African American. I never understood their accent even in the movies." This kind of glib generalization doesn't advance the cause of the book; often "they" are hard to characterize so blithely, no matter which "they" is at issue.)
However, take these complaints with a grain of salt: it would be easy to concentrate on the less-than-smooth delivery -- it just wouldn't be smart. If you let the presentation distract you too much from the content, you'll miss what the book's about, which is that "there is another side to the H1-B factor." While the book has some distracting flaws, they don't subtract from its logical conclusion: immigrant programmers in the U.S. are simply human beings trying to better themselves in what's supposed to be a free society, and adding immensely to U.S. prosperity -- and they're doing so despite hostility on several fronts. If you want to understand the not-so-simple phenomenon of Indian programmers in America, don't overlook that message.
You can purchase Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, Did I Steal Your Job? directly from Divine Tree. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
> He asks pointedly "[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small
> percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came
> during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or
> grandparents were immigrants too?"
Because nobody resents new immigrants like old immigrants.
Oh, there are exceptions of course but unfortunately they seem to prove the rule.
(my first first post posted)
I'm a programmer and I've often downloaded scripts and classes for PHP online. I've tried using code from a wide variety of spoken languages (all for PHP or C++), because sometimes these packages have the features I want. Every time I use these scripts it's a pain to try and understand what the parent coder had in mind, or what they meant by certain var names, and comments. Don't even bother trying to translate them using Babelfish or something, because it's like playing a guessing game. This usually happens after the code has already been integrated and needs an update.
So I've stayed away from that, and find that Google is helpful to an extent for looking for scripts in English (but not 100%).
The bottom line is that Indian programmers were thought of as an all-powerful way for corporations to combat wage hikes in North America. The fact that these same companies are feeling the backlash now due to the lack of scaling they are finding, triggers a bittersweet emotion...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...aren't most people compaining more about tech jobs being outsourced for $10/hr to programmers living in countries like India, rather than the Indian workers coming to the U.S. and earning a more typical salary?
There's a hell of a lot to know about India.
One detail that many Americans don't really understand, is that there are essentially three careers that are considered to be more desirable than all others: Doctor, Engineer, and Computer Programmer. In some circles, you are not successful if you are not, or don't have a son, in one of these professions. This concept is as foreign to Americans as the idea of arranged marriage (which is still very much alive among Indians, even those living and working in the US!).
There is a good reason India happens to be the place where the computer programming jobs go! In the US, it's looked at as something significantly less important than being one of the three top careers.
I'm getting a little tired of the "stole my job" complaints. All jobs are determined by the same market forces as everything else. If your job isn't in demand, you can do one of two things:
1.) Work for less (not a promising prospect).
2.) Change your job.
Sure it sucks to do the second, especially if you put a lot of time and energy into it, but if you're smart you can mold your experience to a new occupation.
Take my current job: network administration. Fairly simple task. The more I've read and the more people I've talked to, these kind of jobs are next to be outsourced. IT is going to become a "utility".
So what do I do? I'm currently studying for an MBA. I'm talking to people: "What does it take to become an IT manager? How about a director?" All the "maintenance" jobs in the world can move overseas, but you still need people back at home making the decisions. I'll become one of those.
Given the usual level of Slashdot reviews, this one is actually surprisingly good. It's the first one in awhile that I've actually been able to read all the way trhough!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The argument of the book seems to be that H1-B's are good for the economy because they pay taxes and buy stuff.
What that argument misses entirely is that if we had an unemployed US citizen in that same job, they would ALSO pay the SAME taxes and buy stuff, and NOT send money to a foreign country. "Because the immigrant came to the US, they had to buy a car!" So? Because the immigrant stole an American's job, that American couldn't buy a car! There is no net gain (and perhaps a net loss) to US Citizens from employing an immigrant.
The better argument for allowing immigrants to work here, and one that also appears to be in this book, is that the economy works better if we have the people who are best at doing a job do those jobs. If we can take the best and the brightest from other countries and have them work in our companies and produce better product for us, we should steal every single one of them we can get. If this means that Americans who are less qualified for those jobs have to do something else (like sell cars to our better-qualified immigrants), that's fine. Trying to protect the jobs of people who are not as good at them from people who are better at them, but happen to have been born somewhere else, just means we're paying someone more to do less. That's a sure way to criple an economy.
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Did they help pay for the existing infrastructure that they get to take advantage of?
If you grew up in the US, then that means that for the first 18-22 years of your life (at least) you weren't helping to pay for the infrastructure you took advantage of, either -- and, since you probably went to public school, you were taking much more advantage of it than they are.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Back in the dot com days, I worked for an internet porn company that got the bright idea of outsourcing a bunch of work to Russia. Turned out that it didn't work to well but they still wrote a bunch of code for us. Now, for all you people who talk about Perl being difficult to read, try this: I had to debug Perl code written in Russian.
One detail that many Americans don't really understand, is that there are essentially three careers that are considered to be more desirable than all others: Doctor, Engineer, and Computer Programmer. In some circles, you are not successful if you are not, or don't have a son, in one of these professions.
Funny. Here in the West, if you are a computer programmer you'll never even get a girlfriend, let alone have a son someday. I didn't know the opposite was true once you passed the Prime Meridian. I guess it's like that summer-in-the-Northern-Hemisphere-winter-in-the-So uthern thing
First, Social Security is pretty much the biggest service that you get from federal tax dollars, and education is the biggest you get from local tax dollars. If they don't take advantage of these, then they are paying a disproportionate share of taxes. Second, and more importantly, pretty much everyone is paying a (favorably) disproportionate share of taxes. The "My tax money payed for all these services" argument is a bit stupid when you consider that the top 5% of Americans pay over 50% of all the taxes. Unless you make more than $200,000 a year, you're disproportionately benefiting from services paid for by other peoples' tax money.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
My experience is that the Hostility to the H1B program is not directed towards the visa holders but towards the corporations using the program. The H1B program is used by corporations the way they use scabs and outsourcing, to drive down wages and job security by using a desparate population. The worst aspect of the H1B program is that it is not an imigration program but nearly a form of indentured servitude. The visa holder is often at the mercy of the sponsor, not free to switch jobs easily, and facing deportation once his visa expires. This may be used by corporations to hold down wages and dissent.
I'm very happy to see immigration of skilled workers as citizens, but I'm not happy to see the exploitation of guest workers as H1Bs.
As a light-skinned native-born American [and New Jersey native] let me just say that such driving and gesturing spans everyone!
[joking!]
Why should debugging Indian programmers be any different than the standard methods for any programmer?
Unless your 200 years old, there's lots of it you didn't pay for either.
If you travel to a different city or state, and use facilities paid for by that city/state, do you feel guilty? They're happy to have you, spending money at local businesses.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
I am in the same situation as the author. And sometimes a few things get on my nerves like nothing else. America is not the friendliest of nations as far as social life goes, its not like India where you know all your neighbors, and your social life (and social life does not mean hanging out in bars) makes you never feel lonely. Every programmer that comes to the USA goes through days when he/she feels that it is a curse to be so good. If it wasnt so, if I wasnt good at this, I could have so easily stayed back home and worked in anything. Its a misconception to think India does not have non-outsourced jobs. I came here because I was interested in technology, and I wanted to learn. I wouldnt mind living on $ 10/hr as long as I could afford to. We come here and try to understand the customs and accents and various other things about Americans (I know, I came to your country, not the other way, so I have to do the extra work). I had a bus-driver asking me what kind of education I had and from which filthy country I came from, when I asked him about a bus stop, and found out that I was on the wrong bus, and he had to take the bus to the side and let me get out (this was 3 weeks into my US adventure). Now, he may have been tired (although it was early morning) or maybe he didnt get laid the earlier night.. but its still not cool. I must add that these things are isolated incidents, and dont generally represent America. The idea is to forget trying to blame someone else for taking anything away from you.. that person has had so much taken away from him as well.
No, he's right, because at that point, he's talking to the Indians. They can either accept it, resent it, or leave, because unfortunately, that's the way it is.
But the reviewer is also right. America will be a better place when racism is gone. Talking to the Americans, I say, "Racism is morally wrong. It is harmful both to recipient and to the racist. Knock that *%^&* off!"
Indian : Dude, did I steal your job? American : Yeah, but it sucked anyways.
Everytime the subject of jobs comes up, and people whine and complain about not being able to find a job, they leave out the fact that they can't find a job where they currently live. Then they get all defensive about wanting to keep living where they currently are, and go on moaning about the supposed "bad job market" in the US.
While it may be true that there aren't jobs in their area, there ARE jobs other places in the US, if they're really serious about jobs. And I'm not saying to move out to the middle of no-where to some one-horse town with no other tech in sight.... I'm saying look around there are a lot more jobs out there than people think.
My company has fired 66% (~60000 let go) of the staff, yet we have brought in Indian contractors to do the same work. They stay for a few months to learn the work and then go back to India where the corporate masters can get away with paying them much lower wages.
I don't resent them. I resent the assholes I work for. I expect eventually I too will be replaced. So it is hard to be cheerful while training my future replacements.
Ironically many of those permanent employees my company has laid off where Indian as well. So they had their jobs taken by their own countrymen.
I have no problem with immigrants coming to work at my company full time and being paid a competitive wage. But I do have issues with the outsourcing.
... don't need to. The fact of the matter is that with the job boom in India, they get on-the-job training on positions that have been outsourced. Once they reach a level of expertise, they come here to take the jobs that have yet to be outsourced.
These jobs could have been filled by US citizens, but the fact of the matter is that employers don't want to spend the money to train them. What you end up with is a large group of unemployed CS grads with a lot of theoretical knowledge but no practical experience, and that will put you on the fast track for a manager's position at McDonalds.
I used to be a headhunter until recently (long story... graduated during the tech bust), and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the inclusion of H1s in this marketplace has lowered the standards of production and has lowered the wages and rates that American citizens can expect. Many managers have complained to me about the poorly documented crap that they have gotten from H1 shops, only to balk when they hear what the going rates are for American labor.
...or am I missing something?
Just read Yahoo newsgroups once in a while. Its mostly teenage punks who think crass racial jokes are funny to mix with current events.
And neo-nazis became popular when working class people started losing their job. Blame another race.
Nice thing about Slashdot is there is sane moderation. In yahoo, the majority of posters are crass and moderate up drivel, especially politically motivated posters. Sane moderation leads positive conversations. Insane moderation means you need to trod through each of the 10,000 messages individually to see if anyone has something good to say. Of course, when most people are saying,"Bush is retarded" or just posting obscenities, it gets old.
Slashdot isn't the best forum system that could be created, but its what we got now, and I'm thankful for it.
God spoke to me.
> Because nobody resents new immigrants like old immigrants.
Repeat after me; H1-B != immigration
- sigs are for wimps.
just my two cents, but what the heck is wrong with people?
Humans are Humans! We are almost all exactly the same! in fact, the "races" of human don't even fit the biological definition of race! It's a social contstruct.
Culture, well, that's different. Cultures are macro and micro - and at times it seems that there are larger cultural gulfs between city blocks then country borders.
Guess my "race", please.
After all, you slashdotters all look the same to me.
Mostly like ASCII.
Immigrants != foreign workers
I have worked with HB1s that desire to be Americans and I have worked with immigrants that don't. Both may send money out of the country, but from a financial standpoint, the ones America should keep are the ones that want to stay and contribute to our society. The rest are just foreign workers.
Immigration of people who can support themselves is an inherently good thing for all western countries considering the demographic bomb we are sitting on. Most western countries including the US, even though Europes situation is considerably worse have birthrates that will barely sustain the current population without immigration, this leads to an "inverted" demographical pyramid were very few young people will have to support very many old people out of the workforce. That is, if we dont get immigrants that can help even out the numbers! Consider the following, what happens when: * large portions of the population starts to take money out of the markets through their retirement funds to actually live on the money? Markets will plumet and capital for both mature companies and startups will be harder to raise. * What happens when there are more retired people who pay no or very little in tax, instead of many young people who pay taxes? How do you support basic infrastructure in that case? I could go on.. The point being: western countries should embrace and welcome every immigrant that wants to come to their country to work and make a life, its probably the only thing that will save our economies 30 years from now..
If you have an H1-B visa you don't have to go home to get a green card. You can apply for permanent residency while in the US. To make sure you are successful just hire a good immigration lawyer and spend a lot of money on legal fees ($7000-to $10000 maybe even more)
For people living in the Bay Area I recommend Berry, Appleman and Leiden from San Francisco (www.usabal.com). Expensive, but the best. Their fees for one person start at $9000. A consultation costs $250.
An immagrant goes to a new country and makes it their home. They plan to stay there the rest of their lives and hope to improve themselves. They may also plan to send money back to their old home to help their family. Somebody working here on H1-B is a guest, here for a short term. They're not expecting to make a new life here, but to grab the money while the getting is good, then go back home and have a better life there. A worthy ambition, but not one to make them well liked by their hosts. I think this is why people resent H1-B workers. They're working for less than a local would and the idea that they're not even planning to stick around just makes it easier to resent them.
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As a former H1-B worker who returned home 2 years ago, I think the resentment has a lot to do with skin colour and being Indian.
How can I tell? Well, I never once faced any resentment at all, despite all the vitriol pointed at Indian immigrants.
But then again, I don't have dark skin and most people think I'm American until I speak. You see it all the time in Slashdot - it seems like it's OK to be racist towards Indians for "taking our jobs".
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Ask Slashdot:
/. reader. You name it, I'll do it, just as long as it can be done with a keyboard. The reason I ask this here is I very much qualify for H1-B visa, except I don't want to leave my country, which for me is very unneccesary in the age of Internet.
It has occured to me in a rather painful manner that I run out of money just before Christmas, so I won't be able to buy any presents, have you guys have any ideas on how to make some extra bucks in a couple of days (aside from sexual services, theft etc.)?
My skills are you know typical of
immigrant programmers in the U.S. are simply human beings trying to better themselves in what's supposed to be a free society
And that's their first mistake. The United States is not currently a free society and hasn't been since the Civil War. H-1b visas (which are for employees and wage slaves, that's why they are called NON-immigrant visas) are a symptom of this: Much as he'd like to be, the author and Linus are NOT immigrants- they are guest workers, here to be used and abused by the corporations and thrown away when their 6 years are up.
In other words, the "people trying to better themselves" aren't the problem- the sytem that treats guest workers and other employees more like slaves than free people is the problem. That's why I dislike H-1b VISAS- H-1b visa holders are usually much more likeable.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
What infrastructure are they using that they're not paying for? If they drive on the roads, they pay gas tax. If they work they pay federal tax which also pays for roads. If they go to a hospital, they have to pay in cash, or their insurance (which they or their employer has to pay) pays for it. They won't use welfare, etc., but they will pay for it.
Yet they bring an education into the country. They have to pay high taxes. They contribute much more than they take. Compare this to the perennial welfare family.
I'm a bit sore about this - I'm a Canadian who lives in Canada and works in the U.S. I get challenged with this same logic all the time in the U.S., and it's crap. I use next to NO infrastructure here (don't live in the U.S.) but I pay full state and federal taxes and get absolutely no deductions, so I pay way more than the usual amount.
The real scam I pull is that I don't pay much Canadian tax at all, but I DO use the infrastructure there, including the big one: health care (even though I have U.S. health insurance through my employer - pays to have some when I'm on this side of the border). All Canada gets is the money I convert injected into the economy. But alas, both countries signed the tax treaty that way...
They are indeed paying more than their share.
So are the incredibly wealthy. Think about it. They are taxed *far* more than they take advantage of.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Unfortunately lot of people forget the amount of contribution made by immigrants to american society in terms of scientific advancement. Were Albert Einstein, Ernico fermi, Neils bohr, Von neuman, Wernher von Braun....americans?
If those 'poor unemployed' US Programmers were willing to suck down some pride and work for the same wage as the "evil immegrant" - guess what - THEY WOULDN'T GET HIRED!
Maddox had it right!
"If you lose your job to an immigrant, it's probably because he or she was willing to work harder for less money. "
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
The review reads: "More significantly, H1-B workers, as legal immigrants to the U.S., have the dubious privilege of paying the same taxes as other Americans (and more than most), with a far smaller chance of reaping their benefits." Not sure whether this is a verbatum quote from the book, or just the review's take, but its completely inaccurate. Yes, H1 holders pay income taxes. But no, they don't pay social security or medicare taxes, the rationale being precisely that they are not meant to benefit to reap the awards of these programs (that neither is anyone else under 40 due to the impending collapse of the entire social security system is besides the point for the IRS). This is quite a factual distortion. Also a nice chunck of change! Makes a big difference. Also, from personal experience, most U.S companies with the funds and resources to sponsor H1 visa holders are large enough to have fairly transparent compensation structures. So... I am an actuary, one of the few fields to seriously compete with IT in terms of hiring H1 immigrants. And my cube mate, hired at same time as I was, is earning the same base pay, but ends up with a significantly higher paycheck, due to the decresed tax burden. Fair? Furthermore... I don't know about Indian programmers, but i DO know about chinese actuaries: they have 0 intention or necessity to ever return to China. After 10 yrs or so of H1, they get sponsored by firms for green cards, and get them. And proceed to collect the social secuirty and medicare benefits they did not pay for, but I did. Yes, we desperately need immigrants to fill technical positions that we have the capital, but not the human resources to handle. Somehow along the way, careers in sciences and math lost all appeal to U.S college students. The primary education institutions routinely fail to prepare students for these fields, anyway. So college fills the gaps of High School, and graduate programs are populated by student visa holders from abroad who go on to H1 visas. I like immigrants. I don't like H1. We need these people, there is nothing wrong with having a policy preference for letting in people with certain degrees and ambitions. But let's be honest: give them green cards, let them pay taxes just like everyone else.
Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.
... I have to say that I largely agree with the culture shock that comes with moving to another country. Even for me, it was more different than I thought it would be. For one thing, I could never figure out how people knew I was Canadian simply when I talked (which I did eventually find out and for which I actually talk more in an American accent now). Things like auto and life insurance can be complicated because of the lack of insurance experience and medical history, respectively. It sucks to have to pay higher rates if you're from overseas because you have no insurance driving record.
Having worked mostly in Silicon Valley, I would say that the cultural environment is more conducive to immigrants there than other places. One Chinese fellow I knew, for example, never truly felt welcome when he worked in Texas but did say that the people there were generally nice. If you're from India or China, there are tons of resources and tons of community and social opportunities for you. YMMV in other places but big cities around big tech centers aren't typically a problem.
