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Smart Immigrants Going Home
olddotter writes "A 24-page paper on a reverse brain drain from the US back to home countries (PDF) is getting news coverage. Quoting: 'Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups — precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the US economy and to business and job growth." Adding to the brain drain is a problem with slow US visa processing, since last November or so, that has been driving desirable students and scientists out of the country.
The American dream used to be a house in the country. Now it's a house in another country.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The fact of the matter is that intelligent foreigners exist. They can work here, or they can work there. The question, then, is it better if they work here or there?
The answer is obvious - we want them here.
As for 'room' for American citizens, if you can't compete with a guy who was born in India, with all your American-born advantages, he's either just plain smarter than you, or just plain works harder than you. Either way, he deserves your job, and the American company hiring him shouldn't be saddled with your either less-intelligent or less-driven self just because the more qualified candidate was born in the wrong spot.
paintball
There's also the fact that many of them get scholarships/fellowships/teaching assistantships from US universities. Essentially, American taxpayer money has gone into funding their education, and because of idiotic political reasons they are going back. Of course the layman just sees them as taking up a job, and won't see the fact that
a) They could create more jobs
b) A US-educated immigrant going back is a net loss (in terms of taxpayer money) for the country.
I just have to wonder how much more of this erosion of the U.S. the U.S. is willing to accept and permit? H1-Bs and lowering of wages, offshoring and outsourcing services are all great ways for companies to increase their bottom lines. But when EVERYONE is doing it, these companies ultimately create poor and unemployed customers! This is not sustainable.
People constantly ask "so protectionism is the answer?" Right now, yes it is!
It seems that everyone and every entity is seeming short, fast turn-around and ever-increasing bottom lines using "growth percentage" as a metric for success and viability. (Reality check! In no part of the universe is growth a sustainable metric!!)
It's about time we make some room for real US citizens.
Presumably, most of those people originally wanted to become "real" (is there any other kind?) US citizens as well, but realized they have to jump through too many hoops for it to be worth it.
(or do you mean that "real US citizen" is a White Protestant guy with Anglo-Saxon lineage?)
Of course, you can have those guys working in engineering, physics or biotech fields in US - preferably as citizens - or you can have them working on thermonuclear warheads, delivery systems, and biological weapons in China or Russia. Your pick.
This is the end ....
my feeling, in 30 years this moment will be viewed as the tipping point, the moment in which america stopped being the siphon of the worlds best minds.
For the first time in history the melting pot hasn't managed to retain the best.
Those people will bring a BIG BOOST in their respoective countries ruling intellighentia.
lots of sour grapes here, but have no one else to blame ....
There's nothing special about the foreigners. We can make more.
You can't make more Foreigner, AND THEY ARE TOTALLY SPECIAL!
You're as cold as ice if you don't think so! Man, these head games you are playing really make me hot blooded...
Fortunately, they are still alive, well, touring, and rocking, so we don't need to make more.
Do you think this will mean jobs in India and China will get outsourced to a broke white boy like me now?
Your burger flipping skills are of no use; Indians generally are vegetarians and those who eat meat prefer chicken and/or lamb. Off course you could learn to cook chat items and open your own dhela on chowpati.
No Sig for you.!
I'm tired of the smell of curry.
Then you, sir, are tired of life.
Our educational system has become so damned expensive that only people who don't live here can seemingly afford it. So it makes sense... As to why the visa system is clogged... Maybe the economic hard times have hit government offices partially responsible for it as well? Oh, what sweet revenge. -_- More seriously though, what difference does it make how well we educate people (either people who stay or leave?) if the environmental conditions necessary for real progress are absent? Our intellectual property system has gutted any hopes of "desirable individuals" doing much of anything besides occupying a desk. The medical field is screwed because people are too afraid of litigation to actually practice medicine at less than a 6000% markup on procedures, which is literally killing people who can't afford it anymore. The lawyers are the only ones in this country that are well-off anymore.
It's no wonder people are jumping ship... Some people looked down the length of the bow and see a giant iceberg in front of the USS Our Future. An iceberg made almost totally of greed, because we couldn't look farther than the end of our damn noses as the social problems we're facing. And leaving is the smart thing -- how long until Canada starts patrolling its borders to keep illegal immigrants from the United States out? Probably not long.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I guess they ran out of secret documents and technology to steal
Yep, they've just found out that they can themselves engineer better stuff than they can steal from the U.S. today.
Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain"...
