Slashdot Mirror
Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown
theodp writes "An AP review of visa applications has found that major US banks sought permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country under the H-1B visa program, even as the banking system was melting down and Americans were being laid off. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years. (It's not known how many of these were granted; the article notes 'The actual number is likely a fraction of the... workers the banks sought to hire because the government only grants 85,000 such visas each year among all US employers.') The American Bankers Association blamed the US talent pool for forcing the move, saying they couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration. The AP has filed FOIA requests to force the US Customs and Immigration Service to disclose further details on the bailed-out banks' foreign hires."
... what the hell Americans are doing if they're not available for the tech OR the banking biz...
Sheesh, get out of Wal-Mart folks and get a job!
...people turn to protectionism. No news there.
I do payroll and deal with ACH (Automated Clearning House files), and I have a CISSP/MCSE and a whole lotta linux to boot. I can even pass background checks to TS/SCI, but there are no prospects for me in banking. If I want a future of employment, I have to help the government correlate IP log data so they can read all your emails.
The American Bankers Association blamed the US talent pool for forcing the move, saying they couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration.
They're just copying well the tactics of others.
What the above paragraph really means is they couldn't find enough Americans capable of the job, who were willing to take less pay than average, so their costs would be less, and their profit margins would be more.
For the purposes of their requests, people who want to be paid somewhere near the market price for their services aren't suitable candidates capable of the job.
How long until banks start using Blackwater as their primary security service?
Retreats at luxury spas, buying private jets, handing out billions in "retention bonuses" when there are 10's of thousands out of work in the finance industry and the companies are asking for a taxpayer bailout. Then they repay those same taxpayers by trying to hire foreigners to replace them.
It's obvious to everyone outside Wall St. that these people just don't get it. Entitlement has become so entrenched it's a way of life for them.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"...couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration."
They couldn't find Americans willing to work for 20-40% less.
This just smacks of wanting to use cheap labor so the pigs at the top can continue to feed at the trough.
... were also looking for the cheapest labour they could get.
I'm suspecting that you'll also find that those were the banks handing out the biggest bonuses for their executives.
When this disaster is over, I recommend lots of government regulations to ensure that, in the future, none of the banks (or other financial institutions) ever get "so big that we cannot let them fail".
In theory, with the "Free Market", these banks WOULD fail because they were badly managed. Instead, we're propping them up and rewarding their failed management.
They recklessly kept pushing derivative ponzi schemes until they collapsed, then brazenly took billions from the government to stuff in their own pockets, and continue displacing american workers with cheaper foreign labor. These people are morally corrupt, to the capital CORE.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
I don't get it. You claim that in the free market would these banks would fail, yet you want to introduce more regulation to make sure no banks get big enough in order for the market to let them fail.
When is it "over", btw? And what do you recommend until then?
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
And with it, the protectionism and labor unionism that plagued the country for decades. Want to see what happens when the whole US economy becomes like GM ? You're in for a ride.
Now let one thing be clear. What is a H1-B ?
It's a piece of paper from the government which says: you can work for your employer, and we will not come with guns to force you back on a plane.
What a privilege ! How can citizens allow WILLING EMPLOYERS and WILLING EMPLOYEES to contract, between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande. What an outrage.
Mind your own fucking business. Hire who you want, work for who will want to hire you, but don't try to dictate who your neighbors can invite or hire on their property.
The inability to handle sales and lending properly, got the banks into problems in the first place!
Don't you have any insight in what is going on at all?
And put it on pay-per-view.
America has a choice. Bring in foreign labor that sometimes is much better and sometimes much worse than American labor over here legally or outsource their functions and loose all the benefits in the process.
The government runs on taxes.
The best way to get the most taxes is to push the most money through the economy at the fastest rate. The more times a dollar is spent on taxable items/services IN THIS COUNTRY the more taxes the government collects.
Spending less money on foreign workers is not a good way to accomplish that.
Giving $2 billion in bailout funds to a bank so they can give it to their "top 10" executives as "bonuses" results in different spending patterns than sharing $2 billion in cash amongst all the US citizens making less than $30K a year.
I'm worried by the increasing number of stories on /. up in arms about companies bringing in *gasp* foreigners. America was founded by non-natives and our economic strength comes from the thousands of immigrants who come here for a better life by getting good jobs or starting businesses.
The contempt for the foreigners coming here on H1-B visas, and the companies that hire them, disgusts me. What makes you any better or more deserving than these people? The fact that you were born in the US? Please. These people have the should have the same right as all of us to come here and be successful. By preventing people from immigrating, especially talented, smart people, we are damaging the future of this country. The ability to attract the best and the brightest to come here is one of our greatest strengths. Erecting barriers to trade and enacting protectionism, especially during this economy, will lead to our downfall as a nation.
The economy isn't a zero-sum game. Allowing foreigners to come here to work enhances their life and the life of those in this country. If you believe you are inherently more entitled to a job than someone from another country, just because you were born here, then you are a xenophobic prick.
There is no "Free Market" as originally described. The people with the money can get politicians to write laws protecting them.
But they keep quoting the "Free Market" when it is advantageous to their position to pretend that it exists.
It does not exist.
So just don't pretend that it does any more and ignore those people who use it to justify their abuses and just make it impossible for any SINGLE organization to get so big that the government has to rescue it.
It's all about privatizing profits while socializing losses.
they couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration.
The banks could have _trained_ people. It's called 'investing', and banks are supposed to be good at it.
I think you missed his point. Many feel we need to regulate the banks so that we don't let them get so big that a failure of one would bring down our economy or other banks and sectors in mass. One of the basic tenants of the Free Market/ Capitalist system is to ensure competition. If we let a bank get so big that it is a cornerstone or major support of our entire economy (CitiBank, Bank of America, etc) then letting it fail is not as reasonable or acceptable a premise because the pain is no longer on the investors but the population as a whole. We have seen in this economic collapse that allowing financial institutions to become interwoven and then having them make up a large segment of our economy means that a failure in one part can bring it all down. However, if we limit the bank size (like they used to be for 50 years) to a smaller percentage of deposit and loan market and don't let them insure their own loans or be in insurance then if we let them fail they hurt the risky investors (as intended) and not the entire nation.
Personally, neither system seems very good to me, however the limited size of banks seems the least objectionable IMHO.
Huh?
National chauvinism is poison to the workers! Expropriate the banks under a workers government! Not one penny for the capitalist speculators!
Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown
and then
...requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years.
I wasn't aware the banking system was already melting down in 2003. Given the delay inherent in gov't bureaucracies, H1-B visa requests granted now may have been in the system for months, if not years.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sorry if I had phrased that like that. My point was that putting money into US citizens at the bottom of the economic ladder gets more taxes generated for the government than putting the same OR LESS money into foreign workers.
That has also been my experience. They come here, live as cheaply as possible, save their money (good so far, right?) and then start their own business back home when they return.
During good economic times and high employment, that doesn't impact the economy very much.
During bad economic times, you're sending money away from the US economy ... and taking jobs from US workers ... and increasing the tax burden on the other workers to pay for unemployment benefits of those workers ... and so forth. The government collects fewer taxes, but ends up with spending more on the unemployed. It's a double hit.
Get over it. And I am even more stealthy, because I am white. Like 74% of you (2006 figures).
And before that, I worked as a foreigner in Europe. And then Asia. And then again in Europe.
I have stolen jobs all over the place.
But you know what - some jobs actually require foreigners, who bring new skills and open up perspectives. This idea of requiring citizens first is actually quite stupid, since it forces corporations to jump through hoops even when their prefered candidate is a foreigner (regardless of salary considerations).
I am a manager at major technology company. One that nearly anyone would love to get a job with.
I have hired a lot of people over the last few years. And a lot of people straight out of college. And I've hired a LOT of foreigners. I've had to deal with H1-B issues every year for 4 years.
I dearly want to hire Americans. I have a candidate right now who is really good and I'm frothing at the mouth to sign him up.
And I don't believe Americans are stupid or can't do what foreigners can. But here's the thing, Americans in college mostly seem to have lousy resumes.
Remember when you are getting a job out of college, that most of your peers (meaning college students graduating nationwide) will have no actual experience in anything but the basic concepts of your field. Most employers realize that a college student is mostly considered a smart blank slate, one they will have to train a while in the ways of work before they can contribute well.
When I see resumes from Indian students, both educated in India and educated in the US (often just graduate school), the Indian students have FAR better resumes than any of the American students. The resumes list specific courses which show that the applicant has done projects which involved design and implementation while still in school. Also, they will often have fantastic summer experience. Meanwhile, American students will apparently have been delivering pizza for the summer because there's usually nothing listed.