Probably the biggest problem that I had when I was in the United States is getting your green card. For those not in the know, the green card process requires that you remain with the same employer in the same type of position and move no further than 50 miles away from where your H-1B was approved. Then you wait and wait. You wait for state and federal labor certification, and then you actually apply for your green card after your priority date comes up (a date which is used to gate applications from countries with high immigrant volumes but from which Canadians are exempted). If you're laid off, fired, moved to another job function, or move, you have to start the process all over again. It takes 2-4 years, and in some cases people have their paperwork lost by the INS/BCIS and you are screwed at the end of your term and have to leave. Immediately. No wait periods.
To me, that's the biggest problem with the system. If you want people, have them stay. Facing a constant end game hurts folks economically, socially, mentally and otherwise. Stories of people leaving their leased cars at SFO and SJC and going back because they had no choice were very sad. Even worse, what does one do with the money they earned? In my case, because of the huge run-up in the Canadian dollar, all my money is "trapped" down there. Do I wait for the US dollar to rise back up to regular levels, or do I bring it back and hope it doesn't come back? That money could've also been spent in the United States, but gets spent outside. Not that beneficial for the US economy if you ask me.
Most of these issues would be addressed if people were simply granted conditional green cards at the time of their entry. A certified criminal background check and health check prior to border entry would allow them to stay without having to worry about the employer doing whatever they want to the employee and throwing them out at the end. That's not technically done today, and it would be smart for security and other reasons. The other aspect is to have the system funded by the immigrants themselves, i.e. you come in and you pay for the BCIS to process your application for $5k or $10k, rather than rely on tax money to fund a severely underfunded immigration processing system. If you're that important to be given a special visa to come in, then come in. Stay. Don't throw the person out later on. If these suggestions are ever implemented, you will see a big difference in the way that immigrant employees are treated and in the way they approach their work. Remove the threat and stress of leaving, and you'll have productive members of society, IT/Engineering workers or otherwise.
I have taken over several projects from Indian companies and have done my part to point out to the employers what crap it was. Yes, they got the job done - but I have never seen so many short cuts used. All the comments were not in english, nor were the variables/functions. Even the English content was horribly written. I would expect a generic high school student to write better content. I, as a programmer, do not fear the Indians, either in their own country or my own. I refuse to utilize companies that I know use Indian labor (ie, HP or Dell), and if I am ever transferred to an Indian on the phone, I refuse to speak with them. I demand to be transferred to someone who speaks English natively in an accent I can readily understand. I encourage my friends & family to do the same - nothing against the Indian workers at all. It's not racism - its a small attempt to punish the company for using outside labor. There is no reason. I yearn for the day that we get a President & Congress that attempts to halt such things, or at least tax the corporations to the point where it would be more in their favor to hire true Americans.
Can I claim lag for spelling errors?
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
From my own experience, what I have seen is not what this article promises. I'm sure some are well educated and can do their jobs just fine. I've seen this, but the majority of what I've seen leaves much to be desired. That said, I've been to India (Mumbai), for my employer, to train and work with one of the companies we use for outsourcing. We also have a bunch of employees here in the office, on visas. For the most part, I would say the people we end up with in the office can do their job reasonably well. However, these are not the people who end up doing the bulk of the work. These are the star pupils of whatever company we are currently dealing with. Those sent to make the company look good. When it comes down to doing the work, it is done by the cheapest person they can get their hands on in India. The description above makes it sound as though the companies are all out there to better the US market, what better intrest could they have? Well, money in the pockets of the owners is really what it comes down to. I've yet to see an exception to that rule, whether companies here or there. While in India, several of the people who I trained had quit before I even left. Originally we were not even told about this. It wasn't until I started noticing faces missing that we got an answer. Within a week of returning to the states, most of the rest of the group had left. The turnover is crazy, it's a market of paying the lowest you can hoping the person won't get a better offer and leave. What this all results is in really crappy coding. There wasn't much point in my trip to India since just about everybody left. Our software is incredibly complicated, so the new people coming on don't really have the expertise needed to do the job right. Lesson learned there at least (on my part and hopefully my employers). While they may have a lot of years of education, from my personal experience, they don't know how to apply it. Now that is going to be true regardless of whether the person is fresh out of school here or there. But instead of investing the time to train up our local workforce, we spend the time to train up a workforce that is only here to temporarily help us. Where is the long term benefit in that? I'm not secretly venemous like the article implies is a situation that abounds. However, I'm not greatly pleased to see half my company is now staffed with foreign workers who may be gone tomorrow. Even if they are doing an excellent job, that knowledge leaves our hands in an instant. The jobs we mostly hire for in the office (from overseas anyway) are designers. They don't do the coding. That gets shipped back to the inexperienced office in Mumbai. My job has been basically reduced to Newbie Coder Hand Holder. And when I'm finally getting some people to the point where they understand what I expect from their coding they might suddenly disappear, to be replaced by another fresh out of school no experienc employee. This must be great for India, I'm training their workforce. I don't hold it against the Indians I've met. They are trying to earn a living like everybody else. It's my employer that wants to take advantage of the cheap labor and is convinced it can be done just as well as we could do in house (that is one thing I don't believe will ever be true). Also I blame the companies in India who are out to make a quick buck and don't care so much about the result. I definitely feel that many of the programmers I've seen are somewhat exploited in their low pay and it shows by the lack of company loyalty (the turnover). It is unfortunate that those Indians employed in the US have to face what they do at times. When it happens, I don't think it is right, but they must also understand the environment they are coming into. They ARE the most visible result of some disturbing changes. This whole shift to outsourcing has caused me nothing but more work. Perhaps if it worked as advertised (less work in house, better results, cost savings) people might not be so resentful of it.
Once they become leads or managers they favor other Indian programmers. If you're under lead who also has a couple Indian reports, in 80% of the cases it's time for you to move on, because your career growth is over.
It's cultural, and it's unfortunate.
Articles like Has Software Development Become a Commodity? is stripping the skill and art of programming out of the bussines.
,oblivious, in there little rose colored world.
Many companies don't understand that a short program is better then a long one and requires more skill to do so.
Many companies don't understand that a good design and experianced programmers can make smaller/better/faster/easier/bugfree programs in less time.
Many companies just don't appreciate or aren't willing to pay for 10, 20 or more years of software development experience. They don't understand that an expert is much faster and cheaper in the long run then hiring the novice, they just see the price tag.
There is a reason people buy high end products and are willing to pay more, and the same holds true for hiring developers. Higher quality, better results and often lower cost in the long run.
These companies study management theory, and make there Gant charts and UML layouts, and pigeon hole it's employies and expect then to churn out code like cows give milk. Developers are then become interchangable and expendable and it's just a matter of thowing "bodies" at the project at the lowest cost possible. (think COBOL development at a bank)
Nothing cutting edge, innovative or creative has ever come from these endeavors.
And Yet they keep expecting it to. Sure it's gets the job done, but it actualy cost them more in the long run, and they don't even know it. They just keep going along
This is why most software sucks, bloatware, 1000's of bugs is considered acceptable and viruses and malware run free across the Internet.
Not hiring cheap developers and not experts has put many companies out of bussiness!
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
No, the wealthy are taxed far less than they take advantage of. Try to imagine how long they'd hold on to their wealth without police protections. Guess at the wealth they save when their home is saved by firefighters vs a family renting an apartment. The wealthy get a far better deal from taxation than the poor.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
You should set a target: the US graduates 200,000 more engineers and scientists in six years than it did this year, or every member of congress is executed. Hanged. Badly. Slowly.
Now don't get me wrong, I had a whale of a time in the US. I was treated very well, well paid (none of this $70K shit), and generally had a productive, exciting time; but most of my productive co-workers were Chinese and Indian guys, smart and genuinely enthused about what we were making and who our product would help. Crappy english, sure, some of them - and some of them, particularly the Indians, better english speakers than native me (or is that I?). All the time I, and all these smart foreigners worked in the US, Slashdot, Congress and other crapass "thinkers" (ahem) slandered us. They said we were dumb, they said we were uneducated, or spoke bad english, they said we'd work for slave labo[u]r rates, they said (frankly) we were inferior. And all the time the US trade gap grew and grew, more and more skilled jobs moved to India and China, more and more the US economy slipped into a whole from which it seems determined never to emerge.
Let's face it. The average H1B worker moved away from his family, from everything he knew to work in the US, to maintain an ecomomy whose own managers seemed determined to outsource it, to be slandered and deprecated by third-rate journalists and racist politicians. Sure, he made more money than he'd make in Bangalore or Shanghai, but the difference is less and less (particularly compared with the cost of living in the Research Triangle or the Silicon Valley) each year. Now that the tech recession has come for everyone he's probably moved back to Shanghai or Bangalore (unwelcome, filthy terrist foreigned slanty-eyed bastard that he is, in the US). Whose economy do you thing he's helping? Into whose business do his smarts flow?
The US economy (and to a marginally lesser extent the EU economy too) holds a gun to its own head. Both have squandered the promise of the new economy. Foreign workers are one less, not one more, bullet in the revolver.
With engineering and science, at it highest levels, moved east - what do the US and Europe actually _make_? Can you really expect to run two of the world's largest economic blocks on missles, movies, and life insurance?
Did you pay for the existing infrastructure you were born into? Bite me.
Here's some stuff to chew over;
*No-one* chose to be born into a particular culture; no-one *chose* to be born full-stop. The responsibility for that lies with the parents, and it is their contribution (and that of the extended family and their associates) to the infrastructure that should be considered.
Of course, when someone moves to another country, they (or those responsible for them, or associated with them) have not made a sustained investment in that country. It is unreasonable to expect that because a person paid taxes in a particular country for 6 months that they should be entitled to all the benefits. Similarly, it is unreasonable to criticise someone for not "paying for" the infrastructure of the society they were born into.
Of course, there comes a point where treating someone as a second-class citizen- even when they have more than paid their dues for many years- could rightly be considered discriminatory; but it's *not* unreasonable to expect a newcomer to invest in the pot for some time before they can take from it.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
It is an outrage that this program even exist considering the rampant un-employment in our domestic IT industry.
There is no right to a job. To the contrary, companies practically have the right to whatever kind of worker they think they need. This is not the fault of said workers, but capitalism.
> Because nobody resents new immigrants like old immigrants.
Because, if the Nth generation of an immigrant has assimilated, their self-image is native. I'm a choy-suey of northern European ancestors several generations removed. For someone to tell me that I'm the son of immigrants is on the one hand meanless to me, since if things don't work out in the US, there's no "home" to go back to. Same goes for my southern African-descendant neighbors. While it can also give me hope that the sons and daughters of those now crowding in will make a similar transition, past results are not always indicative of future performance.
I'm not worried about being homeless, but house-less. This is my home.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Does it cost more to save their house than somebody elses? If I'm not mistaken, the amount of "burden" the wealthy put on society is much lower than the poor. Yet the amount of money they put in is much much higher.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Now that ~is~ an odd misspelling.
But you know, every day in North America someone either mispronounces or misspells Linus Travolta.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
What they say they need is not what they really want.They want Chinese slave labor prices. There is no pride in hiring American anymore. Where is Lou Dobbs(cnn) and his list of outsourcers ?
How much is all of this about increasing stock value ?
An non-Indian non-H1B non-immigrant tried to steal post 11111111.
I'm not a coward by any name.
However, a microcomputer resseller company I worked for in the past, the owner had a genetics degree plus an MBA too, he was rich, I just worked as a tech, but I feel, I had more fun, but I did make next to nothing, that's the trade-offs you are stuck with in life!
You should be "working to live", *not* "living to work".
Get through the days, enjoy work as much as possible. Then use the $$$ you make to have your true fun after work.
Ian
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
I never experienced any resentment. I am white, Irish, and as I acquire accents quickly, many people thought I was North American.
Humans are humans people! The place you happened to be born does not give you more of a moral entitlement to wealth or employment than someone who may have been born somewhere else.
But he didn't succeed...
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
He asks pointedly "[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or grandparents were immigrants too?"
:) If you are from another country, please remember, American have made huge sacrices to their own lives to let our country offer them what they can get.
I grew up in Washington State, and am the 5th generation live here in my family. Before that, there were more generations who lived on the East Coast. When people ask me what nationality I am, I don't say "Swedish" or "Dutch" or "French", all which are in my bloodline, I tell them I am American. At some point you'be been where you are long enough to say that's where you came from.
No, I haven't forgotten where my parents and grandparents... and great grandparents, are from. They are from right here in the good old USA. And while there are many whose families have not been here as long as mine, that make up this great nation, it is not because of the morals that people bring with them from other countires that make America great, it is the things they gave up, and agreements they made with eachother here in America, to get along despite their different opinions, that makes this a great nation.
I don't have a problem with people coming here from other countries, or people working temporarily in our country, in fact I am honored to be able to allow people from other counties to come here and work and take something home to their family. I know not everyone in America thinks this way, but that's OK with me, I don't like the way everyone thinks
My own problem with the H1-B program isn't that it allows foreign competition into the U.S. labor market; the problem is that software engineers have been singled out among other professions. Additionally, the program is not reciprocal. Do the countries that H1-B's come from have similarly generous guest worker programs? Not that I know of. Also, by depressing salaries in the American software industry and making jobs more competitive to get, fewer Americans are going into the software field.
Again, the problem isn't that competition from foreign workers is inherently unfair; the problem is that a particular profession has essentially been targeted for an across the board salary cut through legislation.
Hello, I must be going. I'm here to say I cannot stay, I must be going.
The issues raised are at best, I think, naive. First, the so-called "hostile" american individual thinks of him/herself first and of the state of the american economy and innovation second (if ever) -- which kinda makes sense to me. Second, racism in the U.S. and Europe is not something new, so welcome to the Free World! and Third, why would any country offer "presents" to people from other countries? When you apply for a H1-B visa it's your responsability to understand what it entails and what to expect. Apparently, the system is designed so that H1-B holders develop a strong desire to leave the States after a few years. I have lived in several countries and I am convinced that the percentage of creative, intelligent people is roughly the same everywhere. Whether or not an individual engages in a creative process, or decides to start up a business, or pursues a career in technology or research depends on many factors and the 16+ years of education are a consequence of such a decision rather than some kind of inherited asset. One final note: I'm not American, nor do I live in the U.S., nor I wish to work or live there. :)
Does it cost more to save their house than somebody elses?
For the original Apartment Vs. Mansion comparison- YES. The cost of saving an Apartment House is the same, but the cost of saving a single apartment is devided by the number of apartments in the apartment house.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No, it doesn't cost more, but the value they receive is much greater, that's the point.
The burden of the wealthy is in proportion to the capital they sequester. The more any one person has in disproportion to the average, the greater their burden to the average.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
1. How many of your coworkers knew you were here on H1-B?
2. Are enough of your countrymen coming over to America to significantly affect (or apparently affect) the hiring rate for American programmers?
It isn't a light-versus-dark thing, it's an us-versus-them thing.
Clear, Dark Skies
let's all laugh at the americans complaining about capitalism at work.
If that guy can barely feed his family, and is willing to do good work (on par with yours) for 1/3 of the price, why isn't it fair that the money goes to him? Sure, Americans are much richer than Indians on average, but are you trying to argue that they deserve to be so much richer? Shouldn't people who oppose wealth disparities be happy when more jobs flow away from the US to India?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Is it at all possible that ny state has some special agreement with Feds about this? I mean... this chick SWEARS she doesn't pay Medicare/ SSI.... And she DOES have an H1!
How strange. I suppose being unable to find actual evidence besides cube mate's adamant insistence... I retract..
Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.
Let's face it folks, the crazy days of "dot.com" when you got a fat sign-on bonus and a sportscar and insane benefits/packages were not a sustainable real world. They were not the norm. They were a fantasy that was sure to dry up. To get a job with a huge pay then was just too easy. I know a lot of very stupid people and bad programmers that got far more than they deserved.
This fantasy existence could not last and we got "dot.bomb". Hype fed jobs went first, but a lot of good programmers got hurt too. In essence this was an over correction.
Now things are seeming to come on track again with realistic remuneration and a desire for good programmers. Some jobs will stay in the US and some will go offshore and a balance will be found. This is good for the industry in the long run.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
He raises a lot of fair questions, but you know, there are answers.
He asks pointedly "[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or grandparents were immigrants too?"
Well what happened back then was a bit different. The problem I and a lot of people have with the visa program is:
1. It targets a very narrow kind of vocation. Do you think 100 years ago native steelworkers wouldn't complain if immigrants were allowed in--but only steelworkers? Targeting IT only is unfair in that people in the workforce outside IT don't have to face the problems it causes.
2. It's predicated on what is quite simply, a lie. Companies are supposed to be able to pick visa candidates when they can't find domestic workers with that skill. We all know they don't. There is no skillset that you can find in a foreign worker that you won't find domestically. Whether you agree or disagree on the matter, I think most people will agree they don't enjoy watching others break the law.
3. It's predicated on an insulting lie. Simply put, they say that you American coders and sysadmins and DB admins reading this just aren't good enough to fill the jobs.
4. The author's claim that the visa workers spend their salaries on the economy as an advantage doesn't fly. A domestic worker will almost always spend a higher percentage of their salary in the local economy. A visa worker sending money back to their country is from an economic standpoint, very harmful to us, for reasons any economist will be able to tell you.
5. The idea that down the road we'll benefit kind of misses the whole point. We don't all compromise an immortal hivemind. The guy who just lost his job to a visa holder can't eat or pay rent with his future hopes.
If the program was run honestly, across various career fields, and only used when there truly was a need, people would have a lot fewer troubles with it.
According to this page, there are "undertakings, enforceable by heavy civil and criminal penalties," among which are:
# To pay the H1B worker at least the higher of the wage paid to similar workers in the same company or the "prevailing wage" (usually determined by the relevant State Employment Services Agency) for the occupation in the area the worker will be employed;
# That the recruitment of the H1B worker(s) will not adversely affect the conditions of the employer's US-resident employees in similar jobs;
Now.. if this is truly the case, if H1B visa workers really are being paid less then their US-resident counterparts, then that is a clear cut violation is it not? Has anybody tried to enforce these rules?
As someone who likes public transportation, I'd have to say a lot of the stigma is deserved. In every US city I've been in, the bus does not ever come on time, or even close to on time. You're lucky if the damn thing comes within 45 minutes of the scheduled time, and even luckier if it comes on time and actually bothers to stop for you.
Trains are run more automatically, so are a lot more reliable. Not up to Japanese standards, where pretty much a computer runs everything, but better than the damn bus.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Uh, the last couple of elections elected a neo-conservative; which like the neoliberals is all for destroying the American middle class if it means that the rich get richer off of cheap labor.
