Slashdot Mirror


Ten US Senators Seek Investigation Into the Replacement of US Tech Workers

dcblogs notes this story about a bipartisan group of U.S. senators that has asked for an investigation into whether companies are firing American workers and replacing them with foreign workers for the sake of cutting costs. "Ten U.S. senators, representing the political spectrum, are seeking a federal investigation into displacement of IT workers by H-1B-using contractors. They are asking the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department to investigate the use of the H-1B program "to replace large numbers of American workers" at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers. The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the secretaries of the two other departments, was signed by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Justice Department. The other signers are Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), a longtime ally of Grassley on H-1B issues; Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Vitter (R-La.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Neither California senator signed on. "Southern California Edison ought to be the tipping point that finally compels Washington to take needed actions to protect American workers," Sessions said. Five hundred IT workers at SCE were cut, and many had to train their replacements."

407 comments

  1. And it's not even an election year by plopez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They could be serious.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger, we will be able to AFFORD to buy the toys that our very companies are making (toys being used in the very general sense).

      what will happen to all those who came or want to come to the US? well, this will force their own countries to deal with their own problems instead of the 'I cant fix my own country, so I'll just go to the US, instead' mentality. if mobility was a bit more limited, people in their own countries would have to deal with and fix their own problems. that's a win/win for everyone.

      by allowing cheap labor to displace US workers, its lose/lose. nothing in india (and we all know, india is the #1 source of h1b tech workers) will get better if their 'top talent' all moves here for jobs; and the US struggles to keep its own people employed.

      we have let the ceo's ruin our economy for decades! their selfishness has stunted the entire US economy for all but the one percenters.

      then again, congress is all about the one percenters and so, expecting a fix from those who can't even SEE the problem is a bit overly optimistic.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:And it's not even an election year by Iamthecheese · · Score: 0

      Nah, it's just pre-positioning for the upcoming presidential debates, identity politics, and red vs blue circus. pro tip: both sides are pro-authoritarian, pro-surveillance, and pro-1% Here's a wild and far-out prediction: get this, BOTH CANDIDATES will be prescreened by the same group of plutocrats, who will have invested years ahead based on the results they intend. Here's another: any third party candidate that looks like he has a chance of success will be given precisely measured media attention calculated to allow the preselected candidate to win. Here's a third: media attention and tens of thousands of individual comments on Slashdot and other social media will come prepayed, courtesy of people whose names you will never learn.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    3. Re:And it's not even an election year by kheldan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This. This times ONE MILLION. Why are we not investing in the education of Americans so they can be the 'replacement workers'? Why are we not promoting our own population rather than bringing in foreigners who will likely send all that money overseas? What the actual fuck? Are they TRYING to destroy the country!?

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    4. Re:And it's not even an election year by Dracos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because the corporations, in all their greedy shortsightedness, can hire the replacement workers cheaper, with the side effect of gaining the illusion of ethnic diversity in their workforce.

      .

    5. Re:And it's not even an election year by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1, Interesting

      instead of the 'I cant fix my own country, so I'll just go to the US, instead' mentality.

      Speaking as one of the immigrants (see my slashdot name for details) I didn't come here because the US was better or my home country was deficient, I came here because I work in technology and the center of the techy universe is the West coast of the United States.

      If I worked in pharma I'd probably have gone somewhere else.

      You do know that more Americans emigrate than non-American immigrate to the US?

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    6. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But you still want to sell to those countries, I'm guessing. So you're for free movement of goods, but not of people. Gotcha.

      It's incorrect to say that the home countries of H1-Bs don't benefit. In the first place, a lot of people send money home to their families. In the second place, a lot of those workers will eventually go home, taking with them the skills and experience they've gained in the USA, to the benefit of their own countries.

      Don't get me wrong, I understand that you have a problem with H1-Bs, and that's a perfectly valid concern. But don't try to dress up your concerns as "for the benefit of the poor foreign countries", because that's just bullshit.

    7. Re:And it's not even an election year by lq_x_pl · · Score: 4, Informative

      More Americans emigrate than non-Americans immigrate?
      And I can't imagine the chart takes illegal/undocumented immigration into account, that is much harder to quantify.

      --
      An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
    8. Re:And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ethnic diversity?

      have you walked the hallways of companies that hire 'a lot' of h1b's?

      come visit the bay area. take a tour of any random cisco building, for example. just go into their cafeteria. or pick another well known tech company in the bay area. go walk their hallways. listen to the languages you hear there.

      come back and tell me about diversity.

      ok, you have a point. you can hear mandarin, cantonese, hindi and at least 10 other indian dialects. and so, yes, there's a KIND of diversity in tech, these days, in so-called US companies...

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    9. Re:And it's not even an election year by Tailhook · · Score: 2

      It's incorrect to say that the home countries of H1-Bs don't benefit. In the first place, a lot of people send money home to their families.

      Trading your energetic youth for subsistence income is a benefit? I guess that's why Mexico is no longer a kleptocratic hell-hole where cartels no longer slaughter students en-masse after the police round up their victims for them.

      Oh. Wait...

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    10. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger,...

      Either the foreigners come to the jobs or the jobs go to the foreigners. If Google can't bring the talent they want to the USA then it's very easy for them to open offices overseas. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the current H1-B program but it's ridiculously naive to imagine that there are a fixed number of jobs in the USA and all that matters is how many are stolen by foreigners.

      if mobility was a bit more limited, people in their own countries would have to deal with and fix their own problems. that's a win/win for everyone.

      Not everyone wants the same thing. Let's say there's an American who wants to live in a more socialist country with higher taxes. Sure, he could devote his life to increasing taxes in the USA - but he could also just move to Denmark. Or maybe another American doesn't like having his religion insulted. Sure, he could devote his life to repealing the first amendment - but he could also just move to any of the many countries that have strict laws against insulting religion.

      that's a win/win for everyone.

      If a small number of talented individuals could "fix" any country in the world in just a few years, then yes, it might be a win-win for everyone - including the people who were forced to stay and fix the country. But what you're not understanding is that in countries where most of the population is trapped in poverty there is also a small hereditary ruling class living lives of extreme wealth and luxury by exploiting everyone else. And for complex reasons, including support from other powerful governments, this ruling class is very hard to remove from power. So "fixing" these countries isn't as easy as having a few talented young software developers take up teaching jobs in remote villages.

    11. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger, we will be able to AFFORD to buy the toys that our very companies are making

      PROTIP: Jacking up the price of beef makes eating roadkill any more appetizing

      Tightening the labor market doesn't make you lot any more qualified, it means more branch development offices get opened overseas. Hell, the hiring bar is already dangerously low and software keeps getting more shitty because of shitty programmers.

    12. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      While it is true that collectively the lower classes must have money in order for the upper classes to make money off them, that money doesn't get there by flowing *down* from the upper classes. It gets there by flowing *up* from the lowest class (the working class). Wealth creation has always been the purview of the lowest class of society, after all, and today is no different.

      Incidentally, why do you think that you are entitled to a specific salary if other workers are ready, willing, and able to do the same job for less pay? You want the freedom to buy competing products for a lower price, or to buy the same product at a price point that is appropriate for a foreign economy (think cheap DVDs encoded for some region other than 1, but still with the English soundtrack). Why in the world *shouldn't* an employer shop around for cheap talent?

    13. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Correction

      PROTIP: Jacking up the price of beef doesn't make eating roadkill any more appetizing.

      Shouldn't post when I'm drunk.

    14. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Greed is the foundation of capitalism. Mandating the employment of higher-priced, less competitive workers does nothing but reduce the global competitiveness of these organizations. The difference in wages doesn't come from corporate profits.. it comes in the form of higher prices to customers which makes the company itself less competitive. That being said, there are hidden costs to hiring cheaper foreign workers.. sophistication (in some cases), communication, creativity, etc. just like there are hidden costs to manufacturing in low cost countries (risk of bribery, quality, logistics costs, IP protection, etc.).

      Forward looking and progressive companies can identify and leverage the value of hiring American (or any higher priced) workers and understand why some of them are worth the premium. With a *commoditized* skillset, though, if one worker can do the same for less than another worker, the lower priced worker will usually get the job. In my opinion, companies need to have the foresight and wisdom to see that salary is only one of many factors when hiring talent, but it's also the individual expecting more's responsibility to prove why they're worth more.

      Railing about the influx of immigrants who can do another person's job for less is firing indignance at a symptom.. the root cause is what needs to be addressed.

    15. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      whoosh

    16. Re:And it's not even an election year by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Does this mean I have to go and find the data I looked at a couple of years ago and then decide which one is wrong?

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    17. Re:And it's not even an election year by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      Really? you might want to tell Henry Ford about that. In fact their is an entire economic theory named after him because he did just that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    18. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, I thought we *were* investing in the education of Americans. There is a lot of political force being brought to bear on this front; increasing computer science literacy with a direct focus on the underrepresented groups. Every time a story about that pops up on slashdot, people flame the effort as being misguided; something about programmers being born rather than made.

      Obviously "they" don't want to destroy their own country; they just want to get rich in it. The fact that this is done at your expense makes little difference to them. You can accuse the upper class of being shortsighted...but....realize that even if the economy tanks most of them still do quite well.

    19. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      American here, Missouri resident. Let me explain something about what an American is, we are all immigrants, even the original natives. We (or are ancestors) all came here for opportunity, be that freedom, economic or other.

      When you talk about 'us' you're talking about people who came here for the same basic reason as those you call 'them'.

      I say come one, come all. Give us your poor, your weak and your down trodden. It is from that same pool that we have made this nation strong and prosperous.

      Do you know why America is so great? It's because we are made up of all the people if the World. It is because the American culture is a many splendored thing. We are a great nation for the simple fact that we are made up of such a diverse people. We are not great because we're Americans. We are great because we are English, French, Korean, Indian, Romainian, Botswanan, Japanese and so much more that I can't begin to list them all.

      For the record, we are not a Democracy ruled by the majority we are a Republic ruled by laws that make all if equal, no matter their lineage. That equality even extends to people who are not citizens, because some day they may well be.

      If you want to help make this nation better I suggest you keep these ideals in mind. They've served us well in the past and they'll serve us well in the future, provided we honor them.

    20. Re:And it's not even an election year by knightghost · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope.

      3/4 of STEM workers flee the field due to substandard pay and working conditions compared to other jobs they can get.

      Petroleum engineers were scarce at one time, but a 20% pay raise brought a 200% productivity rate from local talent. Problem solved and everyone wins.

    21. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But to argue against immigration?

      You are arguing against one of the founding pillers of this country. We have a massive statue in honor of it.

      A statue that was the envisioned by, designed by, lobbied for and built by a foreigner who chose to stay in his own country after putting up that huge beacon in our country. Apparently the French have been tired of immigrants coming to France for a long time.

      For your next trick are you going to throw around unattributed quotes from Bibi's speech to Congress and imply that his words represent Congressional consensus on foreign policy?

    22. Re: And it's not even an election year by Swave+An+deBwoner · · Score: 5, Informative

      Your choice of how the United States saved Jews from the Nazi holocaust by allowing them to immigrate is a poor example:

      http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007652

      Beginning in 1940, the United States further restricted immigration by ordering US consuls to delay visa approvals on national security grounds. After the United States entered the World War II in December 1941, the trickle of immigration virtually dried up, just as the Nazi regime began systematically to murder the Jews of Europe. Despite many obstacles, however, more than 200,000 Jews found refuge in the United States from 1933 to 1945, most of them before the end of 1941.

      But, yes, we have a massive statue. The words on it may have to be updated though: "Give us your tired, your poor, your low-wage workers."

    23. Re:And it's not even an election year by ranton · · Score: 1

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      Really? you might want to tell Henry Ford about that. In fact their is an entire economic theory named after him because he did just that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. The idea that Ford paid his workers more so they could buy cars is so ridiculous it is hard to believe the myth has spread so widely. Well not so hard to believe since so many people want to find references that "prove" the opinion they already had. I guess by this logic Boeing should raise their workers' wages high enough that each of them could buy a new jetliner. What is Boeing thinking by leaving those potential orders unfulfilled?

      This article debunks this silly myth more thoroughly than I could in a Slashdot post.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    24. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not Japan or China?

    25. Re:And it's not even an election year by FooAtWFU · · Score: 0

      Oh, look -- another post full of the economic-policy voodoo "logic" that suggests we can prosper better as a nation by isolating ourselves from trade, contrary not only to theory but to every single example in recorded history. You'd think that this would be frowned upon as much as climate-change denial these days, but apparently not.

      As long as we have millions more people in the US who consume computer-powered services than earn their living producing them, the population as a whole will prosper better by having those services done at a lower cost. The same goes for importing manufactured goods at reduced prices. Sure, owners of the corporation (including many rich assholes, not just individuals or retirement funds) will earn more money for themselves, but it's a fraction of the total economic benefit, most of which goes straight back into consumers' pockets in anything resembling a competitive marketplace.

      But since the benefits of are spread among millions and the costs are concentrated, it's a textbook case where it's profitable to go rent-seeking and mandate that people are forced to consume American programmers' programming, or American laborers' manufacturing. This is an insidious form of wealth transfer that is very regressive in nature (it hits the poor a lot harder than it hits the CEOs).

      Finally: of all people, computer programmers in this country are hardly the tragically underpaid class which can't AFFORD to buy toys.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    26. Re:And it's not even an election year by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      No Japanese or Chinese company were trying to get me at the time. There's also a language barrier that would have made it a harder transition.

      I really like Japan and if the opportunity came up to move there, I'd probably take it.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    27. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      after you unwrap yourself from the flag, I'll tell you the real story.

      the real story is: what applied back in the turn of the century does not apply any longer. lots of reasons, we can list them but I'm sure you agree that what made sense (letting tons of people in) does not, any more.

      WHY are we obligated to solve the world's problems and give everyone in the world the same rights as people who have a lot invested and who plan to live here long-term.

      see, that's one thing your little jingoistic story leaves out. the ellis island folks, by and large, did not plan to move here for a short stay, make a lot of money and return home. they were INVESTED here, they eventually learned the language and merged in. that was then.

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation. we don't give these folks citizenship. look, if they are valuable, give them citizenship and let them be like the rest of us! let them live with the long-term results of what we all are going to face. if you come to shit in my country, take what's good and then leave, do you think people will want to like you?

      we don't give citizenship, really; we give h1b. 'temp work permits'. in that, its nothing like ellis island days. nothing AT ALL.

      stop playing star spangled banner and smell the real coffee. what worked 100 years ago is not applicable now. the workforce is too crowded, the unemployment is sky high and we are borderline on depression, again and again. is that a time you think of as a 'work surplus' era? I sure don't! if you have no surplus, you have no right giving out jobs to people who are not as invested as those who were born and raised here.

      and yes, I do think that being born in a country and raised there DOES give you more rights over those who just moved in. try moving to germany or france or austria or switzerland or probably most other european countries and trying to be 'a citizen'. in some places, if you were not born there, you'll NEVER be one of them. jobs won't go to you first, etc etc. why do we have to import the word's labor force - especially when our own people are being routinely refused a living wage in the field they are WELL qualified to work in.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    28. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You picked Ford of all people? Really? He is basis for and case study of exactly what NOT to do. Try Edward Deming.

    29. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what will happen to all those who came or want to come to the US? well, this will force their own countries to deal with their own problems instead of the 'I cant fix my own country, so I'll just go to the US, instead' mentality. if mobility was a bit more limited, people in their own countries would have to deal with and fix their own problems. that's a win/win for everyone.

      Remember that US was founder by Puritans who thought that Cromwell is not strict enough. If they stayed in the England instead ... life would be much easier. If Normans and Saxons would stay of of Isles Life would be much better too ....

      Are you really sure, that in your family there is no trace of "it is too hard to live here , let's go to America"? Who are you? 100% immigrant from Siberia (aka Native American)?

      What, if in retaliation for "a bit more limited mobility" other countries limited mobility of US made goods and services? You know we can survive without Hollywood and MTV and "all American" Apple iPie. What would US do without export of goods , services and "intellectual property"? Probably exported an Army or two to fix injustice.

      I am exchanging my services for US made goods. (sometime with problems like region coding, export licenses or restrictions ...) Where is a problem?
      If other countries start demanding local production quota instead of import form the US would it be good or not so good for US market?

    30. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That wasn't the point at all. If we closed off immigration, we would have never had the likes of Einstein or many other geniuses. Germany was just as close to the nuclear bomb as we were. Anyway, the point is that this country is founded on immigration, not protectionism. We can argue about how H1B system is messed up, but lets not have discussions about closed trade or locked boarders. Its been settled decades ago.

    31. Re:And it's not even an election year by kamapuaa · · Score: 1, Funny

      Because we want to brain drain other countries? The smartest people come to the US, they stay here, they're better educated and make the entire country better. Maybe they go on vacations back to their home country, maybe they send their parents some cash, but it's a huge win when the smartest people from all over the world move to the US. All this nativist bullshit on Slashdot drives me crazy.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    32. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The nuclear bomb was first tested successfully in 1945. WW2 started in 1939, 76 years ago.

    33. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      When 80% of employees at all tech corporations in and around NYC are brown, something is not right. This is no longer "people of the world" that we are talking about. This is our coporations dumping slave labour on the market. I know that it is slave labour because announcement at Bloomberg said "only top performers will be getting green cards". Neat, huh? Making them work nights and weekends at half normal pay for *a chance* of getting a green card.

    34. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Uh, I thought we *were* investing in the education of Americans."

      Not since the 1990's at best. Back in the 80's a public university got 80% of its funding from the state. Today a public university is lucky to get 20%. The result: a generation of students owing $1 trillion in student loans. When I went to school (in the 90's) few students had debt, and those that did didn't have much. As of 2012 the average is $29,400...and it's increasing.

    35. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger, we will be able to AFFORD to buy the toys that our very companies are making (toys being used in the very general sense).

      what will happen to all those who came or want to come to the US? well, this will force their own countries to deal with their own problems instead of the 'I cant fix my own country, so I'll just go to the US, instead' mentality. if mobility was a bit more limited, people in their own countries would have to deal with and fix their own problems. that's a win/win for everyone.

      by allowing cheap labor to displace US workers, its lose/lose. nothing in india (and we all know, india is the #1 source of h1b tech workers) will get better if their 'top talent' all moves here for jobs; and the US struggles to keep its own people employed.

      we have let the ceo's ruin our economy for decades! their selfishness has stunted the entire US economy for all but the one percenters.

      then again, congress is all about the one percenters and so, expecting a fix from those who can't even SEE the problem is a bit overly optimistic.

      The writing on the wall was there since the early 2000's that the outsourcing trend would eat itself, other crises distracted from it, The housing crisis, the bank and automotive industry bailouts.. but I said it back in 2000, not to worry that, if you run the most likely consequences of outsourcing of American IT jobs to it's logical conclusion the trend will eat itself. (As in become non-economically feasible) Why you ask? Because the Hib workers will demand the same standard of living as we do, and eventually will end up costing more than just hiring Americans.

    36. Re:And it's not even an election year by Rakarra · · Score: 2

      look -- another post full of the economic-policy voodoo "logic" that suggests we can prosper better as a nation by isolating ourselves from trade, contrary not only to theory but to every single example in recorded history

      Few countries have ever prospered by restricting "trade," but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about immigration to displace US workers, and I can't think of a country that doesn't have some measures to limit that.

      As long as we have millions more people in the US who consume computer-powered services than earn their living producing them, the population as a whole will prosper better by having those services done at a lower cost

      Great theory! Unfortunately the reality we've seen is that jobs are lost for domestic workers, and then not replaced by other jobs. I would say this is a version of the trickle-down theory, because all it does is drive wages down, increasing corporate profits at the expense of workers. We're still waiting for the great wave of prosperity that this practice is supposed to bring.

    37. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But H1Bs basically aren't allowed to stay and get treated like shit while they are here.

      Can't move jobs; because if they are ever unemployed even for a moment they are breaching visa requirements and immediately deported; or jailed, and then deported.

      So we kick them back out again, and start the cycle again. (Saying goodbye to their spending power and wages we just paid them, since they take it back to India [or wherever])

    38. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But then there's Canada. Seems to be working well for them. The difference between them and us is their immigration system favors skilled permanent residents whereas ours favors slaves and illegals.

    39. Re:And it's not even an election year by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Are they TRYING to destroy the country!?

      Why yes they are, at least a few of the people in the US. You only need to look at the tip top of wealth holders and read their biographies to find the answer to that question. I know, it's hard to take them at their word but read what David D. Rockafeller says:

      Some even believe we [Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - One World, if you will.If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it

      Read Carol Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope", it has more of the answers.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    40. Re: And it's not even an election year by MarkGately · · Score: 2

      Missouri residenthere...to the other Missouri resident.. stfu..you pushing your ignorance of current issues instead of learning the facts is a detriment to all of us with some damn sense.. your a disgrace to all of us in the Show Me State! The H1-B visa program is a scam to line thr pockets of oligarchs while displacing American workers and depressing employment and wages. You sound as a big business republican shill. My great great grandfather Chauncey Shultz of St.Louis would slap the piss out of you for your ignorance.

    41. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Humans prosper most when they cooperate best. But how do we get them to cooperate? There are only two ways: you can allow people to act in their own best interest, or you can force people to act in the best interest of others.

      In general, when you allow people to act in their own best interest, they specialize and trade. THIS is the foundation of capitalism (the details about private ownership of business being of a technical but irrelevant nature).

      In general, when you force people to act in the best interest of others, you have an exploited class that suffers until it rebels. This is the foundation of communism (the details about shared ownership of everything being of a technical but irrelevant nature).

      In both systems, greedy people rise to power and exploit the rest. But in capitalism the actualization of that greed still requires the voluntary participation of everyone else, whereas under communism the greedy can simply force their slaves to obey.

      You think you have a better option, and that you can actually get enough humans to buy into it that it will work? I highly doubt it.

    42. Re:And it's not even an election year by ckatko · · Score: 4, Funny

      Because you can't use fear-mongering to get your two parties consistently re-elected if your voters are fucking smart.

      For example, does anybody really think conservatives want to ban abortion? Why get rid of your best ticket to office when you can make some lame-ass attempt to ban it, have it struck down, and then blame the "liberal agenda" and "liberal courts" further reinforcing their voter base.

      And don't you dare think liberals are any better.

      It's pretty damn coincidental, don't you think, that a Clinton or Bush has been in the White House every year going all the way back to 1971. Bush senior was president, vice president, ambassador to the UN, and Director of the fucking CIA--arguably the worlds most powerful organization ever. They've outright admitted to overthrowing other governments and we're stupid enough to think they wouldn't try their tactics in the USA?

      How did Obama's platform of government transparency work out? Does anything really believe he intended to be transparent and then just magically changed his mind 180 degrees, and then went on to increase all of the Bush Era spying? He either lied outright, or was magically forced to change his opinion. Either way, it's a complete fuck up.

    43. Re:And it's not even an election year by s.petry · · Score: 2

      Not a valid generalization any longer. The US Government is broken and opportunity does not exist any longer, it only supports the top .1%, and people see it. In fact I know quite a few natural born citizens who have fled the US for that reason. Well, that and the fact that our continued deficit economy and massive debt will have a massive crash.

      Intelligent people from other countries see the problems better than US people do. Always easier to see and critique other people. Why would they want to trade problems in a foreign land, identical to what they have back home? They don't, but if the exchange rate is good they are happy to pull out some of ours and exchange it to theirs.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    44. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm from Canada and it ain't working here either! The company I work for just recently started importing cheap software developers from India using Cognizant, meanwhile my own brother who earned his degree in CS from a top university (while plunging himself neck deep in OSAP debt) is having a hard time finding a job! Its not working anywhere, how can it when you are giving jobs meant for citizens away to foreigners?

