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Zuckerberg Lobbies For More Liberal Immigration Policies
An anonymous reader writes "Mark Zuckerberg, along with other notables such as Google's Eric Schmidt, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin, has launched a new immigration reform lobbying group called FWD.us. In an editorial in the Washington Post, Zuckerberg claims that immigrants are the key to a future knowledge-based economy in a United States which currently has 'a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants.' As expected, they are calling for more of the controversial H-1B visas which reached their maximum limit in less than a week this year, but those aren't the only things they're looking to change."
Facebook's Wealth Demands unlimited slaves?
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
That's the American way !!
Let's see how successful the biggest industry is at getting the laws they want implemented in government.
Perhaps Zuckerberg could explain what the indienous population of the US is not capable of knowing that immigrants know. If this is the "key to a future knowledge-based economy", what is it I cannot know as a US citizen that you need, Mr Zuckerberg?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
Immigrants are great, but only so long as they have the same rights as the guy that wants to import/exploit them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I guess they've given up on the American education system when making this statement: "Immigrants are the future of a knowledge based society"
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Wouldn't it make more sense for Zuckerberg to lobby the US government to restrict the amount of H1B visas going to overseas outsourcing firms? Because if they just raise the limit these overseas outsourcing firms will just gobble up more H1B visas and Zuck and company won't be better off for it.
My sister-in-law has been living in the United States for the past six years. She has a pair of masters in Mathematics and Economics and after graduation 2 years ago a good job, making about 50k a year. Yet she stands a decent chance of deportation because she is now in a lotto for the H1B. Why exactly are we kicking out people with masters degrees and good jobs?
This is insanity. She had a good portion of her schooling supplemented by the US Government. She is now paying taxes and is a law-abiding citizen. So they kick her out. Insanity.
How about we start by giving every masters' degree candidate an H1B and go from there? Rather than the inane 20000 then 65000 pool that exists today. Utterly inane.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
"Mark Zuckerberg Lobbies for Cheaper Programmers Who Can't Quit"
I am officially gone from
Double the U, double the FUD?
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Nice try guys, but anyone who is paying attention knows what the true motive is behind the tech immigration reform. Starts with a P and ends with a T.
Zuckerberg et. al. want more H-1Bs to drive down wages of tech workers, both of native workers and those tied to a company by the H-1B sponsorship. That whole cartel has already had problems with their "gentleman's agreement" not to poach eachother's workers, thereby driving up wages.
It would be nice if these companies would be putting this time and effort into pushing for / funding more S.T.E.M. education in the US.
mnewberg.com
Less immigrants should be hired.
Zuckerberg didn't start his own company, he graduated college and got a job as a software developer.
Zuckerberg PU: "Corporations lobbying the government to import cheap labor from the third world is unethical. It amounts to indentured servitude and it does nothing but lower wages for the local workforce. It is but a scheme to let the rich grow richer and reduce the middle class to menial labor serfs."
If H1B workers were immigration, that would be an apt comparison. They're not. It's indentured servitude.
The system leeches from the few productive people and redistributes the production to the bankers.
Most smart people eventually figure this out, which is a major disincentive to be productive.
So, the system runs out of productive people. Since it's still not as bad here compared to many other countries, they can bring in people from other worse-off areas and get them to be productive here... for a while anyway.
How about we incentivise local people to be more productive instead?
By the way, "it's still not that bad here" is a slippery slope thinking. We're not that far off from falling anyway.
1. Steal idea.
2. Develop human Skinner Box.
3. Profit
4. Attempt to influence government to enhance profit.
In these articles they talk about fast-tracking graduates to US Citizenship, etc, but the funny thing about graduate students: Some of them are just cash-cows for universities--this is particularly true for business schools, and "IT" type degrees when they focus on the Masters/MBA level of education. The people they are bringing in have money, not necessarily the best talent world-wide. Offering these folks extra benefits just benefits the wealthy of foreign countries.
Globalisation was meant to end wars by allowing a country's production exces to be sold elsewhere for a fair price, but when applied to humans at what point does it become slavery or geopolitical body shopping?
If you're really pro-immigrant, then you would want them coming here as free men and women, not as indentured servants. These immigrants aren't being offered a leg up, they're being used and exploited.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I can say that they are generally arrogant and get paid too much. I welcome some normalization of the profession with hopefully a sizeable influx of fresh talent.
