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US Suspends 'Expedited' H-1B Visas (sfgate.com)

"Starting April 3, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will temporarily suspend premium processing for all H-1B petitions," read Friday's announcement, which says the suspension "may last up to 6 months." Slashdot reader elrous0 sees it as part of the "ongoing efforts to curb abuses in the controversial H-1B program." The San Francisco Chronicle reports: While it could be difficult to divorce the move Friday from the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown, some experts believed the agency's decision to be apolitical. "It has everything to do with an understaffed, overworked, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," said Jason Finkelman, an Austin, Texas, immigration attorney, adding that the wait time for an H-1B visa in California is currently about eight months. However, Vivek Wadhwa, an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Silicon Valley campus in NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, said the suspension seems like a message from the government that you "can't buy your way into America."
Whatever the motivation, Engadget believes this will impact large tech companies. "Financial Times quotes a lawyer saying that 'close to 100 percent' of applications from companies like Microsoft utilize the option."

295 comments

  1. Well, that's one thing by tietokone-olmi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Let's see if this changes the division of income in affected companies to better follow market conditions.

    I wouldn't expect too much of a republican administration, in that regard. (nor the other party. let's not make this a pissing match.)

    1. Re:Well, that's one thing by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They will probably just move the jobs overseas.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If that was an option why haven't they done it already?

    3. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And any money those employees would have spent on the local economy, will be spent there.

    4. Re:Well, that's one thing by tietokone-olmi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're talking about H1B's here. Imported labour. If their jobs could be offshored, they already would've been: the offshoring job-market favours capital even more than that for indentured brown people.

      Some leftie you are, failing even at basic Marxist economics.

    5. Re:Well, that's one thing by negRo_slim · · Score: 4, Interesting

      minor economic gain is no argument for keeping a broken system intact. scrap the whole thing let citizens get proper pay and not have to compete with indentured servants.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    6. Re:Well, that's one thing by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Interesting

      There is value is having people at the main campus in the US. If there is no way they can do that, it becomes feasible to move the campus instead. It at least part of it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Well, that's one thing by JustOK · · Score: 2

      citizens uber aliens

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    8. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck it, MOVE the campus if you want; but let's end the H1B scam once and for all. The lies end now!

    9. Re:Well, that's one thing by gfxguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I work for a rather large (and here nameless) entertainment company. They tried off-shoring our technical support to Romania. Our various sub-companies make a very good profit, year after year - as much of the entertainment industry, we generally weather bad economies better than most because people fall back to less expensive forms of entertainment like TV and movies rather than concerts or vacations. Why did the bean counters feel like it wasn't enough? I don't know.... but looking at numbers on paper is far different than what happens in reality.

      Yes, our tech support was expensive - but responsive, fast, taking care of issues correctly the first time and right away, largely because someone could actually come to our desk and fix things. The Romania deal was a disaster. It's not that Romanians are stupid - far from it; it's that it's a lot more difficult to troubleshoot an issue from 5000 miles away than it is when you're sitting in front of the computer having problems. Then this bean counter probably got accolades and a big bonus, all the while actually COSTING the company more money in lost productivity. We have since switched back. Unfortunately, the company has already taken a number of other cost cutting measures that look good on paper, but have already started to backfire. They will not learn, they are only interested in the short term gain. Companies need more forward thinking leaders, but when CEO's get golden parachutes while driving companies into bankruptcy, it doesn't happen.

      So... long story short, it is indeed valuable actually having people here. And no H1B visas needed - none of the fired tech support people were H1B, and they didn't need to be.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    10. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They won't move the campus to India or China because no one wants to work in some overcrowded shithole country with filthy tap water, polluted air, cops who shake everyone down for bribes, open sewers, dirt roads, etc.

      They will stay in the U.S. for our infrastructure and quality of living. Only now the price for that will be having to hire more Americans at decent wages. That's the way it SHOULD have been all along.

      We finally have a President who isn't looking to sell this country out and suck Silicon Valley dick. About fucking time.

       

    11. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Headquarters and communication

    12. Re:Well, that's one thing by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

      Let's see if this changes the division of income in affected companies to better follow market conditions...agreed, obviously watch your portfolios.

    13. Re:Well, that's one thing by Imrik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Short term gains increase stock value, investors sell, no one involved cares what happens after that.

    14. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right up until they say YOUR job could also go to Romania, so now the jobs and the tech support ARE in the same place.

      For example, look at all the excellent work Weta Workshops does, they are in New Zealand.THAT is the digital economy for you, its borderless .

      Better yet though, by being based in another country, you give them the results of your work in the evening and you get the results of their work back the next morning.

      Capitalism is a bitch too, everyone is entitled to get the best deal they can. So while Americans cheered on Amazon leading the the destruction of bricks and mortar stores because they could get their books cheaper, employers are simply doing the same, buying the same product (your labour) cheaper. Just like Boarders bookshop, your choice is compete or go away.

    15. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, I also work at a nameless media company.

      Our mostly independent operation got merged into a larger group. I learned recently that the driver behind it was because our group, while producing a great, well supported product and winning large customers (also a great place to work) wasn't making much money. Its been merged into a larger group in the name of profits, a lot of good people left. Our independent IT operations are being merged into larger slower less efficient processes and systems. We get a lot of "cant be bothered", and responses support from those that run systems upstream of us that we now rely on.

    16. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't they just remotely log into the computer and see everything a user could (that's not hardware?)

    17. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tasks that can be outsourced only increases over time. Campuses become less necessary.

    18. Re: Well, that's one thing by guruevi · · Score: 2

      The US has some of the strongest imaginary property, contract, copyright and patent laws. Workers also tend to be a lot less volatile when you bring them from abroad and give them minimum legal protections. The corporations want the legalized human trading and the local protections while paying minimal taxes. You can't bring your workers from the US into places like India or China and neither can you bring in the ideas without risking losing them.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    19. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is - the companies that do this don't let the current pre-layoff employees compete.

      A company I worked for did the outsourcing option, and honestly - if asked, I could see myself telling them I would do my part to help out. The reality is - there's about a year or two of rumors, uncertainty, then you're given notice. There's no further negotiation at that point.

      So yes... compete or go away? The companies that we help build don't bother to ask us to compete.

    20. Re: Well, that's one thing by hwstar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh, while we're at it, lets not forget these business community sweeteners:

      1. Employment at will. This concept is totally alien in most of the developed world.
      2. No paid sick time (OK California and a few other states have made progress).
      3. No limits on the maximum duration of the workweek. The EU's working time directive is a good start.
      4. No paid vacation or family leave. The US is quite alone here as well.
      5. Non-compete contracts where there is no severance pay guaranteed if you are laid off.
      6. Binding arbitration which denies your right to trial without a jury.

      Unless other countries adopt these business-friendly labor laws, a lot of jobs will remain here. Frankly, that has a snowball's chance in hell of happening.

    21. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I wrote days ago we will be thanking trump as he does more and more to give citizens thier jobs back. We are just getting started people. Soon citizens will be able to work these well paid jobs again.

      Sure you don't care since you are employed. But many others are beaten out because of simply lower immigrant worker wages. That's it.