Shouldn't that be "America's Loss Is the Rest of the World's Gain"? I know you insist on calling us aliens and think we use strange units like metres and kilograms but we are all part of the same world.
simply tells smart immigrants to wait for a real change before coming back or planning to stay.
I work with 1 H1B and a few naturalized immigrants who all are very well educated (masters for two of them) and their drive is well beyond what the average "American" I see today. They still want it all. The difference is that they are willing to sacrifice and work for it.
When schools allow dummies to pass because it isn't fair to hold them back, when schools don't celebrate their brightest because it offends, when doing grunt work on your path through the job market is for losers, what can you expect? Fortunately there are still more of us than them. The problem is that very little is being done to encourage more of those yearning for success who will work for it instead we are now seeing more who expect everything to be done or handed to them.
Reverse brain drain? It will get worse as some of OUR brightest go overseas to excel.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I think a lot of Americans don't realize why America became the superpower it is.
For thousands and thousands of years, the way to increase your nation's power was to go and invade the other nation, subjugate them, and take their stuff.
The problem is that's a pretty expensive way of going about things. The answer?
Immigration!
Why fight through the world subjugating people when you can just open up the gates of immigration and the best, brightest and hardest working of the other nation's populace will voluntarily and at their own expense subjugate themselves?
Much cheaper and more effective than invasion!
paintball
A colleague of mine decided to return to Africa. The money he collected over seven years in the USA would enable him live a better life in his homeland.
A mansion, with a swimming pool and three maids only costs him about 900 dollars to maintain. The respect he would get from the community would be greater and he'll have a chance to eat fresh "organic" fruit.
All in all...good for them...I wish them all the best.
When the economy picks up, I will welcome them to the mighty USA.
I like my protectionism like I like my women: passive aggressive!
'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
American jobs should be going to AMERICANS, not foreigners.
You miss the point. Those people wanted to become Americans. Now they do not want to, anymore. Wonder why is that?
It's also true that any US Educated person, immigrant or not, going to some other country is a net loss. The US person leaving is a bigger net loss, since most likely their tuition didn't contain the astronomical international student fees.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The temporary H1-B visa was supposed to be good for seven years. The average age at which H1-Bs come to this country is fresh out of college, so 22-23 years old plus seven years is about thirty.
All this says is that the H1-B visa program is working as advertised.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Well, there are two major factors.
1) Given the current recession, the number of jobs have fallen off. That and there is pressure to hire an American over someone on a visa. Plus, maybe the foreigners don't want to pay our debt due to all of the bailouts and "Economic stimulus".
2) Xenophobia is alive and well. Even if there were no 9/11, there was a fear of foreigners in the US. Be it left over hostiles from the Cold War, hatred towards Mexicans and South Americans for taking "good jobs" from Americans, Native Americans wanting their land back, or African-Americans wanting a piece of the American Dream and compensation from slavery, there are build up resentments which have been under the surface.
Whenever you evaluate a strategic game or a problem, you can see it by seeing it from the opponents point of view.
Training foreign students served two purposes. First, so we have an opportunity to hire the best and brightest. Secondly, so we can expose them to our culture. What better way is there to bring about change in a country than to train some of their top academic leaders? This is how you bring human rights to China and reduce corruption in Mexico.
The next time you complain about immigration into the USA, consider how much worse things will be when people no longer even want to come here. Worse, that American citizens start leaving for greener pastures. That day may be coming.
If we have an "immigration problem", it's generally a sign of a healthy economy. It's when we have an "emigration problem", that you know things will be really rough.
Are you saying my immigrant coworkers who aren't planning on leaving are stupid? That seems both rash and mean. You take it back!
The enemies of Democracy are
then things might be different.
As it is, the H1B program has merely managed to feed the "fat cats" without improving the lot of US citizens.
By all means, encourage immigration of hard-working, talented, intelligent people.
But allow them to control their own destinies and compete without handicapping them or US citizens by institutionalizing a system that unfairly depresses wages for all.
Maybe we've just reached a sort of equilibrium here, where US wages have stagnated while the rest of world's has grown.
...have made them want to leave..
I've worked in the US twice, the first time in the early '90's in southern California, the second more recently in New England. Both times I felt like kissing the soil of my native country upon return.
Individual Americans are some of the most decent people I've met. Collectively, though, you people scare me.
The change between the early '90's and post-9/11 was striking, from the crazy stuff on TV (Glenn Beck pronouncing that 'security' is the most important thing to any American, when once upon a time it would have been something called 'liberty'), fast-food places with signs announcing that they only hired legal American citizens, and of course the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which temporarily stripped people like me from having access to Habeas Corpus protections.