    45. Re:And it's not even an election year by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      Really? you might want to tell Henry Ford about that. In fact their is an entire economic theory named after him because he did just that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. The idea that Ford paid his workers more so they could buy cars is so ridiculous it is hard to believe the myth has spread so widely. Well not so hard to believe since so many people want to find references that "prove" the opinion they already had. I guess by this logic Boeing should raise their workers' wages high enough that each of them could buy a new jetliner. What is Boeing thinking by leaving those potential orders unfulfilled?

      This article debunks this silly myth more thoroughly than I could in a Slashdot post.

      That is a false dichotomy and you know it. Firstly jetliner’s aren't a consumer item cars are. Secondly his auto workers were not the sole consumers of the Model T but it was set at a price point his workers could afford.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    46. Re:And it's not even an election year by hawguy · · Score: 2

      But H1Bs basically aren't allowed to stay and get treated like shit while they are here.

      Can't move jobs; because if they are ever unemployed even for a moment they are breaching visa requirements and immediately deported; or jailed, and then deported.

      So we kick them back out again, and start the cycle again. (Saying goodbye to their spending power and wages we just paid them, since they take it back to India [or wherever])

      Even if the employer files for H1-B revocation, it can take months to process that paperwork, so generally if an H1-B holder loses their job they have a bit of time to search for employment - they'll usually be able to transfer their visa to a new employer if they find a new job within 30 days. My company just hired an H1-B applicant that was in this situation -- his employer shut down suddenly, he was jobless for about 2 weeks before we hired him and filed for the transfer.

      No INS agent is going to bang on your door and take you away the day you lose your job.

      While some H1-B's may scrimp and save up money to send home (or take back home with them at the end of their employment), most H1-B's I know spend most of their money just like everyone else - on housing, food, transportation, entertainment, etc. Likewise, if they are only in the country for a few years, they will have paid social security and medicare taxes that they will not get any benefit from (though they may get relief from some or all of their social security tax obligation if they are from a country with a totalization agreement with the USA -- mostly European and (some) Asian countries, notable exceptions are India and China)

    47. Re:And it's not even an election year by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      Which misses the point entirely. And if you were not allowed to come work in America, New Delhi, or whatever, would become the tech center of the world; Or at least shared that distinction to a greater degree. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. America sucking the top 1% of talent from India does it nothing but harm. These are the people who would otherwise have enticed companies into India or created their own tech companies.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    48. Re: And it's not even an election year by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Which misses the point entirely. Our ancestors were the huddled ramble looking for a better life. Immigration practices now, and H1B1 in particular, are about refusing the huddled ramble looking for a better life and letting in the rich, powerful, and highly skilled. The only sort of people who could make a difference in their home country.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    49. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. I see no compelling reason to give jobs to people that aren't even trying for citizenship. I wonder if part of the reason that H1Bs can work so cheaply is they don't have anything invested in this country and once they are in, they are more or less tied to a company, so they don't have any choice. (The money they earn may go further back in their home countries.) How is it right that the average American programmer has to compete with that? At least if they were well on their way to becoming citizens, including renoucing their original citizenship, they would be on the same playing field as everyone else.

    50. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Are they TRYING to destroy the country!?

      Yes. They are. They are doing the economic equivalent of selling-short. When the US crashes, they will profit. Better for the US (and the world) would be to open the borders, and effectively declare that anyone in the world can be a US citizen, if they so wish. That's how it was when the country was founded.

      Anyone here on 4, July 1776 was a citizen, by default. Amnesty for all. But now, the "conservatives" hate everything the founding fathers did.

    51. Re: And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      Why does it not work? Even the Irish and Chinese railroad workers were made citizens. We brought in temp workers, and kept them. Africa first, others later. All were made citizens (and yes, slaves were citizens, just not free ones). We've always had a love-hate relationship with workers, but, until recently, were happy to make them citizens.

    52. Re:And it's not even an election year by bobstreo · · Score: 1

      They could be serious.

      I'm thinking they are very serious. Their "re-election" coffers are running low, and they need financial inducement from bribes, umm I mean "contributions" to increase H-1B numbers.

      Otherwise, they threaten to decrease those numbers, causing corporations to actually pay people, instead of selling out their
      jobs to the lowest bidder.

    53. Re:And it's not even an election year by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 2

      Uhuh, sure ... the really assertive and organized people will make it work.

      The rest can be abused, at the very least the first year. You can not honestly tell me that whole layered client/vendor/consultant shit which grew up around H1Bs is not an evil clusterfuck.

    54. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using elitist words such as "dichotomy" won't make you smarter. Just apply logic:
      1. You are in the tomato business.
      2. You believe you can make good business by paying the guy who picks them enough to buy them from you.
      3. So you pay him 2000$ and he buys 2000$ of tomatoes from you.
      4. Profit?!!!?

    55. Re:And it's not even an election year by ranton · · Score: 1

      That is a false dichotomy and you know it. Firstly jetliner’s aren't a consumer item cars are. Secondly his auto workers were not the sole consumers of the Model T but it was set at a price point his workers could afford.

      Not exactly sure why its a false dichotomy. Perhaps its a strawman. It was merely used to both show how silly the Ford myth is and inject some humor. A more apt comparison would be to an Avon lady who buys her own products to make more money. Unless your products have 100% profit, you will always lose money by giving someone money to buy your product. And even then you will only break even. It doesn't really take an analogy to realize how ridiculous the myth is, but sadly many people still believe it.

      The fact that the Model T was at a price point his workers could afford was merely a coincidence. His wages were set at a rate which reduced attrition, and his car prices were set at a rate that his target audience could afford. They were not linked in any way.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    56. Re:And it's not even an election year by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      3/4 of STEM workers flee the field due to substandard pay and working conditions compared to other jobs they can get.

      So what other fields are they going into (meaning experienced STEM workers, not college kids who still have time to change majors)?

    57. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They could be serious.

      I'm thinking they are very serious. Their "re-election" coffers are running low, and they need financial inducement from bribes, umm I mean "contributions" to increase H-1B numbers.

      Otherwise, they threaten to decrease those numbers, causing corporations to actually pay people, instead of selling out their
      jobs to the lowest bidder.

      Bingo. Expect a flood of corporate lobbyist bribe... er, "campaign contribution" money to flow into the coffers of these 10 senators, after which the "investigation" will drift into non-existence in the memory of the news media and the people in general.

    58. Re:And it's not even an election year by ph1ll · · Score: 2

      "Anyone here on 4, July 1776 was a citizen, by default."

      Really? The slaves became citizens?

      (America was and always has been based on exploiting cheap labor. I'm not a commie, I just think there is a balance and America doesn't have it.)

      --
      --- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
    59. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? 75% of STEM workers are quitting? That seems like a ridiculous number. What do you consider substandard pay? What other hot fields are there where you can earn six figures coming from a STEM background?

    60. Re:And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Absolutely!

      It's amazing that the same people who (actually, no - who's GRANDPARENTS or beyond) built themselves up as immigrants working hard are now claiming that we are letting "foreigners" come in and "take our jorbs!"

      "Brain drain" aka immigration of the brightest and most motivated around the world is what always has and will drive American innovation. The myth of "American Exceptionalism" is that it is somehow based on being BORN on the North American Continent. That's absurd. It's based on people wanting to COME to the North American Continent because at some point in history we actually welcomed smart, motivated people who wanted to work hard to achieve their own dreams.

    61. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He said "anyone", which, at the time, probably didn't include slaves. I mean, they were clearly not entirely people by the standards at the time, given that they had OWNERS imposed upon them by force. Dred Scott proved that they were not citizens, but that was rather late in the slavery game.

    62. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 0

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation. we don't give these folks citizenship. look, if they are valuable, give them citizenship and let them be like the rest of us! let them live with the long-term results of what we all are going to face. if you come to shit in my country, take what's good and then leave, do you think people will want to like you?

      Why should anyone take your word that this is the "norm"? Because it's absolutely NOT.

      I work in tech with many foreign born coworkers and the only ones who have not tried as hard as humanly possible to get their green card and citizenship are the Europeans (because yes, being middle class German, British, French, etc will pretty much guarantee you comfortable retirement and health care). Not a single one of my Indian or Chinese coworkers have any interest in going back to their home country after making American tech salaries. They are the same as anyone else here, wanting to buy a house, raise a family, etc.

      The only difference between 100 years ago and today is that many immigrants can actually MAKE enough money to send some back to their families. In fact that's often the case because (legal) immigration is now so picky we only accept those who can make upper middle class salaries... So, wow, is that so horrible to your sensibilities that not all modern immigrants are minimum wage workers who can barely support themselves?

      If you seriously think the current American workforce can fill the positions that many of the H1-B Visas are taking, you have not been involved in any significant tech hiring in the last few years. My company is only moderately competitive and we have been almost totally unable to find competent engineers to hire in the last year...

    63. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      If you were alive when your great great grandfather Herr Shultz tried to come over you'd have kicked his ass out and you wouldn't have even been born.

      The H1-B Visa program only allows 65,000 per year (which is insanely low considering there are over 500,000 open tech jobs that currently can't be filled with competent domestic workers). I can guarantee you the company I work for would pay the same for an American worker as a foreign H1-B worker, if we could actually fine ANY worker that we found competent to do the job...

    64. Re:And it's not even an election year by eclectro · · Score: 2

      Why are we not investing in the education of Americans so they can be the 'replacement workers'?

      Part of the perfect lie that is STEM is that only a few people need training to perform manufacturing tasks. And for those few that do need some additional skills on the job training works great. Apprenticeships are alive and well in China. It does not take much looking under the rug to see the dirt, and it's everywhere. When Apple was making the first version of their iphone over in China at Foxcon they were hiring workers on a daily basis straight off from the rural farms. They were not turning anyone away.

      How much training did those workers have?? Apple seemed to make do with them.

      But I do not remember any widespread training in the US for those same jobs. Instead everybody was jacking their stock price higher than ever while Apple et al said that they did not have enough trained workers. Everybody wants to look the other way because they want to think that it is a shiny miracle - not the disparagement of the tech workforce that it really turned out to be at every corner.

      The workers that they did have stateside they found a way to collude with other tech giants in order to control salaries. Other degreed and experienced engineers like Eric Saragoza they merely sloughed off. Nobody was going to hire him at his age when there was a giant surplus of workers looking for work even before the great recession. Merely because of how companies like Apple were able to export tech work to both India and China and eveywhere in between.

      I really do not know how any stateside tech worker can buy an Apple product especially under Tim Cook, because they are actually helping to fund the demise of there own career.

      So H1Bs are really just one piece of the larger puzzle used to help control the prices they are willing to pay for skilled labor in the US. When they say youngsters need to study STEM, what there really are saying is;

      "we want to keep wages completely stagnant and you can help us do that by paying for your own training so we can get rid of older workers. But if you do not show up that works for us too, because we'll just get cheap H1Bs as they're easy to train and won't ask for raises. If they do, we'll just have some under the table agreements and they'll have no place to go. They can train their own replacement if they become too much of a hassle. Oh, math and physics majors, don't bother applying because you're not in our salary range either. We'll just say you're stupid and can't handle tech."

      I could go on, but that's the gist of it. The really smart Electrical Engineers went to wall street and became successful quants. So at least one industry culture needed and saw the value in skills that could be transferred.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    65. Re: And it's not even an election year by kheldan · · Score: 1

      You're talking about immigrants that come to STAY and become citizens, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the subject matter here, which is foreign workers coming for limited stays just to work, displacing American citizens, and to add insult to injury, many of them are going to send much of the money they make here back to their home countries, which hurts the U.S. economy as a whole. Maybe you should get your head out of your Tea Party ass and understand what we're talking about before you post your stupid little stories that have nothing to do with anything.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    66. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheCreeep · · Score: 1

      I call BS. The unemployment is nowhere near "sky high".
      Get your facts straight


      http://data.bls.gov/timeseries...
      http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

    67. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes the slaves were citizens, they just did not have nearly as many rights. We do something far less dramatic to today's convicted felons. Still citizens, but with far fewer rights.

    68. Re:And it's not even an election year by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Because we MUST HAVE PROFITS NOW. FOR THIS QUARTER. Otherwise, we'll all be fired and replaced with people who will only focus on what happens today and tomorrow, and fuck next week.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    69. Re:And it's not even an election year by onmyouza · · Score: 1

      3/4 of STEM workers flee the field due to substandard pay and working conditions compared to other jobs they can get.

      I'm surprised the number is that high. Care to share the source?

    70. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm on the other side of the fence.

      Got my arm twisted to come to the Bay Area. Nice weather to be sure. I got some special qualifications, which got me here, and as I later found out much cheaper that a local would have been.

      Needless to say, I'm on the verge of flipping the finger and head back home. Well that experience will pay off, I suppose. When I apply at the competitors'.

    71. Re: And it's not even an election year by Coisiche · · Score: 1

      For the record, we are not a Democracy...

      Amen. And for the record, nor is the UK where I live.

      ...we are a Republic...

      No, I'd say that both USA and UK have become Oligarchies in the last 30 years.

      ...ruled by laws that make all if equal

      Are you going for a +5 Funny mod, because I laughed.

    72. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 2

      That's because of greed on the part of universities.

    73. Re: And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 3

      "you have not been involved in any significant tech hiring in the last few years"

      That's because good tech talent is a rare commodity and the only way to find out if you've found it is to hire people and test them. It isn't like you burn through the entire talent pool looking. There are plenty here in the US without going overseas, overseas you don't find more talented people, it's the same grind, you hire and try them out.

      And if you are looking for perfect drop in replacements who don't need a year or so to settle in and learn the in's and out's of your particular environment move along. You are a serious part of the problem.

      The biggest secret to having good people isn't hiring H1B's it's working to retain the people you have.

    74. Re: And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh the BS stat that stops counting when unemployment funds run out. Come out when your "facts" actually include everyone who is unemployed and not just those in the short period of time you can collect unemployment.

    75. Re: And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But would they pay competitive US market rates?

    76. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      What about the equally smart people who are already here and would like to get off food stamps?

    77. Re: And it's not even an election year by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2

      I can guarantee you the company I work for would pay the same for an American worker as a foreign H1-B worker, if we could actually fine ANY worker that we found competent to do the job...

      The part you're leaving out is, "at the same pay we can get away with on an H1-B"

      If you're claiming you can't find a worker who can do a job, that is just nonsense. You can ALWAYS find someone... you just might have to pay more than you'd like...

      Right now, I live in Texas. If I had the skills you need, offering me $200K isn't going to get me to move. Depending on the part of the country, you'd have to pay me closer to $750K (SF Bay area or LA area), elsewhere, probably $400K would get me interested.

      Oh, that's right, you don't want to pay that. Well then just say so, since you can easily find people if you ramp the pay up enough.

    78. Re:And it's not even an election year by andy1307 · · Score: 1

      the toys that our very companies are making

      Toys that were made overseas. Toys that used to be made by Americans.

    79. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger, we will be able to AFFORD to buy the toys that our very companies are making (toys being used in the very general sense)."

      Why would they possibly want to do that? Right now their target has even swung against federal employees and postal workers. Go read the horrors over at govexec , pissing on the g fund in the TSP as well as a general longer-term consensus of phasing out TSP as a whole, all together.
      I ain't even mentioning the postal.

      For some reason elected officials have no fear. They're untouchable by most. And it's true, what are you going to threaten to not vote for them? Ha, there's a million frickin commie socialist democrat sheep to take your constitutional republic patriot place.

      The problem this country has is one of TREASON. until the people regain control of government, none of the problems across the spectrum will be fixed.

    80. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 2

      "Either the foreigners come to the jobs or the jobs go to the foreigners. If Google can't bring the talent they want to the USA then it's very easy for them to open offices overseas. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the current H1-B program but it's ridiculously naive to imagine that there are a fixed number of jobs in the USA and all that matters is how many are stolen by foreigners."

      That is also naive. The US is still the largest economy in the world, the companies are here because the money is here. Google, etc could already open offices overseas and not have to deal with any "tech shortage" or H1-B hassles. But google's profits come from the US and Google needs US infrastructure. If Indian or Chinese infrastructure were up to the task they'd still be screwed because of the latency induced by literally sending data back and forth to the other side of the world.

      If you were an American still in Tech you wouldn't be saying this. Walking up and down the halls you find nothing but foreign workers.

    81. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus. 750k? I live in NYC and very few programmers make that kind of cash.

      200k is more typical.

    82. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Unless your products have 100% profit, you will always lose money by giving someone money to buy your product."

      If that were true you wouldn't see the vending machines that fill break rooms that used to have free refreshments for workers.

      "his car prices were set at a rate that his target audience could afford. They were not linked in any way."

      Ford's target market was the typical american worker, it was no coincidence. You have to pay your workers regardless, if you can get them to turn around and spend that pay back into your pockets suddenly your labor costs just went down by your profit margin. See Walmart. Walmart's pricing is also targeted at what it's staff can afford.

    83. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Finally: of all people, computer programmers in this country are hardly the tragically underpaid class which can't AFFORD to buy toys."

      Unemployed computer programmers are.

    84. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty well experienced in US tech. after college, I stayed in boston for 10 years working at a well known new england computer company. I later moved to the bay area and have been here 25+ years. all working for tech (software eng). I know this field, I have worked at quite a few top-name companies and so have real experience in matters that we're discussing.

      when I moved here 25 or so years ago, seeing the mix of imported labor vs US born was more reasonable. still not representative, but not outrageous. maybe half of my group were from asia/india and the rest US born. over the years, its gotton to be about 90% asia/india, for any given group other than upper management. in engineering, you can now walk the hallways of many bay area companies and if its an engineering building, english will be the exception, not the rule. I am not lying, those who live here can verify this if they are brave enough to speak up about it.

      now, it would be fair if you found about 10% or so of each group being imported labor. I can agree that there may be some jobs that are so specialized that no one locally can do. but when it gets to 50%, 70%, 90% of the typical group (sw, hw, sysadmin, devops, etc) - then I really question that *everyone* there is special and could not be done by a willing and able local person. most companies are run on the meat and potatoes person - competant, able, but no genius. for that, you should be able to find local employees. but when you see that 90% of a software or hardware group is h1b, you really know that its all a scam and a lie that 'no one local could be found' for all those regular old jobs.

      hey, I started out wanting the glory jobs. I think I'm pretty good, I've been around, I've done lots of things. I was not getting the jobs that I applied for. so I lowered the threshold and applied for the so-called meat and potato jobs. the ones that even average people can do (and who is often hired). nope, shut out of those, too. all staffed with indian and chinese folks. I was willing to do nearly any software work that paid a living wage, and could not find it. I've personally been looking for a few months, now, and its this way for many of us.

      again, if the 10% cream-of-the-cream jobs were only fillable with international talent, fine, cool, I'm ok with that. but that's not even close to what the actual reality is. its abused beyond abuse.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    85. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does Canada have an H1B like program? Regarding the investigation, I think its to late. Certainly in software development most companies that I know have mostly non-Americans, and in some cases their competition is cheaper developers located offshore. Americans are not going into IT because of the environment created over several years. The good news is Med School applications are up.

    86. Re: And it's not even an election year by Livius · · Score: 1

      we are all immigrants

      I don't understand how this falsehood keeps being perpetuated. People actually seem to be proud of being misinformed on this point.

      Colonists and immigrants are not the same thing. An immigrant voluntarily chooses to give up their identity and adapt to a new one.

    87. Re:And it's not even an election year by tburkhol · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uh, I thought we *were* investing in the education of Americans.

      Then you're not paying attention. Sure, all the politicians say they're committed to improving education, but they've been saying that for 200 years. It's the verbal equivalent of shaking hands.

      Meanwhile, when the dollars hit the budget, it turns out that tax cuts, health care, and defense/police/security are much higher priorities. 20 years ago, the cost of educating a student in a state university was largely born by the state. Today, it's largely born by the student. You can look up your own state's numbers: here in Georgia, over the past 10 years, we've gone from 60% state funding to 38%. The per-student cost has gone up 3%/year, just like inflation, but the student's share has gone up 10%/year. The loss of state funding has encouraged these schools to more aggressively recruit foreign students and their uncapped tuition.

      Curiously, because all of our politicians are wealthy, this makes the education they can provide for their own children just a little more valuable.

    88. Re: And it's not even an election year by Livius · · Score: 1

      It's more willing to be poor, but currently wealthy enough to afford passage across an ocean.

      "Poor" is relative.

    89. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The slaves became citizens?

      Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation? Notice how nobody ever made the slaves citizens? They just set them free. Why is that? Oh yes, they were citizens. If they weren't, when did they become citizens?

    90. Re:And it's not even an election year by geoskd · · Score: 1

      Really? The slaves became citizens?

      Yes, the paperwork just took a little longer...

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    91. Re: And it's not even an election year by tburkhol · · Score: 2

      You're talking about immigrants that come to STAY and become citizens, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the subject matter here, which is foreign workers coming for limited stays just to work, displacing American citizens

      Many of the H1-b's would stay if they could. Most of the foreign students come here hoping that a US education visa will be a stepping stone to a work visa, will be a stepping stone to a green card. Unfortunately, xenophobia and the pressure to preserve jobs for current citizens have put very restrictive limits on the availability of long-term visas and green cards. H1b was developed as a compromise - get some of the foreign talent, but protect US workers by forcing the foreigners to leave. Ironic, isn't it, that the plan to protect US workers is now being blamed for the loss of domestic jobs.

    92. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Way to be wrong on all counts.

    93. Re:And it's not even an election year by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 2

      The slaves became citizens?

      Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation? Notice how nobody ever made the slaves citizens? They just set them free. Why is that? Oh yes, they were citizens. If they weren't, when did they become citizens?

      Actually, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in territories still under rebellion. A slave held in Maryland, for example, was not freed by it. It covered about 3/4 of the slaves in the US, although since the areas it covered were still under control by the Confederates it had no enforcement until Union troops captured the territory. The 13th amendment made slavery and indentured servitude illegal except for those convicted of a crime.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    94. Re: And it's not even an election year by gbjbaanb · · Score: 3, Informative

      partly population concerns - while Amwerica is a big, wide, empty country you all want to live in very crowded little communities. Increasing immigration causes more pressure on those communities for things like housing and traffic.

      Then there's the economic issue, while the wild west had no social care benefits, today you have many. So every new immigrant either has no job and gets benefits, or has a job and pays his own way but helps to displace another worker who then ends up on benefits.

      In the UK we see this a lot, while immigration has increased dramatically, the number of jobs has increased relatively slowly, so we have 6 million immigrants but 2 million unemployed. Our health and education systems have not been funded accordingly though, and are showing signs of collapse. Hence, immigration is a good thing, but only to a point - not as an unlimited influx.

      Its probably entirely linked to the rate of immigration overall, in the old days when we had few immigrants being drip-fed into the system things were OK, now we have a flood people are getting concerned.

    95. Re: And it's not even an election year by nctritech · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh look, unemployment stats. Too bad they don't count the people that aren't on unemployment anymore but can't find work.

    96. Re: And it's not even an election year by pscottdv · · Score: 2

      The difference is not in the attitudes of the people that come here. The difference is in us. We used to let people stay and now we send them home after they get their education or their contract runs out. It's the dumbest possible move on our part. Once we have invested in educating or training someone productive we should encourage that person to stay, not send him or her home.

      --

      this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

    97. Re:And it's not even an election year by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

      There are more then enough qualified Americans to fill the jobs, it's not about lack of training it's about diluting the market and making the labor cheaper so that Bill Lumbergh's stock will go up a quarter of a point. When ever someone says that are not enough qualified Americans to do a job just remember to add at the current price point.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    98. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      So, when did the freed slaves become citizens? That was the question.

    99. Re:And it's not even an election year by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      That is also naive. The US is still the largest economy in the world, the companies are here because the money is here

      I think you'll find the money is not in the USA, otherwise those companies would have to pay tax on it, hence all the 'not here' companies with the same name.