      Do you really think these are geniuses coming over???? No. And do you really think mostvtech jobs require geniuses???? Absolutely no no way.

      I am loving this. It us still not a level playing field but every bit helps. As for you h visa holders--I hope you can get you residence cards.

      If not, the people who live thier lives here matter first.

      Thank you Trump!!!! And I hated him so much during the election. I'm great full other Americans had enough common sense.

    22. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We finally have a President who isn't looking to sell this country out and suck Silicon Valley dick. About fucking time.

      We do? Did Trump step down and let Pence taken over already? Last I heard the US President was tweeting about how Obama tried to "tapp" his wires before Trimo drifted back into his vital work undermining the ratings of the Apprentice show.

    23. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We'll probably see more companies take the route of "insourcing the outsourcing"

      Afraid of being bit by the politics of outsourcing, and unsatisfied with the retention fo worked from a company like TaTa, companies are setting up their own operations in India. Large companies can buy a building in India, staff a thousand seats and hire locally and it's all just a foreign branch or at worst, offshoring.

      Or as some call it, whitewashing the practice of outsourcing.

    24. Re:Well, that's one thing by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Institutional investors and lower level employees are left holding the bag, so pensioners and working stiffs care what happens after that ... so basically no one important.

    25. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep on mind no foreign company can open a branch in India. They have to open a new company, owned by Indians. Pretty neat deal to stall tech know how.

    26. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Foreign companies can own and run company in India. Most of them already do.

    27. Re:Well, that's one thing by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      Depends on the issue. I simplified my explanation for brevity, but it's not just computers and operating systems, but a lot of other technical equipment (mostly video related). They can't tell me why, when I select source A and destination B on our video router that I'm not seeing what I'm supposed to be seeing. But in the one case I had at my computer, it was not so much the computer, but one of our systems not accepting my password. I personally didn't have any issues in which them logging in would have helped.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    28. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1. Employment at will. This concept is totally alien in most of the developed world.

      Most at-will states have other laws protecting workers against unjust lay-offs. Try firing someone working for a large corporation in California without building a dossier and have the worker go through a Performance Improvement Plan.

      At will is not "you can be fired any day".

      2. No paid sick time (OK California and a few other states have made progress).

      Every large corporation that I've worked for has paid sick time for all their exempt employees (and let's be honest 95% of all H1-Bs are exempt).

      3. No limits on the maximum duration of the workweek. The EU's working time directive is a good start.

      Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem. If I don't, I can work somewhere else (H1-Bs can do that too).

      4. No paid vacation or family leave. The US is quite alone here as well.

      Again, every large corporation that I've worked for has their own policies for that. It may not be mandatory by law, but it is definitely offered.

      5. Non-compete contracts where there is no severance pay guaranteed if you are laid off.

      Which are not enforceable in a growing number of states.

      6. Binding arbitration which denies your right to trial without a jury.

      No, you deny that yourself when you accept the contract. You don't have to. You entered the agreement to use binding arbitration.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    29. Re:Well, that's one thing by Beeftopia · · Score: 2

      Companies need more forward thinking leaders, but when CEO's get golden parachutes while driving companies into bankruptcy, it doesn't happen.

      It's called 'corporate looting' or 'bankrupty for profit'. The (nobel laureate - or at least it equivalent in economics) husband of the current Federal Reserve (US central bank) chief co-authored a paper about it.(PDF)

    30. Re:Well, that's one thing by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      I was a tam at a company really large software company (you've used their products - even if you only use OSX or Linux) - they offshored all the support work, and then justified it by forging the customer satisfaction surveys. They'd only send survey's to customers on calls they'd knock out of the park. So the front lines/tier 1 would get something like 4000+ phone calls a day, and we were getting like a hundred surveys a month.

      Anyhow the guy who's brilliant idea this was - still works there and gets accolades and bonuses for everything he's done, but the fallout is - hundreds of people lost their jobs in the US, and - I've never met anyone who's actually called them and gotten something solved, I heard they lost every contract I used to manage (because why pay for support if nothing is getting solved).

      One of the problems while we were working on the transition was in India - we not only had to train them on how to use some of this complex software, but we had to train them how to type (this was when Windows XP was still king, and Vista had just been released), and how to use computers in general - really basic stuff like this is files/folders/icons etc.

      Management wanted support trees for everything, but it was really clear they had never answered a single call on any of these apps or tools - or even listened to the typical call - you had to be haflway decent at troubleshooting a computer to fix these issues in some cases.

      Mind you this is basically call center work - so outsourcing developers is probably easier.

    31. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You assume it is minor, more likely it is major and critical to the existence of most real firms.

    32. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Non-compete contracts where there is no severance pay guaranteed if you are laid off.

      In California, where many of the US tech jobs are concentrated, the non-compete contract is basically unenforceable except in very narrow circumstances for C-level executives. This was, at least in part, what motivated the illegal collusion between Apple and other Silicon Valley firms not to poach employees from each other because they knew that non-compete contracts were legally useless in California.

    33. Re: Well, that's one thing by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      If that was an option why haven't they done it already?

      They tried that back in the Late 90s/Early 00s. It doesn't work very well. They need to have them here under the supervision of domestic managers.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    34. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems like we should want that. Having to fly back to India is a pita, no? Closer to family, less pollution, win for everyone.

    35. Re:Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love this argument. If a company hasn't moved, it's simply because it makes more business sense to stay in the US and enjoy its perks: security, police, justice system, etc.

      There is no patriotism here and anyone who thinks that is an idiot. The second it makes more sense to move, any US company would be gone in a sec. These guys just want to have it both ways.

    36. Re:Well, that's one thing by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Bringing in H1b's usually a first step towards offshoring.

      For example at a company i worked at, they brought in about 100 H1b's (and L1's) for 6 years saying they were helping while they really were documenting everything and gaining experience in the roles and then laid off 90% of the staff and moved 60%-70% of those jobs to india while retaining about the balance of those onshore.

      The offshoring company did well with older technologies but failed to deliver SAP skills.

      How do we know? When the 90% layoffs hit, it included people who'd seen the contracts and attended the meetings 6 years before and they leaked like crazy. The layoffs had been planned over a year before the first H1b walked in the door.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    37. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cisco India is definitely owned by an Indian. You should check your sources before you spout nonsense out your arse

    38. Re: Well, that's one thing by Sesostris+III · · Score: 5, Informative

      3. No limits on the maximum duration of the workweek. The EU's working time directive is a good start.

      Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem. If I don't, I can work somewhere else (H1-Bs can do that too).

      OK. I'm in the EU (for the moment), so I'll respond to this. You as an individual can opt of the 48 hour week. That is your choice. However you can't be forced to opt out (expect in those occupations where it would be dangerous to do so).

      https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maximum-working-hours-and-opting-out

      So what's with the "EUSSR" label?

      --
      You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
    39. Re: Well, that's one thing by Dog-Cow · · Score: 0

      Ford has a datacenter and one or more development centers in India. No way in hell those are owned by Indians, you stupid and ignorant pile of feces.

    40. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure the new budget is aimed at bringing US water like Flint and air like Beijing.

    41. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After all the police kill more people in the US each year than total murders in a civilised country!