On the surface, everything was the same. Underneath, the picture was not pretty.
The team I worked with was mostly non-Americans, from both the Far East and Europe, and most of them were highly educated and wanted to stay, but I could never figure out why.
On the good side, like Churchill said, Americans will always find the solution to the problem... after they've tried everything else.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
You know, one thing that no one ever bothered to mention is that they might be leaving BECAUSE they can't find good jobs here. A lot of the kids at the university I went to had to go back to their own countries after graduation, not because they wanted to, they love America. They can't find an employer willing to put up with all the BS that uncle sam requires so they can become citizens.
Barriers to entry never help anybody. Uncle Sam, tear down this wall.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Oh no! The summary said PhDs and business managers were leaving, so I wasn't worried. But if the restaurant proprietors are going we have to act now. This is America, you can have your doctors and scientists, but for the love of God, don't take our food.
Sometimes its a loss, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it is only a short term loss.
A US citizen who will probably return to the US will probably be a short-term loss with a long-term gain. A foreign citizen may bring American ideals to their home country which, barring obesity, is probably a good thing. They may also spread a view of Americans that isn't from Jerry Springer.
'Ey took our jerbs!
Anybody want my mod points?
No, for the billionth time, we don't mind competing on quality. No, for the billionth time, we're not racist. No, for the billionth time, we don't mind the competition. On the contrary, my heart goes out to the H1-Bs I work with because I know they don't have any good choices.
In the most brutal stark terms, H1-Bs are hired specifically because they don't enjoy the same political and legal protection that native workers do. They get paid less, worked like indentured servants, and disposed of like kleenex. I've actually heard one manager scream at the H1-B team he employed "If you're awake, you're working for me!"
This is why you don't see the IT market flooded with French, Canadian or Australian workers, but rather see the market flooded with people from countries struggling with poverty and political horrors.
These poor people are exploited here precisely because the conditions in their home country are so horrific. My heart goes out to the women H1-Bs I've worked with, because I've seen the haunted look in their eye when they speak of home. I once cornered another H1-B over a hideously unethical stunt he pulled to shift the blame away from his own screwup to another, more junior engineer. He robbed my righteous thunder when he got a desperate look in his eyes and pleaded with me, "Look, if he gets fired he can just get another job. If I get fired, they'd make me go back..."
For the billionth time, if we need this talent, then let's do the right thing by these people and offer them citizenship. If we're not prepared to do the right thing, then we shouldn't be using them as scabs to break the back of American labor.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
The article is extremely misleading and makes you think that these companies may have been started by people that came to the US on H1-B visas
They never break out the number of immigrants who come to the US on H1-B visas that start technology companies (H1-B is of course a temporary non-immigration visa).
Google was started by Sergey Brin who was a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union whose family immigrated to the US when he 6 and Larry Page of Lansing Michigan.
Andy Grove of Intel fame was a Jewish refugee who fled post WWII Europe to the US (Gordon Moore was born in San Fran and Robert Noyce born in Iowa however, where the actual founders of Intel).
Pierre Omidyar of eBay of course is a Frenchman who moved to this country with his family when he was 6 years old.
Yahoo! founded by David Filo ( cheese head from Wisconsin) and Jerry Yang who came to this country with his family when he 10 from Taiwan.
None of these people came to the US on work visas.
This article is reprinted by Business Week & Wall Street Journal every year close to the May deadline for H1-B visas.
In May, there will be an article about how the 85,000 visas were snapped up in one day due to "shortages" amongst technology and science workers and how we need to have unlimited H1-B visas to fix this problem.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
They were highly educated, with degrees in management...
So that's our plan for destroying the world!
It is also important to note that for many colleges and universities, foreign nationals make up a large portion of the student body _and_ the faculty in several departments. As these highly talented folks go back, they leave big holes in the departments they leave behind. I think that if all the FNs left our petroleum engineering, for example, department the place would be a ghost town.
No, at least while I was a grad student, an (F1) student visa was only able to get you a 1 year apprenticeship after graduation. No way to apply for residency.
If the company you apprentice with for a year decides to keep you on, they sponsor an H1B visa that allows you to apply for residency.
The process of actually getting residency is horribly convoluted and takes between 5 and 8 years to complete. Not to mention all the shyster lawyers out there (yechh).
As a basic matter of fairness, if Indian and Chinese citizens are going to be free to work in the United States, then US citizens should be free to work in India and China.