Move the plants there! The talent is there, the wages are cheap, the regulations are minimal. So, take your company and get the fuck out!
Just more proof of autistic, liberal, jewbookery.
If these people are truly needed in the United States, then get rid of H1B indentured servitude. H1Bs may only work for the company that brings them here and that company is free to threaten them - "we'll send you back" type stuff.
If they are really needed as much as they are portrayed (I honestly have no idea), then let them have a green card so that they can go to other businesses within the border.
If that happened, then their prices would come up and - gasp - they'd no longer be needed.
No doubt Zuckerberg wants more slave labor to pay the tax base that he and his corp. are evading. I have a better idea Mark, move your ass and everyone else to an impoverished nation. No doubt you'll enjoy the infrastructure, benefits, gov't, and protection that all affords you.
It's all about the Benjamins. Check out this article from ComputerWorld: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238180/Career_Watch_A_debunker_of_H_1B_claims
All the borders must be torn down, so people can move as easily as capital, and put the slave traders out of business. Every border is a "Berlin Wall".
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Now everyone else please stay out.
This has nothing to do with folks who want to move to the US because: they want religious freedom or to escape tyranny or because they want to live in the Western Hemisphere for health reasons.
You see, this is about exploitation., for one. And this is also about labor market manipulation. Increase supply of workers while demand stays the same and what happens?
As has been said many times, the wages of developers and other IT professionals do not indicate a shortage of any kind. Wages haven't gone anywhere in over ten years and if you factor in inflation, they have gone DOWN.
If any employer is having a hard time finding qualified people, then there is something horribly dysfunctional in their recruiting process. Either they are not getting the word out to attract the right candidates or they are unrealistic in regards to the qualifications or salaries for said qualifications that they demand - hence the market manipulation with H1-Bs and immigration reform.
If they were trying to get a Ph.D in some esoteric CS field that very few people study, then I would possibly buy into that maybe they need a foreign born worker.
But for a developer? Please, spare me.
And the funny thing is, the biggest noise makers are folks out in Silicon Valley. Hello! Lockheed just canned a bunch of folks - very talented and qualified folks - who are looking for work. Folks that have worked on things that make your pathetic little "social networking" software look like child's play - so don't BS us with the "they don't have the skills"!
Have you thought of moving out of the high tax state of California and move to the low cost South? There are folks here just as smart as you folks who can make a nice living on $70,000 doing whatever you need.
God! You people kill me!
Choice quotes from a recent article on H1B visas I read over at Cringley...
"There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders."
and on later......
"Last year, nearly half of the H-1B visas went to companies like Infosys and Wipro, not marquee companies like Google and Microsoft. Companies such as Infosys are the workhorses of Silicon Valley, large IT firms that churn out the industry’s unglamorous connective tissue: things like boilerplate coding, user support, and network maintenance.
So, why does the US need to import labor for this lower-skilled work? Matloff says it has to do with wages and immobility. He argues that since employers sponsor H-1Bs visas, foreigners have a limited ability to negotiate higher salaries or switch jobs. If they do manage to change employers, it means they must restart any green card applications. Matloff says these realities “handcuff” H-1B visa holders to their employers. "
and further on...
"There are a number of common misunderstandings about the H-1B program, the first of which is its size. H-1B quotas are set by Congress and vary from 65,000 to 190,000 per year. While that would seem to limit the impact of the program on a nation of 300+ million, H-1B is way bigger than you think because each visa lasts for three years and can be extended for another three years after that.
At any moment, then, there are about 700,000 H-1B visa holders working in the USA.
Most of these H-1B visa holders work in Information Technology (IT) and most of those come from India. There are about 500,000 IT workers in the USA holding H-1B visas. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 2.5 million IT workers in America. So approximately 20 percent of the domestic IT workforce isn’t domestic at all, but imported on H-1B visas."
Provided they're legally and actually immigrating, and not just stopping by temporarily to make a quick buck. Our enconomy is already hurting and unemployment is high, we don't need leeches stopping in to steal our jobs then running off to spend the money elsewhere.
My 0.02.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
It's so much easier to ignore the education problems of Americans, while paying international people less and less for the "privilege" of becoming the same Americans who will be discarded the same way once they become citizens.
I consider H1-B's to be very problematic because of how dependent they make someone on an employer. I think there's a real risk of the employer employee relationship becoming too coercive and akin to slavery.
