Slashdot Mirror
New Book Sold Out Offers a Look At the H-1B Debate
theodp writes: The New York Post has published an excerpt from
Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires and Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best and Brightest Workers, a new book on the H-1B debate from conservative syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin and programmer-turned-attorney John Miano. "Sold Out," notes a Computerworld review, "clearly has a point a view about the program (crapweasels, for instance), but it backs up its assertions and gives H-1B supporters a high threshold to cross. A serious argument in defense of the visa program requires explaining how America gains when a U.S. worker is replaced by a foreign visa holder hired to do the exact same job. If you are going to justify the H-1B program, then you have to defend firms that force their employees (no severance otherwise) to train their replacements. That may be the point here. This book lays bare the replacement process, the broad use of the H-1B visa by the IT offshore outsourcing industry, and the lobbying effort in Washington to minimalize the visa's use in displacing U.S. workers." With anecdotes like "how Microsoft wined and dined the Bush administration to expand the foreign worker supply through administrative fiat to circumvent public disclosure and congressional debate," the book seeks out a broader audience than just those already familiar with the H-1B issue.
That title definitely makes this book sound like it takes a balanced and objective viewpoint of the situation, with both sides of the argument covered.
The third H1B post this week?! And Hump Day isn't even over yet.
If the book is "sold out", then how are we supposed to read it? /s
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!
We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."
Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.
I want you to get mad!
I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.
All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.
You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"
And good business is always good. The jobs would have been offshored anyway, right? So what's the harm. This way they're here spending money. Renting cheap apartments, maybe buy a car. Of course, that means rent goes up, and used car prices. You know, it's almost as there's a downside to supply and demand.
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...ten people who are actually going to read it.
The rest of the people who buy this book, as with all other books of its kind, will fall under one of these three categories:
1 - Media pundits who oppose H-1b: These people will buy the book, skim a goodreads summary, and quickly scan the book for ten minutes of out-of-context quotes to spew on air at H-1b supporters..
2 - Media pundits who support H-1b: These people will buy the book, skim a goodreads summary, and quickly scan the book for ten minutes of out-of-context quotes to spew on air in an attempt to dismiss the book as their favourite ultimately meaningless criticism dismissing buzz word.
Choose from: [political correctness / socialism / fascism / corporate pandering / oligarchy]
3 - Normal people who are curious about H-1b: These people will buy the book, read 16 pages in, get bored, then leave it on their desks to look smart.
The last hundred pages of this book could be an endorsement of dog raping and only ten people would notice.
The Republican Party needs younger voters more than the Democratic Party does, as conservative voters are dying off at a faster rate than liberal voters.
By combining presidential election exit polls with mortality rates per age group from the U.S. Census Bureau, I calculated that, of the 61 million who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, about 2.75 million will be dead by the 2016 election. President Barack Obama's voters, of course, will have died too — about 2.3 million of the 66 million who voted for the president won't make it to 2016 either. That leaves a big gap in between, a difference of roughly 453,000 in favor of the Democrats.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/the-gop-is-dying-off-literally-118035
As a former hiring manager for a lager fortune 500 company, whose ass is on the line to finish projects on time, I can assure you, I was not looking for the cheapest hire, but, the most qualified hire. I desperately looked for software engineers with experience in the area of embedded systems and some amount of networking knowledge, but, who are excellent C programmers. For the several positions I recruited for, I could not get a single qualified resume. The good ones don't want to do any C/Linux/Unix programming and are more interested in App or web development for startups. We were paying competitive market rates, with excellent benefits, but, I did not have much luck hiring any good candidates in the Silicon Valley. I completely open to hiring anyone regardless of age, sex, nationality, diability, etc. Being myself an immigrant, I felt bad that I was much more harsh in reviewing the applicants who required H1B and put them at the end of the pile. Believe, me it is much more work for the hiring manager and the company has to spend a lot more to hire a H1B candidate.
What people generally confuse is the abuses perpetuated by the so called body shopping companies, whose primary intent is to get people with some random degree from overseas and try to place them in a position in the US. In contrast, the people who are directly recruited by the large companies as their full time employees, are no different than any other full time employee in that company.
In my opinion, what should happen is, the US congress should close the "body shopping" loophole in the H1B and allow for skill based immigration, instead of H1B.
You miss the fact that as people age (which many of the Obama supporters have), they tend to mature from D to R.
Just a warning: Michelle Malkin wrote the book. She is a well known CONSERVATIVE and a FOX NEWS pundit. So be warned.
Today's Times' front page includes this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-1b-visa-program-leaving-smaller-ones-in-the-cold.html
"Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, Costing the U.S. Jobs"
John
queue correlation vs causation argument
Unhappy people die earlier.
Romney voters are more unhappy with Obama in office than Obama voters
If, by "mature", you mean "get more frightened and selfish", you have a point.
Amazingly this is the only book for sale at Amazon with the word "Crapweasels" in the title.
Caveat: I'm Canadian.
I don't get it. This whole "H1-B is an evil scam!" moral panic seems to me to be just another aspect of the virulent anti-immigration bigotry that has republicans screaming: "They're taking our jobs!" (as if *any* USian is going to pick fruit for less than minimum wage!)
I'm a software engineer at a large multinational, and we've been trying to find qualified candidates for software positions, but we're having a REALLY hard time. There just aren't any qualified people available. This idea that there are competent, qualified STEM people out there who are being denied jobs by the H1-B program just doesn't seem to jive with reality.
Everytime we post job openings, we get *swamped* by applications, so yeah, there are tons of people out there *looking* for STEM jobs. The problem is that the unemployed people applying are deservedly unemployed!. For the most part, it's because they're bloody incompetent - the vast majority fail the interviews despite appearing qualified on their resume. The rest are people who have fundamental misunderstandings of what constitutes "software development": I can't tell you how many people we've had apply for web development jobs who think that knowing DreamWeaver and Photoshop makes them qualified!
For the most part, our new hires are already employed developers making a lateral move from their current employer (for whatever reason).
With respect to other software developers who I know personally, any that I would be comfortable hiring are *already* employed, with good reason. Those software developers who I know personally that are unemployed I wouldn't allow to work on ANY project I was associated with even if they paid me for the privilege!
If H1-Bs are "Taking our jobs!", then *WHERE* in the hell are all the unemployed, competent, software developers this would create? Their absence is suspicious - they just don't seem to be out there.
And you miss the fact that as people age they are much less likely to vote for politicians who want to rein in social security and medicare spending.
Not to worry, giving illegals the right to vote will put Democrats so far ahead the Republican party may as well only exist in memory.
That title definitely makes this book sound like it takes a balanced and objective viewpoint of the situation, with both sides of the argument covered.
There seems to be a cultural shift in recent decades where you can't make a clear argument any more.
This starts with journalism, where "balanced reporting" initially meant that news organizations couldn't show only one side of a controversial issue (abortion, roughly 50% of Americans on one side or the other), and has progressed to where "balanced" journalism includes giving equal air time to climate change deniers (less than 3% of scientists), ESP and paranormal believers, and other completely fringe views.
To be completely fair, about 40% of Americans believe in Creationism, so it's probably OK that this gets equal billing. The point isn't about the beliefs per-se, it's about journalists unwilling to choose a side. Equal billing tends to prop up failing modes of thought.
I've read numerous books and papers that posit a claim and then cite evidence to support that claim... I *thought* that's how science debate worked. For example, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind does precisely this: establish a point, then bolster it with reams and reams (well, one ream - 512 pages) of evidence.
Why does someone with a position to argue need to lay out both sides of an argument?
That's not how human perception works. We rely on experts to sort through the information we don't have time or expertise to deal with.
What's wrong with making a clear point in a book tagline?
If someone is in a position where they are able to work from home a few days a week isn't there a pretty good chance that their job will be outsourced in the near future?
Reduce the cost of labor instead of raising minimum wage.
High labor costs accelerate and, more importantly, compact the removal of jobs, while slowing the reuptake of jobs. Jobs always reduce: we've come from every single individual requiring 15-20 labor-hours per week to acquire food (that means a population of 1,000 people needs 20,000 working-hours per week to feed it) to a society where 2% of workers are ag and we expend 27 labor-hours per year producing food (so a population of 1,000 people needs 520 working-hours per week to feed itself). With the spare time, we've been able to build roads, cars, space ships.
The Industrial Revolution shows us an important model: machines suddenly became cheap, and the 479 labor-hours going into making clothes immediately dropped to 96 labor-hours--80% unemployment even 60 years later. What would today be a $4,000 shirt ($8.75/hr * 479) is now a $15 shirt, as we've improved the manufacture processes to use even less labor-time. Back then, that $4,000 shirt became an $800 shirt; most of the consumer base vanished--not for shirts, but for food and everything else--and much of the economy fell apart.
Contrast that to agriculture or car manufacture. In 1970, India was producing 2 tonnes of rice per hectare and selling for $500 per tonne; by 2001, they were making 6 tonnes per hectare at cost so low the sale price had dropped to below $200/tonne--note that inflation would have raised that $500 to over $3,000 in 2001, and so India was investing less than 6% labor per tonne of rice produced in 2001, compared to 1970. That transition occurred spread over 30 years.
During the spread transition, jobs were lost, and rice became cheaper. A few jobs lost--3% in one year is kind of rough, but that's only 3% of the agricultural sector and much less of the whole market--and a whole shitload of consumers (over 99% of the market) facing cheaper food meant they had almost a whole population with more money to spend. Find a way to make a product with little enough labor and you can sell it to those consumers, pay your workers, and come away with captured profits. Looking at the Industrial Revolution, we can conjecture this works less well when only a fifth of your population still has jobs.
What can we take away from this?
Alternate management--geoshifting jobs (H1-B or outsource to India), automation (outsource to machines), or rearrangement (cellular manufacture uses less labor than assembly lines, which are less labor-intensive than guilds and artisans)--transfers your labor needs to another form. That form often takes less or lower-priced (cost) direct labor, but may require more total labor (e.g. the machines are expensive, or QA to try and make standard measures work in 803BC is ridiculously labor-intensive thanks to undeveloped technological capabilities). If it takes more total labor, then you're paying someone more--the machines are expensive, you just hire real people.
By this, reducing the cost of labor at least delays the transition to geoshifting or automation (less outsourcing, fewer machines, for a while).
With the march of technology on a low-cost labor market, early adopters will get screwed. Your strategic adopters will recognize $10/hr labor vs $8/hr machines, but also notice the machines coming down in price: if they invest $25 million in a 30-year machine that will cost $8/hr to maintain now, they'll find themselves less-advantaged as if they wait up to 5 years for a cost range of $6/hr or lower, and so will decide how much risk they're willing to take and will jump into the automation game at that point. You get traditionalists who wait until their business nearly collapses, too.
By this, spiking labor costs *rapidly* moves labor to cheaper sources (including automation and H1-B): a $15/hr laborer versus a $10/hr machine is more encouraging to the entrepreneur considering a mechanized labor force. Lower labor costs *spread* the loss of jobs.
Lower labor costs translate, eventually, into
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Malkin is a professional troll. Shouldn't /. know that you shouldn't feed trolls? What gives?
Ahh....let us know when you start leaving everything unlocked and leave all of your assets for use by others.
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
The problem is the billionaires have rigged the Supply and Demand thing. The Demand for IT workers was high while the supply was low so salaries climbed. Now how to we get more supply to drive the salaries down, train more citizens? No that costs money and those new workers will want a good salary. I know, let's import foreign workers that are used to making 1/10th the salary and pay them less, Win Win, more supply less cost.
That's how the H1B visa program has been used to keep salaries down.
The Law of Supply and Demand says that if you pay enough you will get enough IT workers. The billionaires just don't want to pay enough.
nt cause what more needs to be said
>> Shouldn't /. know that you shouldn't feed trolls?
If there were no trolls there would be no /. It's why this place is considered an "entertainment site" not a "news site."
Michelle Obama thinks our kids should be eating fresh vegetables and fruits instead of processed crap and the only morons who can't support that are some real stupid mofos.
This would not be a good outcome, and neither would the inverse. The pendulum swinging the other way every few years is a good thing. If it never did, we'd end up with a Stalin, Mussolini, or Mao. Don't think the west could never end up like this. Western culture is descending, while Eastern culture is ascending. Take Turkey, for example. They are now more or less giving up on the idea of becoming part of the EU and are looking East to China and Iran for guidance and support. The dollar is so weak overseas it's laughable.
Get a leftist government in for a couple of decades and see the unfathomable damage it will do. Ditto the inverse. Balance. Balance is key.
I think we need a kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to buy every member of congress a copy of this book. I would suggest that we also buy a copy for each presidential candidate as well but I doubt any of them are smart enough to have the ability to read.
That's out of line. Your last job rejection email doesn't forgive this.
You miss the fact that as people age (which many of the Obama supporters have), they tend to mature from D to R.
That might have been true in your father's Republican Party. But the current party has become an activistic party and activists scare off most voters over a certain age and life experience.
OK, I'm pretty left leaning, but unfortunately the conservatives appear to be the only ones attacking this issue at all. I think that's just because it doesn't affect "average people" yet, but it's creeping that way slowly.
I posted a piece the other day about Cengage Learning kicking out their entire IT department to Cognizant and forcing their "unskilled, unqualified" staff to train their H-1B replacements. Here's the deal -- nothing is going to get done until some of us become "beltway crapweasels" and buy favorable legislation through a professional organization. Not a union, an AMA-style guild dedicated to making sure salaries stay reasonably high and employment remains stable. Every single one of these Zuckerberg "everyone can code" initiatives or pushes to increase the visa cap is designed to get what these companies want - cheap labor.
I walk the employee-manager line in a "lead" role, so I have to hire staff as well as do actual work. (I'm a pretty well-seasoned systems integration guy with a solid reputation, if that matters.) I'm not entirely deaf to the "we can't find talent" argument, but I do think it's overblown. Even if you're not looking for a drop-in replacement for someone who left, and I'm not, there are some pretty big gaps in knowledge. Nothing is insurmountable given the right attitude and background, but I've seen lots of padded resumes and people who call themselves "expert level" without any justification for that label. It makes the hiring process frustrating because you have to wade through the obvious liars, then phone-screen the people who might be somewhat close, and then still interview a bunch of duds.
Being "experienced," I don't like the trend of entry level IT and dev jobs going away, because that kills your talent pipeline. I like the idea of a professional organization for the following reasons:
- If done right, it could ensure a basic vendor-agnostic, technology-agnostic fundamental education for members. No more "web architects" who can only stich together node.js snippets they saw on Stack Overflow or MCSEs who can't troubleshoot basic TCP connectivity.
- Gives members a career progression while still allowing them to be individuals -- makes the Libertarian crowd happy.
- Unlike a union, each member would be their own person rather than bargaining collectively.
- Gives employers a consistent experience and recourse in the case of malpractice -- professionals would need to be responsible for their work, which is sorely lacking today.
- Allows members to buy favorable legislation via lobbyists. I can't imagine Congressmen would turn down millions in campaign donations in exchange for a few limits on the H-1B program.
- Provides a pipeline of newbies to train as apprentices so companies aren't reliant on these offshoring firms for basic work in the future.
I just don't know how bad it's going to get before people wake up and realize they're not going to become billionaires just because they let them get away with things like this.
Clearly there are H1B problems but I wouldn't believe one word from this professional shyster.
>> Shouldn't /. know that you shouldn't feed trolls?
If there were no trolls there would be no /. It's why this place is considered an "entertainment site" not a "news site."
Damn - you've let the "secret sauce" out! Next thing you'll be telling everyone to browse at -1.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
When the H1B bill was passed in 1998 it set a reasonable for the time exemption pay of $60,000 pr year. Paying a H1B employee more than $60k let the employer bypass the no displaced worker requirement. At the time you could almost fall out of a tree and get an IT job. Workers were hard to find and H1B filled a need.
Now here we are 17 years later and the $60k threshold has never been adjusted for inflation. What was once a tool to protect US workers is now a low wage target off shore outsourcing company's use to bid low ball IT contracts that displace US workers.
Adjusted for inflation the limit should be closer to $90,000 in 2015 dollars. Congress needs to bring the H1B minimum pay back into balance with today's job market.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
They tend to work better if they appear to be, or at least look like they're making a fair effort.
You know I read a lot. Especially things that have to do with history & strategy and all that. I find that shit fascinating. So when you're trying to knock out the US Navy in one afternoon, you don't lead up to it by taking out ads in the Washington Post saying "OI! Pearl Harbor! We're gonna blow your ass off, LOL BANZAI!!!eleventyoneone".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No wonder you posted AC. You got trounced on facts that you can not refute. COWARD.
The Republican Party needs younger voters more than the Democratic Party does, as conservative voters are dying off at a faster rate than liberal voters.
No, they just have to stop trying to pull right to the history that never was, and gradually those of us on the right side of democrat will gradually shift to the left side of republican.
The present course results in them being the party of the rich, which will not generate enough votes to win an election. Especially as atheism or just general apathy pushes the younger crowd to generally feel more comfortable with democrat social policies, even if they don't trust their financial policy.
I'm a highly qualified professional from a foreign country and (due to my work experience) I got offered jobs by Tesla, Google, Facebook, etc. They basically offered me to come to the US with H1B, or go to Europe and work with a team there. They told me they are moving several teams overseas to EU and South America to work around the visa limit.
The real root cause of the problem is that highly qualified American tech workers are extremely overpaid, while equally qualified European, Eastern European or South American workers can do the same for less. For many companies, If they can't get H1Bs, they open shop overseas or hire foreign contractors. It's as simple as that. An American worker loses his/her job anyway. Sorry guys, you are too expensive and we are living in a global economy!
Michelle Malkin has the credibility of a ... a .. um .. a "crapweasel."
Why can't an actual journalist have written this?
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Just wanted to say that this is a great post. It takes a position, supports it with statistics, and makes predictions and recommendations.
Whether I agree with it or not, it's very well constructed.
Bravo!
(Can someone with points mod his post up?)
No, they just have to stop trying to pull right to the history that never was, and gradually those of us on the right side of democrat will gradually shift to the left side of republican.
Moderates are not welcomed by the Republican Party, but they are welcomed by the Democratic Party. After being a Republican for 25 years, I switched parties and embraced my inner RINO and embraced reality.
generally feel more comfortable with democrat social policies, even if they don't trust their financial policy
Never mind that a two-term Republican president cratered the economy and a two-term Democrat president presided over a seven-year bull market run on Wall Street.I expect things to get better under President Hillary.
And your post is the text book definition of an ad hominem attack. Peddle your logical fallacies elsewhere.