The problem is they're not. Some out-of-work disgruntled geek published an article looking into this a while back. The Indian consulate just laughed at him when he inquired about being allowed to work in India, while the Chinese representatives haughtily told him that Chinese jobs were for Chinese citizens.
They can't have it both ways. The Indians and the Chinese cannot argue that their citizens should be allowed to compete world-wide, but that jobs inside their own borders are only open to native citizens.
It's not just faulty logic. It's raging hypocrisy.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
PhD students in the sciences and engineering do not pay for their education. Nearly 100% of them are funded in one way or another, whether it's fellowships, research assistantships, or teaching assistantships.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Suggesting that slow visa processing began last November is just silly. That has been old news for years. Getting to the US to give a class, lecture, concert, or to go to school is much much more difficult than it was before Bush, and before 9/11. It's really bad for the US, for innovation, and for everyone, really, but it is old news.
Yeah I saw that commercial too. The Germans always make good stuff.
Presumably, most of those people originally wanted to become "real" (is there any other kind?) US citizens as well, but realized they have to jump through too many hoops for it to be worth it.
I don't know about that. I live in a city with a high number of educated workers on a visa, and I know a lot of graduate students that will be looking for work on a visa. With a couple of exceptions, they are all pretty adamant about maintaining their citizenship and staying here on a visa only. The reasons vary, but most of them don't want to give up that part of their identity.
Of course this is all anecdotal, but in my experience the majority of the educated immigrants are here for the education and job opportunities, not to stay here permanently.
Everyone knows that the Germans invented everything important
Like those ShamWow towels! :D They're made in Germany, and you know the Germans make good stuff. Just ask Vince! He won't steer you wrong. :)
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
I conclude that you pulled that figure out of your ass.
Most people start college at 17 or 18. Eighteen plus four equals twenty-two, at least it does in my corner of the universe. I know I graduated college at twenty-two. Twenty-two or twenty-three plus seven years lands you in the neighborhood of thirty, again, for most values of thirty.
Does the math work differently when it comes out of your ass? Perhaps you don't realize it's not customary to take seven years to finish an undergrad degree?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
There's nothing special about the foreigners. We can make more.
Well, not exactly. THEY can make more. If we make them, they're not foreigners.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
... give them their PhD and their citizenship at the same time? If someone came here from another country long enough to earn their PhD, they've already worked here for somewhere around 5-7 years. Why do we make it more difficult for them to stay longer?
Add to that the fact that most grant funding agencies only give grants to citizens, and it isn't hard to figure out why so many people who come here for their PhD from other countries end up leaving afterwards - they finished their PhD and then ran straight into a career roadblock of no fault their own.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That's a fiction that's been repeated endlessly, like an urban myth. There are indeed managers from Western countries who live and work in India. Look at IBM, Cisco, Accenture -- they have plenty of Western managers there onsite in India. I had a friend at IBM whose division was being downsized, and IBM offered him a chance to resettle in India. He didn't take it, but obviously you can indeed work there, if you choose.
Get back on my lawn!
My cousin from El Salvador wanted to come to the US to attend school to get an education degree. She would have been a great teacher, especially for dealing with kids who needed bilingual help. She applied to school a year after 9/11, and her student visa was delayed, delayed, delayed, so she ended up staying in El Salvador and working in HR at a recruiting firm in El Salvador.
as they are laid off, so what's your point? I have several colleagues with a master's and years of experience getting laid off. It's not as if U.S. citizens are getting preferential treatment when it comes to who gets laid off and who doesn't. There's an oversupply of highly qualified people and less demand for these professionals. If we're losing bright people, it's because right now we don't have jobs for them.
The fact that these highly qualified immigrants are going home is exactly why U.S. citizens SHOULD get preferential treatment when it comes to laying off or hiring people; because while an immigrant can just up and leave to their previous country, we as Americans are STUCK with this country. How many Americans have support networks outside of the U.S. that they can turn to when times get worse? It is in our best interest that this country succeed, but this country can't succeed when it invests time and money in foreign students and employees who will just up and leave when the going gets rough.
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Cool, more jobs for Real Americans, like plumbing and stuff. That's like software, right? Putting stuff together and running stuff through it.
On average, teenagers in America get their drivers license at sixteen. The minimum legal age to get your license in America is sixteen. Therefore, since sixteen is the average, half of them must have received their license before it was legal to do so.
How's that Moliere paper coming?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Yes, this.