    42. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least that way you aren't forced to training your replacement. I think that's notable.

    43. Re: Well, that's one thing by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Every large corporation that I've worked for has paid sick time for all their exempt employees

      Great when you work for a large corporation. Not so great if you're a fresh out of school kid looking for some stable income and ending up not working for multi-national who "cares" about employees.

      Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem.

      If you want to work that will be your problem. Humans love being self destructive. Nothing says self-destruction more than volunteered unpaid overtime at the expense of your family. Oh you think employees are financially affected by this rule? Maybe you should read it before commenting.

      Again, every large corporation that I've worked for has their own policies for that. It may not be mandatory by law, but it is definitely offered.

      Yeah great if you're at a large corporation. You get 2 weeks, 3 if you're lucky. We'll continue to mock you from every other country. I've never seen a large employer offer you (even with some negotiation) what most other countries get as a mandatory minimum. But hey 80 hour weeks with no vacation, you sound like you're really living your life.

      No, you deny that yourself when you accept the contract. You don't have to. You entered the agreement to use binding arbitration.

      Is this another one of those "employees have the power to negotiate these contracts" thing that Americans are the only country who hasn't realised it rarely works out well for the employees?

      But hey, all those wonderful conditions we have are voluntary. If you want to screw yourself in the name of your employer, you're more than welcome to do that in the EU too. At least healthcare will cover the result.

    44. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you, "founded" because opportunity was denied to a US citizen. Kill yourself, fag.

    45. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I need not check sources when I personally know ownership. Shareholders are different and executives are different.

    46. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol. If you think the U.S. police are bad, just try dealing with the cops in India some time. At least U.S. cops don't threaten to arrest *you* when you ask them for help, or shake you down for regular bribes, or "disappear" their critics.

    47. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm an expat American who's lived and worked in the "EUSSR" for 10+ years.

      Where I live, my employer gets a choice between:

      1. 5 weeks (25 days) paid vacation/annum + time-and-a-half (or in some cases double-time) for any & all hours over 37.5/week.

      2. 6 weeks (30 days) paid vacation/annum + no overtime pay but no hours over 48/week, ever.

      My employer let me choose, and I took Option #2.

      I will never accept a job from an American firm again unless they give me one of the options listed above, in writing.

      So far, every time I've been offered a position by an American company (and there have been many), what happens is something like this: (a) I tell them that this is what I expect; (b) They respond that I'm full of shit, that's not possible, etc; (c) I show them my current contract; (d) Offer is hastily withdrawn.

      Enjoy your life in the Gulag, dumbass.

    48. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are no "citizens" or "countries" anymore. There are providers and customers, employers and employees, there are those willing to move in order to have a job and those lacking the will. It's a big world out there, stop thinking you should live all of your life where you happened to be born.

    49. Re: Well, that's one thing by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      How do you compete against people that have a dramatically lower cost of living than you?

    50. Re: Well, that's one thing by Sesostris+III · · Score: 1

      I got a sentence slightly muddled above. Should be:

      You as an individual can opt of the 48 hour week (expect in those occupations where it would be dangerous to do so) .That is your choice. However you can't be forced to opt out.

      --
      You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
    51. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 0

      You as an individual can opt of the 48 hour week. That is your choice. However you can't be forced to opt out (expect in those occupations where it would be dangerous to do so).

      I see you have no clue how EU labor laws work. Hint: they don't. Most of the labor laws are enacted on a national level. So where your country might enact a max of 48 hours, another country can choose differently.

      So what's with the "EUSSR" label?

      The European Union is looking more and more like the old Soviet Union. No freedom of speech, and an EU parliament that tries to enact and enforce legislation on a "federal" level. Whatever choices their citizens make is irrelevant. And I can give you a ton of examples, and let's start with the Ukrainian treaty as well as the EU constitution which is no longer called a constitution.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    52. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 0

      Great when you work for a large corporation. Not so great if you're a fresh out of school kid looking for some stable income and ending up not working for multi-national who "cares" about employees Not true, for example CA has Short Term Disability.

      If you want to work that will be your problem. Humans love being self destructive. Nothing says self-destruction more than volunteered unpaid overtime at the expense of your family.

      Talk for yourself. I easily work 60+ hours a week. Wanna know why? Because I fucking love what I'm doing. My network is my baby. And I still get to spend more than enough time with my family.

      You get 2 weeks, 3 if you're lucky. We'll continue to mock you from every other country. I've never seen a large employer offer you (even with some negotiation) what most other countries get as a mandatory minimum. But hey 80 hour weeks with no vacation, you sound like you're really living your life.

      At my company, there is no hard limit, and you work with HR to get what you need. Other companies I worked for, I got 3, sometimes 4. After that I'd be covered by CA SDI. I also get more than enough vacation time to do everything I want to do.

      Is this another one of those "employees have the power to negotiate these contracts" thing that Americans are the only country who hasn't realised it rarely works out well for the employees?

      This is the crux of our discussion. You opt to have the state take care of you by enacting laws. I opt to live in a country where I can make my own choices. I lived in the EUSSR until 2010, so I know pretty well what I'm talking about. My move to the U.S. was my best choice ever. More money, way better quality of life, for the same work and amount of work.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    53. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      6. Binding arbitration which denies your right to trial without a jury.

      No, you deny that yourself when you accept the contract. You don't have to. You entered the agreement to use binding arbitration.

      Contract law is not the highest law in the land - the Bill of Rights is - and when they come into conflict the Bill of Rights wins. Further, the Bill of Rights is open-ended, thanks to the 9th and 10th Amendments (rights retained by the people, rights reserved to the people). Rights can be asserted under these amendments that limit what can go into a contract - and whether or not it will be binding.

      For example, the legal profession, as a class in society, is in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to what can go into a contract. The right to ethical practice of law is itself a fundamental right arising under the 9th and 10th Amendments - and thus that right can limit contract law. Many other rights can do so as well.

      Even in jurisdictions that do not have a Bill of Rights, the history of contract law often boils down to societies taking different positions on what can legitimately be put into a contract.

      This means that the presence of something in a contract does not necessarily make it binding, whether or not the parties "agreed" to it - and this necessarily includes the "agreement" to use binding arbitration - especially in cases where that "agreement" is effectively coerced and not in the interests of society. This doesn't mean that all arbitration is bad - but it does mean the situation is considerably more complex than you have stated.

    54. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm an expat American who's lived and worked in the "EUSSR" for 10+ years.

      That's funny, I'm the opposite. I worked in the EUSSR for 15 years, and moved to the U.S. in 2010. My perspective is very different than yours, and here is why:

      First of all, taxes. All that free time and subsidized healthcare must be paid one way or the other. My income tax in my home-country was 52%, sales tax (VAT) is 21%. So out of the gate, the government took 73% of every euro I made. Wanna buy a car? Sure. MSRP is 10,000. Add 21% tax to get to 12,100. Now add 9,181 special car-tax and you get to pay 21,281 for your 10,000 car. Calculate it yourself: http://www.autoweek.nl/bpmcalc...

      Second, like in the U.S., once you are regular full-time, most positions won't pay overtime anyway.