But, I have no problem with more immigration if the result is full citizens with the same rights as everybody else.
Perhaps we should have an accelerated citizenship process for people who've been here on an H1-B visa for over a year. That, in combination with actually reducing the number of H1-B visas granted would be something I could get behind.
The main negative effect I see from my proposal is that it reduces these large corporations incentive to improve the educational and vocational rehabilitation system to create the workers they need from our existing citizenry.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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Koans and fables for the software engineer
Please explain how we have no one from this country qualified to do these jobs and our H.R. departments are continuously throwing resumes away because the candidate is "overqualified."
What are you guys so busy you cant educate your own people?
The corporate weasels who are pushing this just want to be able to pay their workers less so they can get bigger bonuses at the end of the year. This is bad for the economy and bad for workers.
The H1-B program was for companies that couldn't get people who qualified domestically.
Is the GP going to argue that he employer couldn't get a US citizen with a MS in economics and math? Of course the employer will make up with some reason why she is more qualified than any American.
and this yahoo wants to bring in more workers...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Instead of a lottery, it might be neat if we could give the visas to the most talented folks.
That way, the IT consulting company wouldn't just gobble up the Visas for vanilla IT jobs.
Libertarianism is committed with a weaker central government that has fewer regulations. Free movement of people would be in line with that. But American Libertarians are generally conservatives, not libertarians, so how do they balance their racist nationalism with the core of the libertarian beliefs? Open immigration, but only for white English speakers?
Learn to love Alaska
International undergrad students tend to pay themselves. Grad students, especially in tech, tend to have grad school grants. Until recently they expected to go home first before reapplying for jobs. Or hope to find an employer that would pay the $30K or so for bypass paperwork. But recently a small number of visas are for immediate graduates. Tech companies want any such limit removed.
I had a subordinate that was extremely green go to work for Cisco for more than I make even 2.5 years later. He had 2 years experience and a Masters, I could program circles around him, but he wanted an H1B visa and the fancy BMW to send pictures of back home.
These companies are acting in bad faith. They overpay imported workers and deliberately turn down American workers, now they want to import more workforce instead of hiring people at home.
I don't support the desire to raise the H1B limit, it puts American workers at a disadvantage and pushes their salaries down while raising salaries of imported workers. In effect the imported workers are taking jobs away from Americans.
There is also an obvious hiring bias, imported workers get hired by imported or naturalized hiring managers, who won't consider employing a better qualified American worker, so the cycle accelerates.
In the end, there are a lot of "jobs" listed without "qualified" people to fill them and these companies whine to Congress to raise the visa limit. In reality, these "jobs" don't really exist because they get plenty of qualified American candidates applying for them, but they don't hire them because they don't from from another land.
I'm well qualified and I've applied for hundreds of jobs without even an acknowledgement, and those same job openings are never filled or they do away with the listing because they couldn't fill it to their standards. These practices are disingenuous at best!
H1-B's are the personnel equivalent of pirated software. I can't get Microsoft Office for my PC (because I don't want to pay the prevailing price) - so let me bring in Microsoft Office copies from China (pirate copies of course). Odd that companies don't seem to be pushing for liberalizing copywrite and patent laws, which would have a much more beneficial affect on (my) economy.What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Zuckerberg, and the others run websites for a living. Every American is qualified for a vote and an opinion; I'm all for that. But, someone please tell me at what point their opinion deserves front page attention more so than anyone of my neighbors down the street?
I would ask who gives a hoot what any of these people think...but the answer most likely would scare me.
I guess what I am really trying to say is that I wish people would learn to think for themselves rather than have a celebrity make their decisions for them. I would much rather see the opinion of a political scientist / statistician on the front page when it comes down to politics. Just like I would rather see Zuckerberg's opinion on a social media issue than an unqualified political scientist.
This seems like something that could have been posted on twitter and been done with.
It's worse then that once you remove all the ones working in the casinos.
that the immigrants get paid less. Imagine if the immigrants get paid the same, don't you all the "indigenous/native" will be even more p*ssed? By the way those who claimed that the immigrants, in this high-tech context, get paid less, have they ever looked at their immigrant colleagues paychecks? How can you tell which of your colleagues are immigrants and which one are native?