Give them back all of the management grads.
See if we can export some of ours too.
Alaren, you are absolutely correct. I'm a former academic who still has many connections and the biggest group that seems to be leaving are recently minted MBAs and B-school grads. Those are fields that just aren't doing well in an economic downturn.
My wife of 21 years was a PhD student in Math and an immigrant from Eastern Europe when we met. Her experience opened my eyes to a population and situation that I barely knew existed. So many Americans believe that immigrants "just take a test" and they're instant citizens. Many more believe all the racial and ethnic stereotypes about intelligence and science and math skills (or lack thereof). Too many believe they take more than they give.
I can barely imagine what it's like for a young person with talent who comes to America to try to better herself. I've walked with such a person for a couple of decades now. My grandparents were also such people, coming from war-torn (WWI) Italy to be shepherds and steelworkers and shirt-makers and railroad workers. Their sons fought in WWII. All their sons and daughters became proud and successful Americans and thanks to the Labor Unions that are now under attack from American "conservatives", became productive members of the US middle class.
I was one of those "liberal arts students who scored higher on verbal and lower on math" that Alaren mentioned. My wife is a mathematician in a field I can hardly understand, and my daughter, now an undergrad who gets her looks from her Mom (thank god) is pretty well-rounded. She wants to be either a mathematician or a novelist. It would not suprise me if she became both.
I get a sick feeling when I hear Americans talk down immigrants, legal and otherwise. They are as important to the formation and future of our country as the Founding Fathers.
We have to remember, the Pilgrims (you know, the guys with the funny hats and buckled shoes from Thanksgiving) were immigrants, every one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The value of so-called IP is nothing beside the value of the skills, human relationships etc. for creating and developing ideas. Those who think innovation means resting on the creativity of 10, 20, life plus 70 years ago are doomed from the start. Creativity and innovation are activities, not artifacts. A focus on the frozen ideas of "IP" diverts attention from the real issues. The problem is not that the smart immigrants are taking American ideas away: it is that they are taking themselves.
I like to listen to The World, from BBC/NPR... In today's audio...
http://www.theworld.org/node/24849
"Delhi-based economic journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha tells anchor Lisa Mullins why India's economy is managing some growth while many neighboring economies are slipping."
But, what did *I* learn today? (this is from memory, and some of it my own adding...)
India's economy is set or on track to grow some 3-5% this and next year, even though the rest of the (industrialized) world is stagnating. Why? India's economy is not nearly as integrated with the rest of the world as is the US', Japan's, Korea's, UK's, etc.
Some 1/3 of Indians go to bed starving, but some 2/3 of "Americans" are classed as "overweight". Indian make of some 1/3 of the world's IT force, yet India's own domestic infrastructure is ~ or http://www.theworld.org/node/24850
I learned:
"General Motors and Chrysler produce nearly a quarter of their North American vehicles in Ontario. So they're asking Canadian taxpayers to pitch in almost a quarter of the money that the companies say they need to stay afloat. The World's Jason Margolis has more."
So,
Canadians produce around 25% of GM's cars, and GM wants Canadians to ante up (help out) with some 20% of the money GM needs. Including benefits, Canadian GM workers earn about $49/per hour! But, effective take-home pay is about $25/hour. Canadians, understandably, are concerned that GM or other US-carmakers will get them to sign on to a Canadian-citizen-funded auto industry bailout program, then take the money to less-expensive Asian areas, or back to the US.
Interesting report...
---
And, here:
GM Europe 'could run out of cash'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7922186.stm
----
GM Europe 'could run out of cash'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7879372.stm
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Granted, it hurts to lose educated people from an economy that is in desperate need of new industry (as opposed to new services and new debts) ... but ... America isn't the whole of the world, and the world as a whole has real problems. Educating these people and then dispersing them to the wind like this... it may hurt right now, but what if they take seed in places of the world in greater need of educated people... places with runaway population growth, terrible environmental records, and similarly unsustainable practices?
Heck... beyond that, after a taste of democracy, who is to say all these people going back to their less tolerant homes won't also foment cultural reforms (not that our model is picture perfect right now, but...)
It's a notion, anyways
If I have to pay employees enough to buy a house?
Look, I've got about 10 H1-B's working for me, and I'm saving a good half a million over hiring American workers. How am I supposed to afford a second house in the Bahamas? Honestly, you whiners are killing me here.
And my daughter wants a Lexus when she turns 16. Hmm, I've got an open position, and I can hire an American or H1-B... Tell me, honestly, that you'd tell your daughter she'll have to drive a 2 year old Camry because Daddy hired an American!