So, Americans, do yourself a favor. When you enter college, do a resume search of students graduating from your school or similar ones. Look at some of the resumes from the Indian students. See the experience they are listing, and then go get yourself some of this experience, both in school and during the summers.
Yes, work your butt off in classes too, but you also need to work extra hard to make sure you land a good-quality internship between your junior and senior years. And take project-type classes that show you can do work in the field you want to land a job in, not just that you know the concepts and math involved. And make sure when someone reads your resume, they can tell from it what you learned/did.
You'll make things a lot easier on me too, because I want to hire Americans (trust me, the government is still doing a good job of making it easier to hire Americans than foreigners), and if you make it easier for me to find you, we both win.
I'm sick of looking at most of American society. Foreigners will come to the US, take advantage of the system instead of whining about "they owe me" or "i'm this color, so you should do this for me". Every foreigner I've seen have put their backs to the grindstone amidst all kinds of bigotry and worked for degrees, certifications, etc. Hell, that's the kind of can-do attitude that created this country. The only citizens we have now are entitlements: welfare (which in its current form doesn't encourage anyone from getting off their ass and working - and the current stimulus package is going to FURTHER encourage it), pro-race, etc.
I'm sick and tired of the lazy asses in the US. Hell, if they'll come here and actually work, then more power to them. They don't stand around and say "so and so is a white male manager, he makes more than me..wahhh", etc.
Banks making decisions according to financial factors?! Say it ain't so!
Congressmen act surprised because they want their constituents to believe that by bailing out the banks, they're saving the American worker and the economy. But I have serious doubts that any of the Congressmen who voted for the bailout *really believed* that it would create jobs or help the economy.
The problem Congressmen *might* be facing next election is that those workers laid off by the banks receiving bailouts are not the ignoramuses they assume. These workers went to college, took courses in economics, and generally speaking, understand as much about the economy - if not more - than their congressional counterparts. They lived through eight years of the Bush White House, and can recognize cronyism when they see it. They lived through eight years of Reaganomics, and not only do they recognize it when they see it, they know it doesn't work.
And they, like me, are frustrated that the wool is being pulled over our collective eyes. We're frustrated that Congress is rewarding greed and avarice, and trying to sell it as creating jobs. They know better; we know better.
Oh, and that Change that Obama was talking about? Well, our government is going to take your dollars, and leave you with pocket change. Welcome to Democracy.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
...the top jobs aren't farmed out to foreigners as well. Imagine the savings in only have to pay your top execs 200k bonuses instead of 2 billion?
Don't play.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
is slashdot now a bastion of protectionism?
here are your choices:
1. bitch, whine, and moan. sink further into mediocrity
2. shut up, and make your fortune in the NEXT big new thing
apparently, the america of can do attitudes and innovation is being supplanted by loud sniveling voices of priveledge and entitlement
protectionism never works. if there exists some sort of talent outside the borders of your country that can do what you can do for less, simple economics will gravitate to that. either it will be the multinational you work for doing that, laying you off, or if that multinational is blocked from doing that due to protectionist laws, then some other company will capitalize on the cost difference, your multinational will shrink from the competition, and you will get laid off thataways. see? there is NO protection from simple economics and PROGRESS
you are not entitled to the same good job your entire life. no morality, natural law, or sense of fairness exists in which that attitude is supported
tighten your belt, shut up, move on, and make your mark somehwere else
really
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't change the subject! They've hired a bunch of H-1Bs, and I bet their employees didn't brush their teeth every day either... So F***ing what?? C'mon that's not the real issue and you know it.
The titles says that as if were a crime to employ foreign workers using H-1Bs, which is perfectly legal. And what's with the evil guy pictured in the article? Is he the investigator or an H-1B holder thinking how to take your job? What a load of BS!! Can't believe this made it to the frontpage of /. It's dissapointing.
And yet the executives of those companies using that logic don't seem to apply it to themselves.
That's because it doesn't work.
The foreign workers don't expect to be paid as much because they DO expect to save most of it and then return home where the cost of living is significantly lower.
Now, if the companies want to play that game, then fine. They should be required to move their offices to India or wherever.
Instead, they want to "game" the system by paying to cheap labour rates of India, but enjoying all the benefits of the USofA. Meanwhile they're hiding their assets in the Cayman Islands and such.
Why should the American citizens support their government allowing such behaviour? It's just a race to the bottom.
Try hiring older experienced workers. They'll be more productive sooner, so you won't have to hire as many.
You seem to suggest that only the bigoted and xenophobic are against increasing the number H1-B visas holders. The anti-H1B argument might not be so much about foreigners as it is about citizens. Is a US corporation justified in simultaneously letting go of US citizens while accepting US tax dollars, all the while lobbying to allow for foreign citizens to fill these new vacancies? Is it so terrible to suggest that *maybe* a US company should consider it a priority to retain and/or employ US citizens, regardless of the nation of origin, over foreign citizens whenever possible?
There's definitely an advantage for the *company* involved in that it is able to draw from an presumably similar talent pool for a substantially lower cost. When the economy is good and unemployment is down, then maybe this isn't such a bad thing, but does it make sense to re-evaluate this standpoint when the economy is doing so poorly?
Perhaps someone could explain me this:
Why is there reason to significantly more dislike the fact that skilled people move into the US for a period of time to work, paying taxes and living costs as they do so, than there is for unskilled migrants moving into the US?
From the Democrats, illegal immigrants gets training programmes, support programmes and calls for a blanket amnesty, with the hope that they will one day perhaps be MCSEs. Legal working migrants who already have MCSEs should be shut out of the country. Could someone please explain me this paradox?
When this disaster is over,
Over? I'll only believe it's over when the last bank executive is strangled by the entrails of the last politician(apologies to Voltaire).
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
the usa's rise to prominence wasn't due to innovation, hard work, good laws, corruption opposition, the promise of liberty, immigration... etc., etc.
no, it was due to protectionism
got it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What would happen if you crossed an Ivy-league educated politician with a rapper? And elected him President?
I can hear it now:
Pres: Yo, Yo, Yo! Bailout hos listen up!
You ain't gettin' none of my money - you heeere me? None of it!
What? - your outsourcin', no good, H1-B hirin' firm is going into the toilet? Welcome to the free market, bitches!
Laissez faire muthafockers!
Peace out.
(to be fair, also posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1111355&cid=26689403 - but I thought it relevant nonetheless.)
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
America is a nation that was built by immigrants. Some day, not too long ago, your parents came here looking for a good life. How would you have liked it if all the natives kept blaming them for all their troubles?
H1-Bs are not just figures. They are highly skilled people. I have a PhD and am a H1-B worker. I work at the research division of a big computer manufacturer. When I was interviewing, I was given the option to relocate to my native country with a FAT pay check. In fact, half my team is located in my country and we do the EXACT same work. My colleagues also have PhDs from top-tier schools in the United States. I could have just as easily relocated there, but I chose to stay back in the US due to the diverse set of people who had become my friends. In the process, I very literally *kept* the job in the US, and I'm a taxpayer who is contributing to your social security, without any expectation of any benefits.
I don't discriminate against anyone based on their nationality, race or origin. If you are better than me at what I do, then please, by all respects take my job.
But don't expect to have my job JUST because you are a US passport holder.
I live in southern California, no need to get the INS involved, just drive the pick up down to the home depot. you don't even have to stop.
loosen the h1-b regulations and make it easy for the visa holders to get US citizenship.
why, you ask?
- as it stands right now, all the odds are stacked against foreign workers. it's difficult to find jobs (many companies don't deal with sponsoring visas)--thus the number of companies to choose from is a lot smaller, and the workers have extremely little bargaining power when it comes to salary.
- companies know this and thus put a lot of pressure on the foreign workers: it's either a job with lower pay or no job at all.
- if getting h1-b visas were A LOT easier and didn't cost as much, foreign workers WILL have more choices and more bargaining power, esp. in terms of salary. the market will become more competitive and not simply about hiring the cheapest labor.
- the current rules are also extremely unfriendly when it comes to changing one's status from employment-based visa to permanent residence/citizenship. getting a green card requires company sponsorship and the waiting time is about 5-6 years long, during which you CANNOT change jobs (again, tremendous pressure on the worker).
- one of the main reasons why foreign workers go back home (at least from what i've observed) is because their work visas have expired and they have no other options that allow them to stay here.