      So, if they are happily opening offices overseas to save on tax anyway, why not employ workers in those companies and get them to collaborate with the parent company? With today's technology in comms and remote working, its not so much of a problem at all - in fact it can be a better condition to be in if your company places a lot of emphasis on having meetings, your offshore team would simply get on with their work while you wasted yours!

      You could also pay them less in their own country, so I really do wonder why these companies are so hell-bent on increasing immigration.

    100. Re: And it's not even an election year by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation

      It's called 'remittance', and it's a huge massive BFD that hardly anyone is talking about. Please take a look at this map and stats in the following link. THAT is where US dollars are flowing.

      http://www.pewsocialtrends.org...

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    101. Re: And it's not even an election year by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      the real story is: what applied back in the turn of the century does not apply any longer.

      Yet there are no good reasons that it could not apply again.

      they were INVESTED here, they eventually learned the language and merged in. that was then.

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation.

      Its much easier to invest in something when you have a fairly concrete promise. H1Bs (and various other forms of visa holders) can't really expect to become full citizens with any degree of certainty at anytime. We ought to fix that problem.

      stop playing star spangled banner and smell the real coffee. what worked 100 years ago is not applicable now. the workforce is too crowded, the unemployment is sky high and we are borderline on depression, again and again.

      This is just false. The unemployment rate is probably lower now than it was at the turn of dawn of the 20th century. The difference now is people feel entitled to stay where they are, back then you moved where the work was. The other thing is the economy is much more stable than it was then, even with the trauma of the 2007-10 years. I actually think THAT IS A PROBLEM, its the reason we have such a big wealth gap, its the reason we have "long term unemployment", its the reason we have problems like 'systemic risk' we don't let the big fail we don't stir the pot so folk shift in an out of the workforce; we prevent industry for adapting to the needs of the day.

      and yes, I do think that being born in a country and raised there DOES give you more rights over those who just moved in. try moving to germany or france or austria or switzerland or probably most other european countries and trying to be 'a citizen'.

      The failures of others is not a justification for not attempting to do/be better. It may offer proof the problem was hard and excuse failure but it isn't in and of it self a good reason not to try if the ends are noble.

      Honestly the best way to 'fix' the problem IMHO is do away with all the quota and specialty visa programs. Let anyone who wants to come do so. Tell them they have 24 months during which they must any felony convictions and pass a 4th grade level English exam (for anyone over the age of 10), and provide the government with current contact information at all times. If they do that they get a green card. Commit a felony automatic deportation NO reentry ever. No unaccompanied minors unless they can prove they have relatives willing to house them. Fail to pass the English exam they must go home and can try to immigrate again after one year. Failure to provide contact info or sit for the exam is felony illicit immigration.

      That way its nice an simple and open to every, which means anyone who does immigrate illegally is almost certain to be an undesirable or other sort of bad actor we should have little sympathy for; which means we CAN secure boarder (utilizing force as required) and work aggressively to discover and deport anyone who is not supposed to be here.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    102. Re:And it's not even an election year by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      Because they are trying to destroy your jobs, not their own.

      The day that the H1B programme also applies to MBAs and Managers is the day that corporations stop using H1Bs.

    103. Re: And it's not even an election year by ebh · · Score: 2

      That was the point. You'd have to offer me the same kind of money to relocate, because I really don't want to run the risk of uprooting my family, only to get laid off in six months in a place where I have no roots. I've seen it happen too many times.

      But this is a digression. The companies that complain they can't hire the talent they need are really saying that they can't afford to hire the talent they need. Hiring H-1Bs is a Band-Aid. The companies that complain that they can't even hire H-1Bs with the talent they need are forgetting that just as everywhere else, all the best Chinese and Indian workers are already taken.

      One of the root causes of all this is that companies have mile-long must-have skill lists, and they expect to "install" new workers the way they install new PCs. Plug them in, turn them on, and they work starting right now. It used to be said that any new worker would take six months to a year to become truly productive. That hasn't changed, but somehow the industry has gone into a state of denial about it. The end result is even stupider: They spend more time looking for someone who is plug-compatible with the job than they would have spent hiring someone with the right basic skills and training them.

    104. Re:And it's not even an election year by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      ...Are they TRYING to destroy the country!?

      Of course not. That's just a side benefit of their short term thinking.

      --
      ~X~
    105. Re:And it's not even an election year by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      So, when did the freed slaves become citizens? That was the question.

      Good question; although i was responding to the statement that the EP freed the slaves, which people commonly think applied to all slaves when it didn't. Slaves in territories not under rebellion were still slaves. To your question, I would argue slaves became citizens upon the founding of America, as did all other people resident then or by virtue of birth afterward. I would also argue those brought here as slaves post founding became citizens, since there was no law giving them any other status, as any other immigrant where the law did not prevent them form becoming citizens. They did not have full rights as citizens, however, until the passage of the 13th and other Amendments, as decisions such as Dred Scott established.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    106. Re: And it's not even an election year by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      From a sysadmin perspective, we spent 18 months trying to find a competent sysadmin. When I spoke to HR, mid level sysadmins in the Denver area thought they were worth $250,000 a year.

      If you're going to price yourself out of the market then don't be surprised when you're replaced by an H1B.

      Carl

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    107. Re: And it's not even an election year by BVis · · Score: 1

      The companies that complain they can't hire the talent they need are really saying that hiring the talent they need would eat into the profits.

      FTFY. Corporate profits are at all-time highs, companies are sitting on piles of cash that they COULD spend on salaries to ensure they attract top talent, but they'd rather spend it on lobbying for more H1-B visas.

      Again, as has been covered on /. extensively, there is no shortage of American STEM graduates. Employers would rather bring over H1-Bs from Thirdworldhellholistan that they can pay 50% as much and work 100% harder. When you're not a citizen, and can be sent back pretty much at any time, you do what you're told instead of asking to be treated like a human being. Employers love that. They identify an H1-B that they can bring over, tailor the skill set for the job requirement such that that specific H1-B holder is the only one on the planet that has it, and then cry about not being able to find a native worker with that set.

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
    108. Re:And it's not even an election year by BVis · · Score: 1

      If they're on food stamps, they're obviously immoral horrible evil people and should all just die. At least that's what one side of the aisle would like you to think.

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
    109. Re: And it's not even an election year by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      Jesus. 750k? I live in NYC and very few programmers make that kind of cash.

      200k is more typical.

      Well, that's just about the relative difference between what H1-Bs make at home versus what they can get paid to work at lower wages than displaced US workers, thanks to the much lower cost of living in a country where consumer protection is virtually non-existent, environmental protection is a joke, electricity can be hit-and-miss and a lot of the local recipes are based on the idea that you won't be putting anything in a refrigerator.

      And to tell the truth, it would take about $750 to get me to work in New York, too. I won't put it down, but it's not my kind of town. Or, for that matter, my kind of weather. If you want my skills available in NYC, and don't want to shell out major $$$, then it's going to be a telecommute position.

    110. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're all women who can't take the abuse.

    111. Re:And it's not even an election year by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      Which tech? I'm in Operations and I can't think of any "foreign" worker in the entire department (600 or so people) other than the CIO who's Indian _and_ female (I might have missed someone but I can't really come up with any).

      We do have about a third of the department which are women and half the managers are women.

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    112. Re:And it's not even an election year by BVis · · Score: 1

      When you allow them to act soley in their best interests, the world falls apart, because people are stupid selfish greedy short-sighted morons that would just as soon everyone else died so that they can get what they want. What people think is in their own self-interest is actually working against them, because they think that others must stop getting what is in THEIR self interest in order to get what they want. You get a race to the bottom where the only thing that happens is society is destroyed.

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
    113. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      come visit the bay area.

      Been to the Bay Area, I see every last mediocre brogrammer who barely knows what they're doing making six figures.

      Meanwhile, Slershdolts are here whining that H1Bs are taking err jerbs.

      ok, you have a point. you can hear mandarin, cantonese, hindi and at least 10 other indian dialects. and so, yes, there's a KIND of diversity in tech, these days, in so-called US companies...

      Yeah, I think you'll find most people aren't racist fucks.

      Look at this dude. He's going to completely lose his shit when he finds out tech companies are hiring women these days, too.

    114. Re: And it's not even an election year by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why does it not work? Even the Irish and Chinese railroad workers were made citizens. We brought in temp workers, and kept them. Africa first, others later. All were made citizens (and yes, slaves were citizens, just not free ones). We've always had a love-hate relationship with workers, but, until recently, were happy to make them citizens.

      That's the point, though. All the asians I know of who are citizens didn't become citizens via H1-B, they did it on our own.

      Yes, my state - and probably yours - is full of towns whose names and history reflect the fact that someone brought over people en-masse from some other town, village or country primarily to serve as cheap - and frequently semi-captive labor. That's not even touching the importation of slaves from Africa.

      And those people often brought financial hurt to established citizens because they were easier to control and to keep under low wages.

      But they were nevertheless brought in as permanent residents with citizenship rights - even the slaves, allowing for differences in who got what "citizenship rights".

      The H1-B program was specifically designed to bring in temporary immigrants, not people who'd eventually grow to become a permanent part of the tax-paying populace and even to demand competitive wages instead of exploitative ones.

    115. Re:And it's not even an election year by ranton · · Score: 1

      "Unless your products have 100% profit, you will always lose money by giving someone money to buy your product."

      If that were true you wouldn't see the vending machines that fill break rooms that used to have free refreshments for workers.

      The vending machines are there as a perk, similar to raising wages. They are not there to bolster Skittles sales. If you are saying Ford raised its wages for the same reason companies give health insurance and free coffee, then I agree with you. If you are saying they did it to create a market for its cars, that is where history, and simple common sense, don't back up your claims.

      "his car prices were set at a rate that his target audience could afford. They were not linked in any way."

      Ford's target market was the typical american worker, it was no coincidence. You have to pay your workers regardless, if you can get them to turn around and spend that pay back into your pockets suddenly your labor costs just went down by your profit margin. See Walmart. Walmart's pricing is also targeted at what it's staff can afford.

      Almost any luxury brand will have most of its workers making wages too low to buy its products. Most companies obviously produce products their employees can buy only since most companies target the middle/working class because most people are in the middle/working class. It isn't a cause / effect relationship.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    116. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have personal experience working with Cognizant on a project for a mutual client. The phrase "Keystone Cops" comes to mind.

    117. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've got the best of both worlds - I work for a Bay Area company getting Bay Area salary, but working remotely in southwest Ohio where the cost of living is 30% less than the Bay Area, and 30% less packed with people than the Bay Area.

      My manager, rightly, figures that if the servers my team's apps run on and that we manage are "in the cloud" why does the team all have to be in one room? So he lives in Colorado and has part of the team there that he recruited from a local college, and we have 3 people here in Cincinnati, as well as some in the Bay Area. We have office space so that we can recruit others here - something that other Bay Area companies aren't doing.

      The company gets a new pipeline of talent, and happier workers that get to live where they want, and paid more than a local company would pay for the work. Win / win.

    118. Re: And it's not even an election year by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      I'll go on my own knowledge and cursory research. In the South East I can get a nice 5BR 3bath house with a 4 car garage (with 8' doors high enough for my Van) on about 10 acres of land for around $800 a month mortgage or $1200 rent (will stick to rent for the calculation) and a 30 Minute light traffic commute. Food costs for two people are about $300 (including weekly dinners out averaging $50/ week). Utilities are average $500 per month (Electric/Cable/Water/Phones). We burn about $200/month on various entertainment. Insurance on 2 Vehicles is $100/month. Changing monthly expenses to yearly: $18,500. Now we add in the yearly expenses. Insurance on my motorcycle is $342 per year, and yearly registration for the 3 vehicles is a total of $60 ( registration only, all taxes and ad-valorem paid at first time registration in-state per sale, no emissions control fee except in greater Atl area). Total Yearly Expenses: ~$18,900 (give or take since I haven't included maintenance or fuel costs) For good measure, round up to an even $20K to account for the missing costs noted. Now, say I have a position paying $150k / year (not going to figure tax into this for simplicity sake) my expenses are only about 13% of my income, with a $130k savings / year against inflation.

      Now, I'll perform some cursory research on Bay area expenses. Using estimates from this Bay area rent on a studio apartment averages around $2,000 / month with longer commute times (outside of city center). Also note that in my search of housing listings (not linked), available houses to buy/rent with just the comparable square footage and not even counting lot acreage don't exist out there, and we like our space. Food costs run about $600(not including the weekly dinners out, add $80/week for that for comparable food/service quality). I had my Insurance agent run the numbers not long ago when I was budgeting against a contract offer in the Bay Area that I turned down; my 2 vehicles would run me about $300/month and the bike would be $800/year just on insurance, if I found a place where I could park 'em all. Other necessities are listed as $613/month which I'm assuming would be the utilities. I haven't checked on registration costs for my Van, Car, and Bike, but given that there are taxes and fees assesed above registration, I've figured about $200 per vehicle per year (this could be an overshoot or undershoot by a significant amount, and I admit that). Changing the monthly to yearly, as above: $45,996. Adding the yearly reccuring costs: $47,396. Again, to adjust for additional costs, rounding up to $49k Expenses are now above 30% of my income with only $100k / year for savings and a significant hit to quality of life. For it to be worth the move out there, $300k would be the minimum I would accept on an offer, and that's only if they offered moving assistance where I didn't have to pay a dime in moving costs, otherwise the price would go up. Much more reasonable than FlyHelicopter's 750k, but I've yet to find a company willing to make an offer of even $250k, and that's if they're really desperate. Not willing to add that extra $50k? You don't need me that bad and I'm too comfortable. Enjoy your quakes.

    119. Re:And it's not even an election year by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      Alright Mr CEO, calm down and send your assistant out for some lattes.

      In the real world, you are full of shit. You can't keep pushing salaries down for qualified Americans while whining about not enough workers, that isn't the way the economy works.

      If you want to have your company in the bay area, you pay the going rate for people. You can't expect your programmers to live in a box out back of the office.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    120. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a plan to protect US workers. It's a law that forces companies to use a 10" girth dildo to fuck us up the ass with instead of the 20" girth one they want to use. We're still hemorrhaging and prolapsing either way.

    121. Re: And it's not even an election year by bored · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The biggest secret to having good people isn't hiring H1B's it's working to retain the people you have.

      But... This would imply that people aren't "human resources" that can be swapped with each other at will. It implies that someone who works on a project for a few years can contribute more meaningfully to a product than someone just hired.

      I've seen this a few times in my career, an "average" developer with a few years experience on a project may not be as celebrated as the rock star that was just hired, but a couple years down the line when the rock star has moved on, its the "average" developer's code that doesn't need weekly maintenance. Its, often the guys that have been there for a couple years tasked with cleaning up the mess. A problem, much harder than creating it in the first place. That is if they are still around, because even an average developer can put their resume out there and get a pay bump if they put the effort into it.

      Bottom line, I totally agree, retention of good solid "average" developers is what companies should be focusing on. Everyone is looking for a magic solution, but in reality a lot of software development is just slogging through loads and loads of unstimulating work.

    122. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny thing about the past is, the immigrants you refer to were still protested against by the American labor force at the time. No doubt, the first generation were cheap and sought after. Yeah, they settled down, but that wasn't good enough for our great grand parents.

      How far does it have to go before we rise up like that again? H-1B guys aren't here to stay or become American or even learn English. We have even more of a justified reason to act than our ancestors did back then.

    123. Re:And it's not even an election year by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      What the actual fuck? Are they TRYING to destroy the country!?

      There is a myth in America that those at the top, those who have been financially successful, got there because they are the smartest and most capable among us.

      It's not true.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    124. Re:And it's not even an election year by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      From my own observations there is no shortage of american tech workers. However there seems a shortage of people who can write appropriate job requirements for the jobs that they are trying to fill.

      Job for tech workers make a lot of huge mistakes.
      1. Trying to replace the person not the position. So the guy left for bigger and better things... If you make your requirements to match the guy who left, you will not find any people... Because those who do have the requirements are looking for bigger and better things too.

      2. Thinking your vendors names are bigger then the are. So you got "UltramegaSaaSEngine v.5.32 Cloud edition". It may be a great tool for your organization. But if you are trying to find people who will put it on their resume, you are out of luck. There will be some training involved, you can't expect to find someone with that experience.

      3. Make sure you have the correct titles: You want a software architect, you are willing to pay an architect salary. You post position Software Developer. You get a bunch of resumes from under qualified people, because the title sounds like a good fit. People looking for Architect jobs will just glance over it, and go to the next page. Going the opposite direction too Making the job sound too high end, means you will get a lot of people who will be requesting a lot more money for the position you really need to fill.

      4. Be reasonable on years of experience. 3 years experience with Windows Server 2012? That is a tough to fill position, as you expect most people not to upgrade all their servers to the new windows version overnight. Or finding someone with a decade experience in some language that just got popular a few years ago.

      5. Do not be education snobs. I have seen jobs requiring a PHD for Bachelors level computer science work. Or the fact that professionally years of experience may counteract advanced degrees. Also the PHD will not take these jobs as it is beneath them. Tech in general has a lot "Street Smarts" skill, so that high school dropout may out perform that guy who just got his masters.

      6. Post the position you want to fill. When you find someone who seems to fit the bill, call them and get the process going. I have had cases where I post my resume in, then a year or so later I get a call wanting to talk, by then I may have gotten my Promotion or started a new job and want to plant myself for a while.

       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    125. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hehe. [corporations].

      Corporations
      =
      Executive Board
      Board of Directors
      =
      People and families with good connections and big money and old money.

    126. Re: And it's not even an election year by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      That isn't pricing themselves out of the market. That is expecting the going rate.

      If you aren't willing to spend what people want to do the job, than you aren't really looking for someone.

      So, either you aren't offering enough, or you want the star not a admin. A competent systems administrator is someone with around 10 years of industry experience, and a few different technologies (Win Server (or Linux), Exchange, AD) not 20 different technologies, and not 30 years experience in them all.

      Ask your HR department to see the job requisition and you will probably see that they are asking for someone who is a rock star, not just competent.

      I live in a high pay area and I don't even make 100k with 15 years of experience, so if people are asking for 250k in Denver, you are asking for someone who has been in the industry for 30 years, has a PHD in computer theory, has worked with every piece of technology and has been working with some of them since before they were invented.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    127. Re:And it's not even an election year by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      Obviously "they" don't want to destroy their own country; they just want to get rich in it. The fact that this is done at your expense makes little difference to them. You can accuse the upper class of being shortsighted...but....realize that even if the economy tanks most of them still do quite well.

      They still do well largely because they have captured the government. Can you imagine what would have happened to the 1% if the banks had not been bailed out, but put into receivership instead? If shareholders had been wiped out and bondholders taken a haircut? If people had been charged with their crimes? If the public had been allowed to see what they had actually done?

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    128. Re: And it's not even an election year by T.E.D. · · Score: 1

      stop playing star spangled banner and smell the real coffee. what worked 100 years ago is not applicable now. the workforce is too crowded, the unemployment is sky high and we are borderline on depression, again and again. is that a time you think of as a 'work surplus' era?

      WTH are you talking about? Unemployment right now is 5.5, which is well within the range it sat at from 2002 to 2008 before the recession started. The recession ended back in June of 2009 (6 freaking years ago). Our GDP (how recessions are officially measured) has been in the same range it was from 2002-2007 since then.

      Most of the rest of your comment doesn't feel right to me either. I see no reason why sociological forces that built the USA would have suddenly stopped working the way they always did before. Normally I wouldn't bring up my "feelings", but since you seem to put more stock in how the economy feels than how it is really provably doing, perhaps that's relevant too.

    129. Re: And it's not even an election year by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Immigration limits are higher now than they have ever been in history. We take in 675k a year, plus some exceptions in just immigration visas.

      http://www.immigrationpolicy.o...

      If you care so much about their home country, perhaps we should have a 0 immigration policy.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    130. Re:And it's not even an election year by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      That's because of greed on the part of universities.

      And an anti-tax mantra that sounds good on the surface but starves states and cities of revenue, forcing them to cut services or shift the cost to the students, thereby funneling money to Wall Street.

      I'm not disagreeing with your point about greed at the Universities. But the big financial boys know how the system works too. Consequences aren't always unintended.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    131. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Are you at fortune 500 tech company?

    132. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "So, if they are happily opening offices overseas to save on tax anyway, why not employ workers in those companies and get them to collaborate with the parent company?"

      Latency is a technical requirement. High salary tech workers need low latency connections to the services in the US. Additionally, most of the technical expertise is still in the US. You bring them in slowly, have the US tech workers with the knowledge and the skills train them. Then you use your high labor costs as an excuse to lay off the US tech workers you just had train the imports and get them fit for interacting with US management.

    133. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, as an American who has lived all over Europe and Asia, I've NEVER had an issue getting a job as a programmer. I outperformed all the local talent, and thus was employed. Not even once did a native get a job over me. And I still get ~30 legit job offers a day in my inbox. I would suspect that if you can't find work, you're probably not good at what you do, and should try something else. If you're good at what you do, it's almost impossible to be unemployed.

    134. Re:And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "The vending machines are there as a perk, similar to raising wages. They are not there to bolster Skittles sales."

      They most certainly are there to bolster skittles sales. Paying for coffee pods and skittles (all with a markup that turns a profit) where you used to have free coffee and donuts is not a perk.

      "Most companies obviously produce products their employees can buy only since most companies target the middle/working class because most people are in the middle/working class."

      I wasn't talking about most companies. I was talking about Ford and Walmart. Both companies use their own staff salaries as a benchmark for their target market and both successfully managed/manage to get their labor pool to turn around and spend their salaries on their products.

      "If you are saying Ford raised its wages"

      I didn't say that at all. I said it was no coincidence that his workers could afford his product. That doesn't mean he raised the salary of his workers to enable them to purchase, it means he used his workers as a representative sample of his target market and priced his vehicles so that they could afford them.

    135. Re:And it's not even an election year by kellymcdonald78 · · Score: 1

      You do realize that a the vast majority of shareholders and bondholders are not the 1%. They are the pension funds and 401K plans. You're talking about wiping out a good chunk of middle classes retirement savingsl

    136. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Classic AC troll reasoning.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    137. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      f you seriously think the current American workforce can fill the positions that many of the H1-B Visas are taking, you have not been involved in any significant tech hiring in the last few years. My company is only moderately competitive and we have been almost totally unable to find competent engineers to hire in the last year...

      You're delusional. I frequently am involved in hiring for one of the largest engineering firms in the country, and we we usually end up with multiple candidates for positions. If you need H1-Bs, you're just trying to get cheap labor, or flat out not posting jobs. Your comment is utter bullshit.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    138. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Actually, they do. It's just that the one you hear most often in the media is not. The BLS does report those numbers though.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    139. Re:And it's not even an election year by blue9steel · · Score: 2

      You can't expect your programmers to live in a box out back of the office.

      Sure you can, you just need to remove all their other options first.

    140. Re:And it's not even an election year by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      Not really, the middle class actually owns a fairly small portion of the available financial assets. The top 20%, which by definition are not middle class, hold 85% of all financial assets. The largest asset for most middle class workers is their home.

    141. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      135,991 in were issued in FY2012

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    142. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post is strange.

      Successful businesses usually become so by planning for the long term. Especially early on, they go into debt and have a period of losses before they are successful enough to turn a profit.

      On the flip side, once a business goes public, their incentives change. They are beholden to the stock market, and have an obligation to turn a profit for the shareholders (in some cases there can be legal consequences to them if they don't live up). So the need to turn a consistent profit is real for them.

      It is also true that in successful businesses you get toxic managers who are there to maximize their personal short term gain at the expense of the company's long term gain...but that isn't actually the norm (since they either take the business down, get fired, or jump ship once they think they have made as much as they can).