If job candidates are SOOOO hard to find, then the law should require corporations to pay a tax equivalent to 30% of the H1-B candite's salary - to be used to fund unemployment. This would have the effect of making the H1-B process work as intended - by making H1-B candidates less economical than local talent, they would be hired only when local talent can't be found. After all the stated objective of the law is to obtain locally un-obtainable talent - not to drive down wages.
Rather sweeping statements...
I myself consider myself a 'republican'. However, I want to eliminate the h1-b program. It hurts us long term and trains an external work force to do our job. What sense does that make? Train someone up for 6 years to send them home so they can compete against you (they are now considered experts in your field)? We should make the real green card program more useful. Many *want* to be here. For those that do not want to stay lets create a 'temp work force visa' that expires after 1 year no questions. No converting between student/worker/h1b/etc unless it is to a long term person. These companies that speak and say 'we can not find workers' are liars. There are tons of people out there. Just not at the right 'age'/'wage'. They want cheaper labor that they do not have to have any long term cost with.
The tech industry needs to realize it can no longer hire people to 'hit the ground running'. They need to hire and train and retain. If they do not do those they will wither and die to those who do.
Stop all immigration.
Stop all food aid.
Stop the sharing of baby photos on Facebook.
Don't show sexy late night TV in winter.
Let's focus on raising the quality of the humans we do have, not making more.
The SOLE reason arseholes like Zuckerberk want to relax immigration controls is to keep wages low.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
True talent is hard to find. It's that simple. Zuckerberg and all the other giants in this industry know that, there are many smart men, but very few geniuses. And that's why they are hard pressed to seek for more visas towards importing the talents here.
Even if you set a curriculum for the skillset they need to fulfill the job, not every has the knowledge, the expertise that goes into the realm of an art-form towards solving various types of programming paradigm.
to India/Asia? You get all the workers you want locally.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Zuckerberg as Auric Goldfinger? Ya, that's workable. Now which congressman could we cast as "Odd Job?"
want to do anything to lower the competitive edge of expensive workers, news at 11.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For those who don't want to stay,. lets not issue any work visas.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But companies should have to pay a $50,000 annual fee for each one they obtain.
importing contractors is just a tool to dump responsibility and skim money out of the company now. let somebody else mend fences later.
let somebody else fix the economy later.
let somebody else stop the food riots in the US later.
oh, geez, nobody else cares???
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I don't understand why people worry about immigration. The way the debt is growing pretty much guarantees that down the road the value of the dollar will collapse, and then the incentive to migrate into the US will decline. At the same time, jobs for ordinary people will finally start coming back as salaries fall into something closer to the world average, thereby solving two big concerns.
We are all immigrants here in the USA. Therefore immigrants and their descendants have always been the future of our society. Getting the best and brightest and/or those willing to work hard to make their dreams come true is one of our country's greatest assets.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I support this, especially right now while our economy is struggling. Short-term work visas are really little different from outsourcing jobs to other countries. The end result is the same: the money invested into the employee ends up getting spent somewhere else, and is drained from our economy.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I recommend Bryan Caplan's Youtube talk on immigration [1]. This is a broader question than just changing quota of H1-Bs.
First, the moral case is for letting people move freely and not use force against such peaceful people.
Second, the practical and political case is what is the impact on local workers, the local culture and also fiscal considerations. The evidence shows that those effects are at most small, and the net overall effect is positive.
The worries about negative effects can be addressed with simple but humane rules (unlike current immigration restrictions). For example, ask for some minimum language skills, add an income tax on immigrants to help local workers who are impacted, and possibly voting restrictions for such guest workers. All of those would be much better than current system of quota, both for locals and for foreigners.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYk00Ufiqb4
His propaganda seems to be exactly the same as the propaganda used by all the big techs: IBM, Apple, MS, etc. all say the same thing constantly.
Businesses in the United States, the real criminals in the wave of illegal immigration, are getting fearful that imminent immigration reform is going to come with real teeth to punish businesses who exploit illegal immigrants for financial gain and they're starting to pour money into buying themselves the legal right to import poverty and indentured servants. They should have their business licenses revoked.
Disregarding the obvious attempt at lowering labor costs -this is the story that Zuckerberg (a php hack that got lucky beyond belief, and now basically helms a run-away corporate dinosaur) wants the general public to believe, and whom are going to make the general public decision on this by their apathy, alone:
1. Zuckerberg, an American, and a symbol of American prosperity, is short on qualified labor (mm hmm, right) in his company
2. By hiring foreigners, the prosperity of other Americans will improve, because Zuckerberg represents this notion of
American Prosperity, and he knows best.
