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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.
He's giving 90% of his wealth away before he dies[1], feeds the hungry in Africa[2], vaccinates populations at risk who don't have access to vaccines[3][4]. How can you say anything bad about the man? He only wants the best for the next generation of Americans.
[1] .. to buy products from the very companies he owns which increases their value and dividends .. with GMO produce that sterilizes rats after a few generations, gives cows and pigs organ problems, etc. .. using live polio virus (unlike what we get here), causing almost 50,000 children to be paralysed leaving the population worse off than before brushing it off as a statistic, part of keeping our society safe from disease. .. giving only one half of the vaccine for free, requiring the governments to buy the other half from his company
[2]
[3]
[4]
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.
MR. SMITH: "One of the things I've learned from all of the various anti-trust and intellectual property negotiations I've handled over the years is this, sometimes when a small problem proves intractable you have to make it bigger. You have to make the problem big enough so that the solution is exciting enough to galvanize people's attention..."
FUD.us.
These are similar in style and lack of ethics or engineering rigor to the manufactured "compatibility" that got an ISO standard published despite the shrieking of every sensible, competent, non-Microsoft funded voter at the conference. Numerous attendees and members of the IFC committees resigned in protest, and even Microsoft is incapable of following the actual spec. The result is that Microsoft continues to violate the spec they sponsored even in their own software, but bureaucrat without technical awareness or who were already buying Microsoft products can check off "standards compliant" on their checklist of software requirements.
They fight dirty. Take a good look at what happened in Massachusetts to the CIO who demanded software have actual API's so that people would be able to read documents in the future. They did a political hatchet job on him.
http://www.infoworld.com/artic...
And from the linked-to Code.org PowerPoint slide: "We CAN make this an issue like climate change." Btw, in a Reddit AMA at the time of Microsoft-backed Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is also responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work.
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
No, it is the difference between nationalistic and global free markets
If America is constrained by their national boundaries (and citizens) for IT workers, the supply will be less than demand and wages will rise
Id America is free to engage a global market, then there is a glut of IT workers and wages will fall
FYI, no other country, including India, allows foreign IT workers to create a glut and reduce the value of their own workers
Wherever You Go, There You Are
There isn't an US IT shortage, there is a shortage of US IT that will work for less then they are worth. Companies game H-1Bs and treat them more poorly than they could get away with. If one pushes laws to support this corruption don't be surprised when IT unions form to fight it.
People who complain about H-1B visas usually have a misguided view of what the real options are in this debate. They see an option where companies don't use H-1Bs and simply hire more US citizens instead. The reality, however, is that the real options for companies are:
1. Bring in H-1B visas so corporate IT teams stay in the US
2. Build corporate IT teams in other countries
Option #2 is essentially outsourcing, and it is not just some boogeyman intended to scare US workers. It really happens. Entire industries have already moved overseas in the past century, and the software developer and other engineering industries are not immune to it.
If US citizens cannot compete with foreign labor that live in the US, with a similar cost of living as US citizens, we have no hope of competing with foreign labor abroad with a much lower cost of living. There has been a push back against outsourcing software development jobs in the past decade, but if we start practicing protectionism the trend can easily start moving in the other direction again.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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
The way to drive down wages and benefits is to increase the supply. The education and H1B both do that.
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
FYI, no other country, including India, allows foreign IT workers to create a glut and reduce the value of their own workers
Canada does lately. MS built a campus here in Vancouver, got a lot of tax breaks and then announced that less then 20% of employees would be Canadian. Sounds like it is basically a back way in to the States for E. Indian workers.
Shit we even bring in McDonalds workers through our equivalent of H-1B visas. Got to keep that cup of coffee at a $. Actually employers really seem to like the power of having foreign workers, they have to work at one place and can be easily deported and are happy to work weird shifts for minimum wage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Yes, 'American Exceptionalism' is the sort of hubris that let our auto industry fall back on their heels and let their lunch get eaten by Japanese manufacturers
And, I will even go on to agree that protectionism has had a pretty horrible track record for building aggression between nations and probably helped to lead to the first two world wars
However, the IT industry in America forms (and will continue to grow as) a significant portion of the middle class. This middle class is expected to educate their young and continue to provide economic leadership in years to come. The way that I see it, the US can choose to 1. protect domestic IT jobs by avoiding policies that allow US workers to be undermined by foreign workers, or 2. provide a level of social and educational support to Americans that most of the European nations provide (education being number one on the list)
I would go on to argue that protectionism of jobs it not similar to protectionism of trade such as we saw in the early 20th century. Providing some level of support to US jobs by either supporting education or supporting workers provides money to engage in trade and prevents economic sluggishness that would lead politicians to attempt to enact trade protectionism
Right now America has an edge in risk tolerance that gives us an advantage in innovation and business creation. We need to leverage this edge while it exists, and I do not see selling out our middle class for short term quarterly profits as the right was to accomplish that. China continues to demonstrate itself as a very capable competitor and reducing our competitiveness for short term profits at this time seems foolish
Wherever You Go, There You Are
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?
. . . only really works in the labor market we are told, since it is completely inoperative everywhere else!!!!!
And taken a bit further, with a bit more modern historical research, NAFTA was about the same thing: new regs allowing for foreign ownership of Mexican banks (within one year of the passage of NAFTA, or signing by Mexico, 90% of their banks became foreign owned), when then favor Big Agra, which speedily moves in to take over the agriculture industry, while payouts go to Mexican politicians favoring the privatizing of those farmlands occupied by Mexican subsistance farmers, who are then forced off their lands, and thus journey north to America, to continue the downward trend on wages at the lower levels, etc., etc., etc.