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Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway
theodp writes Even as it cuts about 14% of its workforce, Microsoft is complaining that the company might be denied some of the "roughly" 1,000 H-1B visas for foreign workers it intends to seek, and made it clear that the company could shift some work to Canada or overseas if it can't get talent on its terms. "If I need to move 400 people to Canada or Northern Ireland or Hyderabad or Shanghai, we can do that," said William Kamela, a senior federal policy lead at Microsoft, who later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas (where it also stashes its cash out of IRS reach). Kamela made the statements on a panel at a two-day conference on high-skilled immigration policy, where he sat next to Felicia Escobar, special assistant to President Barack Obama on immigration. The day before the conference, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC — which counts Bill Gates as a Founder and Steve Ballmer and Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith as Major Contributors — posted its "MythBusters" video on H-1B visas.
That's because you claim Australian residency in addition to being an Australian citizen. If you claimed residency overseas they would stop doing this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation
You know, the reality is that US businesses have been moving labor to cheaper places for decades now.
This whole globalization thing was your idea, and has been championed as economic policy for a very long time now -- so that corporations can maximize profits.
I find it terribly amusing that suddenly Americans are going "Yarg! But what about our jobs?".
And I'm sure a lot of your politicians will say that anything the companies are doing for profit is a good thing. Until that is you realize just how much you're gutting your own economy.
But, hey, that's the version of Capitalism America has been pushing on the rest of the world for several decades now.
And since American firms have been buying up companies around the world, and outsourcing those jobs to yet another country ... I'm not sure the rest of the world has much sympathy for you on this front. In fact, I'm betting very little.
Because America has been doing it to us for years now.
That it's starting to hit you close to home means you're finally realizing what we've known for years -- that Globalization guts local economies in order to allow multinationals to play a shell game and not give a rats ass about how it affects anybody else.
So, really, cry us a river ... many other countries have been on the receiving end of this for a very long time now.
This is Capitalism as envisioned and pitched by you guys. If you don't like the outcome, don't blame us for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
hahahaha! Gates is anything but. His "charity" is a tax dodgy scam. He doesn't give a shit about malaria, only allow the drugs (he owns the pharmaceutical companies) into countries where he gets direct benefit. He energy concerns are all about promoting his new energy investments. It's not about doing "good", it's about increasing his personal wealth.
I'm pretty sure he thinks he's doing a pretty good job. What with the fight to end malaria, the public library funding, and helping to put a pc in every home.
Many robber barons have succumb to their conscience late in life and begin to try to make recompense. Others just do it for good PR to keep "the masses" from rioting at the Gate's. If Gates had truly been interested in serving humanity he would have been doing it (probably at a smaller scale) his entire life. John D. Rockefeller gave over half of his fortune away in his later years but was known to be quite ruthless and ethically challenged.
I liken it to burning down a city, killing the mayor and making yourself the new ruler and then offering to rebuild the city at a reduced rate but you still get to be the ruler.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
It is all about keeping wages down: Microsoft cuts 2,100 jobs in its latest round of layoffs (http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/18/microsoft-layoffs-round-2/) Intel to cut over 5,000 jobs (http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/17/technology/intel-jobs/) Cisco plans 6,000 layoffs in restructuring plan (http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/08/13/cisco-plans-6-000-layoffs-in-restructuring-plan.html?page=all) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
From your "starting point" video summary:
He has taught at major research institutions and small liberal arts colleges, and his been active in education reform, developing and implementing an elective Bible course that is currently available for public high school students in Texas.
You are kidding right? I watched parts of that nonsense and it's entirely propaganda for anti-common core, conspiratard conservative should-be-home-schooling douchebags that need their religious views justified by applying them to the public educational system, trying to infect every facet of historical context with religiosity regardless of factual truths. Common core is probably just too hard for willfully ignorant people to adapt too. I think a lot of it is stupid, but I'm not an educator and don't devote my time to research on the topic.