3. Again, The reason prosperity will improve is....: ??
4. We need to basically ignore the bills that are going to be attached inconspicuously to something else/passed overnight, or shoveled through while the public's attention isn't focused.
This is the narrative the general public now faces. Screaming about it on the slashdot echo-chamber is unproductive. It is our duty to really understand this narrative, and inform others about it in our own way as individuals.
You could argue the reason tech workers want to keep or tighten immigration controls is to keep wages high. There is greed on both sides, and overall tech workers are not the worse off either.
The only way to resolve this kind of conflict is to go back to first principle and ethics (see Michael Huemer [1] for example). Is it right to use force to prevent a peaceful foreigner to buy a house in the US and live there? Is it right to use force to prevent a peaceful foreigner to make a voluntary contract with a US employer?
One way to see that this is not right is to think about analogies in our daily lives and the answer is that we would not condone such force in civil society.
[1] http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/immigration.htm (Is There a Right to Immigrate?)
.... why should I sympathize, you, wanting to hire cheaper foreign employers ? Go #[_](|/\ yourselves please...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
We should make the real green card program more useful. Many *want* to be here. For those that do not want to stay lets create a 'temp work force visa' that expires after 1 year no questions. No converting between student/worker/h1b/etc unless it is to a long term person
It works that way now, it just doesn't work that way. There is a temp visa like you describe. It's an OE visa (OE - Overseas Experience - something most people outside the US are familiar with). It's generally used for au pairs and such, but could be used for any other position. One year, no extensions or conversions. Even if you marry an American, you have to go home and apply for the K-whatever visa from there. There is also a policy that someone converting visas is evaluated for fraud. If you apply for one visa with the intention of converting it to another while in the country (aside from the approved conversions), it's deemed that you lied on your initial application. You then have your original visa revoked, and are barred from applying for some overly long period. In practice, that scares some visa hoppers away, but is rarely enforced, and many living between the cracks already (illegal cash work and such) will try for visa jumping, and if it fails, they just stay illegally.
My fix for H1-B was always to have the cost equal training an American for the job. Perhaps even force the company to hire an actual American into the position alongside the foreigner, and having the American take over on expiry of the foreigner. Millions of "temporary" workers taking a large percentage of IT positions in the US indefinitely wasn't the intention, but appears to be the actual implementation.
Learn to love Alaska
My sister-in-law has been living in the United States for the past six years
Path to US Citizenship
She should be applying for citizenship already, it only requires 5 years of holding a Green Card, so she should already be set.
How about these giant companies pay a fair portion of US taxes instead of hiding their assets overseas and we'll let me import more of their "talent" that they can't get hiring natural Americans.
Immigration is a thorny issue. For me it is as simple as feeling that our nation has way too large a population and that most of our woes flow from excessive population regardless of whether they are field hands, laborers are Nobel laureates. I think we need to totally freeze all immigration. We also need to have objective testing of young people and apply reproduction permits such that the most able both mentally and physically are allowed to reproduce in a limited way and all others banned from child making for life. To go from over 300 million down to 60 million or so would go a long way in stopping pollution, sprawl, energy shortages, materials shortages and shortages of decent jobs.
I am very aware that many people in some regions will feel that any anti-immigration views are anti Mexican or anti Latino or Hispanic and I can only say that that is not part of my thinking. Whether a Swede or from the Pacific regions or whatever is not part of my thinking. I simply want an absolute block on every instance of immigration and enforcement by military action at all of our borders. Right now we have blockaded immigration from Haiti by use of our Navy for 30 years or so. Why is it we fail to use our Army on our southern border? And then we have the wet foot Cuban as opposed to the dry foot Cuban comedy of really bad laws that has been in effect for decades as well. What the heck are we thinking?
Good point. I am pro immigration. But this isn't immigration it's indentured servitude. I'd rather we open a path to citizenship something like the following:
1. Apply for a 5 year green card for some fee to cover the costs $1000 or so.
2. The US performs an instant background check to make sure you haven't been here before and kicked out.
3. The US performs a health check.
4. If 2 and 3 are good you get to come in and stay for 5 years. Your kids get to go to school but you can't collect welfare or other tax payer paid services.
