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IT Workers Training Their Foreign Replacements 'Troubling,' Says White House
dcblogs writes: A top White House official told House lawmakers this week that the replacement of U.S. workers by H-1B visa holders is 'troubling' and not supposed to happen. That answer came in response to a question from U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) that referenced Disney workers who had to train their temporary visa holding replacements (the layoffs were later canceled. Jeh Johnson, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said if H-1B workers are being used to replace U.S. workers, then "it's a very serious failing of the H-1B program." But Johnson also told lawmakers that they may not be able to stop it, based on current law. Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University who has testified before Congress multiple times on H-1B visa use, sees that as a "bizarre interpretation" of the law.
"Troubling"... "not supposed to happen".
I'm not entirely sure if he's trying to deliberately understate it, or if it is just that he may be completely clueless as to what it feels like for the people who are put in that kind of situation.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The problem is market forces. Software (yes, I know, with some exceptions) can mostly be written anywhere. If one locale can under-cut another on producing the same thing, then there is a huge economic pressure to do it there.
If the more expensive locale tries to use protectionism to keep things local, the other/cheaper locale can simply under-cut them in the market, and the more expensive locale loses out anyway. There are countless examples of industries that have succumbed to this kind of market pressure from cheaper overseas competitors.
So yes, you can probably keep out H-1Bs, but that isn't going to stop the tide. A few specialized cases it might, but for the most common case, it won't. It isn't a pleasant thing to face and people like to shoot the messenger, but jobs DO go to places that do them cheaper. Entire huge industries DO get destroyed over this kind of market force.
windging
They'll say things like "troubling", but when it comes to doing anything, they'll say their hands are tied by the law. Or the other party is against them. Or some other bullshit line.
In the end, companies will do what's best for stockholders, which is immediate financial gains, which is bringing in cheap slaves. And Congress will get their pockets lined by the companies that put them in office and help keep them there.
The recently announced layoffs for the few tech workers in New York and California got cancelled (for now). All 100+ tech workers in Florida got laid off earlier this year. If Disney really wants to do the right thing, they would hired back their laid off workers in Florida and send the Indian workers packing.
Jeh Johnson, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said if H-1B workers are being used to replace U.S. workers, then "it's a very serious failing of the H-1B program."
If Mr. Johnson closes his eyes all the way, he won't see U.S. workers being replaced by H-1B workers.
Perhaps a little collective punishment, reducing the cap from 65,000 visas per year to say 40,000 and reducing it by 5,000 every year in which any company employing these H1-B visa workers misbehaves would send the right signal. Also, the H1-B slots should be sold in public auctions so that those companies that really need talented foreign workers when there are no qualified Americans, which strains credulity, can express that desperate need by either paying up for the Americans they need or forking out expensive foreign workers who are "critical to their ongoing business needs". You need skilled workers? Fine. Show me the money and you shall have them, foreigners or Americans your choice.
how many decades does it need to go on before the federal government actually investigates ?
Your problem is that you seem to think Obama is working for us, relatively normal Americans. He's not. He has arguably done a few things somewhat on our behalf, mostly symbolic, but by and large he works for the same billionaires that fund the campaigns of virtually all major politicians. And the policies that benefit those handful of ultra-rich rarely benefit the 99%. Things like enabling a flow of cheap, skilled, semi-indentured labor into the country to displace educated Americans with our outrageous expectations of decent pay and benefits that cut into corporate profits and executive bonuses.
This has been the case for decades, arguably centuries, though the problem has been accelerated precipitously since the Citizens United ruling that corporate spending is protected free speech. And it will only get worse until we the people rise up and refuse to vote for these corporate lapdogs, and show that our democracy cannot be bought indefinitely. Until then the problems can only be expected to get worse.
For now, it seems Bernie Sanders is the only credible candidate to run for president on such a platform in generations - and for that alone I would vote for him, even if I didn't agree with many of his positions.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Nothing like the H1-B should exist in America. Companies should be forced by federal law to hire American citizens first. Full stop. I remember the 90s when salaries were high and then this... sucks. I've watched my little bit of the IT industry go from great money to crap in less than 20 years. If I didn't have a wife working I wouldn't make it.
My wife and I are thinking of relocating from Texas to Washington state, but not Seattle. She's medical and I'm a sysadmin. She can get a job easy as asking for one. Me? Not so easy. I thought sysadmins would be somewhat insulated from the H1-B thing, but we're not. The stupid requirements they list for IT jobs guarantee everyone BUT an H1-B gets them. What sysadmin is also a competent programmer as well as an experienced database administrator? Very, very few. I'm not one of them. I can do alot of the things, but not all three.
I'm tired of foreigners getting jobs Americans should have. If I ever ran a company, I'd hire nothing but Americans born and raised.
I really really really want Obama to not be an idiot
HAH! TOO LATE!
Why should he be any different than any other president sitting in office in the last 45 years?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The H1B system was created for a specific purpose - very short temporary workers who should become permanent green card holders very quickly. The problem is that it has morphed into a decade long temporary work program that dangles the green card to make the worker work for longer hours and less pay than a green card holder, under the threat of losing it all after being fired.
What really needs to happen is that US and India should sit down and figure this out. Over 60% of the H1B visa users are from India. US should have a special visa program similar to H1B for Indians but without the exploitative nature of it.
And, the reason why H1Bs are cheaper is because the US doesn't want them to go into the general labor pool but exist in their own special labor pool, not competing with the general labor pool. But, this creates a secondary job market and when corporations see the labor price differences between the two job pools, there will be incentive to do what Disney did. So, US should loosen these artificial restrictions that so that everyone is competing on the same level field.
H1B really needs to be revised so that is does not place so much emphasis on "sponsorship". The employer can dangle the sponsorship for years denying raises, promotions and starting with low wages and long hours.
Ideally, there should be generic visa that gives blanket work authorization for a certain period of time (like 3 years) and a path to green card without an employer "sponsorship". When a foreign worker comes to the US, they should be in the same market as everyone else, commanding the same salary, benefits etc. There is too much power with employers right now and so there is exploitation.