The last 4 Presidential elections, and the last 6 Congressional elections, all elected Free Traitors above patriotic politicians.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It seems as if the thrust of the book is about the treatment of individual immigrants and their experiences. It addresses, what sounds to me like, the standard xenophobic and racist reactions you get from (for lack of a better term) assholes. While this is certainly interesting, what I am more interested in is the debate over policy WRT immigration. I have never held against anyone who was trying to better themselves, immigrated to this country or took what opportunity came along. I have always maintained that I'd do the same thing if I was in their shoes.
That being said, there is a larger issue here. At what rate can this country absorb immigrants of various economic and educational levels? I realize that some people like to believe that since we have always been a nation of immigrants, we should not restrict new immigration, as it is unfair to those who want to come now.
That's fine and dandy, but there is a practical limitation on immigration. First of all, if the US can get educated workers while India foots the bill for their education, what incentive is there in US society to create an educated domestic workforce? If this country does not have the educated workforce needed to innovate, how will these industries remain competitive as places like India and China increase the capabilities of their domestic infrastructure?
This nation isn't some social darwinist's or anarcho-capitalist's wet dream of an experiment, it's a nation built on a set of principles regarding the defense of rights and the freedom to exercise those rights. The defense of rights requires wealth, in other words, democracy and freedom are expensive. The best way to insure optimum levels of freedom and the ability of citizens to defend their rights is through good-paying jobs. Much as a recent study showed that the most effective (and largest dollar amount) foreign aid was foreign workers who sent money home, the best way to maintain the principles of this country is to insure that anyone willing to work can find a good-paying job. And I better not see those utterly rediculous unemployment numbers, job growth isn't anywhere near handling the issue of underemployment in the US.
While I wouldn't hold the author in any sense accountable for taking someone else's job (wouldn't you do the same?), I do hold our political leaders accountable for creating a system that puts US citizens in line behind another country's citizens. That is what happens if visa programs are too open or if wage arbitration through outsourcing is allowed to happen. You can claim that it's simply a matter of economics, that we must compete with people who don't pay for the same defense of rights that we do in the US, but that's illogical. I don't hold an idea that we should simply subsidize uncompetitive workforces or business practices, but the rapid changes in our modern economy can easily produce income volatility for the average family that was unheard of 50 years ago. Communities and families don't handle change nearly as easily as multi-national corporations. So what are the choices? Do we create a welfare state that "smoothes out" the rough edges of a global economy? Do we export only the tools to create wealth and severely restrict the import of people?
Take the same set of arguments and apply them to illegal immigration. Wouldn't a more expensive labor force for menial tasks provide a larger incentive to automate those tasks? Wouldn't that automation and innovation also help to create good-paying jobs? Isn't automation the most sustainable growth? The largest danger I see from guest worker programs, visa programs and illegal immigration is the creation of second-class citizens. That is a danger to the principles and long-term stability of this nation.
I might pose this question to the author: What would he do if he still resided in India and saw that the Indian government was putting the interests of US citizens ahead of Indian citizens and the bulk of any benefit from the arrangement was going to the wealthiest of Indians?
After all, won't the offspring of anyone immigrating to this country face these same problems as any native US citizen would?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I've recently moved from Atlanta, GA to New York. Back in Atlanta, it wasn't uncommon to have an office with a few Indian developers, but they were a very small minority.
The small consulting company I work at now is owned by a British ex-pat and the office is about 75% foreign born. Working with a diverse crowd is a great learning experience. Not only are you exposed to interesting cultures, but also some different ways of doing things. Plus, I've recently been to some of the best Indian restaurants I would have never found on my own.
For those rednecks out there that act like idiots to our guests, you are rude and stupid. We are a nation of immigrants. My great grandfathers came from Spain and Croatia in the 19th century. They had a dream of making a better life for my family and succeeded. The diversity of our nation fuels innovation. Compare the motivation of most immigrants to many 3rd, 4th, or more generation Americans, they are excited to have an opportunity... I find it inspirational. Fact of the matter is, America needs to remain competitive.
Don't blame someone else for your own lazy self. The world has changed, go change with it.
If you grew up in the US, then that means that for the first 18-22 years of your life (at least) you weren't helping to pay for the infrastructure you took advantage of, either -- and, since you probably went to public school, you were taking much more advantage of it than they are.
Nice try, but unfortunately you didn't have much of a say in that did you. You didn't ask to be born and you didn't ask to be brought up the way you were.
ok, just wondering hwo you see the fall of our entire economy from these foreign workers. It sure seems that for all your alarmism, the economy is doing pretty darn well. Industries are growing at home, not shrinking. It sure looks like everything is OK. Of course, you could cry about the dollar getting weaker but it seems that is something you should like. It means more of us will be buying things made by them red blooded americans. oddly enough, I don`t know a single unemployed programmer. I do know about 10 employed ones, all of whom are indian actually. Of course, I`m sure they spell the end of the American economy. I mean, my god, a highly educated foreigner who is trying to start a family and build a life in the US. and actually, most of them started on the H1-B program and rolled their Visa over so they could stay. so please, just attempt to explain how these programs spell the end of our economy.
From my experience H1Bs at the companies I have worked for are used for graduate degree students. Most american students who go to college tend to leave after getting their BS, especially in technical areas. 50% of PhDs & 33% of Masters degrees in engineering and CS are earned by foreign students (1997 numbers, though things probably haven't changed much, or are worse looking at the trend).
When companies say they can't find qualified individuals in the US it may be true if they are specificly looking for advanced degrees. Remember the HR drones are looking for paper, so it might be coupled with high expectations, and lack of understanding of the importance of experience in some fields. I wonder how much it costs to hire somebody through H1B program. They are limited, so I'm sure there are alot of legal costs associated with securing and maintaining the H1B visa. As well as legal costs of ensuring compliance with the program, providing and maintaining documentation in case somebody audits you. It may be more expensive because of legal costs to get an H1B worker but if you must have the graduate degree it may be the only way to fill to spot.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Likewise, the top 0.1% of Americans probably pay no tax at all.
What?!?! Are you serious about that? Me having more money is a burden to you? How in the world do you justify that?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I have always wondered why people who have higher than average understanding (the typical slashdot crowd) still blame the H1Bs for their job losses. This as has been explored before is an offshoot of globalization. What I don't understand is how people do not seem to mind the immigrants (Mexicans, et al) who take up the lowliest jobs, do nothing to improve the surroundings, who in fact lower the standard of living all around their communities and who live off the largess of the US and give absolutely nothing back.
Contrast this with the skilled H1B workers who not only (almost always) have advanced degrees, who do a competent job and who give back to the community in a big way (maintaining their affluence - causing improvement in the living areas, etc) and also in more tangible terms, by opening their own companies and providing employment to a number of others. A distinction is to be made between such immigrants who should be welcomed and the other kind.
Consider what is happening here today. Illegal immigrants (those who end up doing menial jobs) get away scot free (in some cases also getting citizenships) and basically get to enjoy the frutis of working in the US whereas the technically oriented crowd always has to worry about being in status, gets heckled even in big cities and basically live in mortal fear of the INS or their companies. Doesn't this seem to be kind of unfair? American should wake up and with a clear head decide which kind of immigrant is a better prospect.
Contrary to what you say, the H1B program is far from indentured servitude. Yes, its true that H1B holders cannot switch jobs as easily as citizens, but remember that the point of the program is to allow skilled workers the chance to work in their field of expertise, and be compensated accordingly.
It's true that an individual on an H1B has to be sponsored by a company, but the decision to recruit H1Bs is about a lot more than cutting wages.
For one thing, an immigrant on a two-year gig will be more willing to put in more hours, and spend those hours more productively. A temporary immigrant has no family in the US he/she needs to spend time with, and is here for the sole purpose of making money and gaining experience. Plus he/she will not spend company time farting around on the internet looking for better jobs.
For another, an H1B is only going to be at a position for a limited time. Once the visa is up, that person may return to their home country (or not), but is very likely to remain in the same field. If I run a software house and can build up a network of people I know -- people who have worked for me -- who are going to be running their own software houses in Mumbai (or Madras, or Bangkok, or Beijing, or Chicago, etc), it will make it much easier for me to open up business opportunities there.
The J1 program, on the other hand, is for seasonal work, and a participant has to be enrolled at a university. These are usually three-month positions paid at or below minimum wage. Nominally, they are at least minimum wage, but employers often find ways of getting the money back.
Last summer I met a whole bunch of Polish, Czech, and Slovak J1s at a hotel in central Virginia. They were living at the hotel and making, nominally, $8.00/hour.
However, $2.50/hour went from their paycheck to the agency that recruited them (which was owned by the same group that owned the hotel); they lived four-to-a-room (standard motel room with 2 double beds), for which they paid around $90/week each, and another $10/day for food (2 meals, extremely small -- breakfast was generally an orange, a single-size cereal box, and a half-pint of milk, lunch was maybe 60g of mystery meat and a scoop of mashed potatoes -- enough for a child, maybe). They had to pay for the food whether or not they actually ate it.
The funny thing is what these kids complained most about was that they were being limited to 35 hours/week of work, presumably so the employer would not be required to give them full-time benefits. They would gladly have worked twice that amount.
As it was, they netted less than $50/week of work, after paying more than $1000 (agency fees, plane tickets, insurance, etc) for the privilege.
I've known lots of J1s and this was the worst situation I had ever seen, but it is far from uncommon. I also know quite a few H1Bs, and none of them have any horror stories like this.
Whoops, they forgot to correlate with the increase in sunspot activity over the past few years...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"First, Social Security is pretty much the biggest service that you get from federal tax dollars"
Rich people pay proportionally on Social Security, one of the biggest taxes the fed govt takes in. Your argument stinks.
Americans will be at least somewhat mollified to learn that outsourcing is not confined to the USA. Your story really struck a note with me, as the process you describe exactly matches what is happening to a friend of mine, a young man with a young family, trying to get a house built. So its important to remember that the cost of outsourcing is not just in terms of economy, it can have a heavy social and cultural cost also.
Ireland is one of the world's largest exporters of software, due to the large tax cuts our government offers to American corporations that make their base here (MS European HQ is in Ireland), but the benefits of lower tax rates is quickly being outweighed by simple lower salaries that poorer countries offer. This trend is not particularily new, I was hit by the same thing back in 2000 - thanks Nortel - but it is only now that it is becoming the rule rather than the exeption.
Corporations have long since grasped the idea that I first saw in the movie The Edge (I think)... What one man can do, another can do. So what can you do? Well what I did was I started my own business, and before hiring anyone, I looked into the global job market, and found several areas where I could get top quality web designers at a wage which in my country would be ludicrously low. Once you get over the dependability and communications risks, not only does it make sense, it offers a small business (with neither capital nor government aid, and precious little money - realistically, I only had a couple of computers and a laptop I had to go into hock to buy) the only chance to survive and prosper in an extremely densely populated market.
Maybe that sounds like I am going back on my earlier statements, but the crucial difference here is that I never hired local programmers and designers in the first place. The few jobs lost to the local economy make an insignificant impact as opposed to the expansion to the businesses of my customers, who have more business, and thus employ more people, something I am not in a position to do.
Is it exploitation? Cerainly not, the countries where I employ people have cripplingly poor economies, and jobs of any sort are hard to come by. Due to a very favourable exchange rate, what I pay them here comes out for them as a very good salary (think house, car and family of four fed and educated), so everyone wins. If you can't beat them, join them, with reservations.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
As somebody on the H1-B going to get his green card tomorrow morning, I feel like I should throw my $.02 Canadian in.
Others in this thread posted that H1-B != immigrant, and they're right to say so. But the H1-B visa lets you have "dual intent," which is when you're here not as an immigrant but allowed to pursue immigrant status. That's the main reason I switched from the NAFTA TN-1 visa, which doesn't allow this. So while technically your status says you aren't an immigrant, you can still have every intention of immigrating under the H1-B program.
I don't send the money I make out of the country, not unless you count me paying off my old car in Canada, now thankfully done, or making payments on my student loans. Other than that what I make stays in this country: paying others, investing, etc. I think I have to pay all the same fees a "normal" person does: Social Security, Medicare, income tax, and all that good stuff. Even when I bought a retirement present for the old man, it was from an American retailer and shipped back to the old country.
I like to think I contribute something to the country and the people that have been so good to me over the past 5+ years I've been here. I've had more than a couple of offers to go back home, some more lucrative than what I have here, but here I feel like I'm doing some good.
Anyway that's enough out of me. To any and all Americans reading, let me just add...thanks for the opportunity. Nice place you have here. :)
when you consider that the top 5% of Americans pay over 50% of all the taxes
Isn't that because the top 5% of Americans hold 90% of the country's wealth?
That is true for income and property taxes, but sales taxes (a big part of state budgets, not to mention a major tax source in big cities) cut across class, and Social Security winds up being basically regressive (i.e. hits the poor harder, proportionally). Since Social Security post-Reagan is used to shore up the federal budget, taxation isn't nearly as progressive as most people think. In any case income taxes hit "wealthy wage earners" much harder pound for pound than those who, e.g., earn their cash off of stocks and get to write off 18 holes at Pebble Beach as a 'business expense' ...
It's simple math. If you have more than the average, then your share minus the average, divided by the number of people, is an amount that I could have if your wealth above the average were redistributed. Therefore, I'd be better off if you (and everyone else above the average) weren't above the average. (Assuming we start with me below the average).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't mean to be hostile at all in this comment but I must mention that I don't think this article is fair to american programmers either. For one it is true that almost everyone's relatives at some point were immigrants but remember they came over and did things that didn't require higher level education. I think people are irritated because they spend years of their time learning this stuff and paying for it to be replaced by someone outside the country. They fail to see why immigrants have to come over to the US if they have training in their own country for high level learning. Why is India and other countries training people to send them over here? That is something that boggles my mind. I don't see the reason to waste money on training people to send to another country. Its not the US policies that are out of wack in my mind. I think that maybe these countries lack some pride or something. I wouldn't move to halfway across the world for a better job and then renounce my citizenchip. Remember when you come across the world into another country and take a job that someone else wanted from that country you should expect them to be upset. You went out of your way to get their job... I'm not trying to be an asshole here but there is always going to be two perspectives and I can see both of them. This problem is reoccuring throughout history and is the same argument everytime. So I don't think complaining on either side is going to solve it. I think people just need to accept that anyone can take their job and maybe people need to also consider having a bit more respect for their own country.
Look at the other way.
If we killed off 100million native born US citizens - yeah that would technically mean that there is more left for everybody else, but I think most people would still agree that it would be a overwhelming loss none the less.
Well the same is true the other way. If a 100M people come to the US, they will get jobs, buy things, invest, open businesses, and take advantage of the liberties they likely didn't have in other places. Unless they get on welfare or are supported by the taxpayer - it is a major net gain no matter how you look at it.
Immigrants didn't have a say in where they were born either, and they definitely weren't taking advantage of the US's infrastructure at a young age. Your point makes no sense.
You need to pay into the US Social Security system for 10 years before you can get a dime back in retirement benefits. An H1 visa is for 6 years. Anyone who stays on an H1 visa will therefore pay lots of money into the social security system, and see nothing back. How does this not meet your criteria?
You need to pay into the US Social Security system for 10 years before you can get a dime back in retirement benefits. An H1 visa is for 6 years. Anyone who stays on an H1 visa will therefore pay lots of money into the social security system, and see nothing back. How does this not meet your criteria?
Where the HELL did I say it didn't?
I was drawing a general case (about as general as I could make it) about people moving from one society to another.
I certainly didn't claim this justified (or otherwise) the US H1 system.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I am a college student who came to USA 6 years ago. I am unfamiliar about the situation in computer field, as I am a biology major. However, I can tell that about a lot of the PH.D students and post-doctor researchers are either H-1 or J-1 in my university. Many of my professors come from other part of the world as well. I have also worked in a research insituation during summer and 50% of researchers are H-1 holder. It is my understand that they get about same amount of pay as their US counterpart. Therefore, it is very clear that there is actual shorten of talented people in certain fields. These people help US achieve great science breakthrough, which allow our society advanced as a whole. I have no doubt that some of them directly compete with us directly for jobs. However, there are field that have actually shorten of talented people.
I apologize for my error in citing H1B as a "Guest worker" which carries the connotation of being short term.
We need doctors, lawyers, policemen, teachers, firemen, etc. Why not "special" immigration programs for them?
As a matter of fact we do have special programs for doctors. There is a large trend of smaller rural areas importing doctors from abroad because most american doctors would not move to the middle of nowhere.
College professors have special cultural exchange programs as well.
Why do we not have more programs for bringing in talent? You're right. We should have more of these programs.
American Xenophobia vs American common sense. The author asks why does a nation of immigrants now frown on immigrants. The "cause of anger among many Americans" is the hipocracy I was thinking of when I wrote the word xenophobia. It's the mentality of 'my parents immigrated when it was still honorable' while the 'they' are 'economic mirgrants' (aka leeches.)
It's bad policy... agreed.
But surely it makes no odds, so long as they pay their taxes? As the article points out, they are not resident long enough to use any of the services they are paying for.
Furthermore, for the extent of their stay, they are sharing the same set of circumstances. And, let's face it, anyone can retire to a country with a 1/10th of the cost of living if they wanted to. (I'm sure I'm not alone in weighing up the pros and cons of doing over their employer's safe and catching the next plane out!)
"there's an interesting legend behind that on the Kwakiutal side of things from the Jowadaino tribe, about the dangers of technology"
Why am I suddenly picturing an ancient petroglyph that appears to combine the symbols "IE" and "0wned"? :-)
---
Cthulhu holiday songs, for the gift that keeps on loathing.
"harassment from a flag-waving driver gesturing obscenely (and blocking his car) on the streets of New Jersey"
Um, dude that happens to me all the time. And I'm an old white guy with grey hair. Hell, somebody in the bar wanted me deported the other day because I suggested we watch the BBC news. But he was from Scranton, where he says the "real" people live. (I'm thinking the good people of Scranton kicked his ass out.)
I don't care what your deal is, it's still like, New Jersey, y'know?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
We won't see the likes of post #11111111 until the number doubles. Congrats.
So are the incredibly wealthy. Think about it. They are taxed *far* more than they take advantage of.
One of the major causes of revolution is having a huge disparity between the living conditions of the poor and those with money. Simply put, the wealthy are taxed higher in order to protect their wealth.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
They dug a trench from one end of the city to the other, and the buses run every two minutes through it during the day, and blast along at 60 or 70 mph. The connecting buses also are very good, and you can get pretty much anywhere in the core of the city very easily. They have double length buses that are articulated in the middle, which is also cool. The bus system in Ottawa is great - I was really happy without a car when I lived there.