- if it were easier to transition from employment-based visa to citizenship, many h1-b visa holders would take that route and stay here in the long run. and guess what? if foreign workers become citizens, they're no longer under a lot of employment restrictions and will have more bargaining power. more importantly, the talent stays IN the country. no brain drain.
my 2 cents.
Bank size has nothing to do with the current financial clusterfuck. As you said, financial institutions are interwoven, and that's the problem. Credit Default Swaps are causing the current panic by governments to try to save any bank, big or small. Because even if a small bank goes down, because everyone and their dogs are interwoven with CDS contracts, the entire gambling house of cards crumbles. In fact, I am willing to bet (pun intended) that if one of the big automakers goes down, it would bring the financial system down with them. Or all is needed that a few small banks sell CDS contracts targeting some entity that goes down. And if these small banks go down, they'll take the entire system with them.
The current shadow financial system is the problem because there is zero transparency. If banks would have been forced to put all these gambling bets with CDS on their balance sheets, there would have been bank runs a long time ago and they couldn't have gotten big. Also, other banks might have been reluctant to sell CDS contracts on something like Lehman Brothers if they could have seen Lehman's CDS exposure. The CDS bubble wouldn't have gotten out of hand if only it was on the companies balance sheets.
I don't believe that limiting bank sizes would have prevent any of the current problems. And until CDS contracts are regulated and exposed, and companies are forced to reveal their CDS exposure, the current system will be vulnerable to any minor failure in it.
Also, Banking revenue should increase significantly due to the $35 NSF fees and late fees these laid off workers will be paying as they discover their unemployment benefits don't quite stretch far enough.
Clearly this is a big "BUY" signal for banking stocks as this is going to be quite a windfall in fee collections this year.
Ross Youngblood
Umm, no.
While most might not remember this, since it happened four months ago, those big banks that got the $150 billion bailout were ORDERED by the Treasury Secretary to take a bailout. Most of them didn't even want it. I recall reading in the paper at the time that the Secretary had to basically lock them into a meeting and tell them they weren't leaving till they'd accepted a bailout. Apparently, someone was afraid that bankers who really needed a bailout would be afraid to admit it if everyone wasn't getting a bailout.
Note also that this H1B thing isn't something that's happened recently. It happened over the last 6+ years, BEFORE the banks were bailed out (at the next best thing to gunpoint).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
as free trade during a WAR?
what a thunderbolt of insight
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
((*) for rich bank executives)
that they ARE available. In droves. Despite complaints about our school systems, according to actual studies we have today, on the average, the best-educated workforce in the USA that we have ever had. Saying that there are no qualified native workers is just plain bullshit. And even if it were not bullshit, the industry would have nobody to blame but themselves. Nobody is going to bother to "get educated" in order to get a job that pays shit wages and has few benefits!
Companies and corporations are going to have to get this through their heads: they complain that workers are not loyal, and that they cannot find enough people who want to work for them. But the reason is simple: they treat their employees like crap and pay them too little. So... they try to hire foreigners who are willing to live in hovels and accept those shit wages.
Of course this is a generalization, and there are some glaring exceptions... some companies treat their employees like royalty. But those exceptions have been relatively few and can be hard to get into. So as a generalization, this is pretty good.
If they want to find good and loyal employees, they are going to have to pay better, and treat people better. And the changes have to start on their side, because employees are NOT going to say to themselves, "Sure, they treat me like crap and pay me poorly, but I will be a good, loyal employee anyway and maybe they will change over the years!"
Excuse me, but things -- and people -- just don't work that way. Normal people take the jobs that look attractive and avoid those that do not... which is why they are not working for those companies that are complaining.
Until employers are willing to treat people better, they aren't going to get better people. Period.
I am sort of enjoying watching the United States have these epiphanies about protectionism, minimum wages, banking regulation etc. Not because I wish ill on you guys - I absolutely don't. If we must have a 900 pound gorilla of a country indirectly ruling the world, I'd prefer America to, say, China. Or just about anyone else.
But for years and years, the rest of the world has protested long and loud as the U.S. has rammed radical capitalist theories down our throats - no, you may not protect local IP, jobs, vulnerable industries, agriculture, culture, etc etc etc. Globalise everything, open your markets, participate in the race to the bottom. It has seemed crazy and backwards to you that any of us would even consider having high minimum wages, good unemployment benefits, strong unionised workforces, public health, free education and so on. Such things are apparently "socialist", which to many Americans (especially of the right wing bent) really means a combination of "communist" and "totalitarian".
Sure, globalisation has created a lot of growth. But it has also been unneccessarily destructive, and in many countries has wrought untold damage before any benefit has been seen.
So now, after forgetting all about the New Deal and after ignoring the post-WWII warnings your own leaders and intellectuals gave you about the corporatisation of your nation, you finally start to see what can happen to an economy and a society when you strip all of those terrible 'protectionist' policies away and then expose it to harsh conditions. Banks are hiring foreigners because (a) it's cheaper and (b) you have created a culture where the only "right" is corporations doing things as profitably as possible and the only "wrong" is putting anything ahead of money. You're a late entrant in the race to the bottom that you created.
But the measure of intelligence is not whether you make mistakes - it's whether you learn from the ones you do make. I hope you learn from all of this, I really do. Getting rid of the Republican Party and moving your idea of "centrist" away from what the rest of us regard as "far right" might be a good starting point.
Read Pynchon.
While most might not remember this, since it happened four months ago, those big banks that got the $150 billion bailout were ORDERED by the Treasury Secretary to take a bailout. Most of them didn't even want it. I recall reading in the paper at the time that the Secretary had to basically lock them into a meeting and tell them they weren't leaving till they'd accepted a bailout. Apparently, someone was afraid that bankers who really needed a bailout would be afraid to admit it if everyone wasn't getting a bailout.
I wish I had mod-points for you tonight.
A number of banks that did not need the bailout were strong-armed into accepting it. The reason: they didn't want a panic to start at the banks that needed the funds. If the public perceived that Bank A needed bailout funds while Bank B didn't, customers shifting their deposits from Bank A to Bank B would exacerbate the problems at Bank A.
Frankly, I think the whole scheme was a horrible waste of taxpayer money. But, this is how it went down.
Anyone think, the primary reason for H1B visa's is because of their initial cost of entry ? They hire foreign workers so they don't have to train them like they would with their own countrymen. Most major corporate white-colar jobs don't want to have to train anybody to do anything, they want a one step/stop hiring process.
the 'laws' are a joke. As someone who hired a number of H1-B's, the salaries are kind of like the speed limit. You can't go 85 MPH in a 55, but you can probably get away with 70 and not get pulled over. The H1-B's all came with 'lawyers who a friend of theirs knew' to help with the paperwork.
two points: first, "six years""the meltdown"--six years ago was 2003, for god's sake, the economy was still roaring along. second, these banks are 100,000+ employee behemoths; they're ruled mostly by inertia. if someone said, in 2005, "hire me 10,000 people from india in 2008", an executive order direct from bush wouldn't have been enough to cancel the process in less than six months.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Where the heck do you get that crap? You have to have production for growth, you can't just "declare" it.
The last 20 years has been an inflationary and credit bubble that just popped, and the air is still whooshing away. There has been no growth, that is some wild con job bankster fleece they pulled over your eyes. Credit and debt is not production! Credit and debt is not production! (repeat until you get it) The US has been stopping making stuff! It *doesn't matter* at this point if the EU buys "US" stuff or not, because *China* makes all the stuff now; How much of 30 million manufacturing jobs gone doesn't sink in? Credit and paper financial products are NOT real stuff. It's a game, a casino deal, it isn't "production", and it isn't "growth". It shouldn't even be included in the GNP numbers at all, any more than the local bingo hall is.
Inflating the currency a trillion a month does not make for a sound currency unit, that's Zimbabwe action coming if they keep it up. The only "growth" has been in US balance of trade imbalances, no savings, debt now extended to the unborn generation, an over shilled and severely over valued stock market built on *pure* lies with no regulation over the Cxx liars, and now everything is broke, busted. Pensions are busted, 401ks are busted, people "owe" a lot more than what their homes are allegedly worth, and we have such impressive indicators like the "wonder" state, California, touted ad nauseum by over caffeinated starbucks dwelling metrosexuals as such a tremendous economy, a model truly to be admired, now is going to be issuing some sort of weird IOU scrip instead of cash to people they owe, because they outlined their budget based on pure stock market and real estate bubble bullshit economics. And now they are stuck, don't even have it in them to do a little self assessment and realize they all swallowed the same stupid pill about economics, that they could flip real estate at each other and make 20% or more a flip, forever and ever and ever, then borrow against those paper earnings, and the state would adjust taxes accordingly and set its budget. Stuff like that.