5. While you are here you pay taxes.
6. If you stay out of trouble for 5 years you are allowed to become a citizen.
If we are going to pay the SS for the boomers we need a hell of a lot more people paying taxes.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
duh. Also, .05% of the populace donates nearly all of the money in politics. Can't remember where I saw the statistic. Some left wing pundit. But it explains why politicians ignore us.
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If tech companies were actually serious about wanting grads who knew things, they'd be pushing for green cards for foreign students who get PhD or MSc degrees from US credentialed universities.
But they're not.
That would solve a lot of the problem. H1-B was originally designed to allow for something far different than what it currently is.
Same goes for L-1 and L-2.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Look, Racism just marched in and waved it's hand at us! Is there a Godwin's law for random mentions of racism? If not, there should be, you big damn racist!
billionaire jews want to increase immigration, i never would have guess
When I first started hearing these tech giants complaining about H1-B rules, I thought, "I guess that's okay. I've had many good friends from out of the country and I wouldn't mind more diversity in my field." However, at this point (and at the risk of sounding like a racist), I find Zuckerberg's suggestion that "the most talented and hardest-working people" are elsewhere as a borderline insult. His article arguing for reform offers little more than his own personal opinion. Where are the facts? Even the ones he lists out aren't that convincing. If we really do grant VISAs to ~60% of the foreign graduate students that are educated in this country, I'd call that extremely generous. What would it say to the world if we granted VISAs to 100% of graduate students? That the United States is the only place worth being for an educated person?
My county had the same theory.. It was a miserable failure. 10 years ago my county pushed for maximum development. We ended up being one of the fastest growing counties in the US. The theory was new upscale homes would bring in talented employees, the high paying jobs would follow. The services industry would see a boom to support all of these new people. The tax base would increase with the average income increasing, everyone would be happy and we would all be in utopia. It did not work out that way. The housing market tanked, unemployment skyrocketed and the talented people left the area and left their houses behind (and I think they were up to date on their mortgages anyway). Now we are stuck with not enough money to pay for all of the new schools, traffic sucks worse then ever from the others that moved in to support "them" and our inflation adjusted taxes are much higher than they were 10 years ago. The only people that benefited from this grand plan was the developers and the county officials who had a vested interest in some of them or property to sell.
People, do not be fooled by this master plan of opening the door for talent and high paying jobs and all will prosper, it only benefits a few big businesses, not the general population and the majority of tax payers. Think about it. Is India, China, Asia and wherever H1-Bs are coming from have a higher standard of living, lower taxes and much general wealth in utopia because of their talent? Then how could bringing them here possibly make that true here? If their services and knowledge were so needed and such a benefit, they would be able to give their homeland that benefit.
That basically confirms what I've been saying repeatedly on Slashdot. Most of those who complain about H-1B advocates who say there isn't enough talent are in theoretical fields like CS. They have very little to no practical experience.
The typical response I get from them is "yeah well if they simply hired me and let me read some books for a few months then I'll be fine." Wrong answer. Employers want people who already have hands on experience with real equipment. Trade schools are great for that. Your problem is that you believe trade schools are below your intellect, and that going tens of thousands in debt for a university education for a career field that nobody is looking to hire for is such a great idea. Then you believe that the employer is wrong for not wanting to hire you because you don't already know what he needs the job candidate to know.
It's no wonder they favor the immigrants who are more willing to work for the employer rather than the other way around. Before you mod me troll, go look at my comment history and you'll find lots of replies from people saying they "ought to be able to" do exactly what I'm saying they shouldn't do as if it's their right and the employer should have no say in the matter..
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
He wants cheaper labor just like every other 0.1% billionaire profiteer.
So you are asserting that race is *never* an issue in immigration? If I'm a racist, you are a brain dead idiot.
Learn to love Alaska
Why don't we start our own guild for the purpose of preventing things like this from occurring. Just about every major group out there has someone to lobby for them on capital hill to protect their interests. I'm thinking we should do the same. To be clear that does not mean I'm suggesting a Union (not that I'm opposed to that idea either). If we have people bugging the politicians in D.C. that have nothing to do with the business we work for I think we'd all be better off.
We have a shortage of young Swedish and Irish chickies, not some fat smelly guys from Cameroon or India. They can work from their hovels over there in their own smelly countries.