A California utility has not only replaced citzens/green card holders with offshore labor, but they've handed control of critical infrastructure to foreign nationals. ATM, India is a friendly nation, but that is not guaranteed to last beyond their next election.
Legally here's what happened:
Some outsourcing company said it could only fill it's consultant ranks by hiring Indians. Since it knew the paperwork really well (and doing paperwork really well is an Indian core competency), it got them.
Then Disney hired the Indian firm to take over some functions at Disney.
Which means that Disney technically did not replace it's employees with H1B Visa holders (which would be ridiculously illegal). It replaced a business unit with a contractor (perfectly legal), and that contractor happened to use H1B Visa holders (also perfectly legal). Courts could rule that the consulting firm were gaming the system, but that's far from a gimme.
Which means you probably should get a new law passed restricting the use of H1B consultants to replace American workers. And you'd damn well better word it very, very carefully or they'll just maneuver around it some interesting way.
The Iran deal is going to boost up his poll numbers when the US can buy Iranian oil, the first time since Carter allowed the Shah to fall [1]. This means lower gas prices, and maybe a return to a non-sucking economy for a period of time.
As for H-1Bs, it is like immigration. People talk about it, shake their fist about it, but follow the money... and find nothing ever gets done, or will get done. Big companies love H-1Bs because they are loyal (and deported if not), dirt cheap [2], and it follows the historic trend that companies have had since the US was formed... open the floodgates to immigrants (documented or not) to dilute wages.
My recommendation? I tell people to go law, finance, or accounting. You can't hire a H-1B in those fields, and there is no such thing as an unemployed attorney.
[1]: Yes, the Shah asked for US help, and Carter gave him the middle finger. Between this, and Carter establishing a permanent presidential order with a permanent moratorium on any new nuclear power reactor construction, he handed the US's fate to Big Oil/Big coal for generations to come.
[2]: For the most part. There are a few H-1Bs which are true experts in their field. However, usually the H-1Bs I encounter barely speak English, and tend to be at the junior level, if that... but they are cheap.
Um. My wife says I'm worth shite. Do the maths.
That sounds like a load of crap!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
We're going to have to do something about that... ... Someday.
Oh look, another financial crisis. No a terrorist threat! That's it, a terrorist threat. Yeah, yeah, a terrorist.
Pay no attention to the billionair behind the curtain. Or the H1-B sitting in your chair.
Another Act wrote up and passed by the Democrat party that is being abused. They say it was not ment to be used like that, well its not how its ment to be used its how it can be applied. Good job democrat party of setting this whole BS up in 1965 when you controlled the senate and house.
The USA is an corporatocracy. All candidates are for sale to the highest bidder. It is like that because those that don't play ball that way are filtered out long before reaching that level of power. Bernie may say he's for the little guy and against the current status quo, but Obama had a similar platform and look what happened. Once he was voted in, he just kept on doing what the corporate masters told him to, just like the presidents before him.
They all need to be tossed out of office and the system reworked to prevent money from controlling it again. First step would be to remove campaigning from the agenda altogether. If you get X number of signatures, you get to run for office. All runners get an Internet site of specified size and format, and an X minute TV and radio segment to be aired X times throughout the running period. The information on the candidates and their platforms would be available to all voters. No endorsement of candidates by any corporate entity, any media, or any publication. Just the facts, the vote, and a hard-line enforcement on any who break those rules.
The other problem is preventing candidates from taking bribes from corporate entities, mostly in the form of favors or after-term, do-nothing, highly paid job positions.
Depends on what law they are talking about.
I am thinking of "Disney is thy God and Mickey Mouse is its prophet. Keepest thou his copyrights, and his grace will keep lining your pockets and all artists will bow to your strength and give you what is yours since there is nothing but for your grace, and nothing shall come off it but for your permission.
For thine is the power, and the money, and the greed, in eternity.
Madame Clinton has taken $3Million in donations from Tata and Infosys so if you want to find yourself training your own personal replacement in the near future, you know who to vote for...
Hmmm... First, citizens united merely over turned a restriction that hadn't actually been in place for very long and was pretty much instantly brought to trial where it immediately lost.
Second, there are serious problem with the idea behind restricting political speech. It really is a violation of the first amendment. You either believe in free speech or you don't.
Third, Bernie isn't winning. He's the Left's Donald Trump. Trump is not winning the white house and any republican that backs him is wasting their time and money... and credibility. Bernie ain't winning either.
If you only vote for people with D's after their name, then here are your POSSIBLE chances at the white house in 2016:
Hillary Clinton
Martin O'Malley
Unless someone else throws their hat in the ring... that's all you've got.
I excluded these people:
Jim Webb
Bernie Sanders
Lincoln Chafee
They are not getting elected.... Jim Web... MAYBE... I doubt it because he doesn't have any support that I can see. But Bernie is going no where. If you dominate him, then unless the republicans also nominate Trump... you've got zero chance.
A contest between two crazy candidates is unpredictable. I wouldn't count on either of them getting so much as nominated though.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Our President is not an idiot. He's calculating, deliberate, and intentional.
Do you think for a moment he's not executing his intentions, largely with the support and assistance of Congress, even now?
Don't play the 'idiot' card. You are dead wrong. In fact, the last 5 Presidents can be dismissed as 'idiots' if you pretend, and squint enough. They each had their own agendas, strategies, and goals. Only one had any significant trouble fulfilling their intentions, and he got saddled with a need to go to war, which only partially satisfied his goals and ambitions.
And the one before these 5? He was an unfortunate idiot, a decent man that thought to his last day in office that he could make a difference. He has had a more positive influence in the world since his Presidency than during it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
...This doesn't just happen in America. We the people all over the world are getting replaced by cheaper workers now. I was replaced myself, and had to train up a couple of cheap trainees that the GOV. had given my former workplace in a so called back-to-work program, with a much lesser salary - plus the GOV. even PAID for the workers the first year.