      Third, and this is the most important, in my home country, it is extremely difficult to get a regular full-time position, because it is extremely difficult for employers to fire you. If you have a full-time position that's not temporarily, they will have to go to court to get you fired. So they will avoid doing that as long as they can by giving you a temporary contract. First 6 months, then a year. Then perhaps another year. Maybe after that you'll get a full time position if you're special enough. If you work in a call center and are easily replaceable, they'll hire someone else so they can restart the clock. California is an at-will state and I've never had a temp contract, ever. This is what happens when the government starts interfering with private contracts. My brother and sister are well in their thirties and only recently got a regular full time position. Did I mention that you won't get a mortgage on a temporary contract?

      And I did not even mention all the abuse I've seen of the welfare state. People who are perfectly capable of working, but choose not to because the government will provide for them, on my dime. Remember, the government uses my taxpayer money, extracted from my paycheck under the threat of a gun to my head, to pay other people not to work. Fuck that shit, and fuck the EU, for that reason alone already.

      And I did not even start about civil liberties. Civil liberties in Europe, right. No freedom of speech, every ISP must retain all logs of you for 6 months, even a park ranger can check your internet history. That's why: EUSSR.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    55. Re: Well, that's one thing by RalphSlate · · Score: 1

      > Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem. If I don't, I can work somewhere else (H1-Bs can do that too).

      Are you suggesting that an 80 hour week is optional because you are free to get another job?

      How is that any different from those who suggest that sexual harassment at work shouldn't be illegal because the woman is free to get another job to escape it?

    56. Re: Well, that's one thing by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      Moof!

    57. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting that an 80 hour week is optional because you are free to get another job?

      No, I'm saying that an 80 hour work week is optional because it is your own choice to work 80 hours.

      How is that any different from those who suggest that sexual harassment at work shouldn't be illegal because the woman is free to get another job to escape it?

      First of all, you're an idiot and I totally understand that by giving arguments against your point, you will drag me to your level and beat me with experience. That said,

      Sexual harassment is prohibited by law, not to mention morally deplorable. An 80 hour work week is not. Many people who work 80 hours a week do what they love. Ask any ER doctor, nurse, or Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple network engineer.

      I love what I do, and I don't give a crap how many hours I put in. Sometimes it's 40 a week, sometimes 60 sometimes 30. And in rare cases, 80.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    58. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol, meanwhile, the US spies on everyone, has more felons that can't work or vote than illegal aliens (20 million), stops and harasses citizens for "papers" even well away from international borders, subjects citizens to lengthy, invasive, and sometimes humiliating examinations when returning from abroad, drone strikes American citizens abroad, bullies its neighbors into 1) paying for its own infrastructure and 2) taking deported aliens, illegal to both countries. I could go on...

    59. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mine is already going off shore

    60. Re: Well, that's one thing by houghi · · Score: 1

      Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem. If I don't, I can work somewhere else (H1-Bs can do that too).

      Great for you. What about the person that is 'asked' to do so and if he doesn't gets, in the best case, overlooked for promotion?

      And the vacation one. It has been discussed on /. several times that taking vacation in many companies is discourages. Working at the weekend is normal and you should be available for the company if they call you.

      No, you deny that yourself when you accept the contract. You don't have to. You entered the agreement to use binding arbitration.

      I could sign a contract and it would not eb worth the paper it was written on.
      I followed a course of social rights in Belgium and it is basically this: you can put ANYTHING in a contract, but as a company you need to know what is actually legal and what the consequences are if you don't and you better hope the other party doesn't do anything.
      The law will, when in doubt, decide in favour of the employee. So what if I signed that I wanted to work extra hours for free, because I was a manager? They will need to pay that overtime. So why did I sign the contract? "Because I was afraid they would deny the job if I didn't." Case closed.

      And why is paid sick time still a discussion? I go to the docter when I am sick and I get paid. Regardless if I am sick for 2 days or for 2 years. They are not some sort of oliday that they can say I get 1 or 10 or 100 per year, because they do not know.

      Obviously you have been very lucky to have been working at companies where all this stuff never was an issue, but do not assume there are no people like that.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    61. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 2, Insightful

      20M on SSDI, 60M on food stamps, 20M felons who don't participate in anything, matches the scope of any problem in any EU country

      And you know what's the big difference? SSDI and food stamps are enough to sustain you, but you would have a better life if you were working. In most of the EUSSR, or at least my home country, you are better of not working and taking tax-payer money.

      you dense mother fucker

      Yeah, that's the compelling argument that made me rethink my position. Just as the idiots downmodding my well-argumented position that they simply disagree with.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    62. Re: Well, that's one thing by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Talk for yourself. I easily work 60+ hours a week. Wanna know why? Because I fucking love what I'm doing. My network is my baby. And I still get to spend more than enough time with my family.

      I'll leave your family to decide that. Either way there's nothing in the EU rules to prevent you working for as long as you want. Just that you can't be forced to. You thinking that is a bad thing just makes me think that you've been at work too long today and should get your head checked.

      At my company, there is no hard limit, and you work with HR to get what you need.

      Congratulations. Fortunately your experience is RARE. In the EU there's no hard upper limit, just a lower limit to prevent being fucked by employers. But hey since you're happy with the laughably low 3-4 weeks vacation (less than the mandated minimum here) then you really have no say in the matter as these laws exist for the benefit of those who are unhappy.

      This is the crux of our discussion. You opt to have the state take care of you by enacting laws. I opt to live in a country where I can make my own choices.

      Nope. I have opted for the state to provide a level playing field and baseline in the incredibly unbalanced position of power that is an employee negotiating with an employer. Again if you're happy that you have power, congratulations. It doesn't put you in the 1%, it puts you in the 0.01% of people who are in that position. Now maybe you have a super awesome contract. Good. Maybe you just like getting fucked by your employer, more power to you. Either way in a societal level, zero regulations has never worked out for the best.

      I lived in the EUSSR until 2010, so I know pretty well what I'm talking about. My move to the U.S. was my best choice ever. More money, way better quality of life, for the same work and amount of work.

      Yep you're definitely in the 0.01%. Most people say the opposite.

      Either way if I wanted to get fucked in the arse I'd go to a gay bar, not to the HR department. And the fact that you call it the EUSSR just shows you either have no idea how the EU works, or how the USSR worked. Or both. Comrade. Give my love to your neglected family.

    63. Re:Well, that's one thing by mjwx · · Score: 1

      We're talking about H1B's here. Imported labour. If their jobs could be offshored, they already would've been: the offshoring job-market favours capital even more than that for indentured brown people.

      Its not quite that simple. There are costs to offshoring and not all of them are monetary. Customers dont like the delays you get with offshoring. Having an indentured brown person in strangling range is better than having one in some god-forsaken shithole. Not to mention the cost of hiring westerners to be ex-pat managers. A middle management flunkie that might get $40,000 if they're lucky will easily get an ex-pat package that costs 3-4 times as much.

      So making it harder to bring over indentured brown people will easily offshore projects and services that might have stayed onshore.

      That being said, I'm sure there are loopholes a plenty for this. Remember that the outsourcing industry didn't kick up a stink about Trump's decrees... because those had obvious loopholes that can be exploited. What they kicked up a stink over was the fact some upstart (with a D against their name) wanted to raise the minimum H1-B salary to US$130,000.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    64. Re: Well, that's one thing by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      You thinking that is a bad thing just makes me think that you've been at work too long today and should get your head checked.