What would it actually take to destroy Facebook, if we all really wanted to do it (I just mean people mad at this, not the vast public)? In theory, I mean.
It's a Social Network, surely if enough people wanted to eliminate it, we could? we're talking about something entirely reliant on voluntary association, and uniquely vulnerable to people just saying "no thanks."
Frankly, I don't understand how the thing legitimately makes money.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
....but do not want a multinational workforce??
You do realize US corps make larger and larger proportion of their revenues from outside the US. And BTW they don't pay too many taxes there either. So all you moral high grounders... you want a free market economy with WTO enforcing US mandates when it suits you... but dare anyone come to your country and make an honest living and you scream exploitation.
All those claiming H1Bs are indentured servitude .. why don't you let the people who willingly come on H1B be a judge of that. .. oh you want the cake and eat it too boohoo for your miserable (much higher than median) lifestyle.
Why don't you all lobby US corps to stop making money from international markets along with hiring international workers
So, folks like Zuckerberg and B Gates make tons of money and have great success in the USA, but then insist there aren't qualified local US workers to be found. But interestingly there are tons of talented fully qualified people to be found in low wage countries such as India, the Philippines, etc (forget higher wage Japan or Western Europe). And all the while, layoffs and outsourcing occur, wages stagnate, and companies are offering fewer and fewer training opportunities. Today they want workers who can hit the ground running with NO training at all. Is there something wrong with this picture? Isn't it most likely the corps are just wanting to maximize profits by lowering labor costs?
>"Zuckerberg claims that immigrants are the key to a future knowledge-based economy in [the] United States"
Because taking the time and money to train your own folks is just too damn taxing when you could pull over a few H1-B indentured servants from somewhere else.
Idiots like you contribute absolutely nothing to the topic at hand by making sweeping generalizations like this that attempt to distill the issue down to basic prejudice.
Now run along child, adults are busy discussing here.
Administration (not the company) should pay the salary to H1B
Casteism
A Jew calling for more immigration to the West? You don't say!
We can't even find jobs for our own; however, that won't stop this Jew from giving away what jobs we have left to depress the cost of labor.
These Jews sicken me; they really do. They have no concept of nationalism. They completely sell out our way of life in the US and in Europe.
Deport their asses to Israel, please.
Why is it that any politician who wants a change characterizes it as "reform"?
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My roommate at a large research university in the Midwest is getting his masters in EE but wants to work as a programmer when he graduates. Me? I was laid off in 2009 so I went back for my masters in something different. I asked him why he is here and his response was "to make the most money possible." Strange, because my naive 23 years-old self would have said, "because I love technology and to create things and understand how computers work." A few months living together he comes to me for help to get an internship. He says he is screwing up technical interviews and wants help with preparing. So we talk and I ask him simple questions. Keep in mind I haven't programmed in 4 years. He doesn't know how C++ templates work, nor what would happen if you return a pointer to an object created on the stack. No concept of virtual memory and a poor communicator overall (he refers to everything "that", "this"). He has no problem listing C++ on his resume though.
Don't we have exceptions to the H1B quota for US graduates? I am pretty sure he will be able to get a job when he graduates. For comparison, I know that all of my college friends would have been able to blow his socks off in terms of knowledge, intelligence, and competency. The only redeeming quality he brings is that he is willing to work for whatever wage he can get. Contrary to what he believes, he is not going to be rich by this country's standards.
But I feel bad for him at the same time that he is stealing jobs from US citizens. He told me his mom and dad mortgaged their home to have enough to send him here. He has a loan with 18% interest rate form an Indian bank and need to start paying it back in 2014. He was giddy about working in San Francisco and switching employers every few years and getting top dollars until I popped his bubble that he has to stay his sponsor for at least 3 years on the H1B. He is getting a real life lesson at how professors also treat engineering students like slaves with no pay, etc.
I do not have anything against Indians in general, but they keep to themselves, are not interested in integrating with the rest of society, and have no concerns for any social issues that are occurring in this country. They work insane hours and play politics to advance and in some cases are becoming CEOs and VPs, calling for more visa workers (after all, they have made it). And they are far from being smarter than US citizens.
What good does immigration reform do if we don't first secure our borders?
I don't think that would help.
If you have thoughts of suicide, try one of these hotlines. Talk to someone before depression wins.