And Cal is supposed to be one of the better off states in the US?? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ya, stupidity growth for the last 20 years, that's about it, but hey, the stupid bowl is on and there's new videogames out! Surfs up! Snowboards! The real economy, social networking sites! *snicker*...growth....funniest crap I have read all year....
Here. I am going into a trance and will channel George Carlin for some sound economic advice: "Jesus fuck! If you keep listening to those asshole bankers you deserve every boning you will get! They are thieves and liars and tell those government fucktards posing as "fiscal policy officials" what to say, get it?""
Make outsourcing of jobs where private medical, financial or other personally identifiable information is involved.
Those 2 cut-offs alone will raise profits for companies (it costs more to outsource than to keep the American employees - it's been proven time and time again), and bring more American workers back to work and productivity. It will also help bring back customers who were driven away from companies when it was known they were outsourcing jobs.
Cut outsourcing of programming jobs, and companies can save another 80 to 90% of their programming budgets due to mis-spelling, bad grammar, stupid language parsing errors.
Really, there are plenty H1B's out there that work for 75-50% of the standard wages. If you're out of a job, what would you rather have: 0% or 50% of what you used to make? If Americans don't want to work at those wages, then they don't get the job, there are always people who want to work whether you import them or not. It's not because you're American that you're entitled to get higher wages. The economy is down the crapper, you have to pay your bills; get a job or become homeless. If you don't want to work for the bank at 45k, there is always pizza delivery or McD for 25k.
I work and live in America as a permanent resident. I made 2 years ago well above average and got a bit of savings, the last two I make slightly below but I have a much better work environment and at least I still have a job and job security for at least a few years even if the economy gets worse. If you're forgoing jobs because you hope you get a better offer, that's your problem and good luck if you can get it in this economy. In the mean time I'll just build up my credit and buy a house within a few months. Hopefully you'll deserve a tip when you serve me my food.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
someone should point out to those fretting about foreigners that the attitude of north korea leads to an economy like north korea's
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm sorry... My knee jerk just hit me in the face so hard I lost all ability to reason for a while.
The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years.
We've got our panties in a bunch over their hiring H1Bs at the rate of one one thousandth of their global workforce each year during the fastest period of growth in banking history? Anyone else feeling stupid yet?
21,860 over six years.
So an average of 3,600 a year?
Or, divided across the dozen quoted, an average of three hundred whole H1Bs per bank, each year.
To put that in context, Citibank, not even the largest of them, had around 300,000 worldwide workers. Their lay offs have hit around 10% of that number... 30,000. 300 H1Bs a year is suddenly a very, very small number.
Even if none of the H1Bs moved on during the six years, they'd have hired a total of about 2,000 of them. They'd still have laid off 28,000 non H1B holders even if every last H1B holder had gone first.
Sweet jesus, they're clearly the most evil H1B abusers evar.
And as for talking about how evil they were for hiring these H1Bs over the last six years as the system imploded? It's been falling apart for the last year or so. The other five of those that we're busy lumping in there were (admittedly for bad reasons) the fastest period of growth the banking sector has ever seen.
The constant whining about H1Bs, I'm sorry, is the same pathetic xenophobia and protectionism that kicks in, whether grounded or not, whenever people get scared.
I was disgusted in 2002 as that shameful of human traits was used to justify stripping away the nation's civil liberties. I was disgusted as it turned in to attacking mosques and regarding all muslims as obvious terrorists. I was disgusted as it was used to justify attacking as "unpatriotic" anyone who dared question what turned out to be lies justifying a war that's cost 5,000 American lives. And, yeah, I'm pretty disgusted by it now too.
Xenophobia's pathetic at any time. Massively distorting numbers to make a point that really doesn't exist doesn't help.
not only does that contradict federal work laws, it shows you depend more on unsupported hysteria than reality
you've defeated your own argument by revealing a failed mentality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
My comment ended up on the wrong thread. I meant to reply further up.
Not that simple as you portray.
Citizens are looking for work everywhere.
Whether its KFC or Citi.
But the cost of hiring H1-Bs is lower in many ways than just financial:
1) A H1-B could be fired instantly without any union problems.
2) No healthcare or pension crap.
3) Ability to hite 2 H1-B for price of one american citizen (ok, nowadays this is gone)
In short, this is just stealing.
Corporates steal tax payers money and feed it to h1Bs, while the same tax payer is fired!
As long as a corporate is NOT funded by tax payer money it is free to hire anyone.
The moment a corporate touches public money, it has to follow rules that limit hiring.
In India Public funded organisations (even profitable ones) have to follow rules on hiring including reservations for the backward and under-privileged.
Similar should be in US...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Google has most of it via: inurl:drachenstern.tripod.com
Hello there.
My name is Cole Brand. I am 22 years old and am currently a second year student at a two year, fully accredited Alabama school, Ayers State Technical College. My current degree program is the two year Associate of Applied Science, Information Technology, with plans to attend the Minneapolis Metro Area College, MARCS School , there to study as an Air Traffic Controller, to work for the USFAA. I graduated from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Ga.
Where I Live
I live in Wedowee, AL, which is 90 miles west-southwest of Atlanta. I live with my parents, and my sister. My little brother is at Advanced Individual Training with the Army Reserves, 58B.
What I Do
I am a full time college student. I am currently pursuing 20+ semester credit hours in fall semester, with intentions to do the same in spring semester.
My father builds houses, and usually I help him with that, as well.
I also consult on the side. I am currently a freelancer, although I may soon affiliate myself with a company that has established a name for itself in the area. Future details about this will be forthcoming. As I am not a part of the company, it is not fair for myself or for them to say more.
If you live in the area and would like a quote or service, feel free to contact me here.
Anything Else
Well, I believe that is enough for a start. If you would like to know more, feel free to contact me.
By the way: this is me!
C/C++
VB/VBA
Access
Other
O/S es
Win9x
NT
Linux/Unix
Mac
Message Board
Go To It
School Stuff
US History Notes
Just Stuph
Dark Age of Wythia stuff
Bob Code
Fun Links
Avoiding Porn and Other Useful Stuph
DrachenWeb
About Me
Feedback
Other Useful Information
Welcome to my personal bit of heaven, my own "website". It may not look like much to you, but that's okay, you're entitled to be wrong.
One thing I do ask you to do as you browse my li'l' web heap as well as the entirety of the web, as you see information posted, please keep in mind the author's knowledge of the subject. If they do not know the subject matter, how can you be expected to believe them. On the same note, just because they seem to know what they are talking about, do they? Maybe that was redundant. I'll have to read it again later.
On to the "website". (The reason I put "website" in quotes is because I do not consider this a website, merely a collection of pages hosted on a free server. A true website would be on a separate server and would not really be a freebie. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess.)
To the left, you will find a small-ish list of things which are currently included in the site. Navigation will be by a manner of using the same said bar throughout the site. I have tried to use a non-frames oriented site, although frames may prove easier for updating, so we shall see, ehh? Okay, enough rambling. :]
Just in case you care to know, I am now married (1 yr anniv 08-30-2005) and living in Houston, TX, working for Hewlett Packard as a contractor in their Enterprise Server manufacturing division.
given how well it's all gone you'd be forgiven for thinking they couldn't find people capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration, regardless of nationality.
Sure, globalisation has created a lot of growth. But it has also been unneccessarily destructive
If you think growth has been destructive, wait until the growth stops.
You only ignore all of human history. Growth can be painful but it's far better than the ugly alternatives.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Tariffs are no more evil than huge trade imbalances. Only simplistic application of Adam Smith's theories shows trade imbalances to be good. When you use modern techniques to ALSO include risk and bubbles and 3rd-world human rights, then it's not so clear-cut.
Besides, tariffs with our more lopsided trading partners may actually encourage them to import more from us and slowing the imbalance, and thus reducing the tariffs again.
Table-ized A.I.
In quotes from interviews in the article, and comments here on Slashdot, there seems to be this misguided assumption that "taxpayer" equals "American". That is wrong!!!
Immigrants who work here, even on a visa, pay taxes on their income. They shop at the same stores, forking over sales tax. Many foreign workers own property that is taxed, they buy stocks that are taxed, etc. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any difference between an immigrant and a U.S. citizen from a "paying taxes" point of view, over the same period of residency.