    143. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      he's not delusional; he's just plain lying and shilling for the h1b factories.

      everyone who has been in tech and looked for a job via non-friend (public) channels has seen their share of being rejected and ignored even though your quals and the job are nearly a carbon copy of each other (happens to me all the time).

      I doubt there are more than 100 jobs, country wide, that NEED special talent that is not available here already. I might even be estimating that too much, too.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    144. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So outsourcing didn't work, now we're trying to bring people here as indentured servants, but there's not enough of them so that doesn't work. Americans get educated and apparently they don't magically become competent. Sounds like these companies are blaming everyone else for their own problems. The companies have not grown their employees. They treat them like facial tissue and throw them away. If there were so many amazing workers overseas they would be able to outsource all the jobs...there aren't and many jobs they attempted to outsource have started to come back because the quality overall isn't there overseas at a bargain basement price. I had a company offer me 28K to do helpdesk, scripting, programming, DB repair, computer refresh, remote support, deskside support, project work, etc. This wasn't some small office where those could ostensibly overlap. They significantly overpaid management, but they wouldn't pay or grow the talent they need to keep the company afloat. Now that group is cratering because all the people who were good enough have moved on. It's not employees that are the problem, it's the companies and their short-shortsightedness catching up. They have sown the wind and these companies shall reap the whirlwind as economic forces crush them with mighty justice. You can only play at business while ignoring the rules for so long.

    145. Re: And it's not even an election year by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      From a sysadmin perspective, we spent 18 months trying to find a competent sysadmin. When I spoke to HR, mid level sysadmins in the Denver area thought they were worth $250,000 a year.

      Wow, maybe I need to move to Denver! Nah, I looked at salary levels for available jobs and they're normal, apparently you're just using hyperbole.

    146. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll go on my own knowledge and cursory research. In the South East I can get a nice 5BR 3bath house with a 4 car garage (with 8' doors high enough for my Van) on about 10 acres of land for around $800 a month mortgage ... and a 30 Minute light traffic commute.

      I live in the southeast too. Could you point me to the MLS listing for such a house? I'm particularly interested in the 10 acres and 30 minute commute. Thanks.

    147. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, that's just naive. Employment can be very difficult when performance isn't valued. I've had the misfortune of working at a few places stuffed with incompetence. If I told you some of the stuff I've seen, you wouldn't believe me. Hell, sometimes I don't believe me and I was there! Anyway, outperform everyone at a place like that and all it does is put a target on your back. Suddenly, being able to do basic math without a calculator or spell your own name is "arrogant" and "not a team player." Hit enough of those speed bumps in a row and it's tough to recover.

    148. Re: And it's not even an election year by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      I don't understand how this falsehood keeps being perpetuated. People actually seem to be proud of being misinformed on this point.

      Colonists and immigrants are not the same thing. An immigrant voluntarily chooses to give up their identity and adapt to a new one.

      Wait, that distinction is important why? We're certainly not original natives which was the point. Of course, I suppose you have to draw the time divider somewhere since the Indians migrated here too if you go back far enough. Still, I'd call the 1700s a bit soon to be drawing that line.

    149. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They go to retail, fast food, or finance. All of which are less stressful, have better hours, and pay better.

    150. Re: And it's not even an election year by RingDev · · Score: 1

      The positions are out there.

      My last hiring blitz I had to bring in 28 contractors. Mainframe coders, Java devs, analysts, project managers, ETL/BI, reporting...

      Trying to find 4 qualified Java developers took multiple postings. Sure, I'd get 40-100 resumes for each posting, but the majority were complete trash.

      Most recently I've been looking for C#/Python/GIS devs.

      And just yesterday I saw that Camelot Unchained was looking for a C# developer with threading knowledge and it's almost enough to make me quit my management life, move to DC, and get back into software development.

      Getting a job as a good coder in Madison, WI isn't hard. Finding good labor available on the market in Madison WI... good luck.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    151. Re:And it's not even an election year by MobSwatter · · Score: 1

      >You can't expect your programmers to live in a box out back of the office.

      That depends on how big of a champagne contribution they make.

    152. Re: And it's not even an election year by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      Nothing currently listed with the exact criteria that I live in, but some close enoughs:

      • MLS #: 31339
      • MLS #: 125761
      • MLS #: 7422063

      • MLS #: 144496
    153. Re:And it's not even an election year by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Emancipation Proclamation was a good diplomatic maneuver, as it made it politically impossible for Britain to intervene on the Confederate side. It was also a way to free lots of slaves eventually.

      The original Constitution counted slaves and other unfree persons at 0.6 of a person when it came to seats in the House and similar things. They weren't completely ignored.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    154. Re: And it's not even an election year by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In fairness, this was before the extermination program started. There was no Nazi holocaust until the Wannsee conference in 1942. Allied people in general had a very hard time realizing what the Nazi government was doing to the Jews until they started liberating camps in 1945 (there were good reports before then, but they just looked unbelievable, as no civilized country could be doing THAT). Note that the horrors reported on Western liberation weren't the worst, as the death camps tended to be in the East, and were liberated by the Soviets. (You know things are bad when your best hope is Stalin and the Red Army.)

      However, yes, the US was not particularly active in rescuing Jews.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    155. Re:And it's not even an election year by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      It doesn't miss the point at all. Maintaining a dominant skill center does great good for the country that has it and it sucks for everyone else. I don't think this is in dispute except among people who think migration is a bad thing. But they are wrong.

      The post I was responding to was painting a picture of why people migrate that is simply wrong in the context of US hi-tech focused visa applications. If that doesn't deal with the points you think are important, I do not care.

      Everyone should try migration some time in their life. I highly recommend it.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    156. Re: And it's not even an election year by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      Then there's this one that's within 10 minutes of a tech center in Macon, GA:

      MLS #: 128895 And it would only be marginally more expensive than the studio apartment in SF Bay.

    157. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      That may be the fully burdened cost of one, but not a salary.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    158. Re: And it's not even an election year by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      we are all immigrants

      Baby, I was born this way.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    159. Re:And it's not even an election year by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Relative sizing aside, the 401k may not be the largest asset, but it IS the asset that they can use for liquidity when they get old. They can't just sell their house, nor is a new or second mortgage a good idea.

      It is entirely legitimate to not want to wipe out the savings of the middle class just so you can get at the rich people. The rich people may lose a bigger absolute number, but the middle class will lose out proportionately.

    160. Re: And it's not even an election year by Pontiac · · Score: 1

      Interesting perspective..

      I work on a government contract that requires all workers to be US nationals so I don't see that side of it.

      Now at my last job they decided to outsource IT to WiPro and laid off everyone below management nationally.. everyone! They were replaced with H1B workers.

      From what I've heard management is regretting that decision but now they lost all their staff that had experience with they systems.

      --
      If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
    161. Re:And it's not even an election year by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Really? A bunch of VERY large companies have been caught fudging their numbers for years just to meet or beat the 'number' that wallstreet thinks they should do, so their stock price would go up and/or at least not go down too much. And only a few of the companies that do this only get caught.

      The culture seems to be different in other parts of the world, but in North America, the pressure to 'make the number' that wall street has [which of course, you don't know in advance] is stupidly high. And it is damaging to US corporations.

      I wish it were different, where the corporation would be run for it's long-term success, but their stock price would be mercilessly punished by Wall Street for doing that.

      Bizarrely, the only company that seems to get a free pass on this is Amazon.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    162. Re: And it's not even an election year by KingSkippus · · Score: 0

      Actually, they do, and it is the one you hear most often in the media. I'm not sure where this fiction came from that people off of unemployment aren't counted among the unemployed, but the only three criteria for being counted as unemployed are:

      • That you do not have a job,
      • That you have actively looked for work in the past four weeks, and
      • That you are currently available for work.

      I've noticed a disturbing trend lately, mostly from right-wing nutcases, to try to redefine "unemployment" to be something that it's not, in some way that is different from how it's been calculated for decades, to include people like retired people not seeking a job, students, new mothers who have voluntarily left the workforce, people who haven't sought a job in more than a month, etc.

      Unfortunately for them (and you), unemployment has a specific economic definition and doesn't change based on what you think "feels right". The current unemployment rate is 5.5%. Arguing that it's something different is like arguing that the mass of an object is higher because your arms are tired and it feels heavier when you try to lift it.

    163. Re:And it's not even an election year by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      Because that is how they both create, and treat, serfs. Been going on forever. And this replacement of tech workers with both foreign visa workers, and training foreign replacements, has been now going on for decades, so why in the bloody hell are these politicians finally getting in the act (I have been with various groups over the past 34 years , ever since the Black Congressional Caucus promoted legislation (along with some clown named Al Gore, I believe) to offshore defense-related sensitive jobs under the guise of diversity (so that's who sold out both the Black-American worker in particular, and the American workers in general)! This is simply one of many ways they are doing a leveraged buyout of America, loading it with debt while profiting off the selling and loading of said debt, forcing wages down while using the cheapest labor possible --- and it spells present and future doom!

    164. Re:And it's not even an election year by jfengel · · Score: 1

      It's always an election year now.

    165. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't expect your programmers to live in a box out back of the office.

      Sure you can, you just need to remove all their other options first.

      Suddenly, a flash of light! A whole lot of truth just entered the room. Probably a bit too much, in fact. I think we just got a glimpse of what the future is going to be for a lot of us...and it's going to be a fucking nightmare!

    166. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Herp derp. Don't worry--President Shillary will fix everything!

    167. Re: And it's not even an election year by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      I don't think he's lying. Don't assume that.

      IT isn't a monolithic field. There are certain skillsets that you really need to look for in some cases and you can't find them. In others, you have a lot of people to choose from, or you are big enough that you can expend the time to have new hires learn on the job.

      In a smaller company, you need experience because every head count is precious. I can't hire someone out of college or who has a completely different skillset because I'm not some line manager who gets 6 head count and 5 contractor count on my team, I'm the trainer, the architect, and the executive sponsor.

      In a bigger company, you can hire a lot of people and you have a training budget that you can make good use of because you don't need every worker on your project every single day they are here. Consequently, we can't hire someone who needs to come up to speed, but we do make up for that by paying well and offering the chance to make a difference to the business, as opposed to being a code monkey.

      I wouldn't be surprised if there were paid shills here, but I would be surprised if they contributed even to even 2% of the conversations that someone has suggested that there is a shill involved in. Mostly, you are dealing with legitimate users who have different experiences than you do.

      In any case, for the most part, accusations of paid comments are pointless. If the shill has an argument, attack the argument. Being a paid commenter doesn't make your arguments any more or less valid. If they are wrong, their money can't force them to be right. And if they are right, then being paid doesn't invalidate their argument.

    168. Re: And it's not even an election year by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      We used to let them stay because we didn't promise them that we'd give them benefits and they could have the opportunity to sink or swim. As someone else said, in the Wild West, you made your money or you died in grinding poverty or on church charity. The other method was banding together as a community to help each other out.

      Now, everyone gets more and more entitlement benefits, so having someone come into the country actually costs everyone an increasing amount of money and there is no incentive to work the problems out for themselves. So, now we send them home because we can't afford our own population, let alone more people who may or may not be able to support themselves.

    169. Re: And it's not even an election year by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      H1-B postings at our company range into the six figure range. I'm sure some places pay shit wages to H1-B, but that is not a universal trait of the system.

      I'm not a fan of H1-B, mind you, but I think there are scenarios where they may be useful. I would prefer that these people got to be citizens.

    170. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit, I am a Director and I don't even make half that. I need to go to Denver immediately!

      My admins make $80-130k and this is in a metro area.

    171. Re: And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Hence, immigration is a good thing, but only to a point - not as an unlimited influx.

      That's a better argument for not having closed the borders in the first place. The rush is from pent-up demand. Then when the borders are opened, by joining the EU (the only immigration you could be referring to, as all other immigration has been reduced), the flood of undesirables comes in. If you had always allowed them in, then there could never have been a flood.

    172. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1
      Read again. You are re-hashing an argument you've had with others. I never said the Emancipation Proclamation freed all the slaves. I never said it freed any slaves. I just mentioned that when people talked about ending slavery, there was no talk about making the non-citizen slaves into free citizens. The acts (be they proclamations, amendments, or otherwise) merely made them free. Citizenship was assumed.

      They did not have full rights as citizens, however, until the passage of the 13th and other Amendments, as decisions such as Dred Scott established.

      They had full rights, but those rights were enforced unequally (and, by some accounts, still are, so long as the "dead black man by the hands of the cops" number greatly exceeds the "dead white guy by the hands of the cops" number).

    173. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your government is owned, 100%, by Corporations. Corporations (sorry for the generic boogieman, but it's useful shorthand) do not work for the US citizens and don't give a fuck about your job or training. America is no longer a growth state, companies are searching for profits worldwide, so MultiNationals have more power over your government than you do. They keep their profits overseas away from Taxes that would pay for education, and find it cheaper to import someone from INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE.

      Corporations, for the last 30 years or so, have been run with ShareHolder Value as king, and they follow the money.

      It used to be corporations served customers first, the local community second, and the shareholders last. The supreme court changed all that. They now have no interest in supporting schools and education, they only care about beating the street by a penny in the next quarter so the CEO can buy another Ferrari with his stock option payout.

      In fact, a US corporation is forbidden by law from caring about anything except the shareholders, this means no Patriotism, not giving a fuck about the community, and actually, not really caring about the customers.

      A government is supposed to provide the most service for the least amount of money. A corporation is required to provide the least service/product for the most money it can get. Our government is owned by MultiNational Corporations, and is being used as an enabling agency for the corporations, ensuring their profits.

      Long story short, money does not have borders. If you don't want your jobs to go overseas, or to have your job taken by someone from another country, vote out the TeaPublicans, and DRIP the Dems, and replace them all with people who work for you.

      FYI, I'm not especially Patriotic myself, I think everyone on Earth deserves a good life, but I do have a problem with my TAX dollars being used to replace my job.

    174. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to cause slave revolts in the South. The South couldn't win a civil war while fighting their own. It was an acceptable war strategy, so it was supported by the right and left at the time (the right wanted to win the war, the left wanted abolition). Then, after the war, even the right supported abolition, as they saw the evilness of using the slaves as a war-pawn, only to put them back in their cages when the war ends.

    175. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Yes, because anyone who can logically prove the conservatives are wrong and hypocritical must be a Democrat. Nope, the US is a single party. It just has two arms to confuse the dumb voters like you into voting for evil in the assumption that it's the lesser. It's not lesser, it's the same.

    176. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These big tech companiesbarenjust motherfoker coksuckerrs. That is all.

    177. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is because Indian managers give preferential treatment to Indians. And since entry level positions are being given to Indians, there's a lost generation of American tech workers who will not have the opportunity to be hiring managers. This will last for many years.

      Giving up your young for short term profit seems to be the American way.

    178. Re: And it's not even an election year by nctritech · · Score: 1

      There are about 60,000 eligible households in the sample for this survey...Every month, one-fourth of the households in the sample are changed, so that no household is interviewed for more than 4 consecutive months.

      Approximately 115,610,216 households in the United States.

      Despite the BLS claim that "The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States," it is difficult to believe that 0.057% of all households in the United States being sampled monthly results in accurately representative unemployment figures.

    179. Re:And it's not even an election year by blue9steel · · Score: 2

      It is entirely legitimate to not want to wipe out the savings of the middle class just so you can get at the rich people. The rich people may lose a bigger absolute number, but the middle class will lose out proportionately.

      Putting the banks into receivership, wiping out the shareholders and selling off the assets to sounder banks to partially satisfy the bond holders while guaranteeing the depositors would have been the best solution for the middle class, it's also how capitalism is supposed to work. The implemented solution just acted as a giant wealth transfer to the rich.

    180. Re:And it's not even an election year by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Pay better? Retail and fast food? Is this some kind of bad joke? Even a manager at McDonald's can only expect maybe $35k. Even the most incompetent or inexperienced STEM worker with a BS degree can easily get $50k. Retail and fast food pay poverty-level wages usually.

      Finance, maybe, I really don't know much about that field, but it does seem like there's high salaries there. However, I would think those salaries would only go to people with degrees in finance. There are a lot of STEM jobs in finance, mainly programming, but that's still STEM, even though it's in the finance sector.

    181. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get a load of this propaganda parot!

      Someone spiked the cool-aid, and this fool is drunk!

    182. Re:And it's not even an election year by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      Read again. You are re-hashing an argument you've had with others.

      Considering my response to you was my first post I'm not sure what argument you are referring to that I made. All I did was point out the EP only freed slaves in territories in rebellion, I made no comment o weather or not they were citizens until you responded to me. I think we agree that they were citizens absent any laws to the contary, and I know of none that made them non-citizens.

      I never said the Emancipation Proclamation freed all the slaves. I never said it freed any slaves. I just mentioned that when people talked about ending slavery, there was no talk about making the non-citizen slaves into free citizens. The acts (be they proclamations, amendments, or otherwise) merely made them free. Citizenship was assumed.

      I think we are in agreement on that point

      I took your statement:

      Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation? Notice how nobody ever made the slaves citizens? They just set them free.

      to mean the EP freed the slaves. If that was not what you meant then I misinterpreted your post.

      They had full rights, but those rights were enforced unequally (and, by some accounts, still are, so long as the "dead black man by the hands of the cops" number greatly exceeds the "dead white guy by the hands of the cops" number).

      Actually, Dred Scott said they did not become free by entering into a free state; thus the Constitution's Privileges and Immunities cause did not extend to the privilege of freedom to a slave form a slave state. In fact, Fugitive Slave clause prevented them from escaping and moving to a free state, so the right to move to another state was specifically denied them as a slaves and thus they didn't have all rights and privileges of a free citizen; until they were freed by Amendments.

      Interestingly enough, despite all the "state's rights " arguments made as reasons for the South's secession, the slave states were all for the federal government forcing states to return slaves despite the free state's desire not to, to the point of passing The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    183. Re:And it's not even an election year by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      Relative sizing aside, the 401k may not be the largest asset, but it IS the asset that they can use for liquidity when they get old. They can't just sell their house, nor is a new or second mortgage a good idea.

      It is entirely legitimate to not want to wipe out the savings of the middle class just so you can get at the rich people. The rich people may lose a bigger absolute number, but the middle class will lose out proportionately.

      I know what you're saying. I would have lost quite a bit of value in my portfolio had what I advocated transpired. But you know what happens when people are shielded from the consequences of their actions? They do it again.

      It's not about getting at rich people. It's about exposing the criminality that lead to the crash. There was massive fraud at all levels; from the banks to the loan originators to the ratings agencies. But because of the way it was handled, most people don't know that. The banks that were systemic risks, too big to fail, are today even bigger.

      We haven't corrected the conditions that allowed the crisis. The people who caused it through fraud and negligence have not been held to account. And the public doesn't understand what really happened and why. All that is by design, of course. But it also guarantees that it will happen again. Sure, handling the aftermath of the crisis the right way would have been painful. But many people were hurt by these bad actors, and have had no restitution. They lost their homes, declared bankruptcy, etc. Hell, people were foreclosed upon who didn't even have a mortgage! None of that was dealt with, and the people who made it happen got 7 figure bonuses. Corruption has consequences, and so does not dealing with that corruption.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    184. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      after you unwrap yourself from the flag, I'll tell you the real story.

      Oh, yes! Please do!

      the real story is: what applied back in the turn of the century does not apply any longer. lots of reasons, we can list them but I'm sure you agree that what made sense (letting tons of people in) does not, any more.

      Why not, exactly? What has changed since then? Could you be specific?

      WHY are we obligated to solve the world's problems and give everyone in the world the same rights as people who have a lot invested and who plan to live here long-term.

      Non sequitur. What exactly does this have to do with foreign work visas, other than your xenophobia regarding having "people not like us" in your work place?

      see, that's one thing your little jingoistic story leaves out. the ellis island folks, by and large, did not plan to move here for a short stay, make a lot of money and return home. they were INVESTED here, they eventually learned the language and merged in. that was then.

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation. we don't give these folks citizenship. look, if they are valuable, give them citizenship and let them be like the rest of us! let them live with the long-term results of what we all are going to face. if you come to shit in my country, take what's good and then leave, do you think people will want to like you?

      I will tell you my own, true, real-life story. My grandparents came to America from Germany about a century ago. Yes, they passed through Ellis Island, just like all the rest, frantically trying to get here for a better life. One of my grandfathers worked at Ford Motor Company. Yes, grandpa knew Henry Ford. One of the bedrooms in Mom's house has a big blow up of a photo of about 4 to 6 guys gathered around a table inspecting and discussing a car engine part; one of those guys is "old Henry" and one of the others is my grandfather. Grandpa actually came to America twice. The first time was in the 1920s when the German economy was ravaged by inflation and war reparations. Grandpa made a pile of money here in America, then quit his job to travel across the country along Route 66. After that he went back to Germany to marry Grandma and brought her back to America with him. At the time, the USA was in the midst of the Depression, but he (a German foreigner) managed to slip through the mobs of unemployed at the gates of the Ford Motor Company to ask for his old job back. He raised a family in Dearborn and continued working there until his retirement in the late 1950s. Your diatribe against "them furriners takin' our jobs" sounds suspiciously like my grandpa's story. And he was one of those early additions that made the Ford Motor Company the leading industry giant it is today.

      we don't give citizenship, really; we give h1b. 'temp work permits'. in that, its nothing like ellis island days. nothing AT ALL.

      Indeed, it is nothing like those days. My problem with the way the current H1B visas work is not that they "give them furriners" jobs in America but rather that they are being used by companies to depress wages. When you have qualified, competent American workers training their foreign replacements to work at a mere fraction of what they had earned, that is a real problem.

      stop playing star spangled banner and smell the real coffee. what worked 100 years ago is not applicable now. the workforce is too crowded, the unemployment is sky high and we are borderline on depression, again and again. is that a time you think of as a 'work surplus' era? I sure don't! if you have no surplus, you have no right giving out jobs to people who are not as invested as those who were born and raised here.

      Your problem is that you see the American economy as a zero sum game. It isn't. The problem is not that foreigners are getting permits to work in this

    185. Re:And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      All I did was point out the EP only freed slaves in territories in rebellion,

      And if you read what was written about the EP, I never claimed that the EP freed a single slave, so your comment that the implication that it freed them all was a non sequitur. The EP talked about freeing slaves (whether it did, or which ones, if any, is irrelevant, thus wasn't mentioned), but the EP didn't mention making the slaves new citizens. That was the point. You were so focused on correcting an inference on your part that you missed what was said.

      Interestingly enough, despite all the "state's rights " arguments made as reasons for the South's secession, the slave states were all for the federal government forcing states to return slaves despite the free state's desire not to, to the point of passing The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

      Much like the people who claim "no governemnt interference in our health care - repeal ACA" are the first to demand the government prevent a woman get a procedure from her doctor without permission from a man. And (a smaller subset of) those most opposed to gun registration are for the registration of sex offenders.

      People are inconsistent and hypocritical.

      to mean the EP freed the slaves. If that was not what you meant then I misinterpreted your post.

      To mean "Notice how nobody ever made the slaves citizens? They just set them free." The reference of the EP was a cite for a place where "freedom" was mentioned without any mention of making them new citizens; it was meant as an example, not an exhaustive list. Note in the wording, the "people" set the slaves free, not the EP.

    186. Re: And it's not even an election year by Holi · · Score: 1

      Slaves weren't even considered a full person, they could not vote they could not own property, so in what way were they citizens?

      Sorry but slaves were no more citizens then horses, slaves were property and honestly horses were worth more.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    187. Re:And it's not even an election year by Squiddie · · Score: 1

      It used to be those people had pensions. Maybe that would turn off people from accepting 401k instead of a pension. Plus, people took hits on that anyway. The bailout didn't help them.