No employer in the world can afford to say no to such a deal, the trainees actually had 16 years of experience in their field behind them, but where also laid off from a bigger company earlier on - and had been on GOV. wellfare for a long time, this is SWEDEN btw. so it's amazing it's even happening here, but since we're a wealthy country (on the paper, not counting the MASSIVE debt each Swede have since they essentially don't own anything but borrow money), this isn't something you'll see in any newspaper - much less reported in American news.
It's a sign of the new times we're heading for. The outsourcing is massive, the GOV. will attempt to get work back to the country, so the salaries of everyone has to be slashed, but you try to tell the happy fat cat that he has to cut his living costs and you'll get the UNION all over you until you have to file for bankruptcy if you do what they want anyway. There's another agenda too - and that is they're trying to open the borders worldwide, so workers can essentially work and live anywhere. You'll notice MASSIVE unemployment rates as everything you once knew will fall apart right in front of you, until you eventually decide to accept lower pay, less perks, longer hours etc.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
at least not in their banking laws. The way the laws are written is if you violate the spirit of the law but not the letter you're still in trouble. Of course, Rich people lose money when banking laws are violated. You know, we could learn something from those people. Violating the spirit of the law should carry the same weight. Screw this noise where corps just maneuver around laws. Put a little more power in our Judicial system to interpret intent, and maybe a few odds/end checks and balances to prevent abuses and problem solved. I know I'm over simplifying it, but it's better than throwing our hands up and saying we're all done for...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you were, you wouldn't need training..
What used to happen is that something was academic, then it became a trade, then it became ubiquitous.
With computers being relatively new everyone still thinks you need a 4+ year education to do some of the stuff when it would be better of as a skilled trade. Not everyone is built for college/university. There are a lot of qualified intelligent individuals that, at the age of 13-14 should have gone into an apprenticeship program for the local IT workers 1010010101.
As technology progresses people dive deeper and deeper into various fields stuff shifts down the educational chain. First it's highly academic R&D and only a few PhDs know about it. Then it moves into the area where a masters degree is sufficient, then BS, then Trade, then it becomes unskilled labor.
The problem with STEM the last ~40 years is people are still convinced that you HAVE to go to college for some of these things and it's no true, we need to have people start specializing around 13-14 like we have always done. It's how Germany operates its educational model. There needs to be a good apprenticeship programs setup.
60 years ago no one had a camera, now kids are walking around taking photos. Everything bumps but CS and IT, for some reason, have refused to do that. You see it all the time on Slashdot "Well back in my day you had to take 4 classes on structures before you were allowed near..." and that's not the case any more. There are children building mobile apps. Sure they aren't always great but the point is that the younger you expose kids to this stuff the more ubiquitous it becomes for humanity. Pushing students that are 'interested in computers' towards an IT trade path at 14 would allow them to then learn enough by time they graduated highschool to then specialize in some realm of IT.
It's already going that way in Engineering. Mechanical Engineering is going to undergo a Mitosis in the next decade because there just isn't enough room for everything in the curriculum. Freshmen level Engineering courses need to be moved down to 16 year olds and then let them decide if they'd rather study fluid dynamics engineering or thermodynamics engineering. There is enough material in both realms to warrant a full degree in both. And if there is cross over there is always double/twin majors like Mechatronics is now (Between ME/EE).
Split CS and IT into 10 different majors each. Teach basic CS stuff to 15-16 year olds and those that are more hands on will just go into it as a trade, those that want to learn more can go to college.
50+ employees in first if 3 waves.
What a big surprise, another Democrat idea that dose not work as they said it would. Next we will be training what use to be illegal immigrants to take over our jobs since they will accept a smaller paycheck.
If you have people being forced to train under multiple financial threats (unemployment eligibility, severance), that is enough evidence of a qualified person. The job is then handed to someone that has no qualifications prior to the involuntary knowledge transfer - aside from being a non-citizen.
How about removing the ability to do that to someone? That is, give the at-will provision some teeth for the employee side of things so that quitting can mean something.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If you only vote for people with D's after their name, then here are your POSSIBLE chances at the white house in 2016:
Hillary Clinton
Martin O'Malley
Elizabeth Warren!
not bad enough to do anything about it,.
they've handed control of critical infrastructure to foreign nationals.
The worst part of that being that command and control of systems is now vastly more easy to either take control of, or simply disrupt if your goal is chaos.
What happens when the big earthquake hits and communications have gone to hell?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Please don't mention Fauxcahontas in a serious discussion.
The recently announced layoffs for the few tech workers in New York and California got cancelled (for now). All 100+ tech workers in Florida got laid off earlier this year. If Disney really wants to do the right thing, they would hired back their laid off workers in Florida and send the Indian workers packing.
You misunderstand. Disney is about SELLING dreams to kids and their parents, not funding them. They are tyrannical and hypocritical to say the least.
She's not running and is unlikely to run against Hillary.
Note that I'm not endorsing any of these people. I'm just saying some people can win and some people cannot.
The republican field is a complete three ring circus at this point. I think they have something like 20 people officially running. Of those... MAYBE 5 have a chance of getting so much as nominated. The rest are just a giant waste of time. And trump is of course on that list.
He won't be nominated and if he is, he won't be elected.
Bernie is the same. Waste of time.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Does anyone who didn't graduate from IIT Bombay actually use the word "Mechatronics"?
Maybe you could get an apprenticeship in that?
P.S.: a DeVry Associate Degree in Web Graphic Design graduate probably is more qualified to write software than most 16 year olds.
First the system sucks for American workers and the H1-B workers. However, what I noticed is that in many cases as soon as an Indian worker makes management they work hard to turn the work force into a 100% Indian shop. I don't know whether it is cultural based hiring or an act of anger.. However, in my long career I have never seen an Indian manager hire a Latino, Black or Caucasian worker.. In many cases some Indian managers go as far as tell HR recruiters they just want to see resumes of people from India. Diversity in IT must be a running joke with many HR departments these days. My advice is that if you end up as the last developer who is not Indian in your technology department it is time to polish up your resume because you could be next on the hit list.