      Interesting. Your obsession with sabri's quality of life makes me think you're incapable of critical thinking.

      Not everyone is you. I know that's a hard idea to grasp, but do try, eh?

    65. Re: Well, that's one thing by torkus · · Score: 1

      Which is all fine and good.

      You let me know when how often individuals succeed in this type of "but...it's NOT CONSTITUTIONAL" type of arguments in regard to contract law. Hint: rarely. The time, effort, and cost to do so is extremely prohibitive so only large, broad cases (or someone wanting the limelight) make it anywhere.

      And beyond that, Binding arbitration clauses have been UPHELD in court cases trying to call it unconstitutional and having it stricken (i believe it was verizon or comcast or something similar).

      This is why it's beneficial to have these things spelled out clearly and separately.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    66. Re: Well, that's one thing by torkus · · Score: 1

      You have some rose colored glasses on or just very limited experience with how much of corporate america works.

      Practically speaking, few companies actually require 80 hour work weeks. However it's definitely NOT uncommon for a company to classify someone as exempt (even though the law actually sets the bar fairly high for that) and then require OT 'as necessary'...to the tune of 5, 10, maybe 15 hours or more a week. Of course, they'll tell you that the extra $ is factored into your pay (which it might have been once upon a time).

      Can you quit? Of course. But is it practical to up and walk away from a job at the drop of a hat? No. Does a company come out and say "hey, work twice as much starting tomorrow"? Of course not. You just get extra work and tighter deadlines, and what started out as a 40-hour week becomes 45, then 50, then you take some work home, then you're doing email on the weekend at your son's bball game or whatever.

      Most of the rest of your points only apply if you work at large companies, and even then, only the much more progressive ones. That may be YOUR experience but it's certainly not the norm.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    67. Re: Well, that's one thing by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Your obsession with sabri's quality of life makes me think you're incapable of critical thinking.

      Or maybe I'm just compassionate and the critical thinking that comes along with studying the statistics and the maco-economic effects that are associated with over working specifically high rates of divorce and suicide.

      I'm also quite clear that a Sabri is Sabri, but we're not discussing Sabri here, we're discussing the EU vs USA approach to well being of their population. It is interesting that you get the idea that *I* am the one focused on a single person here. Please pay attention.

    68. Re: Well, that's one thing by sabri · · Score: 1
      A bit late to reply, but just for argument's sake.

      Either way there's nothing in the EU rules to prevent you working for as long as you want. Just that you can't be forced to. You thinking that is a bad thing just makes me think that you've been at work too long today and should get your head checked.

      I have not expressed myself clearly enough, apologies for that. Laws which prevent an employer for forcing unreasonable overtimes are good and necessary. But they also exist in the U.S. on a federal and state level (I'm in CA).

      Yep you're definitely in the 0.01%. Most people say the opposite.

      You are right, I am very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in. My work is interesting, my workload is acceptable and my family is happy too. I live in Socal, giving me pretty much the best weather in all of the US.

      And the fact that you call it the EUSSR just shows you either have no idea how the EU works, or how the USSR worked. Or both. Comrade.

      You are mistaken here. I am very familiar with the EU and it's rule making process. While I was raised in The Netherlands, and consider that my home country, I was born in former Yugoslavia. My yearly 2 month trips to see family thought me a lot on how a communistic regime works, and how bad it is for society to have too much socialism.

      That said, there are two things that I would love to see taken care of on a federal level: healthcare and education. But I'm also realistic enough to know that that's not going to happen in the near future.

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    69. Re: Well, that's one thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > This is what happens when the government starts interfering with private contracts.

      I'm right-wing and all, but governments are the ones that enforce contracts. If you sue someone, the government uses its power to force someone to give you money (from either risk of jail or by using government agents to make a bank turn over assets). If you evict someone, government police will be the ones enforcing the order.

      So society via the government, has the ability to say what is and isn't a valid contract. Slavery is a perfect example since an amendment to the US constitution outlaws it. Non-compete clauses have no force in California. Wedding contracts and inheritance are of course set in law as well.

      That said, I disagree greatly with how the left in the US is using government power. Their policy is to not enforce immigration law because it benefits them politically. Or their plan to force social justice on everyone. (The GOPe idea of "let businesses do whatever they want" is equally terrible. Economics should be the one area of compromise.)

  2. Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He's on a great start to be our best President ever.

    1. Re: Thank you Trump! by CaptainDork · · Score: 0, Troll

      I hope Trump dies in a fire.

      I got yer troll hanging right here.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if he does, you still have to go back.

    3. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only 3.5 more years my sweet, precious snowflake.

    4. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is this marked Troll? Are we not allowed to support our country here?

    5. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like a snowflake triggered you.

      Did your mom call you Trigger? Like Sarah Palin?

    6. Re: Thank you Trump! by CaptainDork · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You do know ... ... you can't mark someone a troll AND comment, right?

      Unless you're in a box with some radioactive material, a cat, and vial of poison.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    7. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh it'll be way more than 3.5 years sir, Trump is going to get to maintain the dynasty that we cut the Bushes and Clintons off from. :D

    8. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Trump for 8. And I'll vote for his daughter next. If she is like minded.

    9. Re: Thank you Trump! by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      7.5

      Think positive.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    10. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      WTF has slashdot become?

      We've woken up and realized that Trump is the only politician standing up for America and Americans. He's the first President in a long time who's not just selling us out to corporations and their cheap foreign labor gravy train. And we're sick of being called racists for being proud of our country. We're sick of being told that we're somehow obligated to invite in immigrants who refuse to assimilate to our values or who outright hate us. We're sick of being told that we need to accept international trade agreements that hurt Americans and export American jobs.

      We're "becoming" awake.

    11. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No you are not. Go to a shitty indian site to support you cunt country!

    12. Re:Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He's on a great start to be our best President ever.

      I'll add another vote for thanking Trump. He said he was going to do something about H1 B abuse and this is as good a start as any. We have had decades of bullshit and hand wringing saying how hard it would be to change ANY law. This guy gets in on a populist platform and makes a lot of promises that most expected him to renege on (in typical politician fashion). He is delivering. Imagine what he could fix if he didn't have to spend half his day defending himself against bullshit.
      If the majority of the posters on this site were not so dogmatic in Red vs. Blue they would see he is exactly what this country has needed for a long time.
      The idea for a minimum wage for H1 B holders came from a slashdot discussion (I believe). It was the perfect solution and Trump mentioned it in a campaign speech. He will implement it. No other candidate in either party would implement this. I believe Trump will.
      Judge Trump on what he actually does as opposed to what someone thinks he will do or obvious smear campaigns.

    13. Re: Thank you Trump! by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      And my fingerprints are your favourite, too?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    14. Re: Thank you Trump! by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      She has a pussy, and it's normal for us to grab it.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    15. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, we should grab that. That's what real men do. Even some tough looking ladies would like to grab that.

    16. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good thing your vote won't count in 2020 and everyone who voted Trump is going to be rounded up for reeducation camps.

