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Feds Consider H-1B Changes After Uncovering Fraud
CWmike writes "A Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman said today that the agency is weighing a series of reforms to the H-1B application process, including the use of 'independent open-source data' to obtain information about visa seekers or the companies that file the petitions on their behalf. The move follows a report by the agency that found widespread problems and evidence of fraud in the nation's H-1B program, including forged documents, fake degrees and shell companies being used in H-1B applications. It also comes after the controversy caused by changes to the H-1B rules earlier this year."
On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive, which could lead to a higher employment rate. So it's really a two-sided problem.
However, when it comes to real specialists I don't see how low entry barriers will affect wages, because those people will move to wherever they earn the most. If you look at wages for IT-specialists* in Europe for example they are not much lower in Poland than in the UK, even though the general population earns much less in Poland. The reason for this is that if the employers would offer less those IT workers would just move on to Germany, France, UK etc..
*Not talking about the guy who runs the Exchange server or fixes your printer problems.
I don't read replies by ACs.
L1 is the loop hole. It is the top secret one. I agree that there are about 30% h1bs who fake their experience(h1b criteria is 16yr edu + 3 years minimum work exp or 15 yr edu + 6 years work, 1 year education = 3 year work). 90% people on L1 have 15 year education or less and just 1 year exp. In any economy downturn h1bs are the first to be fired because 90% of them work on corp to corp contracts which are very expensive. Example for a unix admin - 100+ per hour is paid by company A to vendor V, V keeps 35% and gives 65 to H1B holding company H, H pays about 30 to the employee who is new in USA or 40 if he is more than 2 years old in usa. H1b end up getting exploited till GC(6 to 8 years). L1s too get exploited but they are happy because they are rotated every year. So they have less expenses(no need to buy car or family home) in usa and carry all money as savings to india/china.
Since h1b corp to corp is expensive, candidate has to be really skilled, but some do manage by changing clients(A) every 3 to 6 months by slipping through a phone interview(some one else giving the phone int in their name). On being found out they are fired in 3 to 6 months. Yet they manage to settle in low tech areas like managing remedy tickets etc in about 2 years of hire-fire cycle. So in downturn, h1bs are fired first, then the citizen employee and are replaced by L1. L1's don't get overtime pay. They get about 3 to 4 k per month and yet that is a very good money because in india they get max 1k per month for 1+ year experience.
So if Einstein, von Newmann, Szilard, and a HUGE HOST OF Others had decided to build the A-Bomb for the fuhrer, America would have been just as successful during the past decades? PLEASE.... A nazi Germany with A-Bombs would have taken over Russia and Britain easily. America would be farther geographically, but after some mushrooms in the sky morale would be so low that surrender would be inevitable. Of course, gladly, we will never know. But to imagine that it's good policy to keep out the most talented people in the globe is to repeat but one of Hitler's mistakes. Ok, I get the Goodwin prize today, I guess.
"But, if you pay dirt, you will get a bad CEO. "
Who says so? I'm not saying pay them dirt (which is what the janitor gets) just pay them reasonably. 100 million does not guarantee that you will get a good CEO. Conversely, paying 1 million may get you a good one because you might get one that looks at things differently. Often the amount paid for someone (or something) is not related to the price you pay.
Anything built to be affordable will end up being rent controlled, at a huge loss to the landlord. Why take the risk? Either build luxury apartments or don't build at all.
While that argument might hold water for someone building rental units, it is meaningless for building condos with the intent to sell, not rent. The financial crisis wasn't trigger by people failing to pay their rent, it's about an artificially high barrier to property ownership.
A word on the "evils" of rent control:
I'm renting a non-luxury non-rent controlled or stabilized apt right now. My last apt wasn't luxury or rent stabilized either, and my rent went up 48% in three years because my neighborhood gentrified. So I had to move (and pay a broker for the privilege). Rent control isn't the huge loss that landlord try to hack it up to be, if the building is turning a profit when they build it, it will be turning a profit ten years down the line even if the apts are rent controlled, because the landlord's mortgage didn't go up and the rent control with keep property taxes down, what the landlords are whining about is that they can't maximize their profits (and boot out long time tenets) with every neighborhood gentrification wave, there is a big difference between making a modest profit and taking a loss, and no landlords are actually taking a loss on buildings with rent controlled apts. Added to that,rent stabilization doesn't apply to anything built since '84.
We are all just people.
While it may make debts easier to pay, it ultimately makes the money worthless. Inflation by printing more money to pay off obligations is what the Weimar Republic did, and we all know how well *that* worked out. With Obama looking like he can win the Presidency, the fringe lunatic end of the Republican Party is showing its vile, racist hatred (*). I only hope we in the U.S. don't wind up having to go to the grocery store with our money in wheelbarrows and simply having it weighed to determine if it is enough to pay, along with outlawing the possession of Euros and other stable currencies.
(*) Yes, I realize plenty of Republicans are not racists, but there is a lunatic fringe of Republicans who are both racist and violent. If they think they have nothing to lose, who knows what could happen.
Similar to the upcoming US election results