In the end, companies will do what's best for stockholders, which is immediate financial gains, which is bringing in cheap slaves.
No, in the end they'll do what is perceived, by upper management, as being best for upper management.
This includes immediate financial gains, or at least the appearance of them on the bottom line. But it also includes a smooth ramp-up of this bottom line: A sudden opportunity must often be delayed or abandoned, rather than seized, because it would lead to a spike-and-dip on consecutive quarters.
It also includes cutting expenses - particularly R&D and salaries - giving the appearance of building the future while abandoning it and gradually tearing down the present as well. The quality of the current output shrinks while future products aren't finished or don't work. But the bottom linen looks great for a couple years. The executive suite pats themselves on the back, collects their bonuses, and moves on to the next victim company. Their successors inherit the house of cards, and the blame when it collapses.
Great for the execs. Rotten for the stockholders. But a necessary skill for executives is the ability to convince the stockholders (and maybe some of the board members) that they're really doing great - until they've moved on to the next suckers.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You had me with you until you said Social Security.
You are aware that every penny put into the Social Security Trust fund is immediately "borrowed" back into the general fund via bond purchases, right?
Also: H1B workers pay into Social Security already, with no chance of ever seeing that money themselves (not like any of us will ever see it, either).
It's completely and totally WRONG that we need to import workers in order to get shit done in this country.. or is it more about what they're getting paid, and not about their skills? If it's about skills, then when and where did it happen that we stopped being on the cutting edge of things?
Memo to America: Step it up. You're a first-world country for fuck's sake, act like it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Yes, Eisenhower warned about a "military-industrial complex" and left-wingers have cited this like a new gospel ever since, but they ALWAYS fail to quote the entire thing - which is VERY IMPORTANT and changes a lot of the context (not to the political liking of the left, which is why they never fully quote it). Eisenhower was NOT the general-turned-anti-military (the preferred narrative of some on the left) but rather the even more revolutionary politician-turned-anti-corruption (probably because he never really was a professional politician)
Eisenhower warned of two tightly-related things, both caused by the rise of modern science and tech:
1. That war was now so complex, lethal, and tech-dependent that the nation would no longer be able to operate as in the past (mostly unarmed during peacetime and then with a massive arms build-up when war became imminent). The result is that you cannot, for example, enter a war relatively disarmed and then wait 6 years to build an aircraft carrier. The natural consequence of this, which was what Eisenhower warned about, is that some big corporations would transition to only building military systems, then become fully dependent upon military contracts, and then start driving dangerous national policies because they need the contracts. This not a warning against defending the nation, buying the best weapons, militarism, or conspiracy theories as much as it is a severe warning about crony capitalism, particularly in the sphere of war.
2. That a society so dependent upon science and technology could easily fall into the trap of surrendering to the policy choices of people operating under the banner of "science" and that those scientists (just like the defense contractors) would depend on government funding and then start influencing government policy choices (the exact co-dependent crony action as the defense contractors). This was a warning that while science is charged with discovering things, it is NOT in the position of prescribing public policy in a free republic. The representatives of the people are still the ones charged with making the decisions that balance man, nature, the rights of the individual, the public good, etc.
We have indeed plunged into the hazards of warning #1, not by accident but by deliberate political choice - at every turn along the way since the Cold War both Republican and Democrat administrations have approved all the defense contractor mergers so that we now have a very small pool of massive defense contractors who are entirely too dependent on DoD contracts, and are now "too big to fail". If Boeing, Lockheed, or Northrop were now to go belly-up the Pentagon would go into full panic mode as it would face a supplier pool unable to meet its needs. This was no accident - the defense contractors lobbied for all those merger approvals and the politicians got their campaign contributions.
What many of the left refuse to acknowledge however is that the modern Democrat party is pushing hard to also implement #2. We have huge struggles today with government-funded researchers trying to drive their policy prescriptions exactly as Eisenhower predicted (see: all global warming stuff, nearly everything the EPA is doing, etc)
As always, it's always best to read the actual source materials: like in this case script he read on the air as opposed to a hacked-up edited YouTube video or somebody's edited partial quote.
They are supposed to be highly skilled and possess talents which can't be located in the local market after a reasonable search.
Now, you can write lots of words but lawyers just sharpen their teeth on that kind of thing.
Simply set a dollar amount equal to the current top 10% income in the country. Right now, that's about $100,000.
So you can't bring an H1B in for less than $100,000. Minimum salary in their pocket- not the contracting house.
Right now almost 40,000 of the 65,000 slots are taken up by large indian contracting houses which have been directly replacing existing american workers (which is illegal per the text of the law which is why some companies are walking this back when caught). This means that companies like Microsoft and Google that need genuinely rare talent have less than a 50/50 chance of getting some brilliant mathematician or cutting edge software engineer.
Tellingly, Cognizant (over 9000 H1B's) has no offices in Silicon valley but have offices in most major american cities. Their target is not rare and special but people who simply have a 4 year degree and a few years experience.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
some particular government policy or action is "bad" or "troubling" or "worrisome", etc any nearby citizen or any honest journalist should immediately corner him/her and ask: "What are YOU going to DO about it?" and should totally trash any response full of mealy-mouthed talk about "studies" and "committees" and "independent investigations", all of which are standard dodges for "nothing, just wait for the political heat to go away."
This applies equally to the left and the right. The Politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle do this, often hiding behind their well-paid personal spear catchers (aka "spokespersons") who are empowered to boldly lie, leaving the actual politician with clean hands. Journalists and voters of all stripes have been letting them all get away with it for far too long.
I have interviewed and worked with several H1B's, and one thing that I have noticed is that while they're slightly cheaper, there is a cultural problem that is endemic. A lot of these folks are not able to innovate or thinking outside of the box. These are essential qualities in a good software developer (at least in my opinion). I have worked with one H1B whom is VERY good, and is able to think in addition to work.