It isn't quite that bad, though it is a figure higher than 50%. Additionally, the top 5% of Americans earn more than 50% of income generated in this country (not much more, but it is more). The latter figure is not to be confused with TAXABLE income, of which the top 5% earn less than 50% of.
So, try this with me. I'm Russian by origin, and I have lived in the US for the past 10 years. I look like your average white American, I speak with no accent, and largely as a direct result of that I experience no discrimination in my daily life.
That breaks whenever I have to deal with the authorities with regards to my H1-B and related paperwork, because I am very quickly and rudely reminded that I am apparently a "second-rate human" simply by virtue of having been born in a different country. I have to stand in long lines in order to be able to get a visa simply to re-enter the country after I've visited my aging parents, I have to go through humiliating "look straight into the camera" and "place your thumb squarely on the glass" procedures upon arriving in the US, and if a promotion opportunity comes up, I have to turn it down since it's too much of a pain in the ass to modify my job status. If I'm ever arrested for whatever reason, even if I just happened to be at a wrong place at the wrong time, I do not qualify for a free lawyer (even though I pay all the same taxes), and it's a crime for me to be in posession of a firearm even if I live in a neighborhood where armed robbery is routine. Oh, and I can be deported if I do not carry my passport with me at all times, or if I fail to notify the authorities of a change of address when I change apartments.
This makes me wonder -- we all get indignant when a government somewhere discriminates based on race or religion. Apartheid was boycotted for discriminating against blacks, and when some country somewhere makes Christianity illegal, everyone goes running for the nearest soapbox. However, everyone expects their government to discriminate against someone who just happens to have been born outside the imaginary political borders of their fiefdom, unless they go through the meaningless procedure of raising a hand and reciting the pledge after finding a desperate enough partner for a quick green-card marriage.
What's the moral justification in that? Why is it wrong to discriminate based on the color of skin, but perfectly fine based on the birthplace? I realize that there are political reasons to do this, but it amazes me that so few people have any moral trouble denying the same rights that they have to someone who happened to grow up in a different geographical spot than they did.
Think about it.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Immigration is the only chance for the USA to keep its leading position in the world in all domains including IT.
Indeed. I work in the Physics & Astronomy department at a large (c. 20,000 students) university. Most of the grad students are foreign. All of the postdocs are foreign, either on H1-B visas or on J-1 visas. If it wasn't for all of these foreigners, the department would have no active research program whatsoever.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Well since all races have about 99.999999% of commonality in their DNA make up. It is safe to assume a commong ancestor, i.e. a single point of birth.
Multiple evolutions leading to a common result in parallel would be theoretically rather hard to achieve, almost to the point of impossibility.
If you've been outsourced, fired, laid off, underemployed, etc., welcome to the new economy. There are some empty seats on your left, please sit down.
Getting laid off was the best thing to happen to me.
I was punted from one job as a contractor after 3 months because the manufacturing moved to China. I was punted from another job after 6 months because the firmware and manufacturer moved to China and India.
So I joined up with a small company as a consultant, and I'm working a job for both of my previous employers, making 1.5x what I was before! Our company does some defense work, so we only employ US citizens and (so far, thank God) don't employ any women. I get to make my own hours, as well as switch gears totally when I feel stuck. In my opinion, we got to ship out all of the boring work so people in the US could concentrate on the creative side of things.
This job is way more academic and research-oriented, and because I'm a consultant, I don't have to worry about conforming to "the way things have always been done". I'm only 25, and I have one patent with my name on it, and another on the way.
Seriously, start your own business and work for yourself, or someone else as a 1099. I've never been happier at work!
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
I'm just plain surprised at how ignorant so many people here are. If they knew anything about the world in general they'd know, a few IT jobs nonwithstanding, immigration is an absolute boon for the United States. Many parts of the world are suffering from what's called "brain drain". Their best and most educated workers leave the country to work elsewhere. Since the United States is a popular destination, we benefit from their loss.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that highly educated workers coming to our country is a good thing. The global market is competitive, and we have an incredible advantage because we are able to attract the best and brightest from around the world to work for us.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
So, we should just throw up our arms and let all of the immigrants move here?
If only other countries were so giving!
Does that really make a difference? If you send your children to a school largely paid for by someone else's tax dollars, and drive to work on roads paid for by someone else's tax dollars, can you really criticize a recent immigrant for doing the same, just because their parents didn't help pay for that infrastructure?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Today, many companies won't consider applicants who do not live in the same city as where the job is located. So even if you don't care about moving wherever the job is you're screwed because they'll throw your resume into the trash as soon as they see that your address is not near them.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Your argument makes no sense. Yes, the rich pay proportionally on Social Security. However, they don't collection proportionally. As with other taxes, the disproportionate contributions of the rich subsidize everyone else. However, what does that have to do with social security as a service? If you've got two people making $50,000 a year, both are paying a (favorably) disproportionate share of the taxes. If, however, one collects social security and the other doesn't, then the latter is paying taxes disproportionately compared with the first person.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
That seems odd---if you're going to have a dedicated right of way anyway, and one below street level at that, why not just put in some rails and make it a train? Aren't most of the expenses in putting in trains getting the right of way purchased and set up in such a way that the trains can run below/above the streets?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
While that's incorrect (the wealthiest 5% pay over 50% of the taxes), it doesn't make a difference. You've got 5% of people paying 50%+ of the taxes. That means a person making $200,000 a year pays 10x his share of the taxes, yet he doesn get 10x as much service. He sits in the same traffic as everyone else does. Given those circumstances, everyone not in the top 5% really are in no position to complain about *other* people getting services disproportionate to what they pay.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> All the Indian programmers I have worked with have been above average (and some spectacularly so). I totally agree with this book's author that they contribute more than they take away - but H1-B visas ARE the first step to immigration.
I'm a naturalized US citizen, an immigrant. H1-B visas are not immigration visas, and corporations don't look forward to help their H1-B's become citizens.
I have no problem with immigration, but I do have problem when companies use these visas for temporary work that could be done here. H1-B's are not generating many US citizens, which if they did, they'd be great. I'm all for brain draining other countries.
> All the Indian programmers I have worked with have been above average (and some spectacularly so).
They're human being, like most people, there are great ones and there are extremely crappy ones. I haven't found any Computer Science "gene" yet that says what nationality can come up with an algorithm best.
- sigs are for wimps.
I know that's a popular thing to believe, but it isn't true. The 400 richest Americans paid 1.58% of total income taxes last year. The top 1% paid 35% of all taxes. Do the rich use fancy accountants to get out of some taxes? Sure. But the tax reciepts are part of the public record --- they paid a whole lot of taxes, there is no doubt about that.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Unfortunately, the only way one of them wouldn't collect is if they died. The SocSecAdmin will disburse money to you, if you paid into it, even if you don't want or need it. You can't opt out of the system in any way, shape, form or fashion. Unless you run away or die, and even then your heirs may get it.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Except those people aren't given that money --- they earn it. You might not ike how they earn it, or you might not think they deserve it, but they did earn that money in the free market.
I'm a progressive liberal. I believe the rich *do* have a duty to use their greater resources for the overall good of society. However, I think the villification of the rich is getting silly.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Social security benefits are reduced for retirees with high income from other sources (usually investment income from their retirement savings).
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
If you grew up in the US, then that means that for the first 18-22 years of your life (at least) you weren't helping to pay for the infrastructure you took advantage of, either -- and, since you probably went to public school, you were taking much more advantage of it than they are.
True, but on the other hand my parents did. And their parents. And their parents. And their parents. And they all wanted a better life for their children. So while I agree that I haven't put in my time yet (and I'm 28), I someday will. I live in the Twin Cities, MN area and I'm met several Somolis who are working and saving up money so in a few years they can go back to Somolia and live like kings. Perhaps the norm, I doubt it. The pendulum swings both ways. In other words, it's a SHITTY WORLD and you'd better start dealing with it.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
The legend of the "superior" H1-B worker is largely a myth.
... don't expect any useful input from Mr NEP.
... except Mr. NEP. He nodded his head and wrote down all of the action items that were assigned to him, (and his penmanship is excellent, BTW!) but doesn't seem to understand what any of them actually mean.
... 2 days later you'll find out from HR that he has filed a formal complaint because none of his American team members will show him where the bud or turkeys are located. (email on file, I assure you)
... seemingly never having heard of CPAN. If there is a possibly better language or tool to use than Perl, you'll never hear of it from him - the formal specifications (that you had to waste someone's time writing just for him) say "Perl", and that is holy writ to him never to be challenged or even thought about.
;)
MY EXPERIENCE:
IF you give the typical near-Eastern programmer (NEP) PRECISE requirements (so precise that you have actually already detailed the program logic and much of the actual code) you'll get back working code (sorta working anyway) from them in record time.
IF you sit down in a meeting with the typical (NEP) and have a discussion with your team about what the program is supposed to do, what pitfalls might be encountered, what languages or other tools might be used to best approach the project
He'll sit there smiling quietly and saying nothing. He doesn't ask any questions or participate in any decisions or raise any issues. Everyone leaves the meaning pretty much clear about what part of the project is theirs and what they are supposed to do
Y'see -- he didn't get a formal, precise and comprehensive set of "spec-see-fee-cay-shoons" and therefore has no clue. Despite what might appear to be excellent written and verbal English skills, he doesn't seem to really understand much of the language except when used in precise, formal constructions.
You'll assign him a bug list and ask him to "nip these in the bud" or "kill these turkeys"
IF your team thought Perl was the way to go, he'll keep slogging through writing Perl code, but he has no idea where to find any Perl mods that aren't already installed
Mr NEP will always be polite, he will never be late, he will always be appropriately dressed and you will never have to ask him to remove THAT from his cubicle wall. He never tells bad jokes, dirty jokes, politically incorrect jokes -- well never ANY jokes for that matter, but laughs at everyone else's at the right time. He never comes to work with a hangover. If he had open-heart surgery yesterday, he'll be to work on time today.
Sadly - when a full analysis is performed - he just doesn't accomplish much in the same way that his American and Eurp counterparts do. He's paid about half of what his US/Euro buddy is, and overall is worth about one fourth.
Just MY opinion of course
H1-Bs are not immigrants. They can't collect social security bcause they don't live here permanently. If they do decide to live here permanently, they have to become a US Citizen, and at that point, they are equal to everyone else anyway.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It is the American law that forces them to be that way!
So, if you write to your congressman recommending that all H1B workers be given permanent immigration status, no H1B holder will be upset. They will cheer you!
All your favorite sites in one place!
"By most accounts that shortage no longer exists."
Exactly. It is just one prong of a multipronged fork being used to drive down labor costs in the U.S. It is part of class warfare, and I know half of the readers just freaked when I used those two dirty words, but the fact is class warfare exists, it is happening and the class that is winning the war is doing such a good job most American's refuse to believe there even is such a thing.
The multiple prongs of class warfare:
- Offshoring jobs to China, India or any other place that with cheap labor and no regulation
- Allow a flood of illegal immigrants across the border to take all the menial jobs
- H1B visas to allow a flood of legal immigrants for all the skilled jobs. H1B visa workers lead the way in racking up huge quantities of uncompensated overtime that helps insure everyone else has to do the same.
- Bust unions at every opportunity and strive to drain them of their power and relevance. If you can't bust them, close all the unionized factories and ship the jobs offshore.
The fact is U.S. labor is overpriced and of declining quality(badly educated, badly motivated, etc) so in a globalized economy all of these hammers are seen as necessary by the class that is winning class warfare. Of course the irony is any one were to look closely at the wealthy who are winning class warfare you realize they are badly educated, have bad judgement, are often crooks(think Enron etc.), and are devoid of morales and scuples. They are just as much to blame for America's decline, but since they are rich and powerful they don't get to suffer for it while everyone in the working class does.
@de_machina
we should have fought to keep them here.
New technologies is one thing (buggy whips, etc), but there is NO REASON for labor arbitrage. And that is what it really is when you ship jobs overseas because of lower labor costs. Same thing for H1b.
And if you ship overseas because of lower manufacturing costs caused by lower worker and environmental protections, then that is environment arbitrage.
That has nothing to do with "free trade". It's theft. And our politicians should be tried in courts of law for their crimes in this area.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I'm a hiring manager/former top developer (former like as in last year). I interview about 6-9 people a week. As a group, the indian programmers are no better than the american programmers.
Of course, I've lost jobs to cheaper, less qualified developers of all nationalities too.
Largely because employers are penny wise and pound foolish. Headcount, that's what matters, not net brain power.
If you are really concerned about the guest workers, let them make their own choices. What you consider "exploitation" they obviously consider a good idea. You wouldn't be doing them any favors by taking away the choice.
So you're preaching socialism. Redistribution of wealth. Tell me, what happens when nobody is "above the average?"
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I can understand the arguements set forth. But their are some holes in the logic. The amount of money spent sponsoring an immigrant can be utilized sponsoring a native born citizen through scholorships and grants. Companies sponsoring locals could even tailor their education to suit the specialized needs of the company. In the old days, their was an emphasis on a general education and then the individual was trained on the job. The author asserts that their paychecks are spent on the local economy. Fact is, so would a local-born immigrant (ie native). Then the author asserts buying foreign automobiles, because of resale value. Any vehicle that is desireable would have a high resale value ... Harley Davidsons for example. Which is interesting as cheap motorcycles are the norm in Asia (along with three-wheeled Tuk-tuks).
The bottom line I see, is that we are burning the candle at both ends. The eagerness of companies to focus on the short-term will not build long-term viability. How can underpriviledged natives compete in a one-sided universe? Of course, my view is tainted by unemployment.
My 2
Whyaduck writes:
Do the countries that H1-B's come from have similarly generous guest worker programs?
India (for instance) is much poorer than the US. If you're a US worker who wants to move to India and get a job at Indian wages then I doubt anyone's going to stop you.
In economic terms, the capital and the labour are more productive together than apart. One mechanism to bring them together (not the only one, obviously) is to move the labour to where the capital is, and that's what H-1B and its ilk try to do. There's no corresponding flow of labour from the US to India because the capital imbalance is pulling the other direction.
Caveat: my spelling of "labour" probably gives away that I am (in some sense) a foreigner myself.
H1B WORKERS: go home. Leave the United States and return to your home countries. Build up your local high-tech industries. Corporations will send the jobs to you, and the USA will slide into oblivion.
It's maddening to read countries complaining about the all-to-real "brain drain" of their best and brightest talent to the USA, and to also read people in the USA complaining about receiving that talent.
I say this as someone who is going back home to New Zealand after 3 years of H1B-hood, to do my bit to reverse the brain drain. Fortunately my job is portable and I'm taking it home with me.
They tuhkkk arr jobs!
*crowd* took rrr job!
Different than being an early British immigrant to the New World when the odds of dying in the first year were 25%.
The rest of the subject is a similarly shallow treatment of the way pioneering technologists are left without anything to show for what they gave to the world -- not even children.
Seastead this.
So in addition to taking programming jobs, they're also stealing jobs away from book authors...
Clearly, something must be done.
Yes but those grown up immigrants that have not used the benefits of the US infrastructure make a choice to go to the US and start working.
Someone who was born in the US, and uses the infrastructure generally didn't have a choice in that matter. Their parents made that decision for them.
In that light, you cannot throw the "You had all the benefits the US provides" card, in the face of someone who was born there.
H1-B's aren't real immigrants. They are scab laborers that are at the mercy of those that sponsor their work visas. This allows/asks for labor practices abuses that WILL ultimately affect the rest of us.
An Indian H1-B is contributing to a situation that's much more than just a matter of increasing the supply of labor.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
IAACWIUBIHBPMGC (I am another Canadian working in USA but I haven't been pursuing my green card).
I work under TN-1 status (trade professional under NAFTA) instead of H1-B which allows me to renew as many times as I want for up to a year each time. With this kind of status, there is little incentive to pursue a green card, especially if I plan to eventually return to the promised land.
The biggest challenge is actually social. I don't have a home any more. I live in USA but I am a foreigner - I do something eccentric or make a mistake and hear "Is that how Canadians do it?" That doesn't bather me because usually it's in jest. The more troublesome part is when I go back to Canada to visit family.
Even in my own extended family I have become one of those Americans in their eyes. These are people that have known me since I wore diapers, but now they see me differently. They vent on me for everything that pisses them off about USA. The don't necessarily treat me as if I am complicite, but I still seem to be a target of their ventilation.
In Canada I am an American, in USA I am Canadian. The funny thing is, Canadians don't want to be considered foreign to USA, and I definately don't want to be considered foreign in Canada - that's my country!
Parent Poster: do you have family in Canada? do you go back to visit? What province (or territory)? I wonder if people from the three cities or southern lattitudes (I'm from near Edmonton and my family is Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Northwest Territories) have a similar experience as me?
Thomas;
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
"jobs which are seemingly difficult to fill from the American labor pool for a variety of reasons,"
Such as not being fluent in Swahili, Cantonese, or Aramaic.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
In america you outsource IT
In India IT outsource you.
The GDP per capita in the US is 37K. That means the mean income for an average household of about 3 people is over 100K/yr.
Per capita also includes your retired grandmother, living alone with a very modest income, by the way.
127K/yr is too low, by a long shot.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
You've got 5% of people paying 50%+ of the taxes. That means a person making $200,000 a year pays 10x his share of the taxes, yet he doesn get 10x as much service.
Taxation on the rich is way too low. The top 1% of the country owns 38% of the wealth of the nation, but pay only 37% in income tax. You may say "Well, that's close," but it does *not* include social security.
Social security has been used for general fund purposes for years, and the amount of money collected is enormous, 15% of a person's income for lower income people.
Social security is almost on par with income tax as a revenue source for the federal government, and the cost of social security even recently was far less than it brought in. Of course, it was all spent by the federal government.
The truth is the wealthiest are paying far less than their fare share of taxes. If social security had been saved for what it should have been, then I would say the tax burden is correct, but it has not. I estimate the rich are 50% undertaxed.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
Try to imagine how long anyone would hold onto wealth without police protection.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
And you, my friend, have underscored the absurdity of the direction this debate always seems to take. If Indian programmers weren't "cheaper" than Americans, they'd hire Americans. Period. We know this. It's not even a topic for debate. It's self-evident.
But when we say, "look, this isn't terribly reasonable. We're expensive because we live here. H1-B's live here, too, but they'll go back to India where they can live like kings on the $10,000 they managed to save up by living sort of cheap. I'll retire here some day... I need to build a nest egg, too. Even worse, offshore folks are dirt cheap because they live there." When we go on to say, "look, you live here, too. If this is bad for me, it's going to be bad for you. Unless we all want to go live there"... when we say this, we raise the ire of the "Slashdot: where racism against Indians is OK" sig asshole.