    17. Re: Thank you Trump! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol.. without trade agreements, have fun with your recession. If the entire world goes protectionist, other countries can and will shut down mcdonalds and ford and all the other shit the US exports. They can and will stop using the US dollar as a reserve currency. Good luck with inflation too..

  3. On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    The United States is on its way to becoming great again.
    Seriously.

    CAP === 'snuffed'

    1. Re:On our way... by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It saddens me that people modded parent down. Do you really hate America so much that you WANT it to fail?

      I think a lot of people need to get over their self-hatred, white guilt, emo post-modern bullshit and stop being ashamed to be a citizen of the country that pioneered the modern democracy and has made huge advancements in medicine, technology, academia, etc. that have greatly benefited the entire world.

      Have we been, or will we ever be, perfect? Fuck no! But just because your country has flaws doesn't mean you can't be proud of all the great stuff we have have done (and will do). So stand up for the National Anthem. Maybe even pick up a flag and try waving it for once. And not in some hipster ironic way. Try celebrating your country in a way that says "My country created the Bill of Rights when most countries were still monarchies!"

      And that goes even more for Europe. Your countries created Western Civilization and the modern legal/human rights system and you act like that heritage is something to only be ashamed of?? WTF is wrong with you? You've focused for so long on everything you've done wrong that you've forgotten about the many more things you've done RIGHT.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try celebrating your country in a way that says "My country created the Bill of Rights when most countries were still monarchies!"

      Freedom of the press? The incumbent POTUS calls the news media the "enemy of the American people".

      Freedom of religion? The incumbent POTUS has said that Muslims should be banned from entering the country without "extreme vetting".

      Let's not rest on the laurels of what people accomplished in the past. What happens now, is what counts for people alive today.

    3. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're so proud of the white-skinned-concept of America. Then you would pay back all the Africans for generations of free labor. You know, just as long as we're being fair.

    4. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reparations, huh? Let's see:

      Slavery? My ancestors came over in 1900. My bill, $0.

      Jim Crow? Never voted democrat in my life. My bill, $0.

      However, reparations is a two way street. Affirmative action? Ca-ching! Welfare? Ca-ching! More police? More prisons? More government schooling? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Etc., etc., etc.? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

      I figure I'm owed 4, 500 grand.

    5. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reparations, huh? Let's see:

      Slavery? My ancestors came over in 1900. My bill, $0.

      Jim Crow? Never voted democrat in my life. My bill, $0.

      However, reparations is a two way street. Affirmative action? Ca-ching! Welfare? Ca-ching! More police? More prisons? More government schooling? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Etc., etc., etc.? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

      I figure I'm owed 4, 500 grand.

      Reparations, huh? Let's see:

      Slavery? My ancestors came over in 1900. My bill, $0.

      Jim Crow? Never voted democrat in my life. My bill, $0.

      However, reparations is a two way street. Affirmative action? Ca-ching! Welfare? Ca-ching! More police? More prisons? More government schooling? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Etc., etc., etc.? Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

      I figure I'm owed 4, 500 grand.

      With that fine logic, it isn't any wonder why immigrants were needed in the first place in American high tech. The bigger scandal is what American educational institutions are teaching its citizens.

    6. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did you go to college, bud? Trump University?

    7. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean purchased enslaved people?

      I've seen this before though, that it wasn't white folk that innovated but the black slaves. I'm sorry but if black folks are the pinnacle of innovation why are majority black countries not leading the way?

    8. Re:On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It saddens me that people modded parent down. Do you really hate America so much that you WANT it to fail?

      Simple answer: Yes, they do.

    9. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Impreialists took away all their local resources - in effect transferring local resources to their home countries for free... setting these former colonies far behind, and not giving them a chance to break out.

      Think about it, would Europe be able to be what it is today had it been conquered by the Africans instead? Answer is No. Unless, of course, you're a white supremacist.

    10. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And this is yet another example of poor American reading comprehension skills. No one said African slaves were the pinnacle of innovation.

      Innovation only happens after the brain's basic needs have been met. If you take away all their resources for your own personal gain and leave them with nothing, how can they be expected to be innovative? If they don't know when the next meal is coming, they can't exactly launch a Falcon 9 in space. Can they? There's a famine in South Sudan and Somalia. That's all on countries with a colonial past.

      Go read a book, troll.

    11. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the African black tribes that captured and sold the slaves STARTING SLAVERY - what do they owe.

      You sick twisted dumb fuck. They sold thier own people into slavery.

    12. Re: On our way... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      The resources Europe gained abroad during the colonial eras were almost all luxuries, not the necessities for building a technological civilization. Gold, spices, cane sugar, tobacco etc etc ... not the stuff you need to build universities and steam engines. Whites are what they are because they had the privilege of luck. We won the genetic lottery, we won the geographic lottery, we lucked out with the plague creating a shortage of labour and creating the middle class etc etc.

      Modern civilization is a fluke, a fluke to be cherished, a fluke to carry as a gift to other nations ... not to be squandered on moral relativism and self destructive white guilt.

    13. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your claim is easily debunked.
      Forget Google, try LexusNexus

    14. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every civilization has enslaved and exploited. But not every civilization created the concept of human rights, the modern legal system, the pasteurization process, the internet, antibiotics, and a million other innovations that have benefited the world.

      And regardless, children aren't responsible for the sins of their fathers. If they were, then every criminal's kids would be in jail right beside him.

      But please, keep wallowing in self-hatred while the rest of us get off our asses and work to achieve something.

    15. Re: On our way... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      What do I need some burger legal search for? Burgers aren't even relevant for shaping modern civilization.

      Europe pulled itself up by the bootstraps, foreign nations made their food and drink taste a little better and gave them smokes.

    16. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean Africans enslaved people and sold them to others. Very Very Very few slaves ever came to the United States or Europe. Most slavery took place elsewhere and had nothing to do with white people.

    17. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope you went to Trump University. Otherwise you won't be able to afford the money you owe me.

    18. Re: On our way... by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 0

      Total bull. Europe was originally colonized by former Africans. And in the 6th century the Moors (Berbers, Arabs, and other dark-skinned folks from Africa and the Mid-East) ruled a good chunk of southern Europe for 700 years. These folks brought a lot of civilization and science to what was then a medieval Europe rather overrun with Barbaric tribes. The great civilizations of the Mid-East and Northern Africa then fell into ruin (not to mention being overrun by Mongol hordes) while Europe suddenly entered the Renaissance period, using a lot of what they had learned from the African Moors. The Europeans no more 'stole' all the natural resources of Africa then the Africans 'stole' the natural resources of Europe when they were the civilization in charge.

      Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Incas, Mayans, the Han Dynasty, the Great Caliphate, the 'West'; great civilizations arise because they bring a new and successful culture to the world stage. The shitholes of the world today are shitholes because of their current culture (bribery, corruption, tribalism, misogyny, etc.), not their skin color. Tomorrow, they might be the next Rome. Not because of some skin pigmentation, but because they somehow reinvented themselves and brought a new, dynamic culture to the world that improved life for the majority of folks. You anti-Western folks are really nothing more than apologists for crappy cultures.