So, stop acting as if foreign workers contribute no money to the government, as if somehow every use of tax dollars will only impact U.S. citizens.
"Microsoft killed my company, I hold a personal grudge. I don't use Microsoft products and neither should you."-JWZ
When businesses complain that they can not find qualified American workers the real truth is that they do not wish to pay out the money needed to hire qualified Americans and prefer to import desperate workers willing to accept low wages.
In machine-gun rapidity, it's been reported that US Banks have;
What has to happen to get the American public angry enough to do something? Will it take roving bands of bankers engaged in drive-by shooting?... the serial of rape our pets?... bombing momma's retirement home? These are criminals, self serving, greedy, despots without conscience, or any apparent sign of limit to their hubris or appetites. The American public seems somehow transfixed watching this slow motion disaster, while these pint sized Neros, not only fiddle while Rome burns, but pour gas on the fire and loot the rubble to their hearts content.
These people will not stop until they've utterly gutted the world and they've sucked out the last morsel. It's time to stop this behavior once and for all. It's time to declare this mentality the social illness it deserves to be and address it accordingly. Having allowed these people direct access to our government has been a profound failure, and needs to be stopped immediately. Just as church and state must be separate to maintain human freedom and liberty, it's become clear that we need a similar separation between commerce and state. The State must manage the environment in which business operates, but allowing business unlimited access to government results in precisely the kind of steady erosion to freedom, justice, and a healthy middle class, that we've been witness to over the last 30 year. The corporate state is every bit as much a failed system as it's opposite. A capitalism grounded in reality, and designed for the benefit of all people, and not just a vanishingly small few is called for. Punishing the criminals who've brought us to this place however is not just an unthinking act of revenge... only by punishing these people will Americans regain their pride, and let those in the halls of power know they can't use people disgracefully without paying the price.
ORIGINAL:Couldn't find enough workers
TRANSLATION:Couldn't find enough workers who were willing to work for the money we were offering
Funny how that little qualification seems to get left out so often.
I strongly support your statement. I am currently living in a European Country that I have no citizenship in. I am not allowed to vote, but I am allowed to pay taxes. But somehow that doesn't stop me from being the evil foreigner who takes away jobs for the locals.
The GP argument implicitly assumes that there is some fixed amount of work available, and that foreigners coming into the country somehow "take away" their work, or deteriorate their salary. I can assure you that, if anything, I am more expensive than a local (I get the same wage, but my employer paid a bonus to get me here. Also, I am stricter about taking all of my paid leave and not working overtime than the people around here).
The sad fact is that while the markets have become global, most workers still don't want to live global. It's just as easy for an American to get abroad as it is for an American company to hire people abroad. So why are Americans so hellbent on staying put? It can't be the standard of living: Many European countries offer a better deal than the States when it comes to work-live balance and purchasing power.
... were also looking for the cheapest labour they could get.
I'm suspecting that you'll also find that those were the banks handing out the biggest bonuses for their executives.
When this disaster is over, I recommend lots of government regulations to ensure that, in the future, none of the banks (or other financial institutions) ever get "so big that we cannot let them fail".
In theory, with the "Free Market", these banks WOULD fail because they were badly managed. Instead, we're propping them up and rewarding their failed management.
I agree, Ron Paul should be listened to more often. Rewarding is a bad idea since there needs to be some fundamental changes to make a sustainable market.
Blame your government. What kind of idiot gives money away without oversight into how it is spent?
The last one was a guy named George Walker Bush, it looks like the next one might be a dude named Barack Hussein Obama. I'm hoping Mr Obama will be a pleasant disappointment on this score and actually spend the money sensibly and kick people in the nuts for misusing bailout money but given past experience I'm not holding my breath. I did get a kick out it when Mr Obama called up those Citigroup executives personally and chewed them out for buying a new $50 million corporate jet some 24 hours after receiving $45 billion in taxpayer bailout money but I'll wait and see if that was a publicity stunt or if it is actually a sign of things to come.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The workers cannot. They get less than they need.
Since $1,000,000 amongst 100 people gets spend much more than when given to just one, you're better off paying more than necessary. These people will then go and SPEND that money.
If prices for goods go up, then the minimum wage will go up, but all that money will STILL be spent.
If you reduce the pay you increase the profit, but most of that profit goes to a few rich people investing in it. And they don't buy your product. If they did, they'd only buy enough for one person anyway, so the cheaper product has to be even cheaper for the workers to pay for it.
No, why did you pick $500 ph? Why not $5Bn??
How about, oh, $15ph? 40 hours a week, 45 weeks a year (more holiday means more time to spend the money!), $27,000, or about $10,000 CAD...
I like the let them fail argument. Take the billions that were given to them to set up half a dozen new banks to offer the same services the failed banks were offering. After the recovery the government can IPO the new banks, end the nationalized banking AND make money on the deal.
Think Deeply.
Sure, globalisation has created a lot of growth.
The word gets bandied about here and there, but do you know what growth really is and why it's needed?
Ok, I'll tell you.
Growth is the increase in bank credit (and corresponding debt). It is a purely monetary phenomenon, the supply of money must grow every year. That's it, credit and debt. Yes, it is. Increase the money, the GDP increases. Simple.
It has little relation to reality. A house which has increased from 100,000 to 200,000 has "grown" in value but otherwise hasn't changed. More money chasing the same thing. Now, the real stuff does grow as well, but the figures quoted as "growth" don't represent reality. Lets take 1981 as an example, 12% GDP growth... Were there 12% more cars on the road, more houses built, more businesses, all in that single year? Nope.
Lets take 1976. 11% GDP growth. A doubling period of 6 years. Did EVERYTHING double between 76 and 81? Nope. Only the money did.
Growth, as used by politicians, financiers, journalists, then is basically how much paper is printed, and how much credit is created on top of that by banks. You can essentially equate growth with inflation; The devaluation of the currency.
Growth IS higher prices...
Growth stats:
http://www.econstats.com/gdp/gdp__a10.htm
Deleted
Hey, there's another 800 billion heading towards the banks under the new guy... Didn't you notice?
Perhaps you might have noticed that the new guy at the Fed, is the old guy from the New York fed.
Or perhaps you didn't notice Obama's biggest contributers.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
Deleted
The solution of the problem is simple and Bush got it right. If you destroy the economy of our country, there will be no foreigners coming in here (legal or illegal). That's the solution.
You have slightly missed khasim's point. He wants regulations to prevent banks (and other entities) from growing so large that their failure would crash the global economy.
The "free market" if unchecked actually encourages the growth of such monster organizations. This is obvious if you realize that companies are not and cannot be all the same size: therefore, the strong will eat the weak, and over time the surviving companies will grow larger and larger. Eventually you will have gigantic companies, and this is what we have seen.
Khasim is proposing to apply some checks and balances, to stop such organizations from growing too large. It's a good idea.
What these people are doing with Tax Payer money is treasonous.
Only in America, can you finance your company with no responsibility because you know the tax payers will bail you out.
So what do we see in response?
Huge excesses by the executives.
Then on top of this, they make the American tax payer pay for hires outside the country with the worse unemployment rate this side of 40 years with the explanation that they cannot find anyone.
Is any of this sound the least bit credible to any of you?
This is treason.
You also have to remember that the Bush and now the Obama administration continues to allow these executives to get away with this.
Personally, I want to see some of these guys burn. It just won't happen.
The best we are going to get is lip service from the president and a pat on the back "What these guys are doing is very bad. Too bad isn't it?"
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Anybody who has searched for a job knows, the ridiculous requirements they ask for. Nobody wants to train anybody anymore. Theres no more apprenticeships, internships for regular people. And they wonder why they have a talent shortage. I have been building computers for 15 years and I cant get a helpdesk job. Its outrageous. The only people who can get a start are people who lie on their resume, and when management figures it out they raise the requirements even more, because they have no idea what happened. They just know that Mr. 5 years fake experience couldn't handle it. so we need to make it even harder to find talent. And when we cant find any Americans, we will just get some foreign liars, yeah they suck but atleast they suck cheaply. IMO they did it to themselves, and I say fuck em. Anybody want to hire me? I have 5 years Windows Seven Experience. I also have a usb hard drive so I am a SAN engineer I think.
Can't afford real food so you live off the dollar menu at McDeath, $1 banquet TV dinners and Ramen noodles. Real food becomes a weekend luxury. Eating out at a real restaurant is for anniversaries or when a check for some side work comes in.
Stop eating off dollar menu. You are trading short term money for progressively worse health.
3 items off the dollar menu for each of four folks should equal about $13-14 with tax.