I do believe that they are hard workers and that they try, I don't know how successful they will be in the long run. Most of the candidates I have interviewed have generally been hard-put to think through problems. For example, I would ask them how would they generally approach a problem (e.g. your users need to do x, tell me how you would do this). Most were stumped by this. I would even try to lob easy questions such as database normalization (You have a table that repeats the same fields like reference name 1, reference name 2, is this correct and if not why?).
There is also another problem, they aren't really that much cheaper ! The U.S. is an expensive place to live, and you can not really cut corners that much. We are talking about a difference of maybe 10-15k a year (at least in the ones I've spoken to). Most of the time, if you take the additional meetings that need to take place to re-review the requirements due to a little hiccup (see point about not being able to think though problems) and the costs could actually go UP. If you have to have an additional hour of meeting per week (very generous) with a PM, 3xDevelopers, BA (average if you have multiple dev streams). That's 52*5=260 hours. Average of $55/hour across all three roles, that is $14,300 for a single meeting hour long weekly meeting for the year. So the potential savings you got from one of the developers could be a wash. I have also noticed that non H1B programmers tend to work faster (again see point about working more independently).
So my point is that this maybe a situation of self correction. The trend might re-balance itself as more companies realize some of these realities; however, that would assume that the companies take such things into account instead of being penny wise and pound foolish.
Disney has been caught violating labour laws before, but no-one wants to deal with a "too big to jail" corporation, that also offers a lot of bribes, sorry, free speech.
Why not? As someone pointed out, when the government creates second-tier employees, businesses are going to dump first-tier employees and use the cheaper labour resource. I'm surprised businesses haven't used their bribes, sorry, free speech to promote 'work for the dole' programs: That would halve costs again.
The four stage strategy of government:
In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
What you're overlooking here is racism on behalf of the contractor that brought in Indians on H1Bs.
Racism you say?
Talk to people in the valley.
If you're a "white guy", try getting a job as an American citizen where the majority of the workers are Indians.
Doesn't happen.
They're much more racist than you or I (or than we're allowed to be.)
That's another dirty secret of H1Bs.
Adjust the law so it says that the H1B people have to be paid 120% (or more) of whatever the local people were being paid.
If there is a shortage (supply and demand), you pay more.
If you need them because they are higher quality, well, you pay more.
Also include the following in the law: If you adjust local pay scales to attempt to circumvent this law, then it is contempt of the law, which carries a large penalty.
Those arguing for these visas said their companies had a large number of jobs not filled. Are companies looking to just swap out "lower skilled" Americans with "higher skilled" non-Americans?
Get back to me when the law says you can't buy the store brand tomato soup if you wish because it displaces the well-known national brand.
How about when the law says you can't grow wheat for your personal use because it displaces the wheat you would have bought from someone else?
"The Court decided that Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, which is traded nationally (interstate). Although Filburn's relatively small amount of production of more wheat than he was allotted would not affect interstate commerce itself, the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers just like Filburn would certainly become substantial. Therefore, according to the court, Filburn's production could be regulated by the federal government."
I disagree somewhat, it's not a waste of time and money to back people like Trump and Sanders. They won't win the election, but by backing them you can affect the policies of the other candidates.
No, you are a quarter of a man.
Yes, I mean your penis is small. You've probably only got one ball too! Our H1Bs have one ball, have one ball!.
Jim Webb doesn't strike me as particularly interested in the office.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Not really.
What is trump's big message? Close the borders, shut down immigration, deal with crime, and I think I heard him say we should boycott mexico... I mean... I can't even take this shit seriously its so stupid.
Is our immigration system messed up? Yep. Do we get too many welfare cases from mexico largely attracted by our messed up labor market that is starved for low level labor but is denied it domestically through a mixture of overly aggressive minimum wages and labor laws? Yep.
But the solution here is not to attack an ethnic group or suggest the mexican people are bad. They're poor and their government is corrupt/incompetent. That's the level of decision making that has gone into their end of things. Most of the fuck ups have happened on OUR side of the border and fixing it is not productive engaged by blaming the mexicans for stuff.
You reform our labor policies, you reform enforcement for illegal immigration, you make a point of not offering welfare to new immigrants illegal or otherwise, and you make a point of coming down hard on businesses that exploit the situation. And while you're at it, look at whatever revenue stream the cartels are using to make money and make it not profitable. The legalization of weed for example is forcing the cartels out of that market. Domestic weed from various domestic pot growers are driving them out of the market.
Does that mean I'm suggesting we do the same thing with cocaine and heroine? Yep... I'm one of those people. I'll fucking sell you bleach to inject into your eyeballs if you know what you're doing.
The hypocrisy of the people that say "oh its your body you should be able to do what you want" in one situation and then say "oh but you need a doctor's prescription to get the heart medication you've been taking for 20 years"... the fuck? If I want to eat rat poison... I don't need to get a prescription. I can go to the hardware store, buy rat poison, bake myself a big rat poison cake, and have a fucking party. But if I want to get a drug to lower my cholesterol and I was previously suggested by a doctor to take that drug and possibly had past prescriptions for it... no, you have to go get another one for no rational reason.
And I extend that to heroine or magic mushrooms or whatever. I have family that are drug addicts... I know the "pain"... drug enforcement isn't stopping my junkie cousin from getting as much heroine as he wants now so I don't see what this is accomplishing. Last time I saw him... he was bragging about his new exercise/diet thing... As if everyone didn't know he was just back on the needle again. Hilarious.
So yeah. Trump is playing the crowd. He doesn't even belief half the crap that comes out of his mouth. He's just stirring up the crowd. And it will go no where and it isn't a productive discussion.
Then you have bernie sanders... less overtly insane and likely a great deal more sincere. However... equally unrealistic.
