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Think Tanks: How a Bill [Gates Agenda] Becomes a Law
theodp writes: The NY Times' Eric Lipton was just awarded a 2015 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that shed light on how foreign powers buy influence at think tanks. So, it probably bears mentioning that Microsoft's 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy (PDF) to increase K-12 CS education and the number of H-1B visas — which is on the verge of being codified into laws — was hatched at an influential Microsoft and Gates Foundation-backed think tank mentioned in Lipton's reporting, the Brookings Institution. In 2012, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings hosted a forum on STEM education and immigration reforms, where fabricating a crisis was discussed as a strategy to succeed with Microsoft's agenda after earlier lobbying attempts by Bill Gates and Microsoft had failed. "So, Brad [Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith]," asked the Brookings Institution's Darrell West at the event, "you're the only [one] who mentioned this topic of making the problem bigger. So, we galvanize action by really producing a crisis, I take it?" "Yeah," Smith replied (video). And, with the help of nonprofit organizations like Code.org and FWD.us that were founded shortly thereafter, a national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis was indeed created.
Funny how little thinking goes on at think tanks.
Left, right, so what. Is what they are saying true? That is all that matters.
We need a system less easily manipulated by people with money or hordes of mindless cultists.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
He's buying a stairway to heaven. It's legacy thing. He isn't going to leave his kids and grand kids broke.
and then hire a bunch of Tata Indians to do the work for half price, leaving all these students with new diplomas no way to pay their student loans?
damn stupid program he's pushing. jump one way or jump the other way, but get off the barbed wire fence. that's electrified, too.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
He has to pay lip service to the 'lack of skilled US workers', even though the H1B workers will undercut the demand that is supposed to drive people into those careers
If you believe in free markets. then you have to let there be a vacuum in workers to create a demand for people to want to work those jobs because they will be worth more money
Supplementing the supply with H1B workers reduces the demand, which would drive US workers to seek those jobs
Wherever You Go, There You Are
>> He only wants the best for the next generation of Americans.
Ahh so thats why he's trying to directly engineer mass unemployment of home-grown US engineers, and replace them with a dependency on a 3rd world country where the academic system is a complete sham that is based on widespread cheating and the sale of degrees as standard practice?
Lots of thinking goes on at think tanks. It's just not the sort any decent person wants going on. You shouldn't underestimate your enemy. They are well organized, highly motivated and well funded. They're fighting the best kind of war: one where the other side doesn't know there's a war on.
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Welcome to business school circa 1998, where 'we'll send it all overseas and $profit$' was taught as a viable business practice.
You manage to ignore many of the failures of outsourcing, such as language and cultural divides between customers (business and consumer) and the offshore workers, and the tendency for outsourcers to provide their A team at the beginning of the contract, then shifting their B and C teams into place as they attempt o land more contracts
And, even if you decide that you are going to take the whole kit and kaboodle offshore, that may work for canned existing services that are fully commoditized, but it completely ignores that American tendency to innovate and create new services and companies
As much as you seem to hate Americans, we are still fucking cool and continue to create what the rest of the world wants to buy
Wherever You Go, There You Are
So, are you suggesting that either Sony or Phillips 'left' America, when they are both brands that were originally from foreign lands?
In fact, Phillips runs Phillips Electronics out of Andover Mass, presumably for American talent, and Sony runs Sony Entertainment out of Los Angeles, again for that 'American cool'
Thank you for buying products created by Americans
Wherever You Go, There You Are
You manage to ignore many of the failures of outsourcing, such as language and cultural divides between customers ...
I am not ignoring anything. My post was not a detailed analysis of every pro and con of outsourcing labor and I didn't claim it was. I merely stated that outsourcing exists, and that industries can and do move overseas. Neither of these claims are false.
There are plenty of complications that still allow massive discrepancies in pay between the developed and developing world, but no complications are impossible to overcome. My father in law travels to China a half dozen times per year to fix these kinds of problems in his company's Chinese based manufacturing plants. These problems are very expensive, but overall it is still far cheaper to manufacture overseas. Many of the problems you mention make it very difficult to offshore IT jobs as well, but there is always still a cost point where it is better to deal with those problems and offshore anyway.
And, even if you decide that you are going to take the whole kit and kaboodle offshore, that may work for canned existing services that are fully commoditized, but it completely ignores that American tendency to innovate and create new services and companies
Plenty of companies offshore services that are not completely commoditized, although yes they rarely offshore the core and most innovative aspects of their company. But just as there are plenty of engineering related jobs that shifted overseas when a large amount of the US manufacturing industry moved offshore, there are plenty of other STEM related jobs that are not that innovative as well. I wouldn't doubt that the US could lose half or more of its STEM related jobs without moving much of the innovative sectors of the industry offshore.
Also, it is not a given that the US will continue to be the center of most innovative aspects of the economy. The Large Hadron Collider is one high profile example of the US dropping the ball and letting some of the most innovative physics research in the world leave the US. Many if not most of the greatest large scale engineering achievements in the last couple decades have been accomplished in Asia, not the west. China's total R&D spending has already eclipsed the EU and probably will beat out the US within a decade.
While the US still has a lot going for it, simply assuming it will always be the world's leader in innovation is naive.
As much as you seem to hate Americans, we are still fucking cool and continue to create what the rest of the world wants to buy
I am a native born US citizen (with 3 native born grandparents if it matters) who works in the IT industry. I just don't have any naive ideas about American exceptionalism that make me believe my country is untouchable by the rest of the world. I want our country's economy to stay strong for my children and other future descendants and simply feel that protectionism is not a good path for the US.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
He SAYS he is giving away 90% of his wealth. Most of what he has "given" away so far is in his charity - which he controls. Tax free and growing. Much of what he gives away is to promote his own interests like when the Indian province had its education system going Linux till he gave them money to buy Microsoft stuff. His charity has also lobbied in support of patent laws that Microsoft likes and against those that would allow cheaper drugs for places like Africa. When you still control it and use it for your own benefit it hasn't been given away.
He has to pay lip service to the 'lack of skilled US workers', even though the H1B workers will undercut the demand that is supposed to drive people into those careers
Have you ever noticed only Indians seem to have all the required decades of skills and experience despite the fact those Indians are under 25 years of age?
yeah, because presidents write law, not congress..... look, I don't like Hillary either, but let's not be stupid about criticisms, eh?