The review of this book (and, I take it, the book itself) seems to be a more polite version of this. "Quit complaining, you racists. You're all just a bunch of racists. Racist racist racist, you racist racist".
Sigh... it would be funny if it didn't affect me...
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
you were taking much more advantage of it than they are.
What? My parent's property taxes?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
From the article:
Sivakumar is also guilty in places of wielding the same kind of broad brush he sees being used to paint Indian programmers; he provides cultural sketches of several other groups that may be meant merely as casual observations rather than any sort of final word, but end up doing the same disservice as any other stereotype. (Of his first trip through customs, he says "That was the first time I ever talked to an African American. I never understood their accent even in the movies." This kind of glib generalization doesn't advance the cause of the book; often "they" are hard to characterize so blithely, no matter which "they" is at issue.)
I imagine this has something to do with growing up in a largely monoculture society. Yes I know India isn't strictly one large monolith, but on the whole their internal differences aren't nearly as great as "immigrant nations" like the United States and Canada.
I've noticed anecdotaly that some immigrants from racially homogenous countries sometimes have racist views of black Americans. Not blacks in general, but black Americans specifically. Which at first seems odd since they've most likely never met one prior to coming to America. I believe the reason is how blacks are depicted in American popular media. Predominately blacks are depicted as dumb, lazy, and criminal. All all play basketball. All black men are oversexed, and all black women are prone to loud violent outbursts. None of this is true, but this is how they're protrayed. Sadly, "black media" often reinforces these streotypes.
"Their fair share" of taxes woud be precisely how much they recieve in government services. The rich do recieve more in government services, but not enough to outweight the higher (in total dollars) amount they pay in taxes. Let's not twist the definition of "fair" here. In any case, we're talking about redistributing income, by being unfair to the rich. I think this is a fine thing, to tell the truth, but let's call a spade a spade, shall we?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The actual number is 128k/year, for a single wage earner. The number is slightly higher (something like 160k/year) for households. Almost no households have 3 wage earners, and two person households almost always have one person making significantly less than the other.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I don't have a problem with immigrants that come here and compete on a level playing field with American workers. But I also have had friends and coworkers who were H1-B workers. Consistantly, they were not paid market rates for their talents and as a result, they were more experienced labor that was "forced" to work for a lower salary -- this is a resource that hurts Americans at the _same_ skill level who would have been earning more.
One coworker got an immediate promotion after attaining his green-card. He'd been at the company I was at for about 1.5 years, me, maybe 5. I'd been in management training, done project releases that were on time and well run and did project releases under unrealistic circumstances that left all members burnt out and with myself having no power to reward them w/time off or bonuses. But my manager was quite frank about my coworker's "promotion" into a higher pay grade than I -- even though he knew less about the work we were doing than I did. He felt/knew that my coworker was feeling restless as our company floundered and wasn't able to work on projects that tapped his abilities to their fullest extent. In his area of expertise, I knew less, but it wasn't the job or group he was in at SGI, he landed in the group because the group he had been in was dissolved and he was good at what he had been doing, so when layoffs came, he was relocated to a different group that wasn't as good a match for his skills. My manager also felt that because he wasn't able to use his talents in the best way, his salary was depressed compared to his peers and "merit" increases were limited to an average of 2.7% in the given review period. The only way to give him a large jump in salary to keep him from "jumping ship" to another company was to promote him. He was an H1-B worker from the UK.
Another friend of mine (who described herself as being from Persia so as to avoid negative connotations -- and this was almost 15 years ago) had required overtime hours (unpaid) at about 80-90% average pay for her job description (in SiliVal). She wanted to quit but could not because she would have to leave the country if she wasn't immediately swooped up by a new company. She was trapped for some long time until she found another position that was willing to take a risk and handle the extra paperwork of transfering her over -- and for a while may have been here "illegally" until H1-B visa rules were relaxed with respect to how long workers could stay in the country before having to leave after leaving their sponsoring country.
So it is the H1-B Visa process and the fact that those worker's are not free agents in the economy -- it is exploiting "trapped" labor and make American citizens or those with Green Cards less attractive as employees. So -- Yes, I do resent H1-B workers as representative of an exploitive system.
-eol-
If you have the skills and have a good credit history (feds look at that) no criminal back ground then you can get in with companies doing Govt contracting, not the govt itself. Lockeed-Martin is an example. I work at the FAA areonautics center. My salary is ALMOST as good as private sector and I have gurarnteed 5 year contract. I'm in line to get a secret clearance and we do alot work with the Army ( go figure). the Beauty is if my company loses the contract in 5 years, then the new co. will have hire me if I don't want to leave, since I helped write the software in question. Then they will have a 5 year contract etc.... Granted the Pay is a bit less than private sector, not much though. They will never outsource this stuff because of all the clearances required. So it's perfect.
I would highly recommend it. I will never work in the strictly private sector again. Because of all the Tech demands, the demand in Govt jobs is soaring.
The down side is you may have to move somewhere you might not otherwise want to live, but a job is a job nowadays. Good Luck!
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Oh, and I agree with your assessment: the wealthy should pay for their services. The primary purpose of government is to protect its people. I'm tired of paying to protect the wealthy people's property, be it with welfare or whatever.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
It's simple math.
No, it's a simpleton's envy.
Your "simple math" completely disregards the question of who creates the wealth that you want to distribute.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hey Indians inventend "Kamasutra" wait till they export that here ....
I know I know this is a geek place so may be I should shut up !
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
From the writeup:
"[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or grandparents were immigrants too?"
They were IMMIGRANTS. They came here to share the benefits and burdens of living in this country and make their lives here. H1B workers aren't immigrants. They come here for a few years and work for wages that no one who is planning to buy a house, raise a family, and send his kids to college in America could afford to work for. Then they go home to a country where their dollars buy 10 times as much, and where the wealthy are able to exploit the labor of a giant, peasant underclass with a standard of living close to that of European peasants 120 years ago.
These aren't foreign workers who simply happen to land jobs in the U.S.; each H1-B visa holder has at least 16 years (often more) of formal education, and an American company sponsoring his or her application. (That education usually comes "free" to U.S. taxpayers, he notes, not at the expense of public school budgets or student loan subsidies.)
Great! So American corporations get an educated workforce without having to invest anything in the people at home, without having to create stable career paths for their workers. Why train and promote your junior programmers? It's so much easier to hire a kid in his 20s, work him like a dog for a few years, then lay him off when his salary demands are too high and plug in an experienced worker from overseas who doesn't need to earn enough to support a middle-class lifestyle in America. That's a great system if you're part of the 5 percent of the population that makes most of its money from investments. If you have to work for a living, it's a lousy deal. It's also a lousy deal for the countries that paid for their education, only to see the benefit go to corporations overseas.
I don't resent Indian programmers trying to make a living. In their place, I would do the same thing. But we need to recognize that we didn't build a middle class in this country by following the rules of laissez faire capitalism. We set limits on immigration to constrict the labor supply, organized workers into unions, and intervened in the economy to create rules that favored the creation of a middle class. Capitalism, as its name suggests, overwhelming rigs the game in favor of those who own capital. In recognition of this, we have to demand that the main beneficiaries of this system give something back so that those who don't own capital can also have decent lives.
So sad to read your story.,
Is Canada and USA really so different?I thought since they are both from North America,Look similar in appearance (sure not dark skinned - could look as 'whites'),are developed countries,speak english as native language(mostly at least),there is so much resentment against each other?
iam surprised. As a Indian who has never been to US,I say this though.
Why does yahoo do this
I said the per capita income is 37K per year. Go look it up. That 37K per year includes everyone, you know, including your infant son, and your elderly grandmother. If the mean household size is 3, which it is about, then the mean household income is 111K/year.
So don't tell me "The actual," as if you are making some great contradictory point, when you aren't.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
I would have absolutely no problem with H1Bs coming to the United States, if they were actually immigrants. Like the author said, that's how most Americans got to be here in the first place. I proudly welcome any and all Indian programmers as US citizens -- more talent and initiative benefits us in the long run, even if I have to compete harder for a job.
However, the flood of overseas workers are on sponsored visas, which means it's uncertain they'll actually get permanent residency status in the long run. Much of the money they receive tends to go to nest eggs or remittances, to be spent on making a life for themselves or their families back in the home country. Fifteen years later, they're running an outsourcing business and the US economy is left with squat.
Call me an imperialist, but I believe that if you want to benefit from the American economy, you should become an American (with all of the rights and responsibilities that entails). We should get rid of the H1B program and replace it with a more streamlined immigration process, a la Canada.
For Economist.com readers, there was a great article last July with some stats about the rising tide of remittances, and the degree to which many developing countries' economies are becoming dependant upon them.
While this may get downgraded, I must agree. There were many opinions / interpretations in the review that are, by themselves, capable of inciting anger and hostility in 1 of every 10 slashdot readers (a hypothetical guess). Together, these inflammatory opinions will likely offend all but those who benefit from the subject of the review.
...jobs which are seemingly difficult to fill from the American labor pool for a variety of reasons, and which are eagerly filled by employers who find that qualified, talented people come from countries all over the world.
FOR EXAMPLE:
In my opinion, this is implying that American workers as a whole are incapable of filling these jobs which I believe all of us can agree are in short supply. In addition, the statement suggests that the Mecca of talent comes from a location other than the US (India is implied).
[W]hy do some modern Americans (of course, a small percentage) want only those immigrant programmers and IT workers who came during recent times to go back home, yet tend to forget that their parents or grandparents were immigrants too?
Again implying that those who resent competition in a tight job market aren't considering the reason they are here. How many U.S. born citizens really have ancestors who came to this country with a starting salary in the top 20% (a rough guess for someone making $60,000). I imagine that my ancestors came to America from Europe during hard times and worked in a factory, mill, mine, or field somewhere for earnings that were below what was needed to live comfortably. I doubt very much that they came over and instantly became shop keepers, bankers, farmers, etc..
Anyway, I'm ranting now. My whole point was that this review seems to be more propaganda then review. I work with plenty of people who have ties to India and I do not resent them. However, I resent these programs because I hear stories of THOUSANDS of resumes being sent for a position and HR (who knows nothing of technology) weeds them down and gives them to our director who weeds them down further. It's not a lack of talent in this country, it's an overabundance of fake/insufficient talent which obscures the good talent. An employer might say they get thousands of resumes that stink, but in reality there were probably 200 decent resumes and 50 excellent resumes in that pile of 1000. The only problem is that they rarely get seen. Bringing people in who are assumed to be better than the thousand resumes is not the solution IMO.
I have done Defence work before as a contractor, and fortunately most of the more interesting stuff happens in Adelaide, where I live (we Australians aren't as fond of moving as Americans seem to be). Working as a government employee is another matter entirely. On the other hand, private sector work is as likely as not to be an exciting insurance application, or something of the sort, so that's not very appealing either.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
The democracy of this country belongs to it's people. Understand? This is how democracy works.
And, if enough people get tired of the situation they are in, that top 1% won't stand a chance. At that point, capitalism and ownership will be moot points. So, do us a favor, and drop the condescending rhetoric, because you aren't holding all the cards. Your "job" stays your job only as long as society agrees that this is the best way to run things.
So, either deal with it or move to a non-democratic country.
There is usually a non-payment period of 1 year. Also, some countries have a treaty with the US. So if she is paying in her home country, she's exempt here until she gets her Green Card, or until a certain number of years pass, YMMV.
H1B is not for labor competition. It is only issued for labor shortage that requires that a local labor shortage and that the company requesting it has made serious effor to find local labor. Maybe it is being abused, I don't know.
H1Bs are required to be paid as much as an American would. So, in truth, a foreign programmer in his/her own country would be labor competition as outsourcing, the H1Bs in the US would not be as they are filling up seats that could not be filled.
H1B covers anything techical - all the professors in science, math, etc who are from a foreign country are on H1B (unless they have been sponsored and have a green card).
I think you have some pretty standard misconceptions about H1Bs. I'm just stating the facts and philosophies.
Have you ever considered that maybe those foreign workers are simply *better*?
If you accept that the inherent genetic traits for making an excellent programmer are distributed equally among all humans, regardless of culture and national origin, then yes the foreign programmers who make it to the USA are generally better than American-born programmers.
There is a bell-curve of programming skills for every country. India has 900 million people, the USA has 250 million. That means of the best 0.1% of the population, there are going to be almost four times as many brilliant Indian programmers than American.
If your corporation wants to hire the best programmers available AND there are few restrictions for hiring the best people from anywhere in the world, then yes there are going to be more Indian and Chinese programmers working in the best American corporate IT positions in the USA. This will remain so as long as the best programmers in the world are ready, willing, and eager to relocate to the USA.
By the way, consider the enormous hassle that it is to learn a completely different language. And be glad that it is the Chinese programmers who must master English to get the IT job in global corporation instead of you having to master Chinese language to get the IT job in the global corporation.
...than see entire teams get RIFed and have the projects sent overseas.
I code, I'm darn good at it, but guess what? Without a team around, how long would my job exist? The team I work on is a great cross section, and I think it's a better team because of it.
Not only that, when working with people locally, it takes far less time to teach them that (guess what) formatting *does* matter, that naked pointers with one character names are a *bad* idea, that it really *is* a good idea to write manageable code that you'll be able to read and modify in two years (not like a lot of the junk coming back from a lot of the overseas stuff - a lot of that stuff would keep lint output scrolling past for days).
It's unfortunate there are so many people who don't look past the color of someone's skin. I just want to work with people who are self-motivated, want to constantly learn, and who aren't just clocking in from 9-5 because they had Java in college and think that makes them hot stuff. Or worse, PhDs who's eyes glaze over whenever the phrase "type safety" is muttered.
> cat ~/.signature | grep -v bullshit
>
ABCD stands for American Born confused Desi (desi means indian) IBCA stands for Indian Born confused American.
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."--Howard Zinn
First, H1B != Immigrant. They are invited guest workers here nominally because their skills are in short supply. I have worked with a couple H1B programmers, and they are good enough, but not *that* good, and not in short supply at that skill level domestically.
:-)
My opinion? They seem to be here because corporations wanted cheap labor, and lobbied their congressperson. Whence their capitalistic ideals? The market was determining wage levels, but they didnt like it, so they did what they could to drive wages down.
And now, I will call your bluff. First thing tomorrow, go in and tell your boss you want less money. And start working harder.
emt 377 emt 4
I would be more accepting of the H1B programs IF there really were legitimate shortages. But, my personal observations tell otherwise. Many companies like H1B's because they can pay them slightly less and abuse them more. The H1B's don't really have much recourse if they are abused. Besides, it is still good money to them after they translate it into Indian currency, so they are less willing to rock the boat when the companies abuse them.
Typically large companies subcontract H1B's through small companies. The small companies play dirty tricks like delaying paychecks, not paying the last paycheck, etc. Thus, the big company does not have to expose itself to the risks of questionable legality that the small company is willing to take. The small company is often owned by Indians also so that if they are pressured by legal problems, they simply fold up shop in the US and move back to India to do business.
The business lobbyists will do and say anything to cheapify programming. That is their job. We must create counter lobbying groups to compete. We have to take care of ourselves, not rely on Congress or the government to "play fair".
Why isn't India flooding the US with cheap laywers? Answer: because lawyers limit the BAR to citizens. If lawyers are allowed to protect their ass and keep their rates high, why can't we? Why should only they be immune from overseas competion? Share the anti-wealth you laywers you. Equal opportunity 3rd-world spanking.
Table-ized A.I.
This (the talk of H1-B workers not taking American jobs) is all rhetoric nonsense without sound statistical analysis.
The fact is, Americans are feeling the employment pinch, and H1-B permanent immigrants (because they more frequently than not try and get their citizenship here) continue to arrive here in fairly high numbers. There's a fairly real discrepency there, I think.
That is, unless most of the unemployed IT folks are like the majority of the IT folks I know. The lot of them are posessing lackluster intelligence, are unwilling to learn new things outside a clickable GUI wizard, lazy (not the good kind of lazy, either), and just fairly useless all around. In that case, I'm glad these Indians are getting jobs here and becoming citizens.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The worst aspect of the H1B program is that it is not an imigration program but nearly a form of indentured servitude.
EXACTLY. If these people have the kind of skill to be necessary in the US work force, let them imigrate. Let them become Americans. Forcing them into these indentured servitute rolls and then putting them next to highly educated free Americans pisses us off. We should be pissed of FOR these people though, not AT them. H1B is an abomination. It's a way for a company to wield dramatic unnatural power over their employees and it should be stopped.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
That's odd... The jackass-types you describe, are people I only see in movies.
For some reason, almost every American I have met, both abroad and in the U.S., have been remarkably friendly, polite, welcoming and well mannered.
Of course you have your share of idiots over there, but they don't stick out (Fox channel excluded)
OK, I'm a rather pale Norwegian, so the rage of the drunken irish might not reach me, but blacks, hispanics and asians have been just as welcoming and friendly when I have met them.
If you want to stereotype your own people, feel free to do so, but really . . . if we just for one minute forget invasions, bombings and Guantanamo Bay . . . you are actually quite a charming bunch.
( ... of course, I have never been to New York..)
-- somewhat_distant
In India the best of the best try to become Computer Engineers and this is because (whether you like the fact or not) they can become fabulously rich by being in this field. On the other hand in the US the brainiacs go to medicine ,law or management as there is where the money is. Sure lot of people have computers in their houses when they are kids. That doesnt automatically make them better computer Engineers just like having Television in your house as a kid does not automatically make you Oscar material. Basic intelligence is what matters- the rest is just skills which can be picked up by training. One unfair advantage that Indians do have is they always sacrifice family for the job while its the other way round for Americans. This is why even an Indian fresh out of Engineering college picks up the necessary skils in ayear to be better than someone tinkering about for years. This someone might be great hacker, s guru on some obscure library and run a shitload of freeware projects but from the compant's point of view the fresh kid is giving higher output, will probably work weekends and can be shipped off to India when the company hits a bad patch simply by not renewing his visa. You want a level playing field ? THan lobby your employer to ensure that the Indian kids are given Greencards immediately . That way even they will stop working weekends and start bitching abt the job as they will not have so much to lose.
**Life is too short to be serious**
When discussing proportional USE of tax dollars, it would matter only if the top 5% of Americans used 50% of all tax dollars. Your statement sounds compelling but is utterly irrelevant.
Taking pride in something assumes you have a legitimate reason to take some of the credit for making it happen. So, what did you do to become an American? (not your family, not your ancestors, but YOU) If you were just born here (like me) then you really shouldn't be taking pride in it because it happened automatically without any effort on your part.