The example of 'Roman math' was a case of not-following-the-directions so an answer was marked wrong. Part of the purpose of the boxes is to teach the material in a functional manner that allows for better visualization of how to develop equations and functions, at the end of the day, these kids will grow up to become the next computer scientists, since everything is computer based now. They need this stuff, even if it's the 'long' way of problem solving and can be done quicker (that's another lesson that comes after you get the fundamentals down).
There was already a monopoly for textbooks. Sometimes it seems that Texas is just mad that they are no longer a predominate driving force behind textbooks (and good riddance, with their succumbing to religious indoctrination as a part of curriculum in their educational mandates).
You are the one spreading propaganda.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Seriously? I got a 3 year work visa to Canada just by showing up at the border with a letter from my employer. The whole process took less than an hour. Canada has logical, common sense immigration controls, as opposed to the completely broken and non-sensical immigration laws that we have in the US.
In the US, if I got an H1B visa, my wife would not be allowed to work. In Canada, with a work visa, my wife is allowed to work, doing anything she wants. I could go on, but don't tell me Canada has "stricter" controls; Canada has controls that work, while the US has no controls at all - a handful of H1B visas, and millions of illegal workers.
You're both somewhat wrong. What he was talking about is TN visa status. A Canadian that matches certain criterias (more or less, has a meaningful bachelor degree should do), and an accepted job offer in hand can show up at the border, show the paperwork that they have a job waiting for them, and move in, start working.
However, the moment they lose that job, they have to get out. Not tomorrow, not next week. NOW. They also have no path for permanent residency, cannot have a bigger attachment to the US than they do to Canada (ie: there's restriction in investments and real estate), and still file canadian tax reports.
Its annoying as hell.
Undercover of helping immigrant agricultural workers who have long needed a break in America, the American technology sector - lead by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - has seen fit to heavily lobby Congress to increase H1-B and other worker visa permits, vastly increasing H1-B visas at a time when very good research shows that there is no shortage of tech workers in America. Zuckerberg has so far succeeded, in the Senate. What is motivating the claim for more H1-B visas?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
previously
One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley has this to say about the H1-B worker problem and Two H1-B's walk into a Bar: More on the H1-B visa problem
One of many examples of what goes on behind closed doors: an immigration attorney and his consultants teaching corporations how to manipulate foreign-worker immigration law to replace qualified American workers.
H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg; there are more than 20 categories of foreign worker visas.
Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies on the H1-B and foreign worker visa problem. Matloff claims that Hi-B abuse has cost Americans $10Trillion dollars, since 1975. Inc. Magazine weights in Professor Matloff's Webpage
Mother Jones weighs in:How H1-B visa abuse is hurting American tech workers
Marc Zuckerberg and other wealthy tech scions - including large immigration law firms and corporation who profit from importing H1-B's continue to perpetuate this trend
How H1-B malpractice hurts the American economy
Most of the new crop of H1-Bs is coming from one of the most corrupt university systems in the world.
Indian government officials are not happy that the universities that they collude with might have some limitations placed on the abuses that have enabled them to "sell" their product to the American IT sector.
How the new immigration bill could ignite a trade war with India
How to underpay an H1-B worker
I'll leave aside the fact that most of these "charities" are tax-avoidance scams, and would probably do the world a favor by not existing.
Bill Gates gives about 40 times as much money to charities as do the Koch brothers, who together have about the same amount of money as Gates. The Koch brothers, in turn, are about 25X as generous as all the Walmart heirs combined- 85% of whose donations come from Christy and 15% from Alice. Jim and Rob also each have their $35 billion and together they donate approx. $30,000 to charity each year- i.e. 4 ppm of their total income. If I make six figures and I toss a dollar at a homeless person, I've just donated 10 ppm.
In comparison, the LDS church for example receives approx. ten billion dollars in "donations" (i.e. tithes) per year- ostensibly for charitable purposes- but spends only fifty million for charity, an overhead of approx. 99.5%. The Gates Foundation has an "overhead" of 90% (meaning 90% of his wealth is stuffed in his mattress). Charities would benefit 20X more if Mormons sent their tithe payments directly to scum-of-the-earth Bill Gates!!!!