    188. Re: And it's not even an election year by JimFive · · Score: 1

      If you can't find anyone willing to work the job you have for what your offering you need to reconsider what you're offering. The "market" has clearly priced that job at $250k.
      --
      JimFive

      --
      Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
    189. Re: And it's not even an election year by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      But that is the whole point, the H1B shouldn't even be in the market.

      What you're really doing is use the threat of H1B's to hold down pay.

      If you're having trouble finding people, it might be unreasonable expectations, you might be asking for more than you need, or might be asking for the "best" when "good enough" will do.

    190. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not being an election year may be no accident. Business aren't giving any campaign donations out to reduce H-1Bs, they give out money to lobby for more. It has to be balanced though. We should tightly control the availability to keep the domestic labor market healthy, but we also need to reduce incentives to offshore. If they can't get cheap labor here instead of hiring local they may push more offshore. HP is rumored to be making a big push in Latin America. Corporations go for profit, they have no inherent national loyalty, especially now that many executives are not U.S. born. The good ole boy network America depends on isn't as in charge as it once was.

    191. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does Canada have an H1B like program?

      Yes, but by a different name. You would think Nova Scotia was India if you went into most "technology" companies which are little more than call centres. No offence to the few hard-working Indian nationals with whom I have worked but they will admit most of their countrymen are lazy bastards. The most intelligent woman I ever met is from India and she makes her male countrymen look like idiots in terms of knowledge, skills and work ethic. I wonder why the Government of India wants to oppress women in India...actually we know the reason; it would upset the corrupt male-dominated society.

    192. Re: And it's not even an election year by Livius · · Score: 1

      I'd call the 1700s a bit soon to be drawing that line.

      Everyone from before then is dead now.

    193. Re: And it's not even an election year by KingSkippus · · Score: 1

      Then take a statistic course so that you will understand what a "representative sample" means. There's a point after which it doesn't matter whether you poll 60,000 households, 600,000 households, or 6,000,000 households, the number will be within a margin of error that you deem acceptable.

      If that bothers you, then don't ever leave your house again, because it's the same methodology by which, for example, car manufacturers determine whether or not your car will spontaneously explode while you're driving down a highway. It probably won't, but if that amount of statistical certainty isn't good enough for you to trust the BLS to have a pretty good grasp on what they're doing, then what else do you just take for granted?

    194. Re: And it's not even an election year by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Their old people, if they're still looking for jobs, should offer to work for them again at a 50+% raise.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    195. Re: And it's not even an election year by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Finding good labor anywhere is a major challenge, especially in IT. The good talent is rarely "available", because if they're "available", their friends and former colleagues know it and they will find a home rather quickly. Networking is important like never before especially as you age in this industry.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    196. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The H1-B Visa program only allows 65,000 per year (which is insanely low considering there are over 500,000 open tech jobs that currently can't be filled with competent domestic workers).

      Prove those jobs even exist in reality. Otherwise close your mouth and remain silent. The 65K H1-B work visas are new applicants not renewals which is uncapped.

    197. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too lazy to log in, so I'm AC

      The term you're looking for is "The labor force participation rate" and is the percentage of working-age persons in an economy who:
      Are employed ... Are unemployed but looking for a job" (let me see if I can copy/paste the link.)
      http://economics.about.com/od/unemploymentrate/f/labor_force.htm

      And the figures paint a much different picture than the unemployment rate.
      http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

    198. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmmhmm, and we're just going to ignore the fact that those 60,000 households could be unrepresentative. Just because the statistics people make a claim doesn't make it true. How do they know that their surveys are representative of the population as a whole? Hint: they can't.

    199. Re:And it's not even an election year by pepty · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking the title should be "Ten senators start investigation into why tech companies have not been contributing enough money to their PACs."

    200. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't expect your programmers to live in a box out back of the office.

      Sure you can, you just need to remove all their other options first.

      ding, ding, ding ~ WE HAVE a WINNER FOLKS!

      Additional points for "Right to work" for LESS laws, gotta love it!

      Alternative scenario: have thirteen H-1B workers live in the same box paying rent to the company. (bakers dozen)

      General Electric has been doing this for years. Americans training their H-1B replacements. Jack Welch is lauded for wanting to put his factory on a barge and anchor it off the cheapest labor source possible...of course he would not need H-1B visas than.

      It was refreshing to have another stock analyst set the record straight on Squack on the Street this morning, when they tried to spin what GE is doing now as some great game changer or 'new' organic growth. The song remains the same....

      Forget GE, pretty much every tech company in the last few decades has been exploiting Visas saying they can not get enough trained labor here in America, when the real truth is not only is the labor here, with similar proven skills...what they really want is to get their labor prices down yet lower while paying their executive board yet more for little or nothing.

      Want Organic growth in sales of goods and services...than create more high paying jobs and get off the minimum wage excuse mantras...pleeeese.

    201. Re: And it's not even an election year by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      In the UK, the borders were opened back in 1998. You'd think the initial rush would have stopped by now, but it is increasing (hence all the hooha over it today)

    202. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Either your company hires from the bottom of the barrel or you are writing from 2007. Clearly you are not at a Bay Area software company, because no one says "engineering firms" here, that's just bizarre.

      The last 10 candidates we made offers to had multiple competing offers. I think we hired 3 of them, which was pretty damn good when you take into account these offers are in the $200k+ range, sometimes significantly more with bonuses and benefits. One was American born, one a Chinese citizen with a green card, and one Indian with an H-1B and a PhD from UC Berkeley. All had similar years of experience and were offered with ~5% of the same salary. The same is true of most of the highly competitive software companies here, so your "cheap labor" argument in this case is - utter bullshit.

      Anyway, you need to provide some FACTS before you can hope to have a credible argument. Here are a few: the software engineer unemployment rate in the SF Bay Area is now under 2%, and hiring growth was up 17% last year. There are something like 150,000 unfilled software engineering openings. And before you say "hire from outside of the Bay Area" - nationally it's still only 4%.

      The FACT is it's a huge growth industry in the US right now and there just aren't enough experienced software engineers in the US to fill the openings (nor are we educating nearly enough smart new developers to compensate).

    203. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Calling someone a paid shill because you disagree with them is the lowest form of argumentative fallacy, usually reserved for anti-vax, tea partiers, and global warming deniers.

      everyone who has been in tech and looked for a job via non-friend (public) channels has seen their share of being rejected and ignored even though your quals and the job are nearly a carbon copy of each other (happens to me all the time).

      Nope, I haven't seen that. I and most of my friends and coworkers are getting constant calls from recruiters, and usually have 5 offers and a counteroffer within a couple weeks when looking around. And my company always has a half dozen open recs we are trying desperately to fill, and we pay the same - very competitive - salary whether you were born in the US or elsewhere.

      The tech job market in the Bay Area is the best for employees that I have seen in my 25 years here. Good new college grads (which are rare) can make $150k, experienced developers $250k+, and architects $400-500k with bonuses (and that's not including stock options/grants). And WHY is that the case? Just because companies like throwing large amounts of money at employees? No, it's capitalism as usual, and when demand goes up but supply doesn't, prices go up as well.

      I doubt there are more than 100 jobs, country wide, that NEED special talent that is not available here already. I might even be estimating that too much, too.

      I already answered this, but again to state FACTS vs your complete guessing: the software engineer unemployment rate in the SF Bay Area is now under 2%, and hiring growth was up 17% last year. There are something like 150,000 unfilled software engineering openings. And before you say "hire from outside of the Bay Area" - nationally it's still only 4%.

    204. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Oh, that's just silly. VPs at many Bay Area companies aren't making $750k, and I'm pretty sure they aren't being outsourced or competing with H1-Bs. You aren't going to be offered $750k unless the job requires skills that are in such high demand and low supply they are practically unique - which is very rare in this industry.

      And even more importantly - I assume you already have a job (I assume anyone claiming they should be paid in the top 0.01% of engineers isn't unemployed except by choice). So what good does that do to fill the hundreds of thousands of openings given a current 2-4% unemployment rage for software engineers? All it does is shift the job somewhere else. Doesn't solve the problem in the slightest.

      Your point is yet another logical fallacy. So many on this topic today...

    205. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Again, as has been covered on /. extensively, there is no shortage of American STEM graduates.

      No, that hasn't been covered on /. extensively because it's just not true. Look it up. There were 40,000 CS degrees last year, and almost 4,000,000 openings in various engineering and IT fields. I'm pretty sure 2 orders of magnitude could be considered "a shortage".

      And I'm not sure where you are working, but SW engineering salaries have quite literally exploded over the past 5 years or so. It's not at all uncommon to see $400-500k+ offers (including benefits) these days.

      H1-Bs from Thirdworldhellholistan

      Well, now we see why you were arguing without facts - racism is at the root of a lot of these debates, huh?

    206. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Shifting the burden of proof. These logical fallacies are out in force today. I guess that's why you posted AC. No, I'm not going to go prove each and every one of those jobs exist, because that's why we have the US Dept of Labor, etc, to collect this information. Go look it up, it's trivially easy.

      The 65K H1-B work visas are new applicants not renewals which is uncapped.

      You do realize only the new ones change the job pool, right? Durrr...

      Also, close your mouth? Not all of us move our lips when we read and write, AC.

    207. Re: And it's not even an election year by BVis · · Score: 1

      Not racism. I was describing the fact that compared to the USA, the places that a lot of these folks come from are much worse places to live, which is part of the reason they come here on H1-Bs.

      And I'm not sure where you are working, but SW engineering salaries have quite literally exploded over the past 5 years or so. It's not at all uncommon to see $400-500k+ offers (including benefits) these days

      Bullshit.

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
    208. Re:And it's not even an election year by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      Using elitist words such as "dichotomy" won't make you smarter.

      The word dichotomy is not elitist unless call having vocabulary with words consisting of more than two syllable elitist, in which case why don't you along with Ogg and Zog that Neanderthals crawl back into your hole and complain about all of those uppity big brained fire using Homo Sapiens.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    209. Re: And it's not even an election year by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Oh, that's just silly. VPs at many Bay Area companies aren't making $750k, and I'm pretty sure they aren't being outsourced or competing with H1-Bs. You aren't going to be offered $750k unless the job requires skills that are in such high demand and low supply they are practically unique - which is very rare in this industry.

      Perhaps, but someone is getting paid that, who else is buying the $3 to $5 million dollar houses out there?

      I don't personally make that much, but I'd need it to replace my standard of living. I make closer to $250K, but in Dallas, you can live very nicely on that.

      I was simply saying what it would take to get me to move to the Bay area. For $750k, I probably would... Given the cost of housing and everything else out there, it wouldn't be much of a raise.

    210. Re: And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are in a new era, at the start of the latest form of automation: the automation of the office clerks.

      Hundred years ago every wave of immigrant brought an increase of production because the many hands could build or produce many things. True automation and up scaling, those immigrants no longer bring an increase of production any more. Hundred years ago, 60-80% of the people had to do productive work to feed and build the goods that the 100% needed. Today this can be done with only 6-8% of the people.

      Many new jobs have been created because of this: the non productive jobs. Non productive doesn't mean that they are not needed, it means that they are a cost to the society. Money earned with the productive jobs have to pay the wages of those in the non productive jobs. Non productive jobs are managers, doctors, lawyers, but also IT, accountancy, marketing etc. They do not produce wealth, but are needed to have a good working business.

      Because these type of jobs are all a cost, you can increase profits in our current replacement market (there is no longer a growth market in most sectors because the markets have become saturated) by reducing the costs of these non productive jobs. A manager could decided that he does earn too much and let him self replace by a H1-B worker, but of course he would never do that. That same manager could decide that does expensive IT guys could be replaced by cheap H1-B. Now that is a good idea, and they don't even complain!

      You see all the jobs that are now done by H1-B are all none productive jobs, jobs that are a pure cost to the real wealth creating jobs. Unfortunately for us, most of the IT is among those jobs

      The problem is that we have an economic system that has the simple idea that when the individual companies maximize their profits, the entire society will profit. But this was the case when 60-80% of the population was still doing productive work, when there was still an abundance of work. In our current economic situation the maximization of profits doesn't trickle down any more. Multinationals don't have to pay taxes, and you can't even force them to pay taxes, because they can just leave the country without any problem.

      An new economic system has to emerge that introduces a new form of wealth distribution. Communism was an example, but that failed miserably as we have seen. In theory it sounds good, in practice it already fails within a few years. I've heard of other ideas like a equal pay check for everyone, whether they work or not. The idea is that we no longer grant the banks (or central bank) to print money at will, but that we get rid of the current financial sector system and just do a monthly addition of like 500 euro/dollar to every individuals bank account. Instead of individuals that have to go to the bank to beg for money to help them realize their dream (a system that has failed miserably a few years ago) like building a house, starting their own business, etc.. it are companies who now have to convince people to buy their products or to ask for investments. This means that it are no longer a few financial institutes who hold 20-50% of many companies, but a large collection of people who hold shares to multiple companies. Instead of a banking sector earning billions with just mathematical algorithms which nobody understands (including the staff of the banks), it is the smart part of society who earns the billions spread over a large group, who are free to do with that money that they want (like start a own business, build a dream house, go on a world journey, ...). This system could reintroduce a form of meritocracy, but this time not one how hard you work (automation doesn't require hard work), but on how good you work. If someone fails and goes bankrupt it doesn't have an impact on the society, and when bankrupt, they still fall back on the monthly pay check to restart all over again.

      I don't know if it is the right solution, it might also work in theory but fail in practice. But we never know witho

    211. Re: And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's why about 3 years ago the skilled migration program was ended, to help reduce migration. Open to the EU isn't open to the world. And anyone not in the EU is finding it harder to get into the UK. It's easier for me to migrate to Spain, wait 5 years, and get EU citizenship then migrate the UK than to get in to he UK directly. And those rules changed about 3 years ago.

    212. Re: And it's not even an election year by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Then answer the question: when did they become citizens?

    213. Re: And it's not even an election year by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      Nope. I check in with HR pretty regularly and that's what our guy says he sees. The ones that make it to us are by no means mid-level unix admins. He's received others that match but are up in the $250k range.

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    214. Re: And it's not even an election year by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      Actually we helped with the description, in part because a few years back when we were looking, he'd failed to put 'Unix' in the description. It seems to be a bog standard description. We are looking for someone with enterprise level experience so HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX are big plusses.

      We do get candidates but they all seem to be junior/power user types who haven't managed systems at an enterprise level. They don't know how things work under the hood and don't appear to be interested in learning.

      With 35 years of experience in computers and 20 years experience as a Unix admin, I'm making a bit over 100k. In checking the job descriptions available in Denver, I think I could get another 20k if I decided to commute for an hour but since I'm 5 minutes from my house now, I think it's just about worth the reduction in stress to stick around :)

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    215. Re:And it's not even an election year by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      I did a quick search and according to the company, yes we're in the Fortune 500. I can't seem to locate an actual list of the 500 though so I can't confirm it.

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    216. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but someone is getting paid that, who else is buying the $3 to $5 million dollar houses out there?

      Those house are bought with stock options. In fact, even with "normal" houses/condos (in the Bay Area that would probably be $800K-$1.5M) the estimate is 40% of the down payments are enabled by stock options. Despite what the media wants you to think, $3-$5M houses are still for "rich people", bought more specifically with "stock options from employees at the right place at the right time".

      Almost no one here buys $5M houses based on a "salary". Most typical software engineers are still saving up for 15+ years to put a down payment on a $1M+ house. Note as well, the rent here is also ridiculous, so those high salaries don't mean as much if you throw away $3000/mo on a 1 BR apartment.

      To summarize: if you like Dallas, by all means stay there! And anyway it's all subjective. You can live "nicely" on $250K ANYWHERE. To pretend otherwise is just being a first world jack off.

    217. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Not racism. I was describing the fact that compared to the USA, the places that a lot of these folks come from are much worse places to live, which is part of the reason they come here on H1-Bs.

      Yeah, describing India or China (which is what we are talking about, since they make up the VAST majority of H1-B) as "Thirdworldhellholeistan" is not racist or derogatory at all.

      It's funny, because really, it's not even accurate any more. I assume you have never been to either of those countries. China is rapidly approaching an even larger income gap than the US (Shanghai is more expensive than NYC), and India's college educational system for tech is making the US system as a whole look like a joke.

      And I'm not sure where you are working, but SW engineering salaries have quite literally exploded over the past 5 years or so. It's not at all uncommon to see $400-500k+ offers (including benefits) these days

      Bullshit.

      Well, sorry that you aren't being offered that, but it doesn't mean others aren't (and as I said that number includes all benefits, ie. insurance, 401k matching, profit sharing/options/RSR/etc). It is pretty mind boggling to someone who has been in this industry for a while, I suppose. But the demand for sr. developers/architects is insane right now, if you are good.

    218. Re: And it's not even an election year by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      You can live "nicely" on $250K ANYWHERE. To pretend otherwise is just being a first world jack off.

      Perhaps, but it goes further in some places...

      Heck, the same money in Central America would go a LOT further, but I have no interest in living down there. :) I work from home, I could if I wanted to, the time zone is right... but I just... don't want to...

      Almost no one here buys $5M houses based on a "salary".

      :) I don't make a salary, I own my own business... I suspect a lot of those houses are bought the same way, by people who have money, but don't earn a lot of money, if that makes sense.

      Would I work for someone? Sure, but my price is probably higher than is reasonable. Would I take a job for $250k in Dallas? Yes, I probably would, because running a business requires risk and keeping up with much more than just doing a "job".

      But my work would pay perhaps half this much if I had a "job", so here I am...

    219. Re: And it's not even an election year by KingSkippus · · Score: 1

      Hint: They can. Take a statistics class. Your gross lack of understanding in no way makes the data less valid.

    220. Re: And it's not even an election year by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      :) I don't make a salary, I own my own business... I suspect a lot of those houses are bought the same way, by people who have money, but don't earn a lot of money, if that makes sense.

      Well, if you own your own business you probably *should* make a salary. Incorporating and paying yourself moderate salary (with the rest being profits as the primary/only shareholder, of course) is almost always going to be better for tax purposes. Thank the current ridiculous discrepancy between individual and corporate tax rates for that one...

      And it turns out, that's not all *that* different from what I was saying - those houses are definitely bought by people who "earn" money, it's just not through their salary. Basically they took a risk (and were possibly paid less *salary* than they were worth) in exchange for stock options. If that risk was at Facebook, Twitter, etc (or one of the MANY other companies that either IPOed or was acquired) then they may have ended up with $$$ in stock options. That windfall then gets used to make a huge down payment on a house, since their *salary* just wouldn't be enough for an $8000/mo mortgage...

  2. Did 'Em a Favor by engineerErrant · · Score: 1

    Utilities are renowned for being dysfunctional political quagmires that are deserts of innovation - my wife worked at one for a few years and hoooo boy, the stories she could tell. Frankly, this is probably a *boost* to those US engineers' careers.

    1. Re:Did 'Em a Favor by rahvin112 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The guy that writes Dilbert worked for a Utility for 20 years, PG&E IIRC. His cartoons are based on the facts of his workplace while at the utility.

    2. Re:Did 'Em a Favor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Wikipedia article claims he worked at Pacific Bell (now/again a part of AT&T).

    3. Re:Did 'Em a Favor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Scott Adams, who created Dilbert, was working for Pacific Bell when he started drawing Dilbert. Prior to that he worked for Crocker National Bank. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams

  3. Meanwhile at the shareholder meeting ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    10 major shareholders representing 40% of open an investigation into why the company still has American workers and hasn't fired them and replaced them with foreign workers to cut costs.

  4. they all do it by cosm · · Score: 1

    research how they layer themselves from defacto worker lawsuits with shell contractor companies... https://www.google.com/url?sa=...

    --
    'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
  5. About time. by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't have the visibility to say whether this is endemic, but I observer that a manager in my own organization stated openly not long ago that H-1B would get preference in new hires or backfill hires for budgetary purposes. And he has been as good as his word. About half the organization is now made up of foreign contractors, and the percentage is growing.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:About time. by gabrieltss · · Score: 0

      Be arrogant as hell to the foreigners. I am - screw em' they don't like it they can go home. Give them cr@p about ANYTHING. And file discrimination lawsuits on the basis that your being discriminated against because you are not Indian.

      --
      The Truth is a Virus!!!
    2. Re:About time. by penix1 · · Score: 1

      Five hundred IT workers at SCE were cut, and many had to train their replacements.

      It is at this point that I would tell them to piss up a rope and suck on the dry end until it was wet...

      It just adds insult to injury to expect a person you tell you are firing that they have to train their replacement. If forced by contract I would do the bare minimum required by the contract. Nothing compels me to divulge everything. They are, after all, supposed to be qualified for the job right?

      --
      This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
    3. Re:About time. by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      I don't think you are serious and its obviously not right to treat ANYONE badly like that.

      what I would like to know is this: for those of us here who are not US born, how do you feel being in a tech company and 90% of the people you see are also not from the US? does that give you any guilt at all? do you honestly think that everyone you met that came from india or china was head and shoulders above a US-born worker.

      I've seen stellar programmers from india and china. I've also seen horrible work from people that came from those countries. in all, what I've seen in bay area companies is that the people they have working for them are average. very few companies have top talent, and yet the population is 90% asian. is the US 90% asian? I don't think so. not even in the bay area.

      so again, do you indian folks think that the system has been fair? how would you feel if the tables were turned: if your country allowed (which we know it does not!) foreign workers to come in and undercut the local labor force? suppose you walked into an indian company, in india, and 90% of the faces were white. would you think it was fair?

      next time you are sitting in a round table meeting, discussing the next non-indian candidate, before you immediately conclude 'not a cultural fit', think what each hiring decision is doing. think about fairness rather than staffing up with more folks of the same background as yourself.

      if we are fair with each other, we all win. if you continue to play the 'not a cultural fit', what kind of message are you really sending? and think about this: suppose your son or daughter were to witness the discrimination that happens at your company. would they be proud of you? is this the kind of morals you want them to have?

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    4. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      How many countries can someone from the US go into and be welcomed with open arms by the government and the people to replace their own workers? How about more than a hundred thousand people doing that in a single country?

    5. Re:About time. by jimmydevice · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Fucking A, We have been paying more in taxes then most of the H1B's were making back in their homeland FOR FUCKING YEARS. What do we get? More taxes and a stab in the back by the Plutocrats as they stroke the 1% ers. When you're out of work, You think those bastards will help you? Unemployment has been reduced to 9 months and good luck getting on foodstamps. Don't even think about getting any cash to keep the lights or landline on unless you have mewling brats. Plan to sell everything you own if you're out of the market longer then a year.

      FUCK YOU Mr Anon. I've been there.

    6. Re:About time. by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      all else being equal, citizens who spent 20+ years paying dues, being immersed in the culture of the country, having a PERMANENT STAKE in the success of their country - vs 'guests' who could really care less about the long-term success of our nation?

      YEAH, YOU BET! I WOULD HIRE AMERICANS ANY DAY over those who come to grab the goods and then run.

      yes, we deserve first choice on jobs. is your country different? let me visit your country and see if I can get a job there. I bet I can't - and its because YOUR country realizes that it needs to protect its own people.

      MY country - the US - sold its soul decades ago and cares nothing about its own long-term survival. but almost every other country in the modern world will not allow 'guests' to come in and tip the balance of the workforce.

      I don't know why you think YOU deserve a job over an equally qualified american, IN america!

      pretty ballsy of you to think so, too.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    7. Re:About time. by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When a company I worked for outsourced IT, they required all displaced employees to document their jobs to the extent that offshore operators could do them.

      it seems to me that this makes three, shall we say, outrageously optimistic assumptions: (1) that untrained operators can do the job based entirely on looking up solutions, (2) that IT jobs can be entirely quantized into a reasonable number of procedures, and (3) that displaced employees would be sufficiently motivated to document their jobs to the degree necessary that operators could do them.