The only people with the right to take pride in being Americans are immigrants. For the majority of the rest of us Americans, the ones who are citizens by birth, the most we can lay claim to is that we are glad to be (not proud to be) Americans.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It sounds like the author admits there are cultural differences between indians and americans. Obviously, these aren't genetic differences, but cultural ones.
In general, I've never met a more pleasant set of people, but there is this problem I have with the class structure of Indians.
One Indian told me "You know, the untouchables are inferior because otherwise they would no longer be untouchable." Now, I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that feel that way to their favorite racial group too, but I've noticed a lot of class structure in Indians.
A lot of the so called elite class, such as Brahmans, feel they are vastly more capable than they really are. One Brahman I know told me when he was twelve he was giving religious ceremonies to people 5 times his age. If that won't give you an inflated self-confidence, I don't know what will.
In addition, I've seen a lot of Indians "roll over," agreeing to things they never should. Now, I know a lot of Americans that do these things too, so it isn't unusual, but the number that are willing to is so high that it changes the workplace. Bosses that listen to a bunch of people always agreeing with them, when they are wrong, actually weakens the work environment and removes individuality, freedom, and to some extent the ability to compete. True, it has the advantage of getting the wood behind one arrow, but I can't stand anyone cleaning up anyone else's shit.
That having been said, I can't really generate anything but a great respect for almost all of these people. I can sense what a wonderful place it must be to live in India, where you can walk into your neighbor's home not being concerned about intruding, but just to sit down and have a cup of coffee or something. These people are certainly more socially adept and understanding than I am, and I respect them for it.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
They do, in fact, use 50% of tax dollars. Those tax dollars support the socioeconomic system which raised them to the top 5%, and without which most of them would either a) never have reached that level or b) had their throats cut.
As American citizens, we have the right to dictate how and why people may visit our country.
Sure. No issues.
If we do not want illegal immigrants flooding our country, then as Americans we can choose otherwise. If we do not want cheap, foreign, H1-B labor flooding our country, then we can also choose otherwise.
H1-B != Illegal Immigrant. Duh. Yes, if you DON'T want H1-B labour in your country (it is not cheap - they get paid American Salaries - the same as what an 'American' would make) feel free to stop it. But your government is not stopping it. That could be, because people on H1-B contribute to the Economy as much as they take from it. The salary they get has taxes medicare and soc-sec deducted which THEY WILL NOT SEE, unless they become citizens, which, btw is very difficult.
We should not be made ashamed because our distant ancestors were immigrants.
Nobody is shaming you. They are simply saying your heritage is the same as these people give or take 50/100 years. Once upon a time, your grandpa/great-grandpa was not American. What if he'd been kicked out too, instead of welcomed in? All of this pride about being American wouldn't be there. Instead you might have been a snooty European? The question is what makes you so much more special than these guys who are doing nothing more than trying to make a better life for themselves, just like you? Newsflash: There's an inscription on the Statue of Liberty which says: "Bring me your poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free". I'm assuming that sums up the fundamental identity of America - a nation of immigrants in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. You want to stop immigration, start by modifying your Statue of Liberty....which may happen considering America seems to be becoming "Jesusland" these days...
My Favourite Meme
Silly?
Maybe you should try and get rich and see what it takes. Or maybe you are rich but don't realize how you got your money.
You don't get rich without really screwing other people. The poor people!
Business is the science of exploitation.
Wake up!
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
"That was the first time I ever talked to an African American. I never understood their accent even in the movies."
Hey, at least he didn't call them "black".
All surpluses arise out of labour.
Marx's labor theory of value is tripe. If you dig a hole and fill it in again, you've performed labor, but you haven't created any value.
Creating wealth requires *thought*, coupled with work. Capital is one of the resources that may or may not be required to create wealth in any particular case.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
They got close with the nuclear testing that went on, just that those disputes were "cleaned up" before the outsourcery began.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Because we are not stupid.
Some people have a documented history of arriving to a certain land or territory before anybody else.
Native people in the different countries have documental evidence they were first there.
If you really want to know how far and where from your ancestry goes nowadays your DNA has all the clues, it is just a matter of willing to pay the price of the study tacing your ancestry back.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The company I work for has many H1b people. They're great people. Smart, educated and competent. However, we cheated to hire most of them. What happens is Jim, Manager of Software(as an example) wants to hire Bob the code jockey from China, so he tells HR that.
... but nobody will ever see it. We're not a big company, nobody ever looks at that part of our web site. It might also appear in a local newspaper or something. I'm not sure.
HR runs it past the immigration lawyer and they write up a job description which specifies exactly Bob's years of education, exactly Bob's project experience and probably Bob's shoe color and zodiac sign. They then post that job description at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard". Oh. They also post it on our web site
Some time later, they regrettably couldn't fill the job with anyone local, so they hire Bob. No, this isn't speculation. I've seen it happen a dozen times in the past few years. It's a science now. It's not just Bob from China, either. There are assorted European countries we hit up too and one place in the Middle East.
Again, I like most of the people we hire this way, but it's a mockery of the process...and I strongly suspect a lot of companies do it the same way. Find H1b candidate first, fail to fill position with existing worker second, click the 'import' button.
Speaking as a UK Resident, I would consider moving to the US as retiring to a country with 1/10 the cost of living.. Especially since the recent changes in exchange rates...
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
That is why you can be out-compited in price (i.e. salary).
Most US of A people eat too much, drive too much, use cars that use too much petrol, don't care about energy efficency and buy stuff like there is no tomorrow (did you check your trade deficit?).
Many Indians in relatively well off positions don't mind to ride crowded public transport, certainly eat more sensibly and certainly do not have the same attitude to extreme weather (USians have this habit of having the aircon or heating 24x7 to freezing or boling temperatures in badly isolated houses).
The above is the tip of the iceberg, I mantain that workers in rich countries could change their habits, keep a very decent standard of life and become more competitive price-wise in a ferocious international job market (if you think Indians are bad news wait for Vietnamese, Cambodians and Filipinos, who are all highly entreprenurial and talented people willing to work for even less. When one has walked the slums of Ho Chi Minh City or Manila one understands why western workers are becoming an overpriced luxury).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How can you get "they're" right, but use the wrong your?
They are = They're
You are = You're
I think it's important to realize that there are actually legitimate uses of the H1-B visa program. More often than not, the bad press you hear about the H1-B is caused by certain companies criminally manipulating the system with the specific purpose of circumventing immigration law.
Also, it is not like the H1-B visas that are granted are never scrutinized. Without getting into the gory details, I will just say that the government makes it very expensive from a legal standpoint to hire H1-B's because of the constant headache of having to deal with the INS. My fiancee is constantly hassled by the INS about her visa - just for her to go home to Colombia for Christmas takes $2k at the lawyer's office and 6 months of filling out forms and waiting - just because if there is one little mistake on some obscure form somewhere, her visa will be cancelled. This happened to her last year and it took almost $10k in legal fees (which really just amount to bribing the INS since immigration lawyers and administrative law judges all get together and play golf on weekends anyway) to get her back to the US. Her employer is also constantly harassed about whether or not they have her job posted, whether they have interviewed any Americans for her job, and so on.
Believe me, whatever money the company has saved by sponsoring someone's H1-B is spent threefold more on legal hassles. Once we're married, I too will have to cough up INS bribes for three years until she can naturalize...
I think a far greater injustics is the L-1 visa, which never ever gets any press. The L-1 is FAR more dangerous to American jobs than the H1-B. The L-1 allows multinationals to bring in foreigners from overseas offices without any scrutiny whatsoever - and there are no quotas. Larger companies can also get a "blanket L-1" which allows them to bring foreigners over without even filing a petition to the INS.
Oooh! Anger & media exposure! Gosh, what a drag. Were their churches firebombed*? No. Were others of their ilk physically attacked because of their religion? Not much backlash, but you're comparing it with murder & assault. You're whining about what a bad deal us white guys get, and it's pathetic and embarrassing.
Do you really confuse cults with non-traditional religions? Are you ignorant or dishonest? Cult has a well recognized definition that works pretty well. Most traditional religions, turn out not to be cults. Paranoia about outsiders and particular types of manipulation are some indicators. For example, pagans are about as non-traditional as you can get, but they don't get described as a cult.
I knew someone who spent some time undercover, and had personal knowledge that the militias have significant crossover with the cross burners in white sheets & pointy hats.
Are you saying that there aren't dozens of compounds of armed cultists led by religious zealots? If you think it's only dozens, and only the backwoods you're not looking around. We only hear about the ones who are so completely screwed up that they can't keep their psychotic paranoia to themselves.
Rajneesh's followers had plenty of weapons confiscated, full auto stuff you don't get to own without a license. They also experimented with food poisoning in restaurants around the town that was hostile to them. The U.S. doesn't have a monopoly, and neither does the backwoods. Aum Shinrikyo (a religious cult) poisoned the subway in Tokyo with sarin during rush hour. Then there were all those geeks in Rancho Santa Fe (expensive San Diego suburb) who confused space travel and suicide.
* Waco was awful, but unless you're prepared to defend child molestation as religion, you can't call that religious persecution.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
If it's hard to find Americans to do the job, then exactly from whom is he stealing the job?
dick.
Newsflash: the Statue of Liberty was designed, built, and given to the USA by 'snooty Europeans'. ;-)
I know you probably didn't mean it like that, but it was still sort of funny.
I would think that anyone who provided their services in defense of said country (put recent politics aside, please) did something.
So people who volunteer for military service/national guard (or made a similar risk/sacrifice) should also qualify.
By your logic, minority "pride" groups should disband because they made no effort in being born black, hispanic, asian, etc.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
So, the US does not pay for the education nor costs of retirement. The US just gets the taxes.
Could you point the exact problem there, please?
At the company that I worked for previously we outsourced one aspect of our computer development to india only to find that the code that came back was never commented it may have been good code but when there is no commenting its trying to save your own job when it comes to debug. because of the nature of the business we worked in (defense) we had to audit every line of code. It took months longer than what it should have because we needed to send the code back to be commented as a part of the requirements. The communications between the different groups / teams often became the biggest problem. Many where ultra educated with clearly no experience and would only write text book code.
Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
Let me get this straight. You're saying that immigrants to the US should wait 50-100 years before getting a job? Buddy, are you on drugs? Or just plain out of your freaking mind? When your illegal immigrant great-grandfather came to the US, he took a job. Be thankful for it. Where do you think you would be if he hadn't? Probably wouldn't have even been born.
Being born in the United States does not give you the right to dictate who should or should not be able to work. Rather than feeling ashamed of your immigrant heritage, you should be ashamed of turning your back on it, even if you can't point to a single place of "origin"; in fact, even more so because of it.
In fact, if you're having trouble finding a job, have you considered emmigration? There's a lot of potential for honest people who are willing to work in Europe and Japan...
Worst thing is, most Americans don't think like that. But the few idiots who do spoil the image of the entire people in the eyes of foreigners.
Minority "Pride" groups make no sense. Speaking as a membeer of a minority myself I see noting to be "proud" of in being black or white or straight or gay. These things just happen. Be proud of what you do. Immigrants who work to become a citizen of a country deserve respect, as do soldiers(when they're not torturing prisoners). But really every citizen has a social contract with the state and should be protected and respected accordingly. Immigrants and Asylum seekers should be welcomed as no matter what the short term reactionary response is they will do the country good in the long term. Countries which recognise this tend to prosper while those that don't suffer.
My appreciation of Douglas Adams is far deeper than yours.
The review (and perhaps the book--I haven't read it yet) completely misses the point of opposition to H1-B visas. Doubtless there's bigotry against immigrant workers, but H1-B visas are still a very bad thing for immigrants as well as native workers.
A person who comes to the U.S. on an H1-B visa is an indentured servant, allowed to be here for only a limited time. They must work for the company that hired them. They are paid less than the native workers they replace, laws to the contrary notwithstanding, and they do drive down wages for everyone. H1-B visa holders have almost no negotiating leverage, they are frequently mistreated, and they cannot stay in the U.S. to build businesses, raise families. or become part of the community over the long term unless they're lucky enough to get their visa status changed. The U.S. does get a lot of benefit from foreign workers, but only if they can stay here to become part of the community, not if they're forced to leave after a few years of toiling away in a cubicle.
Guest worker status has to be eliminated. It's unfair to the new immigrants and its unfair to permanent residents and citizens. If industry and the government really cared about filling skills gaps as they claimed, rather than just driving down the cost of labor, the solution is simple: replace H1-B, L1, H2 and all similar guest worker visas with green cards. Once a person is allowed into the U.S. to work, let them do so, just like any citizen, without any restrictions. They can take any job they want. They can quit at any time to go to a better job or no job at all. They can start their own businesses. Give immigrants the same rights native-born workers get, and the mistreatment of immigrant workers would vanish overnight, at least in high-tech, and it would be significantly reduced in lower-skill jobs like farm labor. The negative pressure on wages would be reduced too. Finally, immigrants would be allowed to really contribute to building the future of the country and their local communities over the long term. This helps the native workers. It helps the immigrant workers. The only ones that it hurts are the corporations that would have to pay a fair market price for labor instead of purchasing indentured servants at auction.
.... welcom to the club.
That is exactly what happens to millions of Mexicans: not liked but needed in the US, distrusted back home in Mexico.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What? I was under the impression that international students and post-docs are here primarily on F1 visas.
Well, F-1 visas are for students, but postdocs (quite rightly) count as employees rather than students. Therefore, they must be on either an H1-B (work) or J-1 (exchange visitor) visa. Most of our postdocs are on H1-Bs.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
After reading through most of the comments and having worked all my life here in the US, but I've traveled to nearly 60 foreign countries. I ask this: Why, is it now that so many workers from abroad want to come to the US now for work? It seems the salaries are nearly equal or close depending on cost of living and the US workers treat you terribly. So why come? On the flip side of this question. Why stay? Why should people like me stay? A US born citizen in this US economy, on the decline with all the negative posts on the US above and posts on "how good it is" elsewhere. With many H1-B's returning home, why stay here? Why not seek jobs oversees?
Many other countries ease many of the restrictions you face once you have probed you are not a liability. In many situations the only thing you can't do a a non citizen is vote, which is fair enough since one does not want to become a citizen,
Countries with a sense of moral values will even give you many entitlements for which one as immigrant hs not paid a penny (healthcare, education).
Discrimination based on citizenship is racism with another name, at least some constitutions have the good sense to extend their guarantees to anybody being in a given country.
Citizenship should be chosen freely by an individual as an acto of commitment, not convenience and there should be no cohercion of any kind, otherwise the act of assuming a new nationality becomes meaningless.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... there is no wonder that US companies prefer foreigners to sorry ignorant sods like yourself.
As anybody half acquited with this issue knows (and for bunnies sakes, if you did not read it on this thread then you have more educational problems than I thought) foreign workers brought to the US under the visa scheme under discussion have to earn at least the average salary for the profession.
This is so exactly with the purpose of making US workers with similar experience and skills competitive where they are the least competitive: cost.
But still the bloddy slashbot with wet dreams of cheap labour and slave workers keep blabbing about this cheap worker nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I've worked both with teams outsourced to India and with H1-B visa holders, and I believe one reason that roles like programming seem to be disproportionately filled, is that the bulk of the work is in a different language - meaning the programming language itself. The perception by companies benefiting from these immigration laws is that broken English is less of an issue in this line of work.
That is, generally, until the company expects documentation, or would like the software design to match business rules...
Saying they are simply better is just ignorant as saying they're worse. I have absolutely no problem with them coming over here and working here if they are qualified. The only thing that really gets on my nerves is when nobody bothers to check if they can speak English. Apparently it's so un-"politically correct" to not hire someone if they speak really poor English and they're foreign, but it's ok to throw out an American's resume if they misspell a word. If the person has such a thick accent and such a poor grasp of the language, it really makes it difficult to work with the person. You will spend a lot of time repeating yourself or having to correct what they do because they misunderstand you or vice versa due to the language barrier. If they are skilled and they can speak English that's great, but I don't see why companies act like it's some sin to deny a person a job when nobody can communicate effectively with them.
So, is "capitalism" more important than "democracy"? Man, do you realize what you've stated? Is the point of the US to make the most money, or to advance the rights and liberties of it's citizens?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
>
The fact is U.S. labor is overpriced and of declining quality
Are you sure that you're not still living in the dot-com era? I have seven years of college, degree in math, business, and computer science, and 25 years of experience; I'm working for $16/hour. An earlier poster is doing serious web-developement work for $10 hour.
Oh yeah, I can't wait to make the down payment on that new BMW.
The economy is doing well? Hardly - the economy is in terrible shape:
The programmers taking American jobs do spell doom for the American economy. Our technology, our skills, are being transferred to citizens of foreign nations. We're giving away intellectual capital. We're telling American workers not to fight for their wages, to just accept what the landed gentry will give them. Capitalism functions best as a balance between labor and the capitalist, not as a one-sided affair.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
If they don't; then the parant poster's theory that "Immigration will save the economy" is completely shot to hell.
You forget whos pocket all of their money is comming out of...
Hint: has nothing to do with the tooth fairy!
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
1) Apply for legal (citizenship) immigration.
2) Expect to make a living wage and don't except less
The reason they are bringing is all the H1B visas is not to fill a shortage. It's to screw the over by paying them $24k - $35k and the minimum health coverage required by law for 16 years of education. They then can fire (layoff) there current workers.
To quote a famous Irishman, "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." --- Oscar Wilde
If you grew up in the US, then that means that for the first 18-22 years of your life (at least) you weren't helping to pay for the infrastructure you took advantage of, either
Where are you getting this? I grew up in the US, and I have been paying for the infrastructure I take advantage of at least since the age of 14.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
I used to not be so crazy about H1-B's, but I realized that I would rather have H1-B's in the country paying US taxes than having the money go to other countries via outsourcing.
P.S. I realize that an immigrant may send a good bit of money back to their homeland, but at least they are still contributing to the US economy.
I take some pride in our country because I help to at least maintain it as a wonderful place to live. Even if the Constitution were written in stone, it is meaningless if each subsequent generation does not understand it, appreciate it, and (continue to) put it into action. Do others do more? Of course, and they often play more obvious roles, but I do what I can, as do most other people I know.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
I worked with a guy from Barhead, and he was always the first to crack a Canadian joke, or make fun of the way we talked. (I say Java, you say Jahva, let's call the whole thing off.) I didn't have the greatest introduction to him, because he was the cheap replacement for a friend who had just been laid off, but we became friends.
I think a lot of Americans don't understand Canada. Some think of it as the 51st state, whereas others wonder whether Canadians speak English. I was surprised by how critical my colleague was of French Canadians. (Apparently, the feeling is mutual.)