I don't know about you, but a small fry, drink and small burger won't fill me up.
Here's what you could do instead
(1x) 8lb Frozen Bone-in Turkey breast (All white meat with low fat.) - $9-$16
(2x) Can of french cut green beans $2-$4
(4x) Yukon Gold Med. Potatoes - $5
Add in milk, butter, salt, pepper, rosemary and I'd predict this meal rings up at around $15-$25 with about another dollar or two in electricity.
Boil the bone meat in a 3qts of water and reduce it to one quart. Strain the meat and bone, leaving the stock. Add onion, celery, carrots and noodles to it then boil again, to cook those new additions. Feel free to use a little turkey meat. Voila -> Turkey soup.
Sure it takes time, but I'll make this every night if it keeps my family fed at a price I can afford.
Now, you can get 1 filling meal with leftovers or 2 moderate meals while not killing yourself with.
import system.cool.Sig;
Did any one notice that the workers were getting 90K -- thats the median income.
I guess its more of a work ethic type of thing, I have friends who are bankers and they are willing to put in 80-100hrs a week.
I'm on the outside looking in now, and it's pretty scary. Americans built up these corporations, but the corporations have no conscience and eventually started shifting the jobs overseas. It's a mess and affecting all industries, even the once hyped computer industry, as cheap programmers and digital artists from India are getting all those jobs from short-sighted corporations. Eventually Americans won't be able to buy the products, but by then, the corporations will have shifted their focus to new emerging markets where people can afford their products, perhaps the countries providing the cheap labor now (and the same could happen to their countries).
This illustrates the economic DOWNSIDE of low unemployment. Employment works just like any other aspect in an economy. It is subject to supply and demand (and unexpected shortages). Think of it as a market for talent. When unemployment is low (typically under around 7%), employers are not afforded a good selection of workers at the prices they are willing to pay. This causes a salary bubble at first, as employers bid to get as much of the available talent as possible. Eventually prices get too high because only the most cash-rich employers can afford to hire anyone.
Now, unfortunately, and this has happened throughout American- and World-history, the employers simply went abroad to different employement markets (with higher unemployment) to find talent. In America it has been more common to allow more immigration during boom times to increase the available labor pool (and thus "raise" unemployment, but only in the lowest tier of jobs).
The opposite becomes true when unemployment gets too high. There are too many applicants so employers can "sell" a job for much less than before. A good natural rate for a stable economy is around 7%. This means there is an adequate applicant pool for growing businesses, it affords businesses good choice in available applicants, and it provides enough of a pad during boom times to prevent a salary bubble. It may sound bad, but really it's good for the economy. Unemployment just means how many people are available to start a new job at any given time. It does not mean there are 20-30 million people "out of work". The vast majority will find jobs; it's simply a RATE of people that happen to be out of a job at any given instant.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Given the meltdown that has occurred, let me suggest that, yes, the banks should be paying these workers more, but also that the US needs all the help it can get. Even if they raised wages by 50% the talent pool was still weak in most cases, whether you're talking domestic or foreign worker, and I would include management as well.
Most people didn't (and still don't) have a clue what they were doing. Maybe you should consider opening the management and quant ranks to even more foreigners, so as to get people who have the mental ability to actually understand the risks.
My God, the US needs so much help. You don't realize how serious it is...
the fact that both China and India (and a few other countries) have their money fixed against the dollar and is designed to drain jobs. That is the crux of this nightmare. Sadly, W did not uphold the MFN agreement. I am hopful that EU will work on this.
It's not about immigrants, really, it's about companies saving a buck at the taxpayers' expense. If the system weren't so f***'ed up to favor this, immigration wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Anyhow, I'm a Canadian, but from what I've seen the situation is much the same on either end of the border. My girlfriend is from China. She's got a degree in accounting, a masters in business, and taught university level accounting courses both in China and Australia.
Here, she can't find a (legitimate) job. Small places don't want to hire her because they know once she gets enough local working experience, she'll move on to something bigger. Big companies don't want to hire her because she doesn't have local working experience.
What there are, though, are lots of companies willing to screw over the immigrants in this situation. Sadly, most of these seem to be run by those from the same backgrounds as the people they're screwing.
So far she's recently had two+ companies that grilled her with days of interviews/tests and then ended with "your experience isn't quite good enough. Pay us $xxxx and we'll train you, then if you pass one more test we'll hire you". She's had a few where they tried to sell her some product/software to do the job.
The most recent one was a fricking lawyer, who - after asking her a bunch of illegal personal questions (are you married, got kids, live with anyone) to determine if she was an ignorant just-off-the-boat immigrant, proceeded to offer her a pay that was only 68% of the legal minimum wage.
So if you think you've got it bad due to immigrants, I'd look at lot harder at the companies that are hiring them, because in many cases they're doing so because it's much easier to trick or screw over somebody who's recent to the country and ignorant of the laws here.
Meanwhile, American students will apparently have been delivering pizza for the summer because there's usually nothing listed.
While there are good number of people who take the summer off to party, plenty of people I know also did basic jobs during the summer time off in order to accumulate money to pay off their costs during the school semester. Co-op courses make it better, but finding an internship that pays enough to make it worthwhile AND gives useful experience isn't such an easy thing, especially if you don't live in a big city (or have relatives that do). Either you have to move and then pay out most of your wages in rent, etc, or you live with relatives for cheap a few months while you get the cash to pay the tuition/loans.
Show some evidence of the contrary if you can.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
YOu don't choose the kind of live you want to live when it comes to economics.
Markets tell you how much your skills are worth and you better make the best out of it.
If other people are satisfied with far less income than you, just wishing this fact to go away will not improve your wage.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All the clever people in University are mostly non Americans, and Americans are going mostly for softer options, they don't like hard science.
People in rich countries keep saying that there is a great pool of talent of natives, but as soon as you begin to interview people the ones that are more qualified are the guys from India, China, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, Poland, South Africa and other such countries.
The big pool of capable locals in rich countries is a myth which is propped up incesantly in this website by wishful thinking instead of hard facts.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So, this is the workflow that the banks are seeking to emulate -- Let's use Adobe and Microsoft as examples:
1/ 'M & A' yourself whatever tech will make you money in the short term. Discard said tech JUST BEFORE you perfect it. *cough* SVG. Lay off everyone involved in the discarded tech. Oh, and kill the ecosystem too while you're at it.
2/ Hire as many Chinese and Indian H1Bs as you can. Sure you have to pay upfront, but then, after a couple years of 'work' *cough* training at the home office, send them back to open 'research offices' where they hire from the top of the bottom, mostly cram-school rejects who also force software projects back to Visual Basic or Javascript. Call this automation. Yeah, that works.
3/ Lay off all your support and move that overseas too, because it's cheaper to hire non-fluent natives and open up an English school with a dirt floor. For your call center.
Result? Lose more than half of your market cap; release an Operating System that NOBODY WANTS. Issue buggy POS patches as 'updates' to your software and be sure to spend an inordinate amount of money that you saved on DRM.
In the case of Adobe you can read how their software is walking hand in hand with Vista at sites like http://dearadobe.com and http://tr.im/e6ax
Oh. And while India has pretty much frittered away their salaries and funds like the fat Americans, the Chinese save and save and save to become the supercreditors of the 21st century.
So yeah, the banks tumbled the numbers, and despite the local layoff body count, the reduction in quality, it's all worth it. They retain enough 'local' rockstars to clean up after the offshore messes, and using buggy programs to debug your main flagship has really worked for Vista, hasn't it?
Or in this case, hiring *talented* database admins to yell in Bengali at the offshore 'talent' when they f*ck up 1000 accounts or 'leak identities'.. well that's just good business sense, right?
In fact? The peak in disgust in Vista and other software of that vintage peaked around the same time offshoring did.
What's the solution? If you're in tech right now, you're like a Hollywood actor. You won't understand WHY the MBAs above you are doing what they're doing [short term gains, cutting 'variable costs'], but as long as you get a piece of the pie, or sufficient bonus you'll shut up. Sometime around 35 or so, you'll be 'too expensive' and 'automated out of your job'. Or you'll be doing code cleanup for 40 monkeys on the other side of the ocean.
It may be simplistic, but this is the current model for software production. Oh! I forgot. Pay in the cheapest currency available. So no yen, pounds or Euros for you. But if you want Chinese Yuan or Indian Rupees, have at it.
And now, like tech, the banks are having problems finding competent 'assets' who will just shut up and be paid bottom dollar.
Well. You get what you pay for. Bugs. Mis-routed money. Compounding debt.