      A side assumption, equally optimistic, is that managers have enough savvy to tell whether displaced employees have done a good job documenting the work they do, or are just having them on.

      So, cutover happens -- and the lights go out.

      ...and the outsourcing company's excuse is invariably that the outgoing employees didn't document their jobs well enough (probably true, see (2) and (3) above) but entirely ignores the hard reality (see (1) above) that you really can't buy competent help for three rupees a day.

      But we saved a lot of money.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    8. Re:About time. by youngone · · Score: 1

      What I did when I was in a similar, (not exactly the same), position, was tell the boss "sure, no problem" then tell the replacement guy either nothing, or bullshit, then when the boss wanted to know why he couldn't do the job yet, I would say "I've already shown him how to do that". By the time they figured it out my notice was up and I left. It really helped that the replacement was Indian and really poorly educated. He claimed to speak three languages as well as English, (which was probably true), but if his other language skills were as poor as his English it's a wonder he could communicate with anyone at all. He was hired specifically to do my job, but there was no indication he had any experience at all. I think he lasted about 2 weeks after I left.

    9. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always find these anecdotal stories amusing and somewhat perplexing. Everyone says they have masses of H1B's, but only 100-150 thousand are issued per year. I actually wonder if many confuse every foreign worker as H1B's? I know where I work people on Slashdot have commented that 30-50% of people here are H1B's when I know for a fact it is actually less than 1%, they seem to label everyone that originated from a foreign country as being in the US on H1B's

    10. Re:About time. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Dunno about your company, but H-1B employees here have a different color badge, and are not allowed into certain meetings. It's a pretty easy differentiation to make.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    11. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'll bite.

      1. The sole purpose of a government is to protect the people it governs. This may not be done right, due to special interest groups, but that is the idea. The government is to protect supply / trade lines. It is to prevent crime as dictated by its laws. It is to provide security against foreign or local invaders. It is also suppose to work towards the general betterment of the nation (roads, sewers, etc). You wouldn't see a country one-sidedly give away chunks of its GDP without cause.

      2. By giving jobs to H1-Bs or other foreign individuals preference over local employees (even if they got paid the same, which they don't), the companies are investing in foreign countries, and stopping local investment by the people that would live in the US for an extended period of time. H1-Bs aren't going to buy a house to live in. They aren't going to care about property values or anything of the like. They aren't going to be able to start a family here either. I will assume they at least pay income tax and sales tax, so they only really have that going for them.

      3. If these people's talents were so much better than our local talents, why are the companies working out of the US instead of say India or China? Simply put, they want to use the government and social structure (quality of life and laws and enforcement), while paying at the rate of the foreign protections (which are worse than ours). Companies that have their employees-to-be-fired train their H1-B replacements, that shows at the very least the new hires don't have skills needed.

      The real question is, what do these foreign workers have that they deserve to use us? There are certainly exceptions, such as the rare (in comparison) actually skilled individual. They can likely get in through other means aside from a temp worker program.

    12. Re:About time. by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      I'm about as Liberal as it comes when it comes to social support networks being the backbone of an effective country and economy. But government can't bear the entire burden of your unemployment, you bear some costs in that including having to draw down personal assets including possessions because you are an adult who bears responsibility for your employment. Families with children deserve extra benefits because the Kids are innocent victims in this with no ability to help themselves and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to give that family a little cash then seize the kids and put them in foster care.

      Single adults on the other hand need to take some responsibility for themselves, you should be encouraged to find other work, if even you think the work is beneath you, by giving you a financial incentive to put some effort into it including moving across the country if needed. That incentive is not to give you enough support to be comfortable. You should be struggling, forced to draw down your assets and even missing a meal every now and then, though you shouldn't be made homeless. That very pain is what will inspire you to find some kind of employment.

      I do sympathize with you though, I just don't think it's the role of government to protect able bodied single adults beyond minimal assistance to prevent homelessness and starvation but I draw the line at anything that would make government assistance comfortable or easy for any adult. Families deserve some additional protection precisely because there are innocent victims involved no matter how much you disparage it.

    13. Re: About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is actually illegal. If you have your manager saying that on record, send it to your AG.

    14. Re:About time. by sabri · · Score: 1

      Everyone says they have masses of H1B's, but only 100-150 thousand are issued per year. I actually wonder if many confuse every foreign worker as H1B's? I know where I work people on Slashdot have commented that 30-50% of people here are H1B's when I know for a fact it is actually less than 1%, they seem to label everyone that originated from a foreign country as being in the US on H1B's

      According to this source, the H1-B program as it is today started in 1990. Since then, the visa cap fluctuated between 65,000 and 195,000 per year. Let's take an average of 85,000 and we're talking about 85,000 times 25 years which equals 2,125,000. That's 2.1 million.

      According to this source. The total number of tech jobs in the U.S. in 2012 was 3,951,730.

      So ~50% of tech workers could have come in under the H1-B program which, as you might know, is dual intent and allows for the application of permanent residence.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    15. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About half the organization is now made up of foreign contractors, and the percentage is growing.

      There is an easy solution to that - let them work without leash attached (H1B). They will pay taxes in the US, maybe buy a house. Why are you barring legal work from countries with higher standard of living than "usual H1B holder"? Afraid of competition? Or people that are not entitled to their standard of living and willing to work hard for better start for their kids?
      I am over 40. I had to learn English and my profession. I have paid already college/university debts. I would gladly work face to face, meeting with a client during the day not by (my local) night ...
      Sitting on my chair interface I am making not much just over $45k/year. And spend maybe 10-15% in the US.
      Working in the US I would probably make around 120k/year and spend most of it in the US on local goods and services.

    16. Re:About time. by Uberbah · · Score: 2

      I'm about as Liberal as it comes when it comes to social support networks being the backbone of an effective country and economy. But government can't bear the entire burden of your unemployment, you bear some costs in that including having to draw down personal assets including possessions because you are an adult who bears responsibility for your employment.

      The latter half of your statement makes a bald-faced liar out of the first. It's as much of a farce as watching Obamabots continuing they oppose war yet support Obama's drone strikes at the same time.

    17. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like the concept of immigration but I hate the shit out of it being monopolized by Indians.

    18. Re:About time. by dodobh · · Score: 1

      "Open up your markets" applies as much to the labour market as that for any other sort of good. So yeah, it's fair.

      --
      I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
    19. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I come from a country where we don't treat people like shit.

      We give people unemployment benefits for as long as they need them. Sometimes we are dicks and make them do shit for it, (work for the dole/at least prove they applied for jobs) and some people want to turn us into the united states of fuck-you-poor-homeless-unemployed-people by restricting access to unemployment benefits for 6 months after being fired.

      But at least we currently give people support and don't yank it from them.
      At least we don't make them homeless and skip meals because "fuck you unemployed lazy shit who said you were allowed to eat?".

      I pay taxes so that I know that if the world takes a huge fucking dump on me, I'm not going to die (public hospital system), if I get sick I might be able to afford to see a doctor (publicly subsidized GP visits), buy some medication if I need it (subsidized medicine) and have enough money to scrape by without skipping meals [if I'm not stupid with how I spend my money - note: note trivial!].

      Sure; if I wanna buy that new shiny iPhone I should have to sell some of my existing assets. But if I want to buy a meal I shouldn't have to go without entirely like you claim. seriously, "about as liberal as they come" my fucking ass.

      Note: I am Australian, where we don't hate our people. And only pay a smidgen more in taxes than you guys, we ain't one of those european super-supportive states.

    20. Re:About time. by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      According to this source, the H1-B program as it is today started in 1990. Since then, the visa cap fluctuated between 65,000 and 195,000 per year. Let's take an average of 85,000 and we're talking about 85,000 times 25 years which equals 2,125,000. That's 2.1 million.

      Your numbers may be in in the correct ballpark, but they overstate the real numbers. Firstly, I don't think that the full quota was used when the H1-B program started. Secondly, some H1-Bs went home. Others may have gone home for a year or more and come back to the USA on a new H1-B (don't discount this, I did it and I know many others who also did). Finally, many of those former H1-B workers may not work in tech any more.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    21. Re:About time. by sabri · · Score: 1

      Your numbers may be in in the correct ballpark, but they overstate the real numbers. Firstly, I don't think that the full quota was used when the H1-B program started. Secondly, some H1-Bs went home. Others may have gone home for a year or more and come back to the USA on a new H1-B (don't discount this, I did it and I know many others who also did). Finally, many of those former H1-B workers may not work in tech any more

      Totally fair comments. My goal was not to say that you are wrong, but to point out that a significant amount of the current tech force may come from oversees. One thing that rarely gets mentioned in the H1-B discussion but should be included is the amount of L1s that are working in the tech industry. For L1s it is more difficult to displace US workers as they are already working for the same company, but with an L1-A it is extremely easy to get a green-card so the chances of actual displacements are higher.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    22. Re:About time. by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      The world isn't black and white, your side and theirs. Only fools believe someone can only be one or the other. You appear to be one of those with us against us people.

      I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I believe we need a safety net and I believe we need a national pension (social security partially fits this) and I believe we need a national health insurance.

      But I also believe the social safety net shouldn't be a hammock. People need incentive to get out of the net or they will get comfortable. As I said I hold innocent individuals harmless, they deserve protection. This includes the disabled, the mentally ill and children. But healthy able bodies adults need to be encouraged to get out of the safety net. Under no circumstance should anyone be homeless, or without electricity or heat. But at the same time government shouldn't be paying for cable tv, or entertainment of any kind. I also have no problem reducing food stamps after a year of unemployment for able bodied adults that aren't caring for children, not till starvation sets in but at a level that will encourage wanting to be off.

      I believe unemployment and food stamps needed to expand during the recession, but it shouldn't have been a blank check. I don't think they should have ended as abruptly as they did, they should have been staggered off at the state level depending on how much the state had recovered. Some states like my own were mostly recovered by 2012 and were on the mend as early as 2010.We had hundreds of thousands of people moving into the state between 2012 and 2014 to escape joblessness. There was no reason for the extended benefits here after 2012, but because it's all or nothing on the federal level it was run out longer here than it needed. I'm sure there are still areas and maybe even whole states that could still use the expanded benefits.

      There is no inconsistency in my views. Only foolish people like yourself think that you can only be in the camp if you are all the way in on all issues. That's a position of inconsistency. I find the people at the extremes of the spectrum tend to hold this with us or against us view because they are extremists. I can be a fiscal conservative and social liberal, they are not inconsistent viewpoints. In fact the vast majority of independents, like myself, hold similar views. We want a balanced budget, and a viable safety net that doesn't see arbitrary reductions in spending because of a political attack by the extreme right. But I don't want a US that has the European problem of people being on the dole for 3 generations where people have never held a job.

    23. Re:About time. by i+work+on+computers · · Score: 1

      I don't have the visibility to say whether this is endemic, but I observer that a manager in my own organization stated openly not long ago that H-1B would get preference in new hires or backfill hires for budgetary purposes. And he has been as good as his word. About half the organization is now made up of foreign contractors, and the percentage is growing.

      Have you reported the manager and your company to the government organization that oversees the H-1B visa program?

    24. Re:About time. by nctritech · · Score: 2

      If anyone ever figures out how to "document" experience and hands-on skills, I think they'd be the next Bill Gates.

    25. Re:About time. by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      This is why I'm not concerned with this practice. I am a good programmer. All of this "talent" they are bringing over can't program at all.

      I work for a large company with a dedicated IT team. We also supplement that team with contractors for larger projects (few of which are H1-Bs) and have several affiliates that also use H1-B workers. The quality of work provided by these migrant workers is a load of steaming crap.

      Guess who gets brought in to fix it. I have job security and great pay because of these people. Keep them coming. Eventually, these companies may figure out its costing them more to do the same project twice, but until then I'm ok with it.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    26. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what I would like to know is this: for those of us here who are not US born, how do you feel being in a tech company and 90% of the people you see are also not from the US? does that give you any guilt at all?

      Guilt? You should be feeling anger at being treated like a slave! $40,000/year and no freedom to change jobs or ask for a raise when an American would get payed $75,000/year+benefits and can seek employment elsewhere means you're being taken advantage of. A company 90% full of H1B workers is a Carolina Plantation.

    27. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you should be encouraged to find other work, if even you think the work is beneath you

      I've seen "Overqualified" get used as an argument not to hire someone. It really sucks because they're applying for this job that you know they'd excel at, but you also know they'll be trying to get another job the instant they start if they're hired.

    28. Re:About time. by roc97007 · · Score: 2

      If anyone ever figures out how to "document" experience and hands-on skills, I think they'd be the next Bill Gates.

      And that's the real issue -- the misconception that IT jobs are just a matter of pushing this button when that light goes on, and doesn't require education, experience, and diagnostic skills.

      And then, when that doesn't work, this develops into the misconception that you can have former taxi drivers in your first and second level support, and a few high achievers in your third level support to handle everything that they don't. And this turns into a few third level admins doing the work of twenty while the rest act as a buffer between them and increasingly angry customers.

      And then, when that doesn't work out, this develops into the misconception that you can train your former taxi drivers and grow them into junior admins. And so you find out that as soon as they get some training, they go across the street to a rival call center where they can get a higher paying job. (I mean, who wouldn't?)

      In the meantime, customers suffer, production plummets, and upper management go on speaking tours bragging about the money they saved.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    29. Re:About time. by usuallylost · · Score: 1

      My former employer never came out and said it publicly but that is what they did. Also once they started hiring H1B staff we never got another decent raise and pretty much every year from then on we had benefit cuts. When the company got into financial trouble the layoffs were almost entirely from non-H1B staff. So what you are describing is pretty much exactly what happened there as well. So there are at least two companies that did that and I suspect we’d find a lot more.

    30. Re:About time. by Pontiac · · Score: 1

      CHI?

      --
      If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
    31. Re:About time. by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      I don't see any real democrats on the list, and FYI to the clueless, so-called socialist Bernie Sanders voted to lower food stamps, remember? (He later claimed he regretted that vote, no doubt the way recently turned democrat, Elizabeth Warren, regrets all those years she voted republiCON!)

    32. Re:About time. by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      Great comments, roc97007, been there and done that sooooo many times over the past few decades! Corporate swine never differentiate among the talent, since all they do is count the money on the way to their private banker, and hence there has never been any so-called meritocracy in Amerika (closest I've ever been when I was in the military during the draft).

    33. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am in the same boat as those LEGAL immigrants that you despise so much because you canâ(TM)t find a job. You do realize that you are blaming the system because of your own inability to find employment? By the way the system you are bitching about is completely legal and set up by your own democratically elected govt in which you play your part as a citizen. If you donâ(TM)t like the system, as a citizen you have the tools to change it.

      I am sure the companies take advantage of the H1B program and the govt looks the other way but is it really the fault of the H1B worker? Would anyone forego the chance to have a better opportunity and more money? Hell No!

      By the way this is a free market economy and the companies will do whatever they can to cut costs. Oh by the way this free market concept is the invention of the West and your country is one of the major proponents. Now you want your govt to protect you by forcing these companies to hire US citizens only? This is a global economy and if these companies are forced to hire US citizens they will move their operations to other countries and they already do that to some extent. If you canâ(TM)t find a job in software field, switch to a different field, go back to school, do something else. Quit whining about how the immigrants are taking all the jobs..yada yada. If you canâ(TM)t stay up to date and complete in a global economy then thatâ(TM)s you own damn fault.

      I have worked in companies where I was the only immigrant and I have sat in meeting with all white people and that did not intimidate me. I am fine with diversity or without and I am paid to do a job and I do it without bitching about the diversity of the company. If you are provided with an opportunity to go to India and work I doubt that you would last a day. You cant even handle a meeting room full of Indians in this country. Can you learn a new language and live in a country long term that is culturally different than yours? We can do it over and over again. In your mind you feel like no one is being fair to you because you cant find a job. But based on your posts it seems like you just cant handle people that look different than you and cant handle the competition from a well educated immigrant workforce and you are bitter about it.

    34. Re:About time. by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

      I might agree with you if there were some kind of program to retrain people in other fields by paying for vocational schools but there isn't. When you're out of work, especially for extend periods of time, you don't have money to spend on school. Essentially you doom people to minimum wage jobs or extending their dependency on the government dole by paying for more unemployment or even welfare and food stamps. We don't currently have a programs in place to get people back on their feet so that they can be self sufficient. Fix that and I'm with you. Until then what you're saying is simply idealistic bullshit.

      --
      Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
    35. Re:About time. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      that's quite a lot, if you consider that's the size of MS's work force for the globe.

      so in the companies, in the positions relevant to the slashdotters, it's quite probably more than 1%...

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. Guess they didn't learn.... by BulletMagnet · · Score: 0

    The $146 million in fines from 2008 for fraud wouldn't dissuade them from sacking US IT workers, would it? http://tdworld.com/business/ca...

    Guess not.

  7. Yet the signers aren't pulling their support by gabrieltss · · Score: 2

    of the bill. They are complaining yet still signed on to support increasing the H1-B's. That tells me this is all smoke and mirrors. When will Americans realize they need to vote out every one of these bastards. Clean house - no one gets to keep their job.

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
    1. Re:Yet the signers aren't pulling their support by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Not everything is IT. Not all H1-B's work in IT. I personally have no issue with an increase in the number of H1-B's as long at the government is actually enforcing the law. If a US citizen is fired and replaced with an H1-B that is direct evidence the law has been broken. There needs to be HARSH penalties to the companies breaking the law, on the order of 3x the amount they "saved" in salaries and compounded at prime +1% interest from the day it happened. The company should also be liable to lawsuit from individual employees that were fired.

      There's nothing wrong with the H1-B program as long as the law is enforced.

    2. Re:Yet the signers aren't pulling their support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see a contradiction.

      People claim you need more H1-B's to get more top talent in. Kicking out the mediocre talent that is displacing people leaves more H1-B slots for top talent on top of the ones in the USA. Likewise increasing the cap.

      It makes sense that anyone for increasing H1-B's would be for making sure that they're used correctly.

    3. Re:Yet the signers aren't pulling their support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as they bring in H1B doctors, and nurses, and teaches, and how about cops, and allow no bid Indian firms to get gov contracts so Indian CEOs can start making bank, Exec VP H1B banking, sure, no problem. Long as we all experience the race to the bottom, cool.

  8. memories by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    I remember when I had to train my replacement. After a couple of days, he never came back.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  9. Good luck by erp_consultant · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's standard to get ex-employees to sign agreements agreeing to keep their mouth shut in return for severance packages.

  10. Just Political Posturing by srichard25 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe this is just political posturing before they sign the bill to substantially increase the number of H1Bs. Now they can say that they "attempted" to punish companies who violate the rules of the H1B program.

    From TFA:
    "This letter is a significant development in this contentious issue. It arrives at the same time that lawmakers are pushing a substantial increase in H-1B visas under the I-Squared bill, legislation that would raise the H-1B cap. Two of the co-sponsors of the I-Squared bill also signed the letter asking for an investigation into H-1B program practices."

    1. Re:Just Political Posturing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /sigh....

      It's like they aren't even trying to hide the hypocrisy at all. Geez!

    2. Re:Just Political Posturing by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      Agreed!

  11. IT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't only limited to people in IT. It is applicable for electrical/computer engineers, as well as software developers.

    1. Re:IT? by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

      How are software development and computer engineering not included in the IT field? Or are you one of those people who, completely inexplicably, say "IT" when they really mean "System Administration"?

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
  12. DOJ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't imagine a better way to bury the matter than to send it to the DOJ.

    If there was some way to frame the huge influx of fake-masters-degree Indians as a black vs. white greivence issue then maybe the DOJ would consider doing something. But the fact is there are hardly any blacks in IT so the DOJ has no compelling interest.

    "Our" senators know this. That's why they're throwing it over the fence to the DOJ.

  13. Federal Investiation replacement american workers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank You Sen. Jeff Sessions for seeking federal Investiation into replacing IT tech workers with foreign workers. I believe serious threat with big corporations wanting cheaper wages. They keep pushing for more visa

  14. Sand in the hand by fulldecent · · Score: 0

    Guess what, senators?

    If you won't let me hire foreign workers and bring them here to work on mutually beneficial terms, then I will simply keep them offshore and pay them to work from there.

    Americans are SO uncompetitive for certain types of labor. A few laws wont bridge the chasm.

    --

    -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

    1. Re:Sand in the hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the pursuit of the almight Profit we can assume that this isn't done because it is cheaper to bring the H1-B fellows here and pay them far in excess of what their wages would be in their home locale. Whether it is *systemically* cheaper to hire Americans rather than foreigners in their foreign places being paid their foreign wages is something of an open question.

    2. Re:Sand in the hand by fhage · · Score: 2

      I know what you mean. We need vastly more H1-B MBA's. American MBA's labor costs are SO uncompetitive.

    3. Re:Sand in the hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you leave the country and go set up shop in the places where you hire everyone? I mean you. Personally. Leave.

      Why should you get to take advantage of all the protections and benefits this country offers while giving it the finger at the same time?

    4. Re:Sand in the hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how about someone investigates your prior use of H!B's? Did you REALLY look for qualified Americans to work in your scab business? If the law was followed, most likely you and thousands of other scab employers would be in jail, where you belong.

    5. Re:Sand in the hand by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      ...and, frankly, I don't have a problem with that.

      If you want to incur the hassles of off-shore workers in different time-zones and all, that's fine. You will probably find an appropriate balance between on-shore and off-shore environments. I know some companies who have QA teams off-shore, for example, so that they can basically get 24-hour coverage. The developers make the bugs during "the day", QA finds the bugs during "the night", developers come in the next morning and find a load of bugs waiting for them to fix.

      It really depends on what you're doing. It can be tough to afford to pay someone to live in southern California or The Bay Area or New York City. If you can find someone who can live and do the work in Harlington, Texas, or Argentina or Cambodia or Portugal, more power to you.

      I have a problem with you bringing someone over here to do the work at the cheaper prices.

  15. Re:their taking our jerbs....mya...yadda...yadda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Race-to-the-bottom 1%er hiding behind AC. That is all.

  16. But but but by abulafia · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The dead hand of government interfering with private contracts between adults is un-American.

    Just ask John Galt.

    Or most slash-dotters who rant about unions.

    --
    I forget what 8 was for.
    1. Re:But but but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps this would not be such an issue, if so many americans did not aspire to be employees rather than owners. I work with IT groups dominated by offshore "talent" everyday and I'm constantly amazed at mediocrity. Maybe that is what we should be looking at, how so many companies can be so lame in regards technology...Maybe tech, at least in the IT sense, is not so strategic...

    2. Re:But but but by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Then America should have planned for a more sustainable method to run their economy on.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    3. Re:But but but by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      The dead hand of government interfering with private contracts between adults is un-American.

      Just ask John Galt.

      Or most slash-dotters who rant about unions.

      The dead hand is only bad when it stops you from doing what you want, not when it forces others to do what you want them to do. Just ask anyone who demands their "religious freedom" the first time someone else's religion lets them do something those demanding "religious freedom" don't like. Free for me but not for thee...

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    4. Re:But but but by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

      Leaving the government out of it would be just fine no more work visa's problem solved.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    5. Re:But but but by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      Right, like the Soviet Union, that whole planned economy thing worked out really well for them.

  17. don't tie the job to H-1B and or have a high min w by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    don't tie the job to H-1B and or have a high min wage with forced OT pay.

    have the min wage start at 80K+COL with OT at 40 hours and X2 OT at 60 hours and X3 OT at 80 hours.

  18. Yes. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    Next question?

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  19. And the race continues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And the race to make US Tech Workers accept the lowest pay possible continues.

  20. Re:their taking our jerbs....mya...yadda...yadda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Get good

    It's not about skill. We're flooding IT with zero-skill imports with degrees that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

    You may argue that if one can be replaced by another with only a few months training then there isn't much skill involved to begin with, but lets not pretend we are importing a bunch of high-end talent. That is not the case.