You people, such whiners. I tell you, these guys could teach you a lesson or two. Work less than 60 hours a week? Sure, FOR SOMEONE ELSE! Go ahead and try to leave - I can replace you in a week.
It's sad, but some of you reading this probably don't realize its satire. Hopefully I'm not bringing up bad memories of past employers for any of you.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Last week I worked for a company that has their roots here. Now the whole company is moving to India (back to where the owners are from). They have laid off all the American workers and are taking the indian workers home with them. They say that they aren't selling enough of their product here and they can sell their product in those countries back home. So, here we are: where we cannot afford to buy the products that the Indians can afford. The emerging markets are growing and our markets are not. The problem here isn't that we are loosing brain power. The problem here is that we are loosing our whole market. Of course in 10 years this might settle itself out somewhat but what will be left? Lots less than if we had controlled the money system in the first place. The problem is that corporations want something for nothing and then we are all left with lots less. The problem was that the derivative market was printing so much money no government could hope to keep up. Ultimately we rise and fall together (owners and workers), (foreign and american) and we really can't pretend that any other system will work. We have to control thieves, double check the integrity of the products that are sold. We have to keep a careful eye on how those products are produced so we don't kill our planet trying to sustain this crazy consumption lifestyle that we have created. There is no easy answer here.
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You sound like some company taking advantage of H1B visa applicants. The whole theory of H1B is that they do go back home.
The goal is to raise the quality of life for the world. To create jobs and worldwide economic success. Our chief export should be success.
Just watch ten or twenty years from now when the tech companies using H1B applicants and the ones shipping jobs offshore find out that they created their own competition. Competition that is very hungry and aggressive. Competition that will one day be hiring the top 10% of American talent. Not because it's cheap but because of greater demand of genuine skills and talent.
We can't seem to keep the LEGAL immigrants we want...the educated ones, that followed the laws, and contribute to the system. Instead, we are stuck with the ILLEGAL ones, that...well......generally are the opposite of the aforementioned legal ones.
*sigh*
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Kinda funny, I think. We are so constantly lectured that the US should not have any "protectionist" policies against India, because protectionism never works.
March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/business/worldbusiness/02rupee.html?_r=1&ref=world
The US could compete if the cost of getting an education here was much cheaper. The problem is--it isn't.
I have no problems with the foreign workers themselves. They, like us, are trying to make a good living. And they do a good job at that.
But they have a much lower cost of education. Doing a quick google search brings up the following URL on the education cost in India.
http://prayatna.typepad.com/education/2005/07/what_does_a_uni.html
While the above cost may be amazingly expensive in India, you could quickly pay all of that cost back by scoring a job in the United States. The average cost of a similar education in the US is sometimes as much as 10 times that, even higher if you attend a private university.
It's not that American workers are underskilled or underqualified, it's that the cost of entry into the same field of work is significantly higher than these foreign workers. The cost of something like a PhD is even much higher than a simple bachelor's degree.
And people wonder why you can't find "quality American workers".
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=334764
The US tech industry was built, and grew explosively, before the flood of h1bs. Now we are supposed to believe that only Indians are capable of understanding technology.
Is there any real evidence to prove that h1bs have been all that helpful to US technology? When did msft start all hiring so many h1bs? Right after XP and before Vista wasn't it? Banks have been hiring tons of h1bs, and they are all just doing great aren't they?
There are plenty of highly qualified US tech workers, many of whom are unemployed, why is so critical to keep flooding the market with h1bs?
Labor unions are under attack because they've gone from organizations that were concerned about worker health and safety to parasites that exist only to suck as many concessions for the industries they deal with. So, not only are the companies hobbled with an over priced work force, they are crippled to how flexible they can be with respect to adopting new technology or simple things as job duties. You have to look no further than the UAW and its contracts with the US auto makers. To their credit, GM and Ford do operate some efficient world class factories. The problem is that NONE of them are in North America because of the UAW. On top of it all, they take dues that are meant for collective benefits for the workers and use that to support political parties that the workers may or may not support.
I have relatives that are or were UAW auto workers and it is unbelievable how slack their jobs are or what nonsense the hard core slackers can get away with.
Gee, you'd think those slimy foreigners could love us for something besides our money, eh? Damn those socialists, and give my regards to your wife. Maybe she loved you for something besides your money, eh? We can always hope.