On the bright side, all these companies in their 'race to the bottom' make for great investments. If you're good at shorting stock.
And the universal declaration of human rights for good measure.
If you are a token of how well educated Americans are then my opinion about why it is better to hire foreigners has just been reinforced...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So people from other countries are more resourceful and can overcome language barriers, relocate and manage to earn money but not you USians?
Well, maybe you are not the world beaters you think you are.
As for taxes you baffle me: at least with the UK there are intricate treaties to avoid double taxation, which I am sure is the case with many countries...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
We have 100 million Mexicans, and sure as hell you don't have us all in the border trying to cross illegally.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Some of you really know squat about what you are talking.
Mexico's most important commercial partner is the US, so the money sent back home is used on big measure to buy stuff produced in your country.
Make your third biggest trading partners poorer and lets see who buys your stuff. It may very well be that we will have to turn to China for our business....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This simply is untrue.
Just check GDP or per capita income data.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
they don't care one bit about your economy, for profe of that see the principals behind fractional reserve banking, something that has plagued the world for too long, its a quick fly by night skim done over 30 years, bet you they where doing the same thing during the 1930's crash....
so what?
The implication is that American companies should only hire Americans, not foreigners.
Nationalism: The last form of racism that is openly accepted.
To bring up witches and wet wicks... umm, "Witches of Eastwick" or "Mars Attacks"...
Why can't we all just get alonggggg?
We all have to legally pay taxes almost everywhere we work, whether by extortion by law, or extortion by corrupt official.
So, at SOME point we're going to as taxpayers have to expect, accept and demand some sort of personnel swap.
It's like it to be that if i could identify and carry out a mutually-negotiated swap, i could work in Korea, or Japan, or China, and my equally-skilled counterpart could work here, at or near my pay and the price i pay is working at or near his/her pay for the contracted duration. WHICH employers would be involved in the swap shouldn't matter. Maybe agencies like Robert Half or some brokering/escrow operation could manage things. As long as the end employers can put up security or bond, then government should pretty much "stay the fuck out of things" except where crime is discovered. Crime such as drug, murder or high offenses. Laws would have to be reworked to retrain people to have different expectations. Example: SOMEday we may be allowed to venture into deep space. Anyone think we're going to succeed well by carrying fucking national flags and territoriality out there?
We've GOT to get past the bullshit nationalism/territoriality scheme of living and doing business. Food, culture, dress, and holidays should definitely remain strong. But, job/vacation interchange should be fostered and encouraged as much as possible -- especially in a scenario like the one i mention above. Qualifications of individuals most definitely should be verified, and fraudsters should be branded globally so as to deprive them or their sponsors of "gaming the system".
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
That really cleared it up for me, thanks. It makes much more sense to me now.
This post should also be tagget "incomplete" and "sensationalism". First, put things in pestpective - compare that 21K number to how many employees are in those companies. That will give you the *intended* percentage of foreigners in those companies (intended because they did not get all those cases approved by the DoL or USCIS). Second, six years ago nobody thought we would be in this deep shit (except for those of us who think they know the future). And it *was* difficult to find some professionals. It was even difficult to do it two years ago. Third, most of the companies would hire a local resident with matching skills if they were availlable. Department of Labor looks into every single case of H1B. And Department of Labor must approve every single H1B case. And after that USCIS (immigration) also looks into every single H1B case and must approve it. Exactly how much more eversight is needed?
In most EU countries (sorry US guys, the penny has to drop at some point) we have minimum wages, the difference is that people from poorer countries have to be paid that same minimum wage by law, that way real competition in a level playing field takes place.
You want to boost employment? Enter in an agreement with Mexico to allow free movement of workers and then enforce a minimum wage.
Problem solved.
The problem arises when illegal immigrants arrive, they have no protection and obviously go underground undermining the local workers and legal immigrants.
Both the US and the EU should reach agreements with countries like China, India, North African countries and many others in order to allow an almost free legal immigration and promoting widely the adoption and enforcement of minimum wages.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It just needs to be a minimum commonly agreed, that would ensure what you are saying.
Once people would know this, they would decide if the wage is adequate or not, in the knowledge that anybody paying less would be braking the law.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The only thing worse than unions is no unions. People always bitch about things they cannot do without, unions, taxes, governments... Unions are a pain if you are in one, but it is way better than working where there are none (any "communist" country, say). Non-union workers tend to end up with similar benefits to the ones union workers get as well, that is a union fights and gets a dental plan and other companies, even non-union ones, start offering dental plans. Wages go up relatively widely as unions become prevalent and drop when unions get weak (thus the decline in real wages since Reagan started killing them off).
To actually make the banks more profitable:
regulate them and insist on a higher asset ratio
RAISE taxes on both the bank profits and the executives
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Welcome to capitalism.
Do you buy the same itme in the shop that sells it more expensive?
Given two tradesmen that are equal as far as you know, do you chose the most expensive?
You see? Everybody is trying to spend less, but somehow companies, according to the twisted reasoning of many, should not abide by the same common sense rules....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... that if salaries are randomly distributed, a lot of people would take salaries below the average anyway? (I would say 50% of people, but I may be wrong).
As long as you can't even figure the basic statistics of the problem frankly you should not even talking about the matter....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The government has to play games because if they would open the labour market properly they would be voted out of office.
People prefer the smoke and mirrors system rather than to compete fairly by opening the borders to foreign labour.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those greedy CEO's will layoff American citizens as quickly as H1B visa holders. I honestly can't see how replacing several tens of thousand of foreigners with U.S citizens could "help the economy". Immigration issues always come up during difficult times, hey, we need someone to blame ;)
... were also looking for the cheapest labour they could get.
I'm suspecting that you'll also find that those were the banks handing out the biggest bonuses for their executives.
When this disaster is over, I recommend lots of government regulations to ensure that, in the future, none of the banks (or other financial institutions) ever get "so big that we cannot let them fail".
In theory, with the "Free Market", these banks WOULD fail because they were badly managed. Instead, we're propping them up and rewarding their failed management.
The government should let the banks fail immediately, if they are in trouble. Then the banks should be nationalized without any fussing, fretting or hand-wringing. It would be far more affordable for the taxpayers. What has happened is that the Board members and the execs who actually run the financial industry and the government, have correctly calculated the most efficient path to maximizing profits. They privatize profit and nationalize loss. Before nationalizing the losses incurred by the biggest banks, they want to loot the national (borrowed) treasury while there's still some credit left available. That's all that's really going on right now. Congress, for their part, is doing little more than politely asking the marauders how they want the cash - 10's 20's 50's 100's?
What part of the US government system do you not understand? The part where it is to be of the people or the part that it is supposed to be FOR us? It's not supposed to be for foreigners.
It would be protectionism if we put up barriers to private businesses using private investment funds to hire or buy foreigners. But using public money (government money) to only fund those for whom the government is instituted, is sound and prudent policy.
_If_ our government has an excess, they it might be a moral question of distribution to other countries vs. lowering taxes on our people -- however, if our own people are the ones who are financially bankrupt or impaired -- it makes sense to focus the money collected from *US* on *US*, FIRST.
Go find a clue...or stop shilling for you and your foreign brethren.
Flexicurity
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
H1B Worker = Proprietary Software
American Worker = Open Source Software
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
If Americans don't want to work at those wages, then they don't get the job, there are always people who want to work whether you import them or not.
Not true in a free market. In a free labor market, if only a tiny fraction of the market will work for a certain low wage, then wages go up until enough people are willing to work. In America, however, companies just get the government to flood their labor market with immigrants until American workers get desperate enough that the equilibrium wage goes down. At no point, of course, does the cost-of-living go down.
They came here to carve a new life... ...out of the American Indian!
They are not, repeat *not* paid the same. They are paid on average 30% less for H1B and 50% less for L1. The H1Bs are paid less (semi-legally) due to age discrimination (laying off workers over age 40 and replacing them with younger, less talented H1Bs, because there is NOT "a prevailing wage" but four of them, from "entry level" to "fully competent". So all the company has to do is replace a "fully competent" American with an "entry level" H1B and they can pay at the 17th percentile wage instead of the 50th++ percentile they were paying.
Please do some research before spouting off. If you don't know where to start to find actual information, then start here: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/skill.aspx
Oh, and if they "need the talent" then why are companies laying off the workers who were doing the jobs, but not allowing them to leave and not giving them their severance pay until after the older worker finishes teaching the new H1B how to do the job that the H1B is supposed to be so much better at doing? Please get some knowledge of the real world before spouting off the propaganda of "CompeteAmerica" or the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Um, not the INS, why would they have the information?