  21. Why waste there time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously an investigation like this could be off shored.

  22. you cannot fight the tide by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Aside from the normal arguments about a shortage of workers *at what offered wage level* etc, etc., the more interesting question here is a question of demographics.

    When the world offers you endless numbers of reasonably well-trained workers who can fill your job openings at 1/2 the cost of US workers, what is a country to do? How long can a country resist that pressure? We may politically shout for better wages and training for US citizens to fill these jobs, but the deeper issue is that borders/barriers are less and less effective lately against a flood of competition from people who are cheaper and better (or hungrier).

    Americans I believe will have to come to grips with the possibility of a stagnant or even decreasing standard of living as the rest of the world takes what was once our position. No amount of restriction of H-1B visas will prevent that.

    1. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That these folks are "reasonably well-trained" is one of the great myths of H-1B visas, and a source of never-ending frustration for those who have suffered from this trend.

    2. Re:you cannot fight the tide by rcase5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't buy that. Much of the innovation that occurs in the technology originates here in the United States. The only reason we're seeing this "competition" from the rest of the world is technology execs (mostly American) see a way to do much of the same work for less money. So they're simply taking advantage of what they see is a relatively cheap international labor market.

      The problem with this is, if we keep giving away the store like we are now, innovation will start happening more and more in other countries, and less and less here. What American tech execs don't realize is, with innovation occurring outside the United States, they'll be less call for their services as well. Then they'll be the ones crying poor mouth because they no longer have their cushy jobs and vacation homes around the world. The irony will be is that they did it to themselves.

      It's standard American business practice to do things as cheaply as possible without regard to the consequences. So while American business "eats it's own tail", to to speak, there will be less and less to go around. Then, we'll be the third-world country, and countries where we once shopped for cheap tech labor will be shopping for cheap labor here. I don't see this happening for a good long while, but it will happen eventually if we aren't careful. The point is it doesn't have to happen at all.

      Some more food for thought: H1-B Visas are issued by the United States Government. The U.S. Government is supposed to represent the interests of the American people. We need to make our voices heard to our representatives. If our representatives don't act the way we want, then we need to replace them with representatives who will. We do not have to accept a lower standard of living if we don't want to. If we do, then it's our own fault!

    3. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well lets hurry up and trash this country then the rent will be cheaper and if you can only afford 1 solar powered led bulb you can call yourself middle class.

    4. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Uberbah · · Score: 3

      When the world offers you endless numbers of reasonably well-trained workers who can fill your job openings at 1/2 the cost of US workers, what is a country to do? How long can a country resist that pressure?

      Uh, don't you have this backwards? How long can a country deliberately eviscerate it's working class and expect to remain stable? On the one hand, a working stiff is supposed to amass 5-6 figures in student loans for a top degree, but then have to compete with third world labor?

      We may politically shout for better wages and training for US citizens to fill these jobs, but the deeper issue is that borders/barriers are less and less effective lately against a flood of competition from people who are cheaper and better (or hungrier).

      Which is why Germany produces twice as many cars as the United States while it's workers are getting paid twice as much. You seem to think that this race-to-the-bottom is the natural order of things, rather than deliberate policy purchased by monied interests.

      H1-B is about expanding the labor pool, not because of a shortage of labor, but to force down prevailing wages for the benefit of corporate employers.

    5. Re:you cannot fight the tide by steelfood · · Score: 1

      What I find funny here (and on other tech sites) is that up until the moment you talk about H1B, everybody's all for opening up the borders and easing up on illegal immigration. It's all lovey-dovey "let's make them legal so they can pay their taxes" up until the point when they're actually legal and competing for the same jobs as the prevailent occupation as the community. But suddenly, as soon as the topic switches to H1B, it's a chorus of "don't let them in, they're stealing out jobs!"

      From my experience with on- and off-shore consulting, the low-skilled jobs are the ones that typically get replaced. These are things from data entry to phone support. Companies that try to send away high skilled jobs tend to get burned by either the lack of talent, or the cost of the equivalent talent (cost accounting both for money and the necessary overall decrease in productivity). Which is to say, for a highly-skilled worker, whether somebody's on a visa or not, they're probably going to cost about the same.

      Yes, some companies are switching fully to an on- and off-shore consulting work force. In the past, companies that have attempted this were ultimately forced to bring the majority of their skilled labor back because the talent simply isn't worth the additional hidden costs. Yes, there is talk (and fear, always a lot of fear) that companies will off-shore all of their tech workers. I think if anyone actually tries that, they won't be around for very long. And I'm not terribly sympathetic. There's no reason good people should hold up incompetent management, and the faster the free market gets rid of these companies, the faster more forward-looking businesses can assume their place.

      There are, of course, two exceptions to this, that being the government and utilities. In this case, the Senators are investigating a utility. I expect both government and government-permitted monopolies (utilities) to be staffed by U.S. citizens. Even if they're contractors, which they usually are, I think that there is a national security matter at play, and that absolutely cannot be compromised by foreign, non-patrioted workers.

      What I'm more concerned about is abuse of employees on a visa. Consulting companies tend to treat their visa-based workers well, but companies that sponsor tend to treat their workers like total shit. That's because companies that sponsor are able to hold that sponsorship over the heads of their sponsored employees. And people want to come here to work, and some of them are willing to do so for almost nothing. When applied in this way, work visas are nothing more than the modern form of indentured servitude. It's a human rights violation in our very own backyards, but because we're so concerned about job-stealing and keeping our jobs here, we can't even see it.

      A brain drain from the rest of the world to the U.S. can only be a good thing. Sending menial jobs off shore is also a good thing. Letting tech-adverse companies die is or learn a harsh lesson is also a good thing. The only losers are the ones who can't keep up with the overall rising skill of the tech labor force. And quite frankly, there are plenty of on-premise jobs that simply cannot be outsourced for them too, though it may not necessarily be at the forefront of technology. The only bad thing is the use of having a work visa rather than citizenship to justify abuse. And that ties into a bigger issue of the Rights of non-citizens.

      But I get it. People want their cake and to eat it too. Our in-house primary education system has churned out a generation of duds (now ever more than before, and it's only getting worse). We don't have in-house highly skilled workers anymore, just a lot of mediocrity burdened with significant higher-education-caused debt. To you, I apologize. The system deceived you. You shouldn't have gone to college, and never belonged there in the first place. You should have gone to trade school, or just gone straight out into the work force. If you want to take something up with the politicians, that's what you should make them address.

      Not visas.

      Education.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    6. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "reasonably well-trained"

      Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

      Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

    7. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Microlith · · Score: 2

      borders/barriers are less and less effective lately against a flood of competition from people who are cheaper and better (or hungrier).

      Only because those borders are as porous as can be for corporations and what they desire, for you and me they are quite well sealed. And the notion that they're "better" is illusory. Having worked for several years with one outsourcing firm, I know the crap they churn out and their utter inability to move fast enough to get the job done. If you want it done right, or at all, do it inside.

      Americans I believe will have to come to grips with the possibility of a stagnant or even decreasing standard of living as the rest of the world takes what was once our position.

      You mean as the oligarchs in this world take more and more of the profits and shit on everyone below them. Well, yes, we'll just come to grips with the fact that we're all being robbed by a small number of monied elite. I suspect it won't end well for them.

    8. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      US automobile production was 11 million in 2013, while Germany produced 5.7 million.

      I agree with your sentiment, but this fact is wrong.

    9. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      Which is why Germany produces twice as many cars as the United States while it's workers are getting paid twice as much.

      Actually, Germany produces about half as many cars as the US. Even the German cars may not be made in Germany, BMW or example only makes half its cars there and Spartanburg SC is poised to overtake Dingolfing as the highest volume plant. If you buy an X3, X4 or X6, even in Germany, it's made in Spartanburg. Your 3 series, at least the E9x ones, could come from Germany or South Africa. BMW engines, which is what they made their name on, are still produced in Germany and its former wholly owned subsidiary, Austria.

      I do agree, however, that H1B's are about getting cheap labor.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    10. Re:you cannot fight the tide by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      What I find funny here (and on other tech sites) is that up until the moment you talk about H1B, everybody's all for opening up the borders and easing up on illegal immigration. It's all lovey-dovey "let's make them legal so they can pay their taxes" up until the point when they're actually legal and competing for the same jobs as the prevailent occupation as the community. But suddenly, as soon as the topic switches to H1B, it's a chorus of "don't let them in, they're stealing out jobs!"

      There is a big difference between permanent immigrants and temporary workers. Solution, fast track citizenship for all H1B workers. If they're that great and that in demand we want them to stay.

    11. Re:you cannot fight the tide by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      The problem is that there isn't a single American company responsible for all innovation so everyone is trapped in this giant prisoner's dilemma where any company that does outsource gets a temporary competitive advantage and any company that drags its heels for too long on the issue isn't likely to remain in business because the other companies can drop their prices in response to reduced labor costs.

      The only solution is to get even better at innovation to the point where it elevates the rest of the world to a similar standard of living as quickly as possible. There are a lot of barriers to that, but I suspect that in the long term most of the cheap labor in China, Africa, etc. is going to be replaced by machines anyhow.

      It's probably still going to be a rude awakening for a lot of Americans (and other Westerners in general) when the open taps of cheap credit get cut off and not everyone can have all of the new shiny toys as often, but I think that we'll come out okay in the end.

    12. Re:you cannot fight the tide by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      You made a number of Business Council and US Chamber of Commerce comments, douchetard: from people who are cheaper and better (or hungrier). - - when corporations and hedge funds are sponsoring terrorists like that Conneticut fund sponsored the Times Square bomber, or sponsoring workers in general, simply 'cause they have greater control over them, or pay lower wages and zero bennies, that is not an equivalence argument --- that is the argument for the dismantling of the economy, dipshit!

    13. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Even the German cars may not be made in Germany, BMW or example only makes half its cars there and Spartanburg SC is poised to overtake Dingolfing as the highest volume plant.

      But that hair splits at both ends, as many "Detroit" cars are made in Mexico or Canada.

      Actually, Germany produces about half as many cars as the US.

      Only if the goalpost is moved from cars to "all automobiles" a la the AC below. But I didn't say automobiles, I said cars.

    14. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      Even the German cars may not be made in Germany, BMW or example only makes half its cars there and Spartanburg SC is poised to overtake Dingolfing as the highest volume plant.

      But that hair splits at both ends, as many "Detroit" cars are made in Mexico or Canada.

      True. Between manufacturing costs and various laws such as fuel economy standards mean cars only relationship to the home country is the name.

      Actually, Germany produces about half as many cars as the US.

      Only if the goalpost is moved from cars to "all automobiles" a la the AC below. But I didn't say automobiles, I said cars.

      Fair enough, although it is only about 1/4 higher in 2014 for cars.

      2014 Production

      Although if you would add in light trucks in the US, which often are bought instead of a car as a primary vehicle, the stats would change.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    15. Re:you cannot fight the tide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or we could just do the right thing.

      Like have the corps actually pay a damn living wage, instead of paying big bonuses to C-Level execs.

      Or hiring locals so that they can contribute to the economy, instead of importing workers and having to pay out benefits to locals who can't find work from an ever decreasing pool of funds.

      Maybe we should all agree that just because you CAN do something cheaper, does not mean you SHOULD do something cheaper. Especially if doing something cheaper harms the general public as a result.

      We could do the right thing, but we refuse. It's sad really.

      (Also before anyone responds with "Why don't you try it first?" I have no power to affect that outcome, otherwise I would. I'm in the same boat as the rest of the un/under employed.)

  23. Re:their taking our jerbs....mya...yadda...yadda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    actually gave up the rat race, found better life, farmer now, AC poster. that is all.

  24. One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    is the reduction of intellectual strength and tech development from foreign countries. If you can gather 100 000 highly educated and motivated people from foreign countries every year, and bring them into the U.S, then it's a "win" because these people's efforts will benefit the U.S instead of their home countries. This may displace Americans and put them in lower paid jobs, but that's not as urgent as the fight against the rest of the world. The people at the top of government wants all tech development to happen and be based inside the U.S economy, and pushing to increase the H1B1 caps is one effort to achieve that.

    The only time these investigations will happen, is when H1B1 visas are spent on cheap, Indian labor, instead of those brilliant minds that are actually wanted.

    1. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by rcase5 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, but this cuts both ways. If those international workers choose to return to their home countries, they could easily start innovating at home. Then all that time, energy, and experience that they gained here in the United States now becomes a strength in that worker's home country. I suspect this will be the trend, and the United States could very quickly lose it's edge in international innovation.

    2. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      I think the opposite could be argued, also. Once they go home, they take their years of training/skills with them, and we lose the benefit of their experience.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's hope your prediction is right.

    4. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google, Apple, Facebook etc. don't hire newbies. The people who come on H1B visas are already highly educated and trained, more so than their American counterparts, given the sad state of the American educational system and the indoctrinating nature of American culture and society. Let's just hope they do not become americanized, and that they eventually return home and put their efforts into building up their own country instead, as they should.

    5. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The problem with this idea is that H1B is a temporary visa, and allows companies to use these workers as indentured servants; it's hard for an H1B to move between jobs because the company that sponsored him still has strings attached.

      If the government were giving these supposedly high-skilled workers green cards instead, that would be different: then they'd be able to stay and plant roots here if they wanted, not to mention be able to easily change jobs (which keeps salaries high due to competition). *That's* how you do a brain drain: you bring over smart people and entice them to stay.

    6. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are not supposedly high-skilled, they are definitely high-skilled. And with their skills and education, they will be no less valuable after a decade than they were the day they arrived. I don't know if there are any stats on this, but I suspect that the majority of H1B immigrants become citizens as soon as they can, and continue their lives in the U.S. The high salaries and unfortunate grip the American culture has on young people is enough of an enticement to make them stay.

    7. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The people who come on H1B visas are already highly educated and trained, more so than their American counterparts

      [epic citation needed]

    8. Re:One of the intented effects of H1B1 immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't use [citation needed] and "your sources?" to disprove anything that doesn't rub you the right way, that's not how it works. Did you even read their full comment? This is fact and truth, given that these largest and most influential tech companies - Apple, Google, Facebook - choose to hire foreign talent instead of American talent, to the greatest extent they can.

  25. how do the comply with federal CIP regulations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I but they couldn't pass an audit.

  26. What's to investigate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course they are. The kind of mentality that makes for a good tech worker also makes for a very naive and easy to exploit person.

  27. Neither CA Senator signed on... by rcase5 · · Score: 2

    It's not all surprising that neither Boxer or Feinstein signed on to this investigation, if indeed this is what it turns out to be (I share the skepticism that this is for real at all). Boxer is retiring at the end of her term in 2017, and Feinstein has always been a closet Republican. In any event, both Senators know who butters their bread, and that's Silicon Valley; perhaps the largest users (and abusers?) of the H1-B Visa program. They are also both from the Bay Area.

    1. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't Feinstein the #1 Senator against the right to own firearms? How is that being a "closet Republican"? Or is this a "no true Scotsman" fallacy, since you don't like her she isn't a real Democrat even though she acts just like the rest of them.

    2. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by pete6677 · · Score: 1

      "Feinstein has always been a closet Republican"

      Come again?

    3. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't Feinstein the #1 Senator against the right to own firearms?

      Oh no, she 100% supports the right to own firearms ... for her.

    4. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by rcase5 · · Score: 2

      Isn't Feinstein the #1 Senator against the right to own firearms?

      So? James Brady WAS a Republican and favored strict gun control. Perhaps you've heard of the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act"?

      Republicans are more than just about gun control. She has also been very business friendly. Her family has multiple business interests in the City and County of San Francisco. Very little happens there without her say-so, lest it affect her family's business interests. She's also pro-death penalty. She was also very gung-ho about NSA surveillance of American citizens until she realized that the NSA was also spying on Congress.

    5. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I suspect the GP is confused by what many of us perceive as an authoritarian leaning on her part. Similar leanings tend to be more prevalent in the Republican party, but unfortunately aren't rare in the Democratic party.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    6. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Isn't Feinstein the #1 Senator against the right to own firearms?

      So? James Brady WAS a Republican and favored strict gun control. Perhaps you've heard of the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act"?

      Republicans are more than just about gun control. She has also been very business friendly. Her family has multiple business interests in the City and County of San Francisco. Very little happens there without her say-so, lest it affect her family's business interests. She's also pro-death penalty. She was also very gung-ho about NSA surveillance of American citizens until she realized that the NSA was also spying on Congress.

      I think many of these things are very pro-Democratic Party. Specifically the rich who are also Democrats (somewhat perjoritively referred to as "limousine liberals"). Having business interests, especially your own, pro-death penalty, NSA surveillance, all establishment Democratic (though not leftist, or at least, not far-leftist) interests.

    7. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by GlennC · · Score: 1

      I see the problem...

      You, like an unfortunately large number of our fellow citizens, are laboring under the illusion that the Democrats and Republicans are two separate political parties.

      Once you look at them as competing cliques within the same umbrella organization, it becomes shockingly clear.

      --
      Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
    8. Re:Neither CA Senator signed on... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The Brady bill was named for him because he was shot and severely injured in the course of an assassination attempt against Reagan. It wasn't because he or his wife pushed for it (although his wife certainly did).

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  28. We don't get a choice by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Gerrymandering + unlimited money in politics means we're pretty screwed. The corps realized early on they just had to buy off _all_ the local elections to win the country. We'd need to change our entire political system, but we have too many divisive issues (Abortion, Gay Rights, Gun Control) to get anything like that off the ground.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  29. New Headline by WhatHump · · Score: 1

    Ten senators receive lucrative offers to join boards of tech companies after their terms expire. Investigation is shelved for lack of evidence.

    --
    "Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
  30. Google: "Damn! Who Forgot to Bribe Those Ten?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    FaceBook: "I thought it was YOUR turn!"

    Captcha: "dunces" (I am not kidding).

  31. multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigration by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 2, Insightful

    we can only stop the mass immigration invasion of cheap foreign labor when we realize that the plutocrats/corporations have been molding the minds of young americans via the educational curriculum using anti-white race-guilt propaganda. They tell young and impressionable whites that racism is the ultimate evil, and that being against the foreign invasion of third worlders is racist. Stop the multiculti indoctrination of edupropaganda --that is the first step.

  32. Easy Solution To H1B Problem by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Have the local IT union hold the H1B. They can make sure the H1B's wages are exactly the same as anyone else's and if the H1B guy doesn't like the company, the union can place him somewhere else.

    Also: Create a local IT union. Seriously. You people keep complaining that you're getting fucked and fucked and fucked and yet the moment someone suggests creating a union... well... comments to follow.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Easy Solution To H1B Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cesar Chavez opposed immigration, but today's unions, as appendages of the Democratic Party, support it, so you're full of shit.

    2. Re:Easy Solution To H1B Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People don't attempt to create an IT union because they want to keep their jobs.

      Seriously.

    3. Re:Easy Solution To H1B Problem by scamper_22 · · Score: 1

      Unions have stopped working in the private sector.

      If unions worked, we'd use them. Well I would at least.
      The problem is even greater than the H1B Visa and its the same problem manufacturing workers faced.

      You're not that special in the world. Free trade killed the viability of private sector unions in this context. You ever wonder about the H1B? He comes from India/China. Oh you plan to unionize the American labor location. No problem, we can setup shop in India/China and they can do their job there. Heck, most major American tech companies have over seas locations like that.

      Once a company has multiple locations, the power of the union diminishes greatly. About the only private union that even has some meager power these days is the auto union. I'm Canadian, and even that is under threat as Mexico and even other parts of the US get capacity.

      This does not mean private sector unions are impossible. It's just not as simple as organizing. You need changes to corporate governance, union structure, industrial policy... all kinds of changes, like in Germany.

      And then you get into the weird area where everyone wants to be Germany making 'high-value' items. Well then you start to dilute that specialty making that model less likely to work.

  33. Um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DUH!

  34. Hope heads will roll... by MichalInator · · Score: 1

    and don't stop rolling until they reach the fiery pits of Hell.

  35. expanding the H1B #s is good for nobody but few by nomad63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For US: tech workers will suffer from unemployment or suppressed wages For H1B holders: The Tata's and Infosys' of this scheme will dangle the green card carrot in front of you while raping your wages to the tune of 50% For US companies: Economy will look like a spaceship, which no one can stop from going up Then the tech bubble will blow stockholders will suffer Indian H1B workers, who were waiting patiently for their green cards will be sent home with nothing to show for Recession will depress the job market for the American worker Who will benefit from this ? The few C- level executives with a golden parachute exit plans. It will not be their problem to fix the mess. It is the next sucker's problem to deal with. Tell me what is good about this plan ?

    --

    __________
    The more I know people, the more I love animals
    1. Re:expanding the H1B #s is good for nobody but few by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      That's why they are pushing either Hillary Bush or Jeb Clinton for president: who was Sen. Hillary Clinton's major financial backer?

      Tata Consultancy, of course, along with Rupert Murdoch! If I hear one more Ameritard claim either Clinton is a liberal, I will slice and dice them!

  36. Work permits for the 1% ONLY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Give a work permit to anyone with $250k+ of W2 income per year: they'd have to post a bond for the equivalent in taxes for their first year.
    That would cover 90% of foreign job creators, and exclude 90% of job destroyers (cheap indentured servants).

    Full disclosure: I came to the US 17 years ago as an L1, then H1B.
    In that time I've created lots of jobs and paid > $10m in Fed and local taxes, but I'm a strong opponent of the current H1B system.
    It's crony capitalism at its worst.

    1. Re:Work permits for the 1% ONLY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said...burn the bridge after crossing. Awesome!!

      You do realize that facebook, google and other companies that hire H1Bs pay a lot more taxes and create a lot more jobs than you will ever do in your lifetime?

  37. You don't understand Fordism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, really. You just cited a well-known myth about Fordism. Read this.

    The focus of Fordism is mass-production, and the means of achieving it. The hearts-and-minds-winning notion of "paying his workers enough money that they could afford to buy his products" does not mean "paying his workers more than he makes off of them," which is logically impossible.

    Rich people don't create money out of thin air. The government prints money, of course, but it does so as an abstract representation of wealth. How much wealth a dollar represents changes based on the ratio between the number of dollars in existence, and the amount of wealth in existence. Since wealth is an abstract concept and impossible to measure with precision, this whole enterprise is inexact.

    But wealth is ultimately the product of human labor. Humans grow food that wasn't there before, or build cars that didn't exist before, and poof, new wealth exists. Rich people don't do this kind of work.....they just extract the value from their employees who *do* do this kind of work, and give them a fraction of that value back (in the form of wages).

    Economics is a complicated subject, as it turns out. But it should be easy to understand that rich people don't become or stay rich by paying their workers more than they make off them.

    1. Re:You don't understand Fordism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " The government prints money, of course"

      Largely it is created by regular banks through fractional reserve banking in response to a demand for loans from companies and regular people, not by government, QE excepted.

  38. Deserve? I Have The Right Of First Refusal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Is that you, Carly? Yes, as a US citizen (or permanent legal resident), I not only deserve better access to the job, I have a legal right to first crack at it. Pulling in H1Bs as initially set up is to fill short term gaps in the labor market. Cost of labor is immaterial.

  39. Fuck America, Aqcuire money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They fuck over this country long term to make some short term money.

    How do these people sleep at night? Very comfortable of course.

  40. Better solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Other countries charge fees with special economic visas, why not the US? Give as many H1Bs as you want, but the current standards stand and add an annual $25k renewal fee.

  41. Re:About time. - Only Others are unfair to US ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > how would you feel if the tables were turned: if your country allowed (which we know it does not!)

    Doesn't american companies make hell a lot of money selling goods to 3rdWorld countries? Hey "open up your market" - that's the mantra of the west. Do you realise how many subsistance farmers and traders die (not just jobless) in those countries where american goods saturated and removes their substaice? And they get into loans from money sharks? and many instance commmit suicide?