Yes, that's an insult, but I can't yet decide how stupid you are. Would you be worth having as a /. foe?
Just in case you aren't an idiot, I'm curious why you are so desperate for money? I currently earn about three times my expenses, and I've become rather spendthrift these years. I really can't imagine what I'd do with more money, and I don't think I would work any harder or better if I was making somewhat more or less money. Now when you get up to the level around $1 million/year, it just seems ridiculous to me. I actually think most people would find that downright demotivating and just quit working.
Or maybe the key factor ("problem" from your perspective?) is that I enjoy my work and I'm in no hurry to retire, even though I can see that age coming up pretty quickly...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
No, it would increase the supply of skilled labor, thus reducing cost of labor across he board for those skilled positions. The immigrants would get paid less, and non-immigrant (native/already naturalized labor) would also get paid less.
Thus decreasing the economic advantage of pursuing science or engineering as a career, especially relative to law, management, or finance.
Thus leading to fewer US natives pursuing an education in these fields...
Which is fine, more or less, I suppose. Deciding to import your technical talent is one way to do things, as long as you have more money than everybody else.
The problem is what happens when these other places can afford to keep their talent at home... while, in the meanwhile, we've let the cultivation of domestic talent languish.
Tweet, tweet.
This can be addressed by changing how we use water, how we approach development, etc. This is not a problem without solutions (pardon the pun) -- restrict development in water-limited areas. Reduce water consumption (I did mention reducing standard of living, and egregious consumption is part of that -- I also mentioned the unsustainable natural resource use, which water is part of).
The economy needs to be retooled. Increasing the labor pool also increases demand for consumer goods -- and reduced wages will enable us to competitively manufacture consumer goods (especially as fuel and energy costs continue to rise globally).
The affordable housing issue will sort itself out, if we have the contraction that is needed. It'll be painful... but note that the intense inflationary period we'll be going through in the next decade will wipe out a lot of the housing pain. We need to pay the piper.
Ah, here is where your true nature shines through. Let me give you hint -- first, the global economy is very different than it was in the 1800s. Just advances in transportation have changed the very nature of how economies work. Never mind the fact that the economy went to shit plenty of times before the institution of the Fed, of income tax, etc -- the Fed was created BECAUSE the economy went to shit so often.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With my condolences to the Monty Python:
Damn right. Besides weekends, what has organized labor done for us?
OK, OK...
Besides weekends AND vacations, what has organized labor done for us?
Hum, what... OK
Besides weekends, vacations AND paid leave, what has organized labor done for us?
Really? No kidding... OK
Besides weekend, vacation, paid leave AND fair salaries, what has organized labor done for us?
For real?
Besides weekends, vacation, paid leave, fair salaries AND safe working conditions, what has organized labor done for us?
What? Really... OK OK
Besides weekends, vacations, paid leave, fair salaries, safe working conditions AND retirements, what has organized labor done for us?
Huh? come on... OK OK
Besides weekends, vacations, paid leave, fair salaries, safe working conditions, retirement, AND medical coverage, what has organized labor done for us?
Yeah... what a bunch of dicks!
I worked for 6 years at a US research institute on an academic H1B. I got a new job offer and would have loved to stay but couldn't get a commercial H1B (lost in the H1B visa lottery: my chances were 1 in 3).
So I moved to Switzerland last year. I'm still working for an American company, but I won't pay any taxes, buy products or use services in the US any more. And a US citizen still won't have my job, it went overseas.
If the US decreases the H1B cap even more, you'll see more stories like this. You can't keep jobs in America this way.
The INS Dehumanization of Foreigners Act is to blame. OK, so I joke, but having worked on a project in the US for a few years (before returning home). Here's my experience of the visa process.
First I was on an L1 as an intracompany transferee. I wasn't cheap to my company either - they did indeed pay the prevailing wage, and on top of that, a substantial international service allowance that paid all of my living expenses and then some (the ISA was something like double my actual basic living expenses). Since they are a big firm and have many people working in many different countries, they have a whole department that looks after people on international service. This department does things like visa paperwork. They are very experienced with it.
However, my visa application was refused (section 224g IIRC, "insufficient information") and the US Embassy demanded that I go and have a visa interview at the embassy. The ream of paperwork, incidentally, was filled out just like they had been doing successfully for some months - but they explained to me that every so often the embassy staff changes, and some new footling jobsworth rule changes, and they just start bouncing applications. I was just unlucky enough to hit a staff change. So I go up to London, where you have to line up outside the embassy at the crack of dawn for a good hour or so. Then you have to line up to get a delicatessen style ticket. Then you sit down and wait, while they call numbers.