His first idea is to get rid of all the US free trade agreements and basically reintroduce tariffs. That's about as practical as the idea to put the US back on the gold standard. It isn't happening. Every business interest... F"ING ALL OF THEM... would start suicide bombing congressman to stop that. And economically, whether it would actually help us is debatable because there would be international reprisals. It would basically start trade wars all over the place. And have fun with dealing with that for decades on end. And then you'd have foreign policy problems because now our allies that are mostly the people we have these agreements with would start hating us or causing problems or forming alliances with rival powers. I mean... he has no idea the fucking third rail he's talking about pissing on. Lightening will go up the urine stream and fry his dick completely off his body.
Oh but he gets better, he wants to do another of these genius "eat the rich" ideas where you just go after those rich people. This idea always fails. Because rich people can just pull thei
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The Real Solution to the Visa Worker Scam
http://www.techtoil.org/2015/07/what-stem-workers-need-to-do-but.html
About 99% of US politicians want to increase the visa workers. You cannot vote the problem away, and you certainly cannot petition the problem away.
There is only one solution, workers need to organize, raise money, and lobby congress. In DC, money talks and bullshit walks.
I listed people that are officially running and said who I thought could actually be credible in a national election.
My point was that neither Bernie nor Trump are credible for president. Bernie is an ideologue and is one of those fellows that mistakes adherence to dogma with wisdom. If that were how it worked the men muttering about their old gods would win every time.
And Trump... I really really doubt he's sincere. I think he's playing the crowd and just saying whatever he thinks people want to hear.
What's worse... a person that pretends to believe crazy shit to get attention or a guy that actually does believe crazy shit and doesn't care if people think its crazy?
They're both non-viable. Trump has personally fucked over so many business partners and people that loaned him money over the years. I mean... the guy basically is out for himself all the time. And that's not the sort of guy you put in the white house. You want as much as possible the George Washington model... a guy that could have been king if he wanted to be... could have started a royal dynasty. The whole thing. And he gave it up on principle after winning the war and winning the politics.
Who here thinks Trump would give up a chance to be king if he had it? He'd take it. And who here thinks Bernie could win the war or win the politics? He's a joke even amongst his allies.
That the press and the political establishments and the voters are taking these people seriously is depressing. They're not going to win.
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college/university has to much filler / fluff / theory.
In IT / CS some theory is nice to have but in some college/universitys there is way to much and you get people with big skill gaps or they know lot's of stuff that does not really help when doing most IT / coding work.
The problem in the U.S. is not people who don't have skills. People have skills. The problem is that skills aren't valued. If you have skills, you will get paid shit. If you manipulate money, you will get paid a lot. This is why there's been such a geek brain drain into the financial industry. The U.S. does not value working for a living. We value gambling for a living.
Parent is Off topic
I hold out hope that the two of them are getting air time not because they could win, but because they are more interesting than Clinton v. Bush. Plenty of time for that boring crap later.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I hate to say it, but us filthy right-wing populists would just cancel the damn H1-B program, The problem is we can't do it alone and need support from someone else. That would most likely be left-wing populist/labor groups, but they seem to focused on social issues.
(Yeah, I know the right-wing business class currently rules the Republican Party. The tech-media elites get whatever they want and they're left-wing! Christ!)
I had been replaced by worker in overseas location due to cheaper cost. You really can't fault the workers, as it is a management decision. Unless there are laws requiring access to US business systems by US employees, it is all fair game. You should always be learning new skills and be thinking of your next job. This is no longer the information age, as it is now the age of global corporations. Eventually, there will be a transition from government rule to rule by global corporate entities. This is the future.
Yes, it's horrible, etc etc, but what kind of moron actually trains their overseas replacement?
If I was told to do that, my exact words would be "go fuck yourself".
If the debate continued after that point, it might get nasty.
They know what's in it. What they may not know is how it will be applied.
However, they know how it is applied, because it has been done for years. They know that employers will specify impossible and non-existent job requirements so that they can justify H1B hires. IN 1988 a recruiter contacted me looking for a programmer with 10 years of experience with PC DOS.
Fight Spammers!
Oh, I thought you were talking about, "soap box, ballot box, jury box and ammo box. Please use in that order."
im voting for rand paul
Everything bumps but CS and IT, for some reason, have refused to do that.
I think a lot of it is due to something I was observing just the other day: Americans, by and large, seem to feel that the way things are now (or were at some idealized point in the past 50 years) is The Way It Was Meant To Be—not just a good way, but the divinely-intended end result of all of history. Thus, changing things from that point is not only a bad idea, but to some extent, impossible. It's just not something that their brains can even conceive of.
Unless, of course, the things you're changing are in an attempt to bring about the End Times. Then it's totally allowed.
(Though this statement of the problem does make heavy reference to believing in a divine plan, I've seen the same sort of mentality in people who weren't particularly religious. They just still couldn't wrap their brains around the idea that the way things are wasn't the way things would/should be forever.)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I more cynically believe that they're getting airtime to distract from those two bores so that by the time the election comes around they're still viable because people haven't learned how much they hate them yet.
I mean... I am about 95 percent sure Trump is just trolling. He can't be serious. Most of what he says contradicts shit he's said and done in the not too distant past, the views seem very contrived to fit opinion polls of current events, and frankly they're just too dumb for him. Trump is an educated guy... I think he has bad taste in hotel design... why is everything painted gold like a saudi whorehouse... its an odd thing. But I don't think he's stupid and he's pushing things that are stupid.
Bernie is a victim of his ideology. He's just so trapped in his little box that you could bury him in it. The guy's entire world view is this sad recitation of bygone socialist talking points that anyone that knows anything knows isn't going to happen. And unlike trump, I credit Bernie with not being a liar. But that sadly means he's a deluded fool instead.
I think the circus sideshow makes Bush and Hillary look better by contrast. The opposition is painted as crazy and so people flock to the establishment.
The DNC and GOP have better candidates than the crazies or the establishment. O'Malley or whatever his name is seems better than hillary and there are three or four people in the GOP ticket that less sell out cunts than Jeb... and I just refuse to have another f'ing Bush in office for another 100 years at least. Just no. ... I mean... Trump? Anyone that takes that seriously with a straight face is either an accomplished liar or a nitwit.
