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Microsoft Seeks Trump Order Exemption for Workers With Visas (bloomberg.com)
Microsoft is asking U.S. officials to grant exceptions for law-abiding, visa-holding workers and students from President Donald Trump's immigration order, channeling the outrage expressed by many in the technology industry with a proposed solution. From a report: Such individuals are low-risk -- having already undergone a rigorous vetting process -- and face immediate hardship as a result of last week's order, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a letter Thursday to the secretaries of State and Homeland Security. Smith said he believes the two officials are empowered to take the necessary steps to allow certain people entry into the country. The exemptions sought would cover workers with visas sponsored by U.S.-based companies and students with ones obtained via a U.S.-based school.
Speaking as someone who has spent thousands of dollars in legal assistance getting the appropriate visa in place allowing me to work in the US (but luckily am not from one of the countries in the executive order)... go fuck yourself. This isn't about American jobs, its about screwing over people you don't like and trying to win political points with morons.
People have spent years getting those visas. People may have even been living the in US for decades. This is not a moratorium on new visas, this is retroactively screwing people who have followed the process to get into the US legally.
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The workers MS bring in AREN'T cheaper, they are paid at the same rate as US workers or in most cases higher.
But you can't hire Americans and ask them to work 80+ hours a week under the threat of deportation.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
If we pull Men's and Boys's Cotton Shorts and Trousers manufacture to American factories from China, a few things will happen depending on a few factors.
If we pay the factory workers more than $18/hr, we'll lose American jobs. There will be fewer American jobs in total. This is because the ability of Americans to buy MBCST decreases thanks to the price increasing. As the wage increases, the price increases; and as the price increases, fewer factory jobs are created and more infrastructure jobs (shipping, retail, etc.) are lost.
If we pay the factory workers less than $18/hr, we'll gain total American jobs for the same reason.
The more we pay the American factory workers, the greater the increase in total hours Americans must work to pay for MBCST. That is to say: Americans become poorer. The median wage today is $27/hr, and the average cost of a pair of MBCST is 0.55 labor hours at $27/hr. If we pay the factory workers $21/hr, then the average cost to the median American income is 1.87 hours; and if we pay them $8.25/hr (minimum wage), the average cost is 0.93 hours.
This works inversely for the factory workers themselves: the less we pay them, the poorer they are. That should be obvious; the only thing worth indicating here is that raising factory worker pay takes the same American monetary spending power (amount of dollars spendable) and concentrates it into fewer hands (number of workers receiving that money). At current, a $21/hr worker pays 0.71 hours for a pair of MBCST; if they were made by $21/hr factory workers, the factory workers would pay 2.4 hours per pair. Likewise, an $8.25/hr worker pays 1.81 hours today for a pair of MBCST; if we pay the factory workers $8.25/hr, then they will pay 3.03 hours per pair.
Of final note: it costs under $1,300 to import a 40-foot shipping container from China, which carries 20,000 pairs of trousers. That's 6.5 cents per pair. The average cost of the trousers at import is $6.12; the average retail price is $14.97. Cashiers perform 998 scans per hour on average--at minimum wage, 0.83 cents per item. Nearly half the ultimate cost of trousers is shipping; and in general the businesses make around a 10% overall profit margin (gross margins are higher than real profit margins because they exclude the cost of running the business itself), so about 90% of the price is generally the actual cost. That means we're not going to save a damned thing on shipping over the water.
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I heard yesterday about a senior executive at Oracle who regularly travels internationally to places like China for meetings with suppliers. He manages about 500 people. He's now stuck in the country and unable to do a large part of his job because he happened to be born in Iran. "Make America Great Again" my ass.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
WRONG. http://www.snopes.com/presiden... Obama's deal only increased the time it took to get a certain type of visa. It didn't ban them outright as this is doing.
Obama's ban was a targeted response to a specific threat, where two Iraqi nationals were caught attempting to send money, explosives, and weapons to Al-Qaida. That ban was enacted in order to review how the vetting process allowed those individuals into the country.
Regardless, I don't see Microsoft being "outraged". They are making a specific request for providing exemptions to those who have been vetted, and the executive order allows exemptions to be granted at the discretion of administration officials.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Green cards are not visas. The two are completely unrelated.
A green card is a non-expiring, permanent resident work permit. It confers a right to permanent residency within the U.S., and provides a path to citizenship.
A visa provides temporary entry into the U.S. for various purposes, including tourism, work, education, etc. You've probably heard of some of the work visas, such as H-1B, H-2B, L-1A, L-1B, R-1, etc. There are also specific types of student visas, such as F-1, J-1, and M-1. Some visas allow you to leave and reenter the country, e.g. F-1 and J-1. Some allow you to work, e.g. H*, L*, R*, and J-1. And some just let you be a tourist, e.g. B-1, B-2, etc.
Allowing green card holders to come back to the U.S. is basically unavoidable. They're legal residents of the United States with homes, families, etc. That's also true for many of the visa types, but those folks are currently screwed, which is nothing short of appalling. And it is particularly heinous for students whose schools have a January term (and who thus took the month of January as an extended vacation) who are now trapped outside the country, unable to return to school, potentially losing scholarships, etc., all because our President doesn't know the difference between a green card, a visa, and refugee status admission.
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does. Who gives a crap about whether someone has a green card or not? There's no meaningful difference between a green card holder and an H1-B visa holder in terms of the impact on those people and their families when they suddenly are unable to return to their homes, to their families in the United States, etc. because of this idiotic and ill-conceived ban.
By that same logic logic, I have no right to complain when a terrorist takes a car and drives over hundreds of people, because I use a car to drive to work....
There's a huge difference between not allowing a bunch of homeless refugees to permanently come to the U.S. (as President Obama did) and not allowing technology professionals who already live in the U.S. to leave the country on business trips and be able to get back in (as President Trump did).
President Obama used the law to limit the rate of refugee entry into the country, and only refugee entry. He did not cancel existing visas. He did not ban people who had a preexisting legal right to enter the U.S. That's the difference. And it's an important difference that has a real-world impact on real people's lives.
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