I don't know why so many people complain about companies hiring H1Bs over American workers. I'm a current H1B holder (the only one in the company I work for) and I've been looking for a new job for a good while. I've received many calls from recruiters for jobs where I would be a perfect fit (bilingual English/Spanish, technical knowledge, Comp Sci degree from an American Univ) but as soon as they find out that I need H1B sponsorship they tell me "Sorry, we won't do it!, good luck!". 90 - 95% of the jobs I see in sites like monster, dice, etc require to have the American citizenship or pocess a green card. To the ones that are saying that companies are hiring H1Bs, please send me a list of companies, because sure enough, I might doing something wrong and looking in only those companies that don't sponsor.
I would disagree with that. Any time you help your community, your neighbor, or your country you are helping to make America a better place. Those who serve in the military certainly have a legitimate reason. Those who volunteer in soup kitchens, picking up trash on the side of the road (adopt a road... not prisoners), help out at the local nursing home, serve in public office, take care of a needy neighbor, etc... all of these people are helping to make America a better place and all deserve to be proud of the better place it has become. I enourage all of you to go out and see what you can do for your country.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
it's the outsourcing I hate.
Although I would advise against immagrating to the US- esp in these times.
click me
I can see your point to an extent. To me, and immigrant is someone who is not born a US citizen, but, comes here from a foreign land...and becomes a US citizen.This does not seem to be the case for the H1-B workers...which seem predominately Indian. They come here, work, pump money home (ok we do get some in taxes and living expenses)...and leave. They are taking jobs that US citizens NEED right now.
I think the program was started as a decent idea...to fill needs we had in the country, in the IT industry when the boom was on. However, there are tons of qualified people out there still that are US citzens and need jobs in IT. So, why are we still running the H1-B program at all? Until all spaces are filled with qualified US citizens, and there is a surplus need....programs like these should be closed.
I have nothing against foreigners, or visitors...but, take care of your own first, you know?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem is when I have to compete with some guy in Bungalore who can work for 17 rupees a day and live like a king. I can't even buy my lunch for 17 rupees, but the look on the face of the guy behind the counter would be priceless if I tried to offer 17 rupees in exchange for some lunch.
I say let them come over here and compete with me. I can take it. At least then there is a level playing field.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
The problems start to materialze when you bring in Java codemonkeys from Kozhikode who just got their certifications. There are plenty of American Java codemonkeys. Our universities graduate hundreds of them annually. These H1-Bs are not here because they are needed. They are here because they can be exploited.
And exploited they are. A friend of mine is on H1-B and he works so hard he actually sleeps at the office on his boss's couch. He hasn't gotten a raise ever or a bonus ever or even a "thank you" for all the hard work. The worse are the Indian managers who already have their green cards. They know that they have the H1-Bs by the balls and they treat them like shit. When I first started out I was at the same rank as the H1-Bs and I watched as the Indian managers would berate and force to work my peers. But they would never have dreamed of treating me that way. Nobody ever yelled at me or demanded I work weekends like they did to the H1-Bs. They knew I could tell them to take my job and shove it up their ass and that would just make the project even later.
If we Americans want get outraged about the H1-B program, we need to get outraged over the mistreatment of H1-B holders by their companies. I'm sure your gf is treated fine because she and her company are using the program as it was intended. But there are too many cases of abuse. I've seen them, and it's sickening.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I think giving up my freedom and putting my life on the line for 12 years with crappy pay in the military probably fits the bill.
So yes, I have pride in being an American.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
When you hire H1-Bs, you get the pick from the best of the best that India (or China or whatever) have to offer and pay them like a US greenbeen straight out of school. You get to work them 80 hours per week. Once they get their green card, they resign and you just repeat the process.
That is how H1-B worked at my old employer. And, yes, I felt sorry for the H1-B visa holders.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
The only people with the right to take pride in being Americans are immigrants. For the majority of the rest of us Americans, the ones who are citizens by birth, the most we can lay claim to is that we are glad to be (not proud to be) Americans.
Yes, we should all be glad only. Only with your revisionist history. Honestly, have you thought about being a lawyer? Your semantic lies are incredible. Your amazing ability to shame people with specific word use is astounding.
More importantly, your nerve is inexcuseable.
My ancestors came over on about the fifth boat, at a time when they were running from religious oppression. They didn't kill the natives, they lived along side them. They had no interest in conquest, like the other English that came later.
Just like the people that come today, they were looking for a better life.
Personally, I can't stand punks like you that say people now don't contribute to society like the immigrants do. Like all of the advances in science, medicine, engineering, and all of the other advances that people in the US have been working on in earnest for generations around us all were just all about the immigrants.
On behalf of all of the American people, and some of my ancestors that crawled out of the company mines, slept in tents in Alaska, and worked hard to cut a civilization out here one farmhouse school to community college education at a time, may I humbly say this, GO SCREW YOURSELF.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
When I created each of my 3 companies, not once was I asked if I was a citizen, resident, or even a human being. As long as you pay the fees and/or taxes, congrats! You're incorporated.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Except for the 50% of us who are 'sisters'?
Before you go boo-hoo-ing over the "plight" of immigrant IT workers in America and thinking we're all just racist pigs ... try being an American IT worker, in another country and see what racism really looks like. Most countries have no compunction about using the N! word to your face.
It's not just America, it's people everywhere that are a littler reticent (even xenophobic) when it comes to imported labor.
The wealth I want to distribute is mostly created by natural processes that go on without the help of people. What little people actually create winds up largely concentrated in a few hands through exploitation, not hard work.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
There is only one reason H1-B Visas should be denied. The state of our economy.
It is easy to feel compassion for immigrants trying to make it in the world, given that our country was started by immigrants, but we must also protect the economy that supports us all.
If we are employing outside IT workers, while US IT workers are unemployed, then we have made an error in the way we are handling immigration. Immigration should be balanced with the concerns of full US citizen employment.
Remember what happened when Europeans came over and started consuming the resources of the indiginous population unregulated and unrestrained. those people are now living in reservations with their very existance regulated by the foreign insurgent government.
It's not that I think Indian programmers, and other immigrants, are out to take over our country. The point I make with that statement is that unregulated immigration can be devastating to the current population and resources of an established nation.
We need checks and balances to protect what we intend to share with new arrivals and established citizens, to make sure it is there to partake of in the first place.
The Native American's ancestors came here from other places too, when the continents were closer together and there were land bridges they could cross. The argument that we should not balance the use of our resources because we are all decended from immigrants doesn't really make much sense when you think about things like that.
The only people who can really say there ancestors were born where they live, are Africans, who live where human life began. An established nation must balance the use of it's resources to make sure it will always have something to offer, to immigrants as well as it's own citizenry.
People decide together when to invest in infrastructure for the greater good, rather than having top down direction decided by one person or a cabal who may no have the group's best interests at heart but rather his/their own?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't think it is attitudes per se, that are the same, afterall, the attitude towards those listed in your own post *has* changed.
It's the ignorance that stays the same.
Fear of the unknown and a hostile reflex against it rather than curiosity and exploratory outreach. It's a shame, since so much of this country is based fundamentally on exploration of the unknown.
What a sad place this would be if we had no Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Italian, you name it, restaurants for lunch!
Life would be boring without the unknown. Unfortunately, a large fraction of the population wants just that, a stable, secure, reliable, routine, unchanging, unchallenging, boring life.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I couldn't possibly agree with you more. You've really hit the core of the issue here. The entire point of the H1-B program was to bring in the added man power when it was needed. That time has passed and we really need to take care of our own first.
The required talent definitely is here, we pump out more of it from our colleges every year, but continue to make it very difficult for Americans to find high tech work because so many H1-B's that are willing to work for lower pay fill the positions.
-- Just my $0.02 worth...
There are people who create wealth. Whether or not it is fair for them to keep wealth, and how much wealth the society which protects them and allows them to create that wealth should allow them to keep is a matter for debate and group decision. Whether they who have created wealth should be the ones to decide which business ventures to try next is likewise a matter for group decision.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
That may be all well IF these workers were paying for their trip over here themselves...truely imigrating. However, programs like the H1-B are actually encouraging them to brought over here...to work for sub-normal wages, thereby hurting the market for citizens of the US. We as a country are screwing ourselves with these programs. I don't have a problem with moving around the country to work the best job, but, why they hell would I want to live somewhere else where the standard of living is the pits? I like the country I'm a citizen of...and prefer to stay here thank you.
Frankly, I don't see my moving to another country to get a job is going to help me increase my salary and personal standard of living, which is, by the way, the only reason one works ya know?
Capitalism is one thing...but, we're not just letting the forces of business nature work here...we're actually encouraging it to our country's detriment. And yes...I'll work to change the policy to one that more benefits my country and hence my job opportunities. After all, in a competition, there is a winner, and I'd rather my country be the winner than the others...nature of the beast as you mentioned.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If the entire network is overseas and run from there, there's no point in having the IT manager in the US when there's an equally qualified Indian IT Director in the network center. Why would they need you? They can just make the decisions there. You should be using your MBA to start your own business. Stop working on someone else's dream and start working on yours. -Nazz
Taking pride in something assumes you have a legitimate reason to take some of the credit for making it happen.
Who said I was proud to be an American? Now you're just putting words in my mouth. I dislike the polices of our president and I am ashamed to call myself an American with him as our figurehead. Bush has lied to us and the rest of the world for policies that put his rich, crony friends ahead of everyone else. Where's Kenneth Starr when you need him? The republicans got all high and mighty regarding Clinton lying about getting a BJ in office. That lie didn't kill any Americans, unlike Bush's lies.
So, what did you do to become an American? (not your family, not your ancestors, but YOU)
Uh... I was born here. By American law, that alone makes me an American citizen. Other than that, I was raised here. And I have lived here my entire adult life. That is what I've done.
However, you seem to have missed my point. My ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, France, and more. The latest ancestor I have that came off the boat was my great grandfather who immigrated illegally from England. My earliest ancestor that came to America walked the land bridge from Asia along with the rest of the native Americans.
If the US is not my home, which country would accept me as their citizen? The answer is none. After Bush came into office, I checked. No country that my ancestors came from will accept a third generation descendent as one of their citizens. The fact of the matter is: I am an American and nothing else.
AFAIK H1-B is a guest worker program. When I think immigrant I think "resident alien" (i.e. green card).
That sure hasn't been my experience. In over ten years of consulting with, well it was the Big Six, when I started, many of the project teams I've worked on have had a majority of immigrant and H1B consultants.
I've never been on a project where one of the top performers was an H1B, or even an immigrant. And of the handful of consultants I've had to remove from projects, all of them were immigrants who somebody thought would be good consultants because they had advanced computer science degrees.
Obviously, that's a very small sample, but it certainly creates an impression.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
Because of the characteristics of the job, now it is the leading example of a global economy's labor market distribution. It makes sense to pay the lowest overall cost, including long-term economic costs wherever that resource may happen to be. Why do I say it's like a 7-11 job? Because supply outstrips demand and the costs of resources are so low. If you want an example, look at the cost of custom software at www.rentacoder.com. The TOP programmer (by their metrics of course) average project cost is $467.03! A custom portal site with e-commerce bells and whistles goes for $1500. And of course, these guys are based in India. As a immigrant I came here, got an education (BS and Masters in Comp. Sci.) and programmed for 10 years as tech lead. I saw the light and realized that programming is a dead end as a money-making career. Sure, it's fun, but the avg. programmer will not be able to make a living in the US, it's too easy to rent someone elsewhere. I don't think this is necessarily bad, in the end we simply will reach standard of living equality with other countries. So, what to do? I'm in law school now. I figured the next tech wave is going to be in intellectual property. Job prospects are good and the money is even better.
H1-B != Illegal Immigrant
Did I say that? No. I did mention illegal immigrants. But in the next sentence, I then mentioned H1-B's. I was writing about two separate groups, which I guess you missed.
Once upon a time, your grandpa/great-grandpa was not American. What if he'd been kicked out too, instead of welcomed in?
That could have happened. He was an illegal immigrant. The fact of the matter is that it didn't happen. It obviously didn't happen then and it doesn't truely happen now. Today when illegal immigrant gets across the border, no police agency in America really cares if they stay here or not as long as they obey the law.
Instead you might have been a snooty European?
I could just as well be a asian living somewhere in northwest Asia. Yes, one of my great grandparents was 100% Cherokee. They came across the land bridge from Asia some 10,000 years ago.
There's an inscription on the Statue of Liberty which says: "Bring me your poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free".
News flash: we do not run our nation according to what's written on some statue in New York.
That statue, by the way, is from France.
I know this might be hard for you to understand, but I'm talking about the NATIVES who lived here before your ancestors
.. get the fuck out"?
In my original comment I said I had one great grandparent who was full-blooded Cherokee. Cherokees are native to America. I suggest taking a reading comprehension course or two.
would the native Americans have the same right to say "Hey we don't like you white men moving here from across the ocean
They do have the right to say that and they have said it several times. The fact of the matter is that even native Americans immigrated here from Asia 10,000 years ago.
So, now we pick and choose. Are the "real" Americans anyone who lives in America? Are they the ones born in America? Are they the ones whose family has lived here for 100 years? What about 400 years? What about 10,000 years?
Even so, you have missed my original point. My entire family has lived and died in America for a solid three generations. There is now no other country that would even consider us as one of their citizens. That is what I believe truely makes me an American.
You ARE an immigrant, as was your father, and your grandfather, and your greatgrandfather.
I was born in Washington, DC. My father was born in Troy, NY. My grandfather was born on the Cherokee reservation in Georgia. If I am an immigrant, exactly where did I immigrate from? That would also assume that I could go back. Where would I go back to?
the ONLY people in this nation who are NOT immigrants are descendants of the very first humans to inhabit this corner of the earth. And you my friend, are not among those privileged few. So piss the f*ck off and take your bigotry elsewhere.
Again, check out that reading comprehension course.
You misunderstand me.
I don't think Indians are smarter or better than everyone else. That's exactly why I think companies wouldn't favor them over American programmers, especially considering the paperwork hassles.
India's problem is that its people are such hard workers? Yeah, right.
By the way, I abhor victimhood all around. Blacks, hispanics, women, Indians, Jews, and now the white male, too. Maybe working hard isn't the problem, it's the solution.
Let me get this straight. You're saying that immigrants to the US should wait 50-100 years before getting a job? Buddy, are you on drugs?
No, I am not on drugs. And no, I did not say immigrants should wait 50 years until they get a job. I was saying I am an American because my family has been here so long that we are nothing else. Recent immigrants, legal or otherwise, always have somewhere they can return to. I do not.
Being born in the United States does not give you the right to dictate who should or should not be able to work.
Being born in the US makes me a US citizen. Considering that the US is a republic, then I do have input on the laws of the US. My fellow Americans and I do have the right to dictate the laws of this country. Those laws do cover businesses and who they may employ.
In fact, if you're having trouble finding a job, have you considered emmigration?
Yes, actually I have. Although the reason was shame over who we elected president. I even looked at the requirements of becoming a citizen of my ancestors' countries. None of them will accept a third generation citizen as one of their own.
Seriously, you make no sense.
Which is it, smart guy? Make up your mind. Why did you get your education? Did you even think about cheap foreign labor when you were deciding which college to go to? Personally, that was the farthest thing from my mind. Go back and reread The Wealth of Nations to figure out why you make no sense. This phenomenon has been well understood since the 1700's. And to think I always thought it was through an educated and enlightened populace. Also, go read some Ricardo with your Smith if you want to learn about "good-paying jobs". Seriously, where have you been the last 300 years? It's a good thing that's not true. Otherwise, our democracy would have never come to fruition. We didn't exactly start out the richest country on earth, you know. Cute. Spend a significant amount of time in a third-world country and you'll realize how utterly stupid that question was. For many immigrants, the biggest reason they make the sacrifice to come here is for the benefit of their children."Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I in all seriousness disagree with this. I was born in this country and I have pride in the fact that I was born here. I have done a tremedous amount to contribute to the country because it's my country! Just because I didn't have to fight to get here doesn't mean I won't fight to stay here. The most we can lay claim to is the America thats in our heads. My version will differ from your! However, I will fight for your version and mine and that I can take pride in! I disagree with your definition pride!
I stand corrected. Communism then. It doesn't work (at least not in anything larger than a small group). Nice idea though. Not terribly realistic.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Do the countries that H1-B's come from have similarly generous guest worker programs? Not that I know of.
In my opinion, visa programs for the U.S. aren't all that generous, and visas tend to be grudgingly given. I thought my experience getting a visa for a European country (even though I am a U.S. citizen) was difficult until I talked to some people in the U.S. who described their experience trying to get a visa for the U.S.
As for other countries being generous to Americans, I think it varies from country to country. I know that it's a piece of cake to go work in India: far, far easier than it is to work in the U.S. I did some research, and found out that all you need to work in India is a job offer. That's it.
In Afghanistan, all you need to do is find transportation to the country.
Obviously, you haven't lived in New Jersey.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
XML Tools for Mac OS X
...you have never been to France. They make unfriendliness into an artform, as they will proudly attest to.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Nope...I don't believe companies care... but, they can be 'encouraged' to act in the best interest of their homeland country. First, don't give tax breaks and make up programs that encourage either sending jobs offshore or bringing in cheaper labor here. Do the opposite...give tax credits to them for the number of jobs employing US citizens...tax breaks for retraining and relocating US employees that do have to lose jobs due to outsourcing overseas (yes, I know some will happen). But, don't make it the treasure trove it appears to be to big companies. Lets do what we can to not only make it profitable to stay in the US and hire here...but, to bring foreign companies here to employ US citizens. Make them want to come here.
When I said winner...I meant the country with the most money, most employed citizenry (is this a word?), and best standard of living. Our govt. should work not to punish bad company behavior (unless laws are broken), but, to do what it takes to encourage them to stay here and help the economy..
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You are mad at H1B visa holders. These guys came here legally. They are earning wages legally. Would you rather prefer guys like those involved in 9/11 or the illegal immigrants whom our government is considering giving citizenship to? The crime rate amongst the H1B holder is almost zero. Lets accept the fact that they are better for the US society.
I know the world exists because I exist.
Bingo. She gained employment to flee the harsh theocratic government that severely curtailed the rights of women. She arrived in America only to be exploited by the H1-B Visa system -- and yes, she was intelligent enough to recognize and know she was being exploited and "screwed", but it was better than life as a non-entity in Iran under the Ayatolla (sp?).
H1B visa workers lead the way in racking up huge quantities of uncompensated overtime that helps insure everyone else has to do the same.