    -> DIRECTLY liked to "opening up the market" hand twisting by US/Europe.

    Now China has mastered the art, and started creating pollution, and pumping low-quality goods, and creating heaps of garbage.

    I think west should dismantle WTO. And make a EquitableWTO - i.e of one country gains surplus over other country, the other can CHOOSE to put trade barriers without penality (or get technology transfer to make equitable).

  42. Re:multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Are you in favor of open source? How can you reconcile appeals to openness, fairness and universality with your stance on narrow protection of your race in your homeland, advantages you obtained through sheer luck of birth?

    Put it more bluntly, why are you any more decent than the fucktards who run Comcast and AT&T?

  43. Oh gee.. by koan · · Score: 2

    Are the politicians going to take a meeting to form a committee to evaluate the possbility of an investigation into h1b practices?
    No shit they are firing American workers, and Zuckerberg is one of the leader in this field.

    So if you're using Facebook.... fuck you from the bottom of my heart.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  44. Informative as always by quantaman · · Score: 0

    Slashdot, always concerned about equality, the evils of mass deportation, international development, free movement, and promoting libertarianism.

    Until a scenario comes up where they're personally impacted, then it's close the borders and toss the foreigners out.

    Yes the H-1B system is problematic, it gives the employers an inordinate amount of power and makes it very difficult for people to stay long term.

    But the fix for that is to allow them to change jobs with ease and to give them a simple path to long term residency if they wish it.

    Instead the only solution that interests people here is to lock up the borders. Maybe that is the right call but I thought it was important to point out how quickly the idealistic egalitarian tone shifts the moment they might be on the losing end.

    --
    I stole this Sig
    1. Re:Informative as always by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Slashdot, always concerned about equality, the evils of mass deportation, international development, free movement, and promoting libertarianism.

      Until a scenario comes up where they're personally impacted, then it's close the borders and toss the foreigners out.

      I know right? It's almost as if it's not a single hive mind but over 3,000,000 registered users all with different opinions. But that's so crazy it couldn't possibly be true.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Informative as always by quantaman · · Score: 0

      Slashdot, always concerned about equality, the evils of mass deportation, international development, free movement, and promoting libertarianism.

      Until a scenario comes up where they're personally impacted, then it's close the borders and toss the foreigners out.

      I know right? It's almost as if it's not a single hive mind but over 3,000,000 registered users all with different opinions. But that's so crazy it couldn't possibly be true.

      Many discussions reach a sort of general consensus, that consensus is the opinion to which I refer.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    3. Re:Informative as always by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Many discussions reach a sort of general consensus, that consensus is the opinion to which I refer.

      Um, which slashdot might be? As far as I can tell about half of the regulars come here for a good argument. There's always good argument to be had by the wingnut libertarians and the people who think some form of welfare state is a good idea.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  45. Happened to me by tompaulco · · Score: 1

    About 15 years ago I was working at a large Agricultural and Construction Equipment Manufacturer in the International Corporate Finance Center. My job was outsourced to a consulting company that only hired H1b.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  46. One company does not represent all companies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have worked for three high-tech companies since moving to the U.S. - while there are a lot of H1-Bs (and other visa types), it is not the majority in my experience. At my current company, it *appears* to be maybe 5%, and only tech positions, but you never can really tell, likely most are citizens... It is a multi cultural society after all... Heck, my "Indian" boss is more patriotic and American than most of the stereotypes I have read about with this story (a.k.a Caucasian people with *American* accents)...

    My previous company had a larger number... But I also never saw someone hired without 5+ years non-first job experience...

    My first company brought me into the country because they had 37 open positions they could not fill with experienced people. I saw the ads looking to hire people, dice, other sites and even newspapers.... I had direct experience doing what was needed, then ended up training dozens of U.S. Citizens, writing training courses and generally giving back once I was here...

    In my career, foreigners careers and U.S. Citizens careers I have only ever seen one approach to get a job keep a job and get great pay:

    Assume all you learn in school is basic and self educate, never ever stop... Year on year

    Work your ass off... Not an 8 hour day... Multiple hours, weekends, build your career... Not too dissimilar to the effort the original settlers put in (in a manner of speaking)

    Never think you are owed anything... You are not.

    These attitudes will fix the so called H1-B problem

  47. Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by cleara · · Score: 1
    Folks:

    Please let me for a moment play devils advocate.

    I know that many of you will respectfully disagree, but I must . . .

    These 'evil' corporations you see are required to maximize the return for their shareholders. A corporation is for its shareholders. Not the employees. Not the customers. Not the public.

    The shareholders elect the board of directors. The board of directors know that if they do not put the interests of the shareholders up front (by legal means), then they will suffer the consequences. Board members can be sued. Of particular ugliness is the so-called derivitive lawsuit whereupon a shareholder can act on behalf of the corporation and sue the board because they feel that the corporation is injured by the director's actions.

    I came close to being a defendant of a derivitive lawsuit once. It was at a non-profit. It was thrown out, but it got very scary!

    The structure of the corporation where the shareholders are of the ultimate authority forces them to maximize profits by using all legal means. If that means using H1B workers, then so be it.

    --
    Most Respectfully Yours Mrs. Cleara Plastique
    1. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which is PRECISELY why the corporations MUST be controlled via strong force of law, NOT relaxed pampering and pandering.

      Since a corporations fiduciary obligation is the center of the corporation's universe, and all other considerations take second or even third stage (if at all!), then some other agency MUST step in to intercede to protect the system from the otherwise inevitable collapse. THAT IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT.

      The problem is that government panders to the corporations and gives them whatever they want, (and what they want is less legal restrictions on their ability to meet their fiduciary obligations, at the expense of all other concerns and practices) instead of busting their chops and holding their asses to the fire so they have to fly right.

      Going "But think of the poor corporations, just doing what they are forced to do by their evil share holders!" is bullshit. Instead, you should be demanding that government do its fucking job, instead of whoring itself out for career re-election dollars.

    2. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Corporations are SUPPOSED to fail in a healthy capitalist economy. If a corp has outlived it's welcome, OH WELL, capitalism is supposed to allow everyone to pack up their bags and go come. In theory if we allow this to happen, three more companies pop up in the corp's place with more innovation and better ideas and hire.

      Decades of government protection allowed corporations to grow into mammoth organizations and this has become infeasible. It is and always has been the government that is supposed to indicate how to get out of this mess. Not corporations, not consumers.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    3. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Let me add that, I think this has happened because the wealthy have been allowed to believe that their status as making 800% more than the rest of us should be protected somehow; but they are supposed to have to fight for that echelon in society and be challenged, since there may be others that have sharper ideas and have a greater right to that spot. This is supposed to happen when new companies are created. This should all create a healthy churn and people are were they should be according to their actual skills and not as much by birth right.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    4. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This only strengthens the arguments to decrease the number of H1B workers.

      It also begs the question of whether the board is obligated to act for short term gain or long term stability. It should be easy to argue that using less qualified temporary workers in important positions will have a long term detrimental effect on future stability and profitability of the company.

    5. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by moeinvt · · Score: 1

      Agree entirely. People should not criticize the "evil" corporations for behaving exactly the way we should expect them to behave. I like to make the analogy with a great white shark which pursues food the same way a corporation pursues profit. Emotionless and single minded of focus.

      If you want to blame someone for economic conditions and the actions of corporations, blame the government! They are the ones that created the incentives for massive out-sourcing and off-shoring of jobs formerly based in the USA. Same with the H1B visa program. Blame the government which created it, not the corporations who pursue their singular mission by taking advantage of it. I could go on and on. Illegal immigration, tax policy, subsidies, bailouts, etc. etc.

           

    6. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >THAT IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT.

      Funny how everyone here is Libertarian until "dey tuk ur jerbs!" comes up.

  48. yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    you can't simply make a claim without counter-data

    1. Re:yes by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Yes I can. I have lots of things I think are true because I seen the data in the past and it was convincing. I don't go around being a walking data encyclopedia. The data wouldn't fit in my head. Compression is important.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    2. Re:yes by lq_x_pl · · Score: 1

      protip: be prepared to back up difficult-to-believe assertions with facts. I didn't have that website memorized, but your assertion made me think, "Wow, if that's true, this turns a lot of arguments on their heads. Let's see what the data says." Then I found the data.

      I'm not a walking encyclopedia, I just know how to find information.

      --
      An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
  49. The smoke is thin here by Kasar · · Score: 1
    What are they investigating, who was behind it? Are these all new Congressmen that weren't there when every major tech CEO was visiting Congress, bemoaning the lack of educated workers in America? When people doing phone support in call centers were making $40k it was inevitable that they would want to crush that labor market, and they did, with the assistance of Congress.

    It's not all in the past either, Gates was there just a year or two ago and walked out with another H1B increase, followed by a Foundation announcement of $20 million for schools in India.

    --
    vi? Who's that?
  50. Which is retarded? by s.petry · · Score: 1

    If you want to use the throw back arguments to the founding fathers, why do you neglect the fact that our founding fathers had no welfare system? I'm not claiming Welfare is a completely bad thing (our implementation is broken) but that financial burden did not exist for any US Citizens. Compare that to today, where about 20% of the population is receiving Welfare of some kind.

    This is not some new problem or revelation, go read a few of Milton Friedman's books and spoke directly about the problems with immigration in the 1970s. The same exact problems we have today since it was never fixed.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  51. Lets Fix This by rally2xs · · Score: 1

    The flaw is that the foreigners are coming for a limited number of jobs and are exploited by the Visa system that doesn't allow them to compete for wages lest they be unemployed for a couple microseconds and thus get deported.

    What we do is pass the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax will increase GDP a predicted 10.5% the 1st year, and then achieve full employment the 2nd year. After that, we can then throw open the immigration to any and all who wish to come. When they get here, they 1) will plan to stay and 2) market themselves to the highest bidder.

    Since jobs will be plentiful under the Fair Tax, which does not tax corporate profits and therefore makes the USA the world's biggest and best tax haven, our only problem then will be to become equally skilled with the foreigners. That shouldn't be a problem. With the USA returning to making most of the worlds' products, we should be able to employ all who want a job.

  52. RIP Kent Sprouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You did at least one really good thing before you were killed.

  53. Re:multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigrat by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 1

    I used to think like you when I was a child, too. See these grey hairs, son? They mean something.

  54. Re:their taking our jerbs....mya...yadda...yadda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get good

    It's not about skill. We're flooding IT with zero-skill imports with degrees that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

    You may argue that if one can be replaced by another with only a few months training then there isn't much skill involved to begin with, but lets not pretend we are importing a bunch of high-end talent. That is not the case.

    Hey! Their parents put in a lot of effort to scale the walls and give them info to cheat on the exams!

  55. Garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Feinstein has always been a closet Republican"

    Feinstein is a left-wing social justice warrior; she's been waging war on gun ownership and pushing gay, abortion, union, and eco causes for many years.

    Feinstein and her gal-pal Boxer were part of the gut-punch to shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant in resonse to her eco-supporters' demands, and she has been fighting for years against all Republican efforts to get more water to California (she just blocked another GOP effort in congress a week ago to provide CA with more water. She is every bit as dishonest and evil as Harry Reid, and gets away with it without even getting questioned or reported on by journalists in the state becasue they're nearly all self-identified Democrats.

    The ONLY reasons she has an image as anything other than a hard-core lefty is that [a] the press does not tell the public what she is up to, and [b] as a matter of self-interest and self-preservation she has always been a foreign policy "hawk" (partly "self-preservation" because she and her hubby have become very wealthy with his businesses involved with the Pentagon while her senate seat gave her leverage over the Pentagon, but "move along, there's nothing to see here...")

  56. The big unions are all backing immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They have made the same raw political calculation the Democrats, their political bedmates, have made: The Hispanic population is the future. They are throwing their native workers (white, black, and asian alike) under the bus, telling them through union messaging outlets that they are working for THEM while they are in Washington lobbing to replace them with millions of new sign-ups from South of the border.

    Name a SINGLE U.S. labor union that is opposed to illegal immigration and H1-B visas! You cannot. Not ONE major union has gone on record in Washington demanding ANY reductions in the waves of foreign labor coming in and replacing their American workers. One of the worst things unions do is to lie to and propagandize their own members; they'll lie directly to their members about what they are up to in the political realm. I have a relative in one of the big unions who refuses to look at any info that opposes what his union tells him and when I showed him the video of Trumpka in Canada talking-up international Socialism, and another video of his own union boss calling for amnesty for the millions of illegals in the country (who could legally compete for his job if they were made legal and WOULD push his wages down) he denied what was right before his eyes (his union had told him otherwise).

  57. Translation by Livius · · Score: 2

    Ninety senators are fine will selling out their own country.

    (Actually, I am shocked that number isn't higher.)

  58. Severance packages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Severance packages are finely tuned to be just large enough that the employee can't afford to sue the company for wrongful termination.
    In the company I work for, they routinely lay off US workers( and other expensive countries as well) , and hire their replacements in the low cost countries du jour, currently that is Bulgaria and partly India. People take their packages, and find new jobs. The packages have language about not suing the company etc.

    To end this practice, severance packages would have to be mandatory, and they could not contain any language about not suing the employer.
    Also, a laid off employee should not have to pay for expensive legal counsel to have his case of wrongful termination reviewed. The employer broke the law, the employee should not have to sacrifice coin to see justice served. That should be the risk th company's HR should have to face. If someone is wrongfully laid off, they should get to KEEP their package, AND get their job back if they want it, or offer the company to buy them out of the court ordered employment by paying a substantially larger package.

    If they made into law the provisions I described, companies could no longer treat employees as commodity resources that could be optimized and tweaked to the current recipe as if they were canola oil vs corn oil.

    The size of packages would probably go down, but there would also be fewer opportunistic layoffs. Adjusting the staff levels from one month to the next to make the numbers look slightly sweeter for the quarterly report is not a way to run a company.

    Now, the danger with stronger worker protection is to end up like France, where there are constant strikes.
    But at least in France the workers are not treated so poorly that they the go on postal rampages.

  59. Re:multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other words, you don't have to a reason, other than you only support laws and institutions that benefit you, personally.

    Nice way to live.

  60. DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH....FOR CAPITAL by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 2

    diversity is strength for Capital but diversity is weakness for Labor... now you have some clue as to why all the rich and powerful institutions are cramming diversity/multiculturalism propaganda down the throats of young impressionable white kids via the educational curriculum... white guilt instilled in young white minds manufactures consent for more mass immigration

  61. it's called democracy, child by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 1

    these grey hairs? They represent wisdom. Trust me on that...

    1. Re:it's called democracy, child by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2

      No we won't trust you on that. We trust rational reasoned discourse, not bigoted race baiting bullshit artists.

      --
      Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  62. Expect a huge number of Lobbiest. by Bonzoli · · Score: 1

    Expect these big IT companies and many others to show up with cash in a hat to hand out to legislators to make this go away.

    Would someone please write a firefox plugin that changes these words so things are easier to read:
    Lobbiest - Handler for Organized Crime
    PAC - Organized crime Front
    H1B - Bonded Servant Program
    Offshoring - Bonded Servant Program that includes nets around the building.

    If people started seeing this in the articles it would be easier to explain.

  63. Companies are disqualiying american workers by acoustix · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

    This is what is happening in the US. It makes me sick. They advertise a job with minimal information; disqualify the US worker on the basis that they are under/overqualified, request too much pay, need to relocate, etc; and then turn around and hire a foreign worker.

    The video I linked will make you sick to your stomach to find out that we have US citizens actively trying to screw over other US citizens in the job market. This ends up hurting everyone.

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  64. Re:multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigrat by moeinvt · · Score: 1

    A nation is defined by its borders and the people of that nation have every right to take actions which serve their collective best interests. If that means defending those borders and limiting the number of people who can cross over and take up residency, so be it.

  65. We're all immigrants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    American here, Missouri resident. Let me explain something about what an American is, we are all immigrants, even the original natives.

    I hear that a lot. By that standard, everyone, everywhere is an immigrant, save the residents of East Africa where humans originated. And I still don't know what pointing that out means for the current argument. Is it that since everyone got here from somewhere else, everybody should now be free to live wherever they want? If that's the case, I moved into my house from elsewhere, so am I supposed to let everybody who wants to live here too just move in with me?

  66. Much ado about nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am white American born. I work in an IT dept for a tech company in the US. Our IT dept employs lots of H1B Infosys employees. What I have seen is the best H1B's end up taking American citizenship, leaving Infosys and joining the job market here. These best employees are as good as anyone American. I'm talking fluent in 5 languages, certified out the ass and immensely skilled kind of good. And truly nice, good people. We want these kinds of immigrants.

    The H1B's of average talent are still doing the job at probably half the cost of Americans. Maybe they're not as efficient, but they work hard so it evens out. The H1B's who aren't up to snuff get shipped back home.

  67. Management Performance by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    "A side assumption, equally optimistic, is that managers have enough savvy to tell whether displaced employees have done a good job documenting the work they do, or are just having them on."

    This is the real issue. As mentioned previously, the reason this all exists is short sighted CEO's ruining everything for gains to hit performance measures and/or bonuses.

    I tried to explain this to someone once in the context of where I work and my job. Without trying to sound prideful, I know more, do more, and am capable of more than anyone in my organization at doing what I do. Now that is in the context of my small piece of the puzzle of our organization. That said, EVERYONE is replaceable, myself included. Would the new person coming is do a good a job? No. Would the business suffer as a result? Absolutely. It would probably take a sufficiently trained and educated individual, who has some experience doing what I do probably about at least 5 years of employment to get to a level where I've been for years. During that time period, things would go to hell.

    However, you are assuming that management really cares. They do not. Not about the business, and not about you. There are exceptions, however generally speaking this seems more par for the course. Three things: One is that so long as management meets whatever performance measures they need to hit in order to fulfill whatever employment obligations they have the rest doesn't matter. If that involves getting rid of you and getting someone 20k cheaper to meet some quota their manger gave them, then so be it. Two is so long as they can get their bonus or or their measures they will use this to advance their own job somewhere else, the faster the better. Three is none of them are around in the management position long enough before moving on to the next to really see any of the negative repercussions of their decisions and how that affects business. By the time it does, they have handed that "portfolio" of problems off to another manager, and is now their boss, and what are they going to do, blame the guy farther up the food chain from them? Not a way to advance very far in management.

    So while some people may think they're irreplaceable, they are making the incorrect assumption that management really gives a shit about the business or what will happen should you leave. About the only time this will come into play (likely after the fact), is if it PERSONALLY impacts them as a manager (i.e. their ass is on the line).

    So I guess what I am saying is it really isn't so much if the managers have enough savvy, it is if they actually care at all. So long as they get paid, their advancement assured, most probably don't. Depressingly sad I know, but true. That said there are exceptions, however likely too few to really make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

  68. This has been going on since, when? by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1

    Fuck - people were hiring Indians since the 1990s to avoid paying local American wages. I've worked in I don't know HOW MANY companies that do that. My wife works for a giant corp that does that now - she manages teams of programmers located all over the world. And here, in 2015 "a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked for an investigation into whether companies are firing American workers and replacing them with foreign workers for the sake of cutting costs." Like it's fucking news.

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  69. Probable posturing before passing the bill by bearvarine · · Score: 1

    Who gets Senators reelected? Answer: Big Businesses. Big business wants the H1B visa program to be expanded. In our American Corpocracy, they will most certainly get their way. But the Senators are still a little nervous. Selling out to big business on such a high-profile labor issue is going to get noticed. So they're posturing, pretending to care about the poor displaced masses. Let's face it: If you are in the tech industry, you are a modern-day garment industry worker. Business is going to commoditize this work so that it can be done in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It is inevitable.

  70. Look around at any Fortune 500 Company by pebear · · Score: 2

    I live between Hartford CT and Springfield MA. The insurance capital of the world. I used to be an employee of an insurance company but I can't tell you which one. I have been outsourced by a large outsourcing company and I was an employee of that company for 3 years. They brought me back as a contractor for that large outsourcing company for the last 5 years. Same job / pay no benefits. Most of the grunt work done has been sent over seas to the Sub continent. I work from home now so at least I can save on the price of gas but of course I have to heat the house when I'm home so nothing is really saved there. I challenge any of these Senators to go into any of the insurance companies in Hartford or Springfield and look around. Figure out the ratio of American citizens to foriegn workers on H1B Visas. I would guess it's almost 7 out of 10 workers are on H1B visas now. Even the contracting companies (Body Shops) don't want to hire Americans because they can pay their fellow countrymen less wages and cow them better than they can American workers. That does not take into account how much work has been sent over seas. One more question: The work sent overseas, the profits from that work done over there never ever comes back into this country because the Large outsourcing firms will just claim that it's money made over there even though they are working on infrastructure over here. There is a lot to investigate but I doubt they will. Sen. Bluemthal was already on the horn asking for more H1b Visas. The Senators know which end their bread is buttered on.

    --
    Paul E. Bahre
  71. Offshoring will replace H1B visas if necessary by jerel · · Score: 2

    If more controls are put in place, the work will simply move offshore. I work for a large financial institution, and they decided the best solution for technical labor was to build a large organization offshore, and these are not just call-center folks. These are highly skilled technical workers. And they are doing jobs that could easily be done here, but obviously for a lot more money. This way they avoid the overhead and headaches of H1B sponsoring altogether. Not saying it hasn't and doesn't happen in this company. But the offshore labor is a lot less expensive, and to some, that is of primary importance.

    --
    Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
    1. Re:Offshoring will replace H1B visas if necessary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then people will have to decide if they support a company that doesn't support them? (personally I prefer the idea of localised companies)

  72. i don't have a lot of faith by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    About time , How it all works out i don't have a lot of faith. The Corporate Tit is very bloated with cash our Political hopefuls have to suck from to get elected and to help them stay elected. Sorry any faith i had vanished when My country borrowed billion from China for Corporate Americas failure.

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  73. Engineers: less important to society than lawyers by mileshigh · · Score: 1

    That's what the gov't has effectively decreed with the H-1B program.

    Until engineers are offered compensation like doctors or lawyers, who's to say the market has failed to produce enough skilled workers? This country's supposed to be big on market economics, but H-1B is a gross government-sponsored distortion of the market. These days, a lot of smart kids are smart enough to prefer fields like law, medicine, finance, etc where they they have a shot at some solid money and security.

    Questions: why don't we have enough strong local candidates? Is market theory wrong? Are Americans stupid? Why aren't we attracting top candidates to the field? Is it due to lack of STEM education & funding, not attracting girls,... all the usual platitudes?
    Answer: it's the money, stupid. H-1B significantly disrupts the local labor market, depressing wages and job security.

    H-1B's been expanding since its inception in 1990, supposedly because the market continues to fail to provide enough skilled workers. Yet, all it's succeeded in doing is capping tech wages and trashing job security.

  74. With friends like these... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...who needs enemies.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHlGlNwsQb0

    pretty much what all the presidential candidates say...

  75. CARS, not automobiles by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    US automobile production was 11 million in 2013, while Germany produced 5.7 million.

    Too bad I was talking about cars, then. Why is it that every time this factoid is mentioned, people try to move the subject to automobiles, total?

    It's like someone saying GM produces more cars and trucks than Honda, and then someone saying Honda is the largest engine maker in the world because in addition to cars, they make ATV's, riding lawnmowers, and personal watercraft. The later is a true statement....but a non sequitur in response to the first.

  76. subjects n comments oh my by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what about companies can only hire h1bs that they start the immigration process for (and cover all costs of)?

  77. Why US is importing most racist people on Earth? by NewYork · · Score: 1

    Why US is importing most racist people on Earth?
    Hinduism is nothing but Casteism, a covert mask for Racism;
    Google "map shows most racist people on earth";
    You'll be SURPRISED;
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...