Mckesson yet another company's doing just this. Laying off us citizens and forcing them to train thier replacements. If they don't no severance pay.
What's wrong with a global marketplace? If somebody needs someone to do a job for them, what's immoral with choosing the best deal? When you go to the grocery store do you not choose the best value for your money? The free market works, and even if it didn't it's the only moral solution. Why shouldn't some chick in India who learns programming have the same shot at a job as you .. Especially if she is offering a better value to whoever is hiring her?
The more people we have building stuff the better for everyone. By saving money, companies get to survive, increase capital expenditures other stuff.
Having worked through the last boom/bubble, it saddens me that this time around "this is as good as it gets". Sure, H-1B existed back then but without large companies gaming the system. What we ought to see with constant complaints of "no qualified candidates" is improving benefits and salaries in the IT/software/technology sector. I just don't see it. Sure- better in the Bay Area, Austin, etc. But with corresponding rising cost of living.
Last time around, there were generous compensation packages (4+ weeks vacation to start, large sign-on and retention bonuses, etc) that I just don't see now. And, by the way, how *dare* you ask about that... don't you remember 2008/9? You ought to be happy to have a job. Entitled worker? Perhaps. But I have many engineering/technology peers in other sectors such as oil and gas. During the good times, they've made money hand over fist, readying to retire at 50. Good luck with that in software/IT or any sector swamped by desperate foreign labor.
and quit bitching. You literally just said outright that you have qualified applicants ("The good ones"). They're working for startups because it's better for them. If you want to get them from the start ups pay more. A lot more.
/. these days...
The other option is to train people and retain them (that's "retain", not "retrain"). That means you don't get to pay someone for 9 months and ship 'em back to India when you're done. You keep them for that 3 months between projects. What India gets you are on demand workers trained to do EXACTLY what you want them to do and trained CHEAPLY. You used to pay through the nose for those guys because they worked for you for 9 months and then spent 3 months off. They spent a good chunk of that 3 months updating their skills, and lived off the excess you paid them ( including paying their own health benefits). You don't like doing that because it's expensive. Stop hiding behind "There are no qualified applicants". That's bullshit and you know it (like I said, you said so in your post).
Jeez, the crap that gets modded up on
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She's breaking ranks by even discussing the issue much less coming out against it. She's either throwing her career away to make a stand/point, no longer has a career or this is an elaborate ruse. Damned if I know which.
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Is that why conservatives believe foreigners have no rights and it's ok to torture them?
He never said theft should be allowed.
And btw I can think of many situations that any sane person would agree it's ok to steal. For example if a plane crashed in the woods and the only first aid is in a locked cabin nearby .. I bet even you would agree it's ok to break in and steal it with the intent of replenishing in the future it if your own (not other peoples') loved ones or kids were injured.
I think stealing can be classified as conservative too because as the fifth amendment makes clear even the founding fathers believed it was ok for the public, acting through government, to take stuff it needed if you were to be "justly compensated" .. But that means you don't have the right to refuse to sell .. So in effect it's theft. I mean if I took your car and left you money that me and the neighbors thought is fair wouldn't you consider it stealing?
and a bit of a social safety net left. In America our medical care, access to financial help when unemployed, credit and pretty much all other aspects related to our quality of life it tied to our jobs. It's something we did in the 50s, I forget why (IIRC it wasn't for the sake of evil, it just turned out that way). I've seen several jobs outsourced to Canada because health care is so pricey for businesses here it's a better deal even with your taxes being higher (which are usually negotiable for a business anyway).
Basically there aren't a lot of middle class jobs left, and the only way to go here is down. 62% of us live paycheck to paycheck. We're one layoff away from homelessness.
Also, we've gutted our school system and training. Actually, it's sounding like you're doing that too. 20 years ago we'd just train people to do what you're asking for. It's really not hard. But it would cost money. Why spend it when there's a guy in India who already has that training and was living off $2/day while he was getting it. Sure, a lot of his buddies dropped out because they got a girl preggers, or were drunk, or died from lack of health care or just couldn't make it. But with 3 billion people you can burn through a lot of human misery on your way to that cheap, fully trained H1-B.
Those of us in America who are smart see what life is like in India for those guys that didn't make it, see how many of them there are and realize it could be us. We're just one undetected congenital heart disease away. All of us are. Some of us Americans kid ourselves, say we're the 'alphas' in our lot. That's just to make us feel better. The real alphas haven't noticed. Their tall, good looking, have their hair and are VPs. You've got some of those too in Canada. You're 1%ers have noticed how much more money ours make, and they're coming after you. I think you noticed though and it looks like you voted some of 'em out last election. Good for you.
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Want to hear something funny?
More people voted for McCain/Palin in 2008 than voted for Obama in 2012.
Romney got more "independent" voters than Obama by a BIG margin.
I take that to mean that the GOP voters didn't come out to vote for Romney. If one of the current front runners for the GOP gets the nomination, Clinton doesn't stand a chance. If Jeb get the nomination, Clinton won't have to even campaign to win.
So basically your quick calculations are wrong. Young voters also don't like the DNC, Obama lies, Clinton lies, and they know it. They also know what its like trying to get a job with the DNC in the White House. The DNC has lost the youth vote even if you don't think its possible.
I have worked with H1-B's too many times over my career. Way TOO many of them LIE like HELL on their resumes! Managers hire them and WE end up having to clean up their FUCKING MESS! Yes there have been some that were good - I can only count those ones on the fingers on my hands. Right now I'm dealing with ones that claim they worked for companies that were CMM level 5 certified. They sure the hell don't know what the FUCK level 1 is about. As far as I'm concerned we could ship them all back! I could find kids from the local Tech College that know more than these fucking idiots!!!! If a manager paid a local Tech graduate what they pay these morons we would be better off and the new tech grad would be overjoyed to make $50K/year right out of a tech college.
If your and H1-B and take offense to my post - WHO CARES! In America we STILL have a 1st Amendment!
Go ahead mark me "flamebait" - it only shows you don't know WTF your talking about!
I got something even more funnier:
Barack Obama is the first president in more than five decades to win at least 51 percent of the national popular vote twice, according to a revised vote count in New York eight weeks after the Nov. 6 election.
Obama is the first president to achieve the 51 percent mark in two elections since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, who did it in 1952 and 1956, and the first Democrat to do so since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four consecutive White House races. Roosevelt received 53.4 percent of the vote -- his lowest -- in his last race in 1944.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-03/final-tally-shows-obama-first-since-56-to-win-51-twice
... only if said eradication involves governments committing to buying huge quantities of drugs from companies owned by said billionaire.
Doesn't change the facts I posted. Low voter turnout means no one liked either candidate, and Obama was one of those in 2012.
Link despite 8 million more voters in 2012, 5 million less voted than in 2008.
Thats right, Obama got significantly less voters in 2012 than 2008, so bringing up his reelection is a dud argument.
Ok so companies are stupidly hiring idiots. Why should they be protected from that? You want a nanny state, affirmative action for citizens?
When the economy implodes, social policies will not matter as there will be no money to implement them.
"Republican" does not equal fiscally conservative anymore. But even with Bush's cheerleading for Medicare Part D (which I opposed), Gulf War II -which I also opposed, and 9/11, the labor force participation rate was still higher under W than it was under Obama, and the economy was better by the illusory expectations of the time. The willy nilly mortgage loans handed out like candy would have cratered us eventually no matter what. Bush gets the blame because he was at the wheel but we starting scraping that iceberg against the hull decades ago. (And your candidates' hubby Bill and Franklin Raines who helped himself to a multimillion dollar mansion while running Fannie Mae helped steer us into it.)
Obama is the one who floored it and cut the anchors and said FULL SPEED AHEAD ! That $60+ trillion in debt didn't happen overnight.
This book illustrates why the H1B program is pure evil and is destroying America. The sequel will illustrate why the H1B program is awesome and the best and brightest from all over the world makes America better. Be warned that both the books are works of fiction, and the reality is that politicians can get election funding from lobbyists if they pander to one side of the argument.
They are not fiscally conservative because of their need to embrace the religious right, and end up in a strange dilemma of talking about cutting costs but being unable to do so effectively. For example, legalizing and even subsidizing abortions would solve many social woes and probably allow for a smaller government. But they can't do that without alienating God. Handing out contraceptives on street corners probably would, in the long run, reduce the amount of welfare and social services (and aforementioned subsidized abortions) at the federal and state level...but God. There's also a little bit of "I got mine so fuck you", but I believe hta can be moderated out once they lose the religious right. Those guys really should be voting democrat, or making a third party.
The republican party can win me over, but they have to drop Jesus and the implicit hatred of anything darker than off-white, and stop TELLING people things and start by doing and joining. I'm absolutely against hand-outs, but I also see the government as a tool to enable greater and wider worker productivity, and absolutely believe that is the key behind any sensible economic policy. However that is not enabled via racism, religious voodoo, or just sitting around with my thumb up my ass refusing to acknowledge the utility of government or the need to pay taxes.
Minimum wage workers are protesting for much higher wages, and will probably get them.
I have to admire those workers for actually doing something.
STEM just gripe, and pass links to articles back and forth.
STEM workers have enough numbers, enough money, and enough power to bring about real change; but I cannot see it ever happening.
STEM workers are intelligent people, in their own way. But STEM workers do not seem politically savvy. And STEM workers are not willing to organize in any meaningful way.
The visa worker scan has been going on for decades now. And STEM workers have done nearly nothing to actually change anything.
They want to replace people who have superior skills, who actually live close by wasting money on these durka durkas from overseas in the name of money?
Well this explains everything that is wrong with the economy and with corporate america.
It is easy to fix if it weren't for the man in the high castle.
Who puts 'Crapweasels' in a book title? [looks at TFS] Oh; Michelle Malkin {retching sounds}.
Good luck with all the fleas after lying down with her ilk.
There is something similar between having to train your replacement and the Old Testament prohibition of cooking a calf in its mother's milk.
As a former hiring manager for a lager fortune 500 company, whose ass is on the line to finish projects on time, I can assure you, I was not looking for the cheapest hire, but, the most qualified hire.
Highly qualified embedded, C/C++/Unix, Networking proposal for C++ standard. What numbers
do I hear?
http://www.kisstech.ch/kiss/about.shtml
It never was true and the fact that it gets repeated so often by so many doesn't make it more true. It was a survey and of the few responders the majority did not agree that all warming is man-made. So the authors excluded anyone that was not a "climate scientist". That excluded geologists, physicists, etc. Of the remaining pool of "climate scientists", 3% do not believe that there is an inter-glacial, and that is outright stupid.
The author of 'Sold Out' doesn't have to give equal time because Bill Gates and zombie Steve Jobs already have covered the opposing view, that's the point of the freaking book.
Expel Brahmin From Your Country;
http://wh.gov/iyhMK
Casteism
ACTUAL conservatives oppose crony capitalist plays like H1-B visas. Michelle is an ACTUAL conservative. Many Republican politicians run for office loudly proclaiming themselves to be conservatives (to win the base voters in their primaries) but are actually just pro-business crony capitalists. This ongoing deceit by GOP politicians helped drive the rise of the TEA Party, led to the ouster of Eric Cantor and John Boehner, and the rise of the term "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) and it's a large part of why Jeb! (Bush) is running as a presidential candidate complaining that he's "most electable" and "conservative" but cannot get traction with the majority of Republicans who believe him to be yet another fake conservative with the last name of "Bush" and totally funded by the same Wall ST bankers who funded Obama and re also currently funding Hillary. It's why the GOP base voters, sick of being lied to over and over again are this time willing to try a person with no experience, but perceived character this time (Carson) or a person with a track record of actually achieving stuff while owing the usual RINO funders and their lobbyist friends nothing (Trump). REAL Conservatives are wary of BOTH "big government" AND "big business" and wary of any government program put in place specifically to enable big businesses with lobbyists to violate the basic economic laws of supply and demand.
The H1-B program is a full-frontal assault on the idea of free-market capitalist economics within the US - The advocates PRETEND to believe in the marketplace but actually deny it and do not want it; they claim to have a shortage of workers but then cannot explain why wages have been stagnant for nearly 20 years and are actually going down in every category where illegal immigrants or H1-B holders are being used. The basic laws of economics say that it you increase supply, the price will fall so it is obvious that importing workers is part of the wage problem in the US but the super-wealthy and the politicians they buy deny this basic fact while they pocket the increased profits they extracted by pushing down wages and benefits ACROSS THE ENTIRE ECONOMY. By pushing down high-tech wages and benefits, they depress the "prevailing wages and benefits" of the entire high-tech world, and if the wages of high-tech employees are X then it's harder for non-high-tech workers to argue for X or higher-than-X wages and benefits. Wall St Investment bankers have been laughing their butts off over this massive scam for 20 years.
Does she have "no credibility" with you because you disagree with her and Daily Kos is your chosen source of news?
- OR -
Do you have some actual facts to demonstrate that she has made a significant factual error in her books generally or this one in particular.?
It's becoming a real problem in this country that half of the political spectrum is full of people who tell everybody not to look at or listen to or read any source of information on the opposite side of the aisle. "Progressives" tell people "Don't watch Fox News!" or "Don't read National Review (or the Washington Times, etc)! " or "Don't listen to Limbaugh!". This leads to progressives who cannot even understand the people they oppose and many of whom have never even heard a viewpoint with which they disagree. Conservatives do not have this option, since over 90% of journalists admit to being either Democrats or further left, and most popular entertainment is by left-wingers; there's simply no way for a Conservative to not know what left-wingers are thinking and saying and understanding their arguments and beliefs. I have simply NEVER heard a right-winger tell anybody "Don't watch MSNBC!" or "Don't read Slate!" etc. Right wingers usually just roll their eyes over left-wing sources (which they DO read and watch).
Please re-post with a thoughtful list of reasons why Michelle is untrustworthy and please avoid the usual left-winger attacks on her as a Woman or Vietnamese (both of which are common slurs hurled at her by the left who apparently think such slurs are fine if the target is not a left-winger).
Time for programmers to create a board and unionize. Sick of getting shafted by unethical companies...
That is the name, you IEEE rats might remember him. In 1983, he tried and failed to seize the board to replace corporate friendly H1-B advocates with Practicing Engineers.
He warned us, before his death about 5 years later, that one day we would be replaceable at will by foreign labor, whose educations were subsidized with taxes on YOUR income, and that YOUR BOSS would replace you just because he can own the H1-B and replace him at will
Irwin was right, but "professionals" pussied out.
Enjoy being as stupid as 19th Century Coal Miners!!
Yes, right wingers consider Maddow a joke, BUT they do not run around yelling at people demanding they not watch her and not listen to her, which is a VERY common behavior on the left relative to the very few right-wing or less-left-wing outlets. Your comment failed to address this anti-intellectual tidal wave of insanity
Left-wingers are desperate to have nobody watch Fox News because it's the only channel that challenges Obama and progressives to ANY real degree. Left-wing outlets like MSNBC and The Daily Show will criticize Obama rather gently for not being left-wing enough, but none of those criticisms is in any way critical of basic left-wing group-think. Fox News is pretty far to the left (the company supports gay marriage etc, and is thus left of JFK, LBJ and FDR) but dares to actually have conservative voices on the air and treat their remarks as something other than "trigger words". The chief "sin" of Fox appear to be that it challenges Obama and Progressivism and, as many stupid college punks are highlighting these days, THAT is a crime to the leftist brain. Anything that challenges the core beliefs of the left is "Hateful" and will be rejected out-of-hand without discussion. This is an "open mind" so open that the brains have fallen out.
You were asked to provide rational details WITHOUT resorting to the usual attacks people make from the left against Malkin (i.e. attacking her ethnicity or gender) but like a whiney snivelling modern little college idiot you somehow transferred this in your mind into an accusation of being a Klan member or misogynist. Wow! quite a leap of irrationality, unless you are one of those people who has previously used such attacks against her.
1. Nice fail on the "Hussein controversy" - Michelle was ultimately proven right that much of the story was bogus and that there was no Hussein as a captain of the Iraqi police force, as reported (in other words AP got it wrong and only Michelle caught it). The fact that the Iraqi government later identified that the person by that name (but not in that position) physically existed, did not in any way undermine her reporting. In fact, it's still true to this day that no such man existed in that position and that the reports by the man of that name who did exist were false. On that item of your list she beats Dan Rather and Brian Williams.
2. Gimme a break. A Philippine-American lady is a white supremacist? REALLY? Did you even THINK that through before typing it, or were you just on full-progressive-hate mode? Your second point was more troll-ish than many of Joe McCarthy's guilt-by-imaginary-association attacks.
Part of the reason you guys on the left are so bad at refuting the people like Michelle on the right, is that you so studiously avoid actually reading their works and listening to their words that you do not even know what they've said IN CONTEXT and therefore do not realize how cartoonish your attacks look to anybody who HAS been intellectually honest enough to have read/listened.
The fact that she was so intellectually honest that, as an Asian-American she would offer ANY tolerance to the policies of a Democrat icon (FDR) in the context of history is actually a testament to a rational author who is not as dishonest and two-faced as most left-wing authors. Let me know when Democrats publicly denounce FDR (who actually DID the internment camps) more than Michelle who only clinically discussed them in historical context
Second error: It is a well-documented but not well-publicised historical fact that many thousands of German-Americans, particularly from the New York region, actually WERE interned in camps (many in Texas rather than California) for the duration of the war. The Germans were held much longer than the Japanese even though Germany surrendered first. Unlike the Japanese, none ever received an official apology or payment of compensation. They where white, so there was no ethnic guilt game that could be played by politicians associated with the grievance industry. I'm NOT defending the Germans who were interned, just pointing out your error.
As for her contribution on the H1-B argument, it is excellently aimed.... it will reach a huge part of the American right, many of whom are unaware of the issue and many of whom trust her writing. What's needed is for a writer on the left to do a similar public service to reach people like you who open-mindedly reject facts if they come from somebody they hate.
My soon to be ex-employer (leaving by choice) did the old-fashioned way, they simply offshored as much as of our work as they could. When I started here 5 years ago the org chart was straightforward with SVP for different aspects of our business or locations and more or less straight lines down. Recently they released a revised org chart. So much of our business has been offshored to India that on the org chart is a note, please see other chart for India. There is more of our business in India than in the US. I think all that is in North America is HQ (of course, along with their pet projects) the call center (in Mexico) and the businesses that will not allow off-shoring of certain aspects of their business (including one company I do work for with that is heavily regulated by the government on their IP [defense related]).
"If stupid things work...then they are not stupid."
Stupid. You think Presidents make or break economies. Like the Internet boom was Clinton's doing.
Fucking simpleton.