Tsk. Tsk. I am an H1 visa holder and believe me if somebody wants me to stay overtime then they pay for it. The same rule applies to all the other H1 contractors that I know. Oh wait, are you talking about salaried workers. Hey, tough. That's one of the main reasons I became a contractor. Unpaid overtime is the same for citizens and us stinking foreigners.
However, you can be proud to be the kind of American that you are.
If you take the time and effort to be kind and courteous to others.
If you take the time to make certain that the environment around you is safe for others.
If you take the time to ensure the safety of others through some form of civil service. Volunteering for Red-Cross, Civil Defense, Military service, Law Enforcement, Fire Department, etc...
Keep an eye out for your friends, family and neighbors.
Assume the best about people, until they've proven otherwise, then assume that they can improve.
These and other actions, beliefs like these can make you a better person, making you a better American. Something you CAN take pride in.
I'm sure I've missed a lot of things, and I do not mean to exclude them because of omission.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
All the talk about the grand benefits of "freed trade" and visa workers has a big logical hole:
What if everyone's job was flooded by cheaper third-world labor? (Note that even the act of introducing more bodies reduces wages.) Programmers are currently targeted for visa labor mostly because big companies have the lobbying power to "justify" them. But car mechanics, doctors, plumbers, lawyers and a host of other service providers could be made less expensive by visa workers also if allowed. But they are mostly not allowed because consumers generally don't have/give lobbying power or organizations self-limit who gets certified (such as lawyers).
If having some foreigners makes all this magic "free trade" money flow in, then does it extrapolate to every job? If so, who would be able to buy stuff? The foreigners would work for peanuts because either it goes further back at their home country due to exchange rates or because they are used to peanuts. Most of the citizens would be flooded out of jobs. The only people who would be making money would be owners and the foriegners.
Sure, free trade may benefit those two groups, but what about the rest of us? Where is the tipping point? Is some good but all bad? Free trade may perhaps increase total money and trade, but that increase may not come to you and me. Not surprisingly, the benefits usually go to those lobbying for cheaper labor.
Table-ized A.I.
The proponents of H-1b and mass immigration said it was supposed to be economically beneficial. Do you have data that suggests it was? Personally, I think the claim that immigration is economically beneficial(while perhaps true in some cases) is largely self serving. Some folks gain from immigration-other folks loose. Because more folks loose than gain, every poll I've seen indicates most folks in the US want tighter immigration regulations.
Previous poster is (presumably) a US citizen, has enough in common with the Anglo-American culture to post an intelligable message on Slashdot, and (again, presumably) has no detectable links to the lands of his/her ancestors. Not Native enough to live on a rez without marriage into a recognized tribe, but Native enough to count as standard-issue American.
Hell, I'm feeding the trolls. Slap me.
Luke, help me take this mask off
> when you consider that the top 5% of Americans pay over 50% of all the taxes
Isn't that because the top 5% of Americans hold 90% of the country's wealth?
But do they get 90% of the benifits?
The top 5% don't collect social security benifits for sure..
Well, soviet style communism doesn't work. Many capitalist democracies have failed too. The long term viability of capitalist democracy as implemented in america is open to question as well.
Maybe socialism is a better model. Let's see how socialist europe holds up over the next couple of hundred years.
The problem with all of these experiments, is that the outcomes are significantly confounded by geography and other factors not related to the government structure.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'm refering to salaried employees. Watch out when a high tech company, or any company makes you salaried, because it means you are being setup to work tons of uncompensated overtime.
Never been paid overtime for any high tech company I've ever worked for as a salaried employee. Only carrot they dangle in front of you is stock options or bonuses but those tend to be at the whim of your management chain, only coming if the project was a huge success and if there are any left after they take theirs which tend to be vastly larger than the working people get.
Contractors are different you are getting paid hourly so they do have to pay you for overtime. Of course they can also throw you away like used tissue if they don't need or want you unless your contract says otherwise.
@de_machina
I do it all the time. I usually catch it, but if you can't make a spelling mistake on Slashdot, where can you make it?
I also realized a few months back that I've been spelling tommorow incorrectly most of my life.
"Somehow, the words "allow" and "illegal" don't seem right in the same sentence."
Well tough, because the U.S. does in fact allow illegal immigration. In fact its a feature that workers are illegal because it makes them much easier for employers to underpay and exploit because they can't complain to anyone.
Obviously the U.S. government allows it there are millions and milllions of them and they are swelling America's population at a very high rate. American agriculture is completely and totally dependent on illegals to do field work, because most Americans wont touch this low paying very hard work. Most janitors and maids are illegal. Obviously you've never driven through farm country in California or stayed in a motel or you would have noticed the obvious.
Most places local police are precluded from arresting illegal immigrants(they don't want illegals to be afraid of police when other crimes occur), only the INS can and they are grossly understaffed for the tidal wave of immigrants in this country. There are employers across the nation employing them openly, and its quite rare for employers to get punished for hiring illegals though there are laws on the books.
There is a steady push in a lot of states to give illegal immigrants drivers licenses, children of illegal's are welcomed with open arms in schools and they are given free medical care.
Fact is the U.S. makes a token effort to try to stop them at the border, just to keep it from turning in to a tidal wave, but once they are in chances they will get deported are very, very low and they have will have NO PROBLEM finding employment as long as they work cheap, keep their mouth shut and stay out of trouble.
"(I hate flaming, but just this once. Forgive me God for I have sinned)"
Well you obviously have no fucking clue what you are talking about on this particular subject so you picked a bad time to start.
You also must not have read enough of my posts or my sig:
Voted for President Bush - No
Supported the Iraq War - No
Believe in Area 51 - Yea, its in Nevada, probably has nothing to do with Aliens, the extraterrestrial kind
- Apollo 11, obviously note though the manned space program since has been a cruel hoax
- Read SOLLOG, don't even know what that is and am not goggling it.
To quote Twirlip, you are a dumbass.
@de_machina
I'm from Edmonton, actually! Went down in '99 and came back in mid '03. I now work in Southern Ontario not because of the money but for personal and professional reasons (i.e. more women than Silicon Valley, progression in my career, company in one of the few markets that is actually growing). The sales tax in Ontario is utterly ridiculous so I won't be buying a new car here for the foreseeable future, but I have ways of avoiding the sales tax to an extent (read: Buffalo, NY and annual trips back to Edmonton to visit family).
In reality, I do have problems up here. I've found that food service up here is abhorrent - I've walked out of six restaurants after talking to the manager about awful service. Another problem with people up here is with my American accent. Once I tell people I'm from Edmonton they tell me "oh, ok!" as if being an American is a problem. The reality is that this bigotry against Americans up here is really very non-Canadian in my book. As you're probably aware, not all Americans are stupid or arrogant or any of the standard things that too many Canadians like to say, but there are those types of people both in the US and in Canada too.
My conclusion is this: do not make an absolute judgment on anything regarding what a particular place is like until you've actually lived there. Not vacationed there, not stayed temporarily there, but actually lived there. For that, I feel blessed.
Watch out when a high tech company, or any company makes you salaried, because it means you are being setup to work tons of uncompensated overtime.
They have tried to dangle that "carrot" from time to time. I have not felt motivated to take them up on it.
Contractors are different you are getting paid hourly so they do have to pay you for overtime. Of course they can also throw you away like used tissue if they don't need or want you unless your contract says otherwise.
You mean like the 170+ sods at my place with "permanent" jobs that just got kicked in the butt when their jobs went off to India last week?
It sounds so cliched saying that but their jobs really did get offshored just last week. For a change they are not IT guys. They are the finance guys. Us IT people hung onto our jobs.
Oh good, you contributed not only to the fact that the federal government is the second-largest employer in the nation, but also to the belligerence of the U.S. by helping to increase its military muscle that it has been known to flex at the drop of a hat. Yeah, you're making America great.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"You mean like the 170+ sods at my place with "permanent" jobs that just got kicked in the butt when their jobs went off to India last week?"
Yes like those. Being a salaried employee at places like IBM used to mean something. There was mutual loyalty between employer and employee and it was less common to discard employees at a whim. As long as you kept your nose clean and worked hard you could stay in one place for life and have a good retirement.
Some say its necessary for efficiency and it obviously coerces productivity if you work at a company with annual layoffs which seems to be most places these. But it also leads to employees who have no motivation to do a good job or build a strong company. It cheapens everyone and America is increasingly a cheapened, careless place. And of course when the market is hot employees have zero loyalty too and job shop far more than is healthy for them or their employers.
Today being salaried seems to have no up side and a lot of downside, until and unless you cross the great divide in to upper management.
@de_machina
Incorporating is the easy part. Sponsoring an H1-B takes luck (you have to win a slot in the lottery), and a lot of lawyers. You need to have a real position that you are trying to fill and you need to advertize it and try to fill it with a US worker. There are a bunch of other requirements.
Basically, if you want to immigrate to the US, this is not the path of least resistance.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I couldn't agree more with the GP. Where is the error?
/choose/ to be something, and make a success of it, then you have some basis for being proud of it.
If you
If you are in a situation as result of circumstance, then I see no logic in being proud of it.
I work with many contractors from India in my company and, frankly, I welcome their presence. Where else can I find a person that has a REAL IT degree and can not only perform expert analysis but also deliver work on time? I don't see that in my compatriates here in the States. What saddens me the most is that management doesn't see that its not that their FTE's are overworked, its that those FTEs, in general, have no idea what they are doing.
Living in desirable (and therefore expensive) areas isn't a basic human right. I can't afford to live in SF, so I don't.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
So move -- I did.
Honestly, I can't argue (and am not arguing) against globalization -- I'm a libertarian, and am quite certain that the free market will balance everything out (including the market rates at which folks can afford to sell/rent land, food, etc. in the Bay Area), given some time.
Things'll be a bit uncomfortable in the process, though -- because, as I was pointing out, the current cost of living in South Bay isn't something that could be sustained without the inflated payscales there.
Your logic is flawed.
1. The policy of the Executive branch is not requisite on the military - in fact it is the other way around - and rightly so since a military junta is not a democratic form of government; in time of need young men were conscripted into service by order of the civilian government. You should thank your lucky stars (and the men and women who serve in your place) there were enough volunteers to keep you from being drafted.
2. Government employment is based on the budget - which basically says you can have X number of employees. Again, the number of people who get jobs in government does not drive the budget or the number of jobs available. The federal government turns away thousands of applicants every year - if I did not join, someone else would have in my place. Do you want someone with low qualifications in such a critical position?
The tail does not wag the dog. The plane does not fly the pilot. Employment in the Federal Government does not drive allocations or policy.
Talking to you has solidified my belief that suffrage should be based upon a term of public service (2 years minimum). The Swiss have a similar system, and some of the lowest crime rates in Europe; maybe they appreciate civic responsibility ahead of money and pleasure?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Isreal also has mandatory service, and there it can even be said to be based on necessity. However, a large standing military certainly does contribute to our chutzpah and only a fascist would believe in service being a requirement for enfranchisement, given that the armed forces (with the possible exception of the chair force) is pretty open about indoctrinating you into their system, designed to make you follow their orders no matter how nonsensical. Requiring people to be brainwashed before they can vote doesn't seem very "free" to me, comrade.
The pilot can't fly without the plane. The dog can't wag without the tail. And our government cannot carry out wars for oil and near-genocidal assaults on other cultures without a military that is significantly larger than neded for defending our nation. You think mt logic is flawed? You ignored the whole point of my comment.
As for the draft, without this amazing hubris brought on by an excess of military power, resulting from the cold war that bankrupted our closest competitor who we then had to provide aid to, there would be no need to continue this pointless cycle of aggression.
I'm not against applications of violence when necessary but I am opposed to the belief that creating dictators like hussein and supporting organizations like the taliban and then going back and knocking them down later is "civic responsibility".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If they choose to feel shame, it's their choice. I can't know what'll drive them any more than I can know what previous generations were thinking when they plowed through Amerindians. In the meantime, 290 million transplants and their spawn aren't right or wrong, they just are. They, I, can try to make amends to the survivors of past onslaughts, but there's no fixing it, and to argue the right of the newcomers to stand where they are, in the larger sense, is pointless.
Luke, help me take this mask off
You are incorrect. If an order is unlawful a soldier has a moral responsiblity to not follow that order, and futhermore to detain the officer who made such an order.
And as I mentioned, but you did not pick up on, soldiers can not define policy - that would lead to a militaristic (facist) state. From a practical standpoint lives can be saved and the army more effective if discipline is maintained; from a broader viewpoint that same self discipline serves to protect the nation from the excesses a militaristic junta would entail. Finally, soldiers swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States - not loyalty to any regime.
Universal service (and note I said service - I did not specify military service as the only service that can be rendered) in return for suffrage is not facism. Facism, on the other hand is the following:
* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and
* espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism.
In your view, President Kennedy's speach urging Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." is facism. Your viewpoint is BS.
To put it more simply, the rights of the individual end when that individual's actions are detrimental to society. One of the rights lost to a felon, for example, is the right to vote. Now, how is it harmful on the flip-side of that to require a term of service in order to gain the right to vote? For example, lets say you work in a hospital for two years for minimal pay - how is that harmful or in any way detrimental to society or the individual?
From my point of view the largest problems we have as a society result from people not understanding or having empathy for the people around them. You walk a mile in another person's shoes and you begin to see the bigger picture - that your actions, even seemingly the most insignificant, have an impact on others. If every person with economic and/or political power had to get their hands dirty they would have a better appreciation for their position, and would act with more compassion. This is not about facism - it is about being a decent human being.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
"About 50% of all folks that ever get an H-1b visa eventually get a green card. I'd guess the value of an H-1b visa to be between" No, the real value is $0, and therefore it is not corporate welfare. You can't place an arbitrary dollar value on the freedom to seek the best job, just like you can't place on on a freedom of the press, freedom of religion, right to a fair trial, etc. "Immigration can dilute the value of citizenship if it isn't managed correctly" Or it can increase it, as has usually been the case. Any time an immigrant comes to this country to do work, they help build the country. They add value to it. As an American descended from immigrants, I recognize the real value. Oh wait. You won't find a single American who is not also descended from immigrants (except for actual immigrants who ARE immigrants, not descended from them). The main problem with the H1B program is that there has to be a special program. This should be scrapped in favor of a policy to let in anyone who wants to come here work (along with, of course, much more stringent security screening).
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The "My tax money payed for all these services" argument is a bit stupid when you consider that the top 5% of Americans pay over 50% of all the taxes.
It's not stupid at all when you consider that the top 5% of Americans own (or profit from) the 99% of the organizations which receive 90% of the federal funding.
So... if they're getting 90% back, but only paying 50% in, guess what the profit margin is like even after they pay for the smokescreen of actually providing public services with the money they received. You are familiar with money laundering, aren't you?
Unless you make more than $200,000 a year, you're disproportionately benefiting from services paid for by other peoples' tax money.
You're assuming that 100% of the tax money actually gets turned into a real service provided to the public. That's childishly naive. Most organizations, even nonprofit ones, run overhead costs which are around 3x actual operating costs. You do the math.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
B1 is a visitor's visa, with no possiblity of conversion to a green card. They are good for a maximum of 1 year, but usually only good for 6 months. B1 will not allow the holder to be gainfully employed.
So, no, it is not a free ticket to a green card to just incorporate a business in the US and then get yourself a B1. I stand by my original comment: "Basically, if you want to immigrate to the US, [incorporating a US business] is not the path of least resistance."
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
And anyway, that still doesn't solve the green card issue. The whole point was not getting your ass kicked out of the country in 6 months' time, which is what you and your B1 are going to get.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
It is hard to say this any better. It is very hard to see "more folks lose than gain" when there are more of people like this contributing to the health of the country. If we want to stick to your criteria of whether folks lose or gain, you'd be better off deporting a lot of lousy native born Americans than keeping these great people out.
"every poll I've seen indicates most folks in the US want tighter immigration regulations"
I want tighter regulations, too. This is a perfect example of your use of extremely generalized poll data to justify specific stands that are not even mentioned in the poll. I'm sure that all of us agree that a lot more can be done to keep the `bad apples` out. However, this is a separate issue entirely from keeping these "assets to the country" out.
Also, you keep appealing to "the polls" even when they are ridiculously generalized and misleading. I prefer to look at the issue on its merits, rather than try to justify things based on results cooked up from opinion polls.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Now, if you want an example of critically analyzing the effects of immigration, look at this piece I did a while back.
There is a fundamental question here: should small, powerful interests be able to shape policy against the will of the public? I don't think that is a good idea-but that is the case with immigration policy in the US.
The poll is misleading in its simplicity, and due to the complexity of the issue, it is pretty much invalid. Besides, the results are roughly 50-50 again (opposed vs supported/don't-care). Polls where the two sides each measure up to between 40% and 50% never indicate a mandate on anything.
Why is it invalid? There is so much involved in "reducing the flow". As I have said before, I believe that much more screening should be done to keep the terrorists and "bad guys" out. Based on this, I could very well have voted "Decreased" on this poll. Also, there is the racial aspect. So much of opposition to immigration is based in racism. Did you realize that Europeans coming through the northeast are a huge % of illegal immigration? Probably not. Most think it is all those "evil lazy shiftless dirty" Mexicans. You would see a huge variation in the poll if you had two polls about keeping Irish out vs keeping Mexicans out.
I strongly suspect that if the question were changed from "what should be done with the flow of legal immigration" to "what should be done with the flow of legal immigration of good citizens who are hard workers", the 'decrease' poll vote would go from 55% to 40%.
Based on what you have written about H1B visas, it seems pretty clear that you want the "good guys" kept out (the hard-working good citizen types).
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The reasons are anything but simple. There are many reasons, from false perceptions of economic harm to security reasons. If "reducing the flow" means removing the undesirables from the "incoming" flow, I'd be voting to reduce.
"There is a fundamental question here: should small, powerful interests be able to shape policy against the will of the public?"
The "will" you are referring to is something that is shown in the poll to be half the people. Not a mandate of any kind.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I looked. It contains a classic example of the causation fallacy (believing that if A and B both happen, A causes B).
Specifically, the parts saying that immigration wrecked California's bond rating. You also use as support a Pat Buchanan article that says that having too much ethnic diversity wrecks the economy. I suggest checking this link about California's improving bond rating. Guess what? It is improving because of budget policies of the new administration. It is not improving because of a crackdown on immigration or on ethnic diversity. There has been no crackdown.
The "problem" of immigration still plagues California, and the bond rating is improving. Ironically, it is improving under the administration of an immigrant governor.. Blaming the "outsider" for problems they have nothing to do with is older than civilization. Look at Salem, Mass. to see what this can lead to.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.