    19. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if they reimburse 'White America' for the 620,000 white men that died freeing them.

    20. Re:On our way... by fermion · · Score: 1
      What makes America great is immigration. No one wants America to fail, no more than conservative actives wanted America to fail when they born the birthed movement or blocked Obama at every turn. Conservatives really believed that Obama was key an and progressives really believe that Trump is going to turn the US over to Putin.

      We want democracy and an African dicta actor like Trump who is going to block all immigrants is not going to help democracy. By your argument if we elected a lemur who just wanted to party, we would hate democracy if we opposed his plan to use taxpayer money to build free water parks in every town.

      Frankly the guilt driving the US is that somehow we are not doing enough to placate the radical religious minority, not real fiscal conservative values. Honestly I y]think most policy is fear that we are going to see a resurgence in Christian terrorism like Eric Roudolph and the sovietiegn nationalists that went around killing cops.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    21. Re:On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Flag waving, standing to the national anthem? Nah. I'll leave the patriotism to patriots and little school children.

    22. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't the us that created most of that, democracy for example was created two millennia before in Greece.

      but let's stick with the assumption that the US had, for a moment, then wonder why, if they're all such good things, are you in the process of pissing it all away by introducing technicalities and distorted language?

      Like: human rights and due process yes, but only to particular humans on particular soil; not in Gitmo, and not X miles around borders or coasts?

      like: war on "X"?

      like: deliberately poison your own water and food (fracking, weak laws on consumer protection in food industry, protecting mega-industry from liabilities that lead to ground water poisoning...).

      like: ...

    23. Re: On our way... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Europe pulled itself up by the bootstraps, foreign nations made their food and drink taste a little better and gave them smokes and gold and diamonds.

      TFTFY.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    24. Re: On our way... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      You are an idiot. It's generally accepted that humans evolved in Africa and spread from there. That means the oldest human civilizations should be in Africa. Africans should have their own empires and kingdoms. They should have their own culture and science and technology. But every time non-Africans have come, in whatever period of recorded history, Africans were relatively barbaric and unsophisticated, compared to the invaders/visitors. Why is that?

    25. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you go back to your Iraq and rebuild it with your "science", instead of hiding in Europe, you smelly piece of sand n1gger shit.

    26. Re:On our way... by elrous0 · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I get it. You're WAYYYY too hip to do something as boring as taking pride in the country that has given you a standard of living that is the envy of the vast majority of the world. You would rather run your country down on an internet that your country pioneered, while eating food that would be a king's luxury in the third world, and living in a house or apartment with clean running water and electricity, smugly confident that you can call the police or fire department at any time and have them come help you without asking for a bribe to do so. Yeah, America really sucks, huh? You poor thing, having to live in such an AWFUL country. You must wake up every day feeling ashamed to be a part of something so terrible.

      Perhaps a holiday in Cambodia would be appropriate here, snowflake. I hear their slums got so much soul.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    27. Re:On our way... by gtall · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It depends upon what success actually means. If the U.S. "succeeds" by screwing over refugees and other immigrants, can that really be called success? If American "succeeds" by trampling basic rights and freedoms, what price success?

      Almost everyone on this site sees the difference between short term "success" by MBA droids, and long term success. For the U.S. to succeed, it should never be measured by short term results, those may be very dearly bought if the long term consequences are a disaster.

    28. Re:On our way... by gtall · · Score: 1

      No, the real policy fear is that we'll see the resurgence in Christian terrorism in designing school curricula.

      Betsy deVos is the new face of Christian terrorism and directed against the people least able to defend themselves: Children.

    29. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We Europeans never stole anything: we took what was rightfully ours as the Master Race from the untermensch who did not deserve it. As it is written in the EU Constitution, Europe is the civilization-bringing continent. End of debate.

    30. Re: On our way... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Exactly my point, luxuries.

    31. Re: On our way... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Apparently you missed the part where having lots of gold and diamonds tends to impart lots of power to the possessor.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    32. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if I take away your industry, cultural, farming, societal and scientific advancements, and give you gold and diamonds in exchange, then you'd be Africa.

    33. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, I'm Cherokee.

      All of "You People" can kindly fuck off back to Africa, or Europe, or Timbuktu for all I care.

      Pack all your petty identity politics bullshit up and take it with you.

    34. Re: On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you're dead wrong. Innovation leaps has happened, almost always, whenever there has been pressure (war, social unrest, etc.), not when the society his fed, cozy, apathetic and hedonist (why would it? they are good, they don't need much more so they don't efing care).

      You're the one who should read a book... about history.

    35. Re:On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, why should I care either way? As a country it's no better, or worse, than anywhere else on the planet. The US should just do its thing, keep to itself, leave the rest of the world alone. Whether the US succeeds or fails is then its own business, which in my opinion, is better for everyone.

    36. Re:On our way... by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      stop being ashamed to be a citizen of the country that pioneered the modern democracy

      I'm confused. Who in this discussion has expressed shame about being a citizen of the Netherlands?

      Or, depending on how you want to define "pioneered the modern democracy" (and "country"), England, the Corsican Republic, or Finland?

      True, the US does hold one or two records - it has the oldest surviving codified democratic (for a limited definition of "demos") constitution, for example. But claiming that we "pioneered the modern democracy" just shows a fairly dramatic lack of historical knowledge.

      As for the flag-waving and other displays of patriotic fervor: I don't see any value to public masturbation over the virtues and successes, real or perceived, historical or present, of any organization I belong to. Education, yes. Analysis and discussion, certainly. Cheerleading, though - what the hell good does that do? It only discourages critical thought.

    37. Re:On our way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean the same country which has hundreds of thousands of homeless veterans? Where countless people die because healthcare is for-profit? Where countless more are imprisoned because the prison system is also for-profit? Where you welcome mentally unbalanced people into gun stores and hand them the latest rifles so they can shoot 3 year olds? Yeah buddy, uh-huh.. but #MAGA I guess..

  4. I think I know their answer by s.petry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is good news for the US economy as a whole, at least on the surface. Lets avoid the arguments about being paid less or being treated as indentured servants for now. A good portion of the H1B worker's money goes back to their home country. Even if they made the same wages, they don't spend the money the same so American's lose money in the economy and jobs at the lower end.

    The answer from many of these big companies will to simply lay off more Americans and move more jobs overseas. Those regulations need to see some light for this to truly work out.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:I think I know their answer by barc0001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most of the jobs that can be easily offshored have already been done by these companies. There's a reason they want the H1Bs instead and that's because they understand the limitations of offshoring and the communication and control gaps. Offshoring looks good on paper but in practice for non-trivial tasks there's a friction to the process that shows up after actually doing it. Of the various companies I've worked at that have done offshoring they all ended up moving some or all of the jobs back because the quality of the work was inferior, getting the problems corrected took time due to the time zone lag and there was also a lack of control due to that same time zone lag. In the end most of the projects ended up costing almost as much and took 3-4x longer to do which ended up with large opportunity costs for the companies.

    2. Re: I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed, outsourcing any part of the supply chain is ultimately a failure. That's why I grow my own food, mine metals and smelt my own ore. Sure, it takes some hard work to build your own silicon doping facility and telecommunications infrastructure, but it is worth it in the end to not be dependent on someone else.