You can't read a book while they are doing this - the numbers are called in seemingly random sequence, and you just know after your initial experience already with the embassy if you are reading, and miss your number, they won't call it again and you'll get sent home to repeat the experience some weeks later. So you sit and get bored. If you do decide to read, they have these "newspapers" around called something like "Going USA". The first half of which bizarrely seems to be dedicated to how terrible your own country is, how great the USA is, and what a good time your country folk are having running gas stations in Florida. The second half of the "newspaper" is dedicated to how they aren't going to give you a visa anyway.
Anyhow, after 4 hours, my number came up. The guy asked me a single question - what are the dates of service with your company? I told him. He said, "That's great, you'll get your passport back in about a week". They could have asked me that over the phone and saved me a completely unproductive day (and a great deal of expense). Now I have no quarrel with the guy who did the "interview" at the embassy, he was perfectly courteous and polite. But the whole bureaucratic machine is a red-taped mess.
I had a second run-in with the Embassy's bureaucratic machine again when my visa got extended. It was actually approved by the INS in the United States, all I needed to do was if I went back home on a trip, was to get the new visa stuck in my passport. The Embassy literally had nothing to do other than print the thing as it was already approved. There was another form to fill in for the Embassy (which merely duplicated all the information the INS already had when they approved the new visa), so I filled this in, sent it and the paperwork from the INS in the USA to the Embassy. They refused my new visa! My new pre-approved visa! Why? Because the form was out of date. So I downloaded the new form off the Embassy website and it was...exactly..the..same....as...the...one I sent, apart from the date at the bottom. Exactly the same. This bureaucratic stupidity cost me another couple of days as the new paperwork had to make yet another round trip.
Now I'm not singling out the USA here. My current next door neighbour is Albanian - she's very smart, has an engineering degree, and fluently speaks English, German and French (and of course Albanian). But the British embassy treated her like a liar and criminal - they were deliberately extremely unpleasant, rude and aggressive to her face (and indeed, she wouldn't have come here if it wasn't
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
You don't compete.
The only way you can reasonably compete with someone in a third world country who lives in a plywood shack and eats a bowl of rice a day is if you are willing to live the same lifestyle.
In an International economy, money is a bit like water. It's always going to roll down to the low points. While it's true that this has the advantage of raising the standard of living at the low end, it also decreases it at the high end. This is why there are borders and tariffs - to build a dam between economies that regulates the flow.
I've seen more than a few sentimental references to that poem on the statue in NY harbor. That poem was put there during the immigration boom of the early 20th century. Recall that during those years, we had low wages and abuse of workers on a massive scale. We tried to patch it then (and ever since) by running in circles passing more and more regulations on business. By nature, regulations limit freedoms and cost money to enforce. It could have (and still can) be done another way.
The real problem was that jobs and applicants are a supply and demand market. The demand for workers was finite, but the supply was unlimited. So a worker's value (to the company) was near zero. In a more balanced economy where the labor supply was closer to demand, employers would have had to make some reasonable concessions. But they were under no such pressure.
What's needed is a sensible trade and immigration policy - one that balances immigration with the job market, and prevents us from competing openly with countries who do not share our standard of living. Yes, it's true that prices would go up without cheap imports. But wages would hold too and we would have a balance.
At least people can get US citizenship, they only need to live and work in the states 3 years.
Compare that with say Germany where you have to live 8 years and you may never get citizenship.
Or Switzerland, where people in your community vote on you and if you should be allowed to get citizenship. So don't piss your neighbors off ever.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I've been party to both positive and negative foreign worker experiences.
I've had the privilege of working with a lot of extremely qualified, foreign-born engineers. Some from Europe, some from Asia. They're no different than American workers - you have to interview effectively to make sure you hire the best people. If you don't hire the best people, you're going to get bad people. Of all the foreign workers I've worked with, only one has not been worth his salary.
So if the foreign workers your company hires are a waste of money, shame on your company for having a poor interview and review process. But that has nothing to do with immigration - a nice talking kid from US engineering college could do just as much exaggeration and get hired at the same company.
On the strongly negative front, we outsourced part of a project once. Needed it done ASAP. Contracted a company in India to do it. Waste of money. Got zero value out of it. Just couldn't do effective management/quality control over half the globe and 12 time zones.
Anyway, if your company is hiring unqualified employees, that's a hiring problem, not an immigration problem.
paintball