Try the Department of Labor: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/wageinfo.cfm
The answer for both foreigners who send their money out of the US and for taxpayers is to abolish the income tax. Put a value added tax or consumption tax or whatever euphemistic term you want to call it. Every country does this including the US and have implemented it for generations at the gasoline (petrol) pump. Then all who live here pay as they go. No exceptions! This will make the foreigners equal to the taxpayers". All will now be called "USA Contributors."
Although guestworkers can be used for almost any job requiring a BA, most are concentrated in IT (computer programmers, analysts, administrators, etc.), which total about three million.
Leaving out other guestworker categories, such as L1 which has no limits whatsoever, the H1B category lasts six years, with unlimited renewals if a green card is applied for. Since (until our economy died) nearly all H1Bs wanted a green card,that means any H1B holder can stay here forever. So they are additive...got that?
For several years the quotas were 200,000 per year, and for several years they were a tad over 100,000 per year. It only takes five or so years to get a million total, out of our total IT population of three million. Um, that is one out of every three jobs. If you ever worked in an IT shop in the Fortune 500 (where some of us spent our whole professional lives), you would be able to look around and see that about a third of all current IT workers are guestworkers.
And the current 85K per year (typically exceeded "by accident"), does not even mention the totally unlimited number of H1B visas available to educational or non-profit institutions.
Well, at least I can hope that your turn will come soon...
I'm not humbled. At my last contract at a noted financial house, I was placed in a room with 90 programmers and analysts. Of the 90, only two were Americans, me and a secretary to keep the records.
Of the guestworkers, most only lasted the two weeks it took to ask them to do something and to realize they couldn't do what their resumes claimed, such as testers who didn't know what a test case was. So they were replaced with another H1B, who was no better. This continued until they finally gave up and started to pay the freight and hire Americans who stayed because they were competent and had not lied on their resumes. When the project finally wound down, 90% of those remaining were Americans.
So if you are "humbled" by their abilities, I am sorry for you.
It was not always this way. Ten years or more ago, the H1Bs were competent. No, they never had skills that were unavailable locally, but they were good. Now those who have the skills they claim are a minority.
They are paid much less than equivalent American workers, often 30-50% less, so the taxes they pay are far less.
And most are not permanent employees paid by the corporation, but are contracters paid by the bodyshop and many bodyshops (especially for the L1s) pay them back in the home country in order to avoid taxes entirely (and avoid scrutiny of their low reates of pay).
It's not my fault that company didn't do it's due diligence. If you lied on your resume and were actually incompetent, I wouldn't expect you to get past the phone screen, at least where I work.
"enforce protectionism...
in the name of the free market!"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Of course, that all blithely ignores people like me who came for three years on an H1b and then decided to leave. I've been offered sponsorship again, and also for a TN1 since becoming a Canadian. But I have absolutely no desire to move back Stateside, and know many people with the same sentiments. I certainly wouldn't want to spend the next decade of my life getting a green card and then citizenship. What's the attraction? I don't get it. Each to their own though, but there's clearly a lot of ignorance about the issue, as well as media spin and sweeping generalisations.
Note that I mostly do Fortune 500, and they mostly do contract workers with only a few direct hire H1Bs, so things may be different with a small business doing a direct perm hire for a guestworker...
The Fortune 500 are bringing them in so fast that they really don't have time (and sometimes no longer have any permanent folks left with the expertise) to do a technical interview, so they often rely on the bodyshop which has a vested interest in getting a body on site no matter what their qualifications. This financial house brought in 150 in the space of a couple weeks (of which 90 were in one huge boiler room with me). The larger the corporation, the less they bother with due diligence. Since they no longer hire from within, but poach folks from each other, they no longer have the managerial skills to do due diligence. (Running Microsoft Project or one of its bastard progeny does *not* constitute "managerial skills".)
Check information about top universities.
The best 100 are almost exclusively from rich countries (except China that manages to squeze in a few, mainly from Hong Kong).
From then on you see several names from other countires (Mexico, India, China, Taiwan, Brazil). These are still top Universities (I studied in one of them), perhaps not at the level of the top 20, but some of them have excellent Engineering and IT departments (my University is rated 150 overall, but our Engineering faculty is top 100, no wonder, we used the same text books used in top notch universities and it wasn't uncommon to have as teachers graduates from US universities).
People from these universities are anything but walk overs. Many of us were educated to lead, so if you think we are push overs that do "dumb-ass, cheap or shoddy" work I can just conclude that you have been unlucky with the kind of people you have met.
I will tell you something else: people like me, from a "humble" top 150 University in the world can stand their own pretty well against people from top UK universities (heck, I win jobs in direct competition with them, as do people from other countires). If you think we earn peanuts, then you are really smoking some seriously good weed, you should share it with the rest of us...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Programming, DB Administration, System Administration, etc.
Your prejudice and outright racism is a sorry sight.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Which means open borders for foreign workers.
If that was the case you would let the market speak, as things stand everybody is in the dark (you don't know how much you are really worth, and have no chance to move to where the jobs are).
The US should be looking at open borders treaties with the EU, China and India which would clarify the situation and allow US professionals to compete in a even playing field.
But the question is, do USians have an stomach for real competition? (Europeans do in general terms, the treaties in place ensure that you must compete, as do Indians and Chinese).
The US have companies with worldwide interests, but many people in the US somehow think that these companies could not possibly find good employees out of the USA' borders ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I am sure that will be dead easy with so much evidence all around the place.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Whinning. That is your solution.
Those foreigners are not going to Mars anytime soon. If you don't ket them in the US, then the technological means exist so they can do work from their own countries or from locations more amenable to foreigners.
The market for IT skills is global, even if you would pass laws to say no foreigner can work in the US (how stupid would that be?) jobs still would move to places where the same work can be done cheaper.
So you prefer that those people pay taxes and buy stuff elsewhere instead of doing so in your own country?
Honestly, I just don't get the logic some of you spouse...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you are a tax payer.
Do you want your bank to be efficient or not?
If you do, you should allow them to make the best business decision. This may very well be hire foreigners for a variety of reasons.
If you want the banks to become a welfare agency, all the power to you, but that is clearly not what the governments are asking from banks.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That is hardly "the Brits".
What they don't realize is that if their wet dream would be fullfilled, thousends of Brits in other EU countires (close to 50000 the government knows about plus many others) would need to pack their bags and come back home to the most depressed jobmarket in Europe.
Pretty much all politicians have condemned this group of people that have no legal or moral leg to stand on.
Just to make matters worse, it seems like the British National Party (a fascist organization) has been behind the scenes.
So the xenophobic label seems quite appropriate to me.
Here in the UK degrees take 3 years.
In Mexico they take 5.
So when I made a Masters degree in a UK univeristy I was just reviewing stuff I learned in my undergraduate studies in Mexico.
If I understand correctly the system in US universities, you actually have a major subject and a minor one. Well, in Mexico we have only a major subject for most of those 5 years.
Now, don't misunderstand me, I am sure all those wonderful universities in the US and UK are better than mine in many ways, but I feel better prepared to get jobs.
Perhaps people coming from India, China and other places are being more pragmatic regarding what is tought in universities. In my case my first job was in the University itself (all the administrative and IT personnel was hired from the University's students), so when I got out of Uni I have a vastly superior CV compared to people form other universities.
From there I moved quickly to a multinational coporation based at home, and once there the sky was the limit.
This history is being repeated thousands of times around the globe, people in the US can't do nothing to stop this, just closing your eyes to this reality (US jobs for US people? What is next? Ein volk etc.... ? ) will not make the problem go away.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For bunnies sakes, I can tell you in 3 minutes if somebody has the skills they claim to have or not.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1111905&cid=26690463
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1111905&cid=26690463
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1111905&cid=26690463
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
At one time, America was a great country, but now our corrupt politicians are turning it into just another third world country. I don't blame you for leaving. The guestworker visa system is designed to transfer wealth from the middle class (IT workers) to the rich (corporate execs) by lowering wages for IT workers through wage arbitrage and taking the resulting wage savings for themselves. All with the assistance of government.
Disclaimer: I'm a small business owner who despises organizations using H1B visas, since it's only used to get high quality talent at dirt cheap wages.
If the H1-B talent is really of such high quality, the wages paid to these highly qualified persons should meet or exceed market rates paid to domestic persons. I have worked with to many people from South Asia who could not handle the simplest of technical tasks much less any form of comprehensible written communication.