    3. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well said. Also, a lot of these jobs SHOULDN'T require 4-year degrees (which are now ridiculously expensive). Companies should pool together and fund 6-month code academies to fill these positions rather than trying to get cheap labor from outside the US.

    4. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is already happening at my company. They have stopped interviewing ANY Americans and are bringing in low skilled "tech workers" from India and lying on the H1B1 forms. They don't NEED these offshore people because they've not even bothered to interview Americans to replace those that have left the company.

      Oh, and this is your ACA data these offshores have access to...

    5. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it is terrible news. This is horrible.

    6. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better news will be if/when Trump discontinues the Green Card lottery, which only requires a high school degree. I sure hope he stops this non-sense.

    7. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's also a bill in Congress to reform H-1B visas, and I think it's also worthy of support. As I understand it, the bill will prioritize workers with advanced degrees and high wages, making it more difficult abuse H-1B visas to import cheap labor. It would also prioritize workers who received their education in the United States. It seems logical that, if we're going to educate foreign students in our educational system, that we also keep those workers in the United States. It would also raise the standards for companies with a lot of H-1B workers to really demonstrate that they need H-1B visas to fill positions. While I strongly disagree with Trump on immigration, I definitely support his desire to reform the H-1B program. It's in our interests to bring the best foreign workers to the United States, because it improves the quality of our workforce. I wouldn't agree with eliminating the H-1B program entirely, but these reforms should make it harder to abuse the program. It sounds like Trump is likely to support these reforms. While I don't really agree with a merit-based immigration system for granting citizenship, it does make sense for H-1B visas. These reforms are in line with the principle of admitting the most qualified people, so Trump should support them. I don't like Trump, but I'll give him credit where it's due.

    8. Re: I think I know their answer by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      Only for Infosys, TCS, Wipro and those not certified in proper use of commas...

    9. Re:I think I know their answer by Solandri · · Score: 1, Informative

      A good portion of the H1B worker's money goes back to their home country.

      That's a temporary effect. The whole point of the H1-B program, at least from the employee's and government's point of view, is to grant citizenship to a skilled and productive foreigner. Once the worker gets U.S. citizenship, their next step will immediately to be apply for citizenship for their immediate family and have them immigrate to the U.S. At which point they stop sending money back to their home country, and start spending it here in the U.S.

      If you're upset about money leaving the country, you should be directing your ire at illegal immigrants. A portion of their money really does get sent back to their home country in perpetuity. That's what's been sad/amusing about the media's attempt to conflate the plight of legal immigrants with that of illegal immigrants by using confusing terms such as "undocumented" immigrants. Deporting illegal immigrants means more opportunity for legal immigrants. If our social system doesn't have to support millions of illegal immigrants, that would allow us to absorb more legal immigrants, and we can increase the quota of visas we give for legal immigration into the country. Illegal immigrants are basically people who illegally cut in line ahead of the other immigrants waiting so they can get a visa legally.

    10. Re:I think I know their answer by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      India sells it's degrees for a very reasonable price. Requiring advanced degrees does nothing to actually stop low-skill workers from coming into the country.

    11. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Do you understand that the 96% of the world who do not live in the USA have the same beliefs.

      What happens to that $2 Trillion in exports if the rest of the world behaves the same as the USA ?

      YOU say USA first, the 96% say USA last.

      There is no natural law like Gravity that says the USA will always remain a wealthy country, if anything the ease of shipping, the ease as communications, etc etc etc means that other countries will grow and the USA will shrink. And modern technology means that modernising a country has become cheaper, especially in communications.

      Just after WWII the USA made up about 60% of the worlds GDP, today it is about 20%. The world NEEDS the USA a lot less than it did 60 years ago.
      No one cares how much the US denies it, think of it like climate change, deny it as much as you like, its still happening, and you will be worse off if you fail to accept and prepare.

      Let Trump make trade with the USA harder, it will only force every other country to rely less on the USA and hasten the fall of the US, the 96% can still trade freely with each other. Can you imagine if Airbus has access to the 96% and Boeing does not ?

      And no, the rest of the world is no longer interested in being bullied by the USA, as Trump says, no deal is better than a bad deal. And for the 96%, that means US last.

    12. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot if you think that a PhD from an Indian university of available for a price. Typical Slashdot racist. And no you're not looking out for your self-interest by deeming a country and her people.

    13. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound like you're being mean, but in fact, your statement is well documented.
      This is why I will _never_ ever got to an Indian medical doctor. I don't trust their education.

      CAP === 'callous'

    14. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...is to grant citizenship to a skilled and productive foreigner.

      No it isn't; you can't really believe that. Please, stop makin' things up.

      CAP === 'trembled'

    15. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't agree with the statement of loosing money as this implies that money was spent in the first place, the better term would be opportunity to make more money.

    16. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same AC. In isolation, you're be right that prioritizing workers with advanced degrees doesn't prevent the abuse of H-1B visas to bring cheap labor to the United States. However, the combination of prioritizing advanced degrees and workers with educations from United States universities does limit the ability to abuse H-1B visas for cheap labor. And as I noted, there's the ancillary benefit of getting a return on educating foreign students in the United States if they remain here as skilled labor.

    17. Re:I think I know their answer by erktrek · · Score: 1

      So when citizenship is granted then the company can move on to a more profitable employee from overseas and then we have 2 issues - more un/under-employed citizens AND more outsourcing. yayy...

      I'm kidding hopefully - hard to tell these days.

    18. Re: I think I know their answer by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      Only for Infosys, TCS, Wipro, and those not certified in proper use of commas...

      FTFY

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    19. Re: I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either is correct, you dumb pedantic fuck.

    20. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hummmm.... http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40630166/ns/health-health_care/t/fake-doctor-duped-hospitals-universities-ama/

      And now you'll be distrusting American doctors as well.

    21. Re:I think I know their answer by jandersen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's a reason they want the H1Bs instead and that's because they understand the limitations of offshoring and the communication and control gaps

      In part, but another side of this is that they want to drive down wages, not just for the imported workers, but for the locals as well. The more sensible way to handle this would be to require companies to pay a minimum wage, and not a universal minimum wage, but one that follows the job description or something like that. Something like that is already in place in many countries - in UK, overseas companies can get visas to transfer staff from their overseas departments, but their pay in UK must be of the right size for the job title.That way the companies can get their genuine needs for expertise met, while not being able to undercut wages for local staff.

    22. Re:I think I know their answer by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      A PhD from *any* university is available for a price. Unless someone checks and I think most companies don't bother especially for foreign universities it's just a piece of paper and that can be forged. In India the real version of that piece of paper may be worth something especially from say IIT, but in many third world countries even a real university degree can mean very little.

      In the country where I am currently living a so called 'IT' degree includes very little exposure to what is taught in US and other first world universities on the subject. Javascript is considered advanced programming and not much else core material is covered in 4 years. I kid you not. Go check out some of the curriculums yourself. Educationally it is most definitely *not* a level playing field. A 3-4 year degree in "Computer Science" or "IT" may not be at all comparable. In India or China things may be a lot more rigorous, but in many other countries that is simply not the case. This