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You can do that if you want but he's not getting nominated. his numbers are terrible.
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Sanders is at least honest about what he is and what he stands for. I may not agree with him, but I respect his candor on his beliefs.
Also you are a retard if you think Donald Trump is useful for anything more than a game show host. How many of his businesses have gone bankrupt? Seriously?
The real problem for these companies hiring from India and others, is that they ARE paying low wages for the workers. That makes them susceptible to being bribed by other corporations and nations.
If anybody takes a look at the major companies (target, home depot, nemum marcus, etc) that were cracked over the last couple of years, nearly all had windows, and all had outsourced to India. Indian coders are paid around $8K / year. That means that China or Russia can easily bribe somebody for 80K, which is 10 years worth of salary there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The issue here, is that the only way to fix this, is if the neo-cons/tea* who control CONgress will get off their yellow belly, grow a fucking pair, and deal with the issue of illegals and legal immigration. L1B and H1B needs to be gone.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So she is a Sunni?
Math ain't your strong point, is it? What it means is that 4 of you are worth 1 of him
and that too, from the guy being replaced
You can do that if you want but he's not getting nominated. his numbers are terrible.
Well you know whose numbers are also looking terrible these days? Freedom. I'm voting for freedom and I'm voting for rand.
his numbers look bad only because he has stepped back while the hoopla is going on letting trump and others take the abuse. We will see what happens, hes still my top pick
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
we dont need their oil though, we are exporting more than we import now
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Unless the switching costs are trivial, streaming doesn't provide flexibility.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The first time a Terrorist is granted an H-1B visa.
Every Senator in Washington will drop all support for it Permenantly.
Corporations will then be on the side of the Terrorists.. problem solved.
No, it was troubling ten years ago when I was watching software engineers being shown the door at Lexmark while their H1B replacements were taking their place before the chairs had a chance to get cold. I lasted another 4 years before my position met the same fate.
/. Dissent will not be tolerated. Think like us or perish.
I'm only going to reply to one thing in your crazy multi page rant, it will prove in not doing it to support another republican candidate.
You think the American minimum wage is too high?
holy shit America is fucked.
You can vote for whomever you want in the primary but when it comes to the general election, you'll have to choose between whomever the DNC nominates and whomever the GOP nominates.
And keep in mind that if you throw your vote behind Rand and lots of like minded people like you do that... chances are the GOP nominee will be Jeb Bush. Thus your "vote for freedom" will cause Jeb Bush to get nominated.
The Democrats that waste their time on Bernie will probably get Hillary nominated.
This country doesn't need any more empty pointless gestures. Vote for someone that can win or you are voting for the establishment.
And if both the DNC and the GOP do that... then it will be Jeb vs Hillary.
My understanding is that most republicans and democrats don't like either of these options. But it is precisely what you'll get if you're not practical.
This country was not built by pie eyed idealists. It was built by hard headed pragmatic men of wisdom.
Choose wisely. That is all I ask. You think your vote for rand is "wise"?... Okay. You do that. It is my estimation that it is foolish. My opinion.
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He's a strong pick amongst libertarian republicans but... he isn't acceptable to the rest of the GOP base and even if he were, his ability to win moderates is likely poor.
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I'll say this. I'm from the state that exported him, so he'd stop pestering people here and spread his attentions around (kinda like Arkansas did with Clinton).
I stand behind my statement.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We can always hog tie them and leave them at the immigration office stamped "return to sender".
officials might not be able to do anything , but this g33k familly has put disney on embargo until those employees are rehired , given real flat excuses and a nice lump sum + raise as compensation , GEEKS UNITE !
It's dishonest to say that there is no way to prevent businesses from abusing the H1B program. Screening based on motivation for the hire is baked into the program. The only way to get a H1B worker to replace an American worker is to file false documents with the US Department of Labor. That's already a crime. The problem is they don't want to enforce it, because they depend on companies like Disney to fund political advertising. I think it's a little sad that America's first black president won't weigh in on what is effectively a modern servant indenture program, even while claiming to want to help illegal immigrants who are exploited a similar way.
Washington has just been cashing lobbyist cheques for years and not watching the results of their actions. Who knows, if BO and his cronies wake up and actually DO SOMETHING, I MIGHT consider a vote for that side of the isle, but I am still skeptical. BTW, Republican's aren't 'correct' either (even if they are on the 'right'). They just currently seem to have less wrong than the Dems do, and that I how I have seen politics for a long time. No love for ANY party.
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
It's far too early to call the nominations. There's plenty of time for somebody like Jimmy Carter to get into the campaign and eventually win it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Extremists of whatever nature can do well in the early nomination process, particularly in something like the Republican circus, but while they can do very well in certain primaries they rarely do well in most of them, and the most extreme candidates of my lifetime (Goldwater and McGovern) did pretty badly in the general election.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Jim Webb may not have a ton of current support, but he's the only one I'm willing to support. People aren't really aware of the available choices yet. We don't have to be stuck with Hillary if voters are willing to actually consider all available candidates rather than just going for the least objectionable celebrity politician. I would count on him to be rather unsympathetic to H1B interests when they effect American workers.
You're behind the times on lawyers. It's become a lot more difficult to get a job in the field, leaving a lot more people with large student debts and not enough income to pay them off. Knowledge-based professions are getting hit by computerization similarly to basic labor. I'm not as familiar with finance and accounting, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them become much less lucrative for everybody not at the top. If I were running a small business, I could use shrinkwrap software to do my accounting and taxes.
As far as the Shah goes, it isn't clear to me that keeping him in power was a winning move in the long run. Our chances to normalize relations with Iran are better now than if we'd supported the Shah. He was going down eventually, and the sooner the better. Moreover, I don't see how a friendly Iran would affect our difficulties with Big Oil.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Thank you, Captain Obvious!
The vast majority of companies use Windows - you realize Windows has a 90% market share on desktops, and the great majority of servers (> 50%).
India is the source of (probably) 75-85% of all Tech H1B visa holders, and the location of the vast majority of outsource work on the planet.
Not sure any of the major data breeches were found to have anything to do with foreign workers, the vast majority came from attacking a retail outlet and essentially taking credit card info from the card readers themselves. Sometimes backup tapes are lost, and occasionally actual databases are accessed, but typically the data thieves target credit card data in a store.
Ken
This is such an easy problem to fix - simply re-calibrate the salary threshold to today's job market. The salary threshold in the law is static, set at about $65K IIRC (too lazy to look it up) - companies are required to pay these valuable, expert foreign workers the exorbitant salary of $65K, and when passed that was a high income level, now it's what many cities pay teachers with less than 10 years experience.
Increase the salary threshold to it's current equivalent of the original $65K - something north of $125K feels about right.
Ken
This is old news. Agelient did the same thing with their accountants in 2002. The accountants were told to train their Indian replacements or loose their pensions. So, I think this is pretty common and a good reason to end H1B. Businesses can find the people they need, just not the cheap people they want.
As I understand how this actually works, the companies get the visa for the foreign techies they wish to employ, either here or back in their home countries. It's a rather simple case for them to do what Disney was apparently up to -- get their American employees to train the newbies who will work for far less money and then lay off the Americans ( or perhaps "encourage" them to resign.) The other possibility is they bring in the new foreign workers and get their American employees to train them. Then, they send the foreign workers back to their home countries and completely outsource all of the work formerly being done in America. Do we now understand why these visas are so popular with the employers? The notion that there are not enough CS graduates being produced in this country is also bogus. It is unfortunate that so many believe it to be true. If it were in fact true, then every software engineer and other IT experts here in America who have gotten to be age 40 or above would be fully employed. I would like to propose to all involved here to cut back on these visas until we are certain that every American IT specialist who wants to work or continue working in these specialties in fact has a job. We have to begin to draw the line here, especially with respect to job discrimination against older workers. Such discrimination is every bit against the law as is racial discrimination. I say, not one of these visas should be issued unless we have run out of Americans who can do this work, and that includes older Americans.
First time I saw someone make the point that the Federal Government has a part to play insofar as who it hires, as a way to support a beleaguered class of workers...we always hear how the US doesn't have enough IT talent, so the government could help by fostering the development of that talent.
Where I work as a Fed Gov contractor, the percentage of non-citizen IT workers is beyond imagination. And when they cannot speak English well enough to be understood, even by other barely proficient English speakers, believe me, it does get in the way of work. You would think they would at least be more careful in their written English, but I have received the most unintelligible e-mails. Over the past several years, I have often been the sole native-Speaker in my project, and it has affected my own ability to write comprehensibly.
The Base of both parties sees most of their own politicians as liars and sell outs. This is true of democrats and republicans. As such there is a hunger in both camps for "authenticity"...
In this, I would say the democrats found someone with Bernie Sanders that at least believes what he says.
With Trump, the belief by many republicans is that he also believes what he says... but I personally doubt his sincerity on many levels which I think I explained above.
Regardless, neither candidate is a good presidential pick.
We need someone that will unite the nation. Bernie is unacceptable to about 75 percent of the country. And I would be shocked if trump were acceptable to as much as 10-15 percent of the country.
Either one will be divisive and that is not good for the country. Whatever you might think about Obama, he has been a very controversial president and he replaced another controversial president.
We need an Eisenhower... a Washington... someone everyone can get behind without a lot of shit. And the only way that is going to work is if whomever takes the seat allows everyone to win.
A big issue in the US is that we have this increasing tendency to go for "all or nothing" or "one size fits all" systems and that is at the heart of a lot of our tensions. The ACA for example would be fine if the states that opted out of it were truly allowed to opt out.
If the very left wing states want to go for full blown socialism, I think they should be allowed to do it. States that want a different system or to simply keep things a certain way and not mess with it... let them.
Its a big country and its supposed to be a free country. If the given presidents didn't force things on people then we wouldn't have this tension. If the tension keeps amping up... some sort of crack up between the states and the feds could be very likely. I'm not talking about a civil war. Just various states refusing to comply in the way that the sanctuary cities don't comply with ICE or the drug cities don't cooperate with the DEA. The trend increasingly is that instead of exemptions written into law, states are simply refusing to comply and then daring the feds to do something about it.
I think Texas has done that in a few cases with the EPA, BLM, and a few other agencies and so far has gotten away with it.
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We'll see... a lot of things happened to make carter credible... a lot of things will need to happen to make someone not already known credible.
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He's got no establishment support and from what I can see very little grass roots support.
Anything can happen but he's campaign is looking pretty bleak.
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Should US IT workers get their shit together and realize that they're just not worth as much as they're being paid? It is not the government's responsibility to manage your own expectations. The reality is that (forget the visa issue) most of Silicon Valley could save a huge amount of money by outsourcing to India. Sorry guys, IT aint what it used to be. It's about time we all accepted that, got over the butthurt and moved on!
That sounds like some butthurt American with a hugely over inflated view of his own value grabbing at straws. How about this. How about the possibility that your mediocre coding skills are not worth any more than 8k a year? Out here in Asia that's a king's ransom. It's not my fault that I've got the same skills as guys in the USA and that I can buy a huge house for 20,000 dollars. 8k a year is more than reasonable!
H1B workers pay into Social Security already, with no chance of ever seeing that money themselves (not like any of us will ever see it, either).
After 10 years "worth" of living (working) in the US, they are entitled to benefits.
Nobody "worried" when I was required to cut my own throat like this and train out-sourcers that would make me redundant.
The Norm for the Industry, ain't it?
The irritating thing being that I developed and coded the whole process that so automated it that any tom dick or harry, even from another continent, could do the job.
That's the thanks you get from the sort of socio-paths that infest Management levels.
Right. What I'm saying is that it's entirely possible for some politician we've hardly heard of to start up next year and start collecting delegates in primaries, and eventually win. Right now, the Democratic candidate would be Clinton, but there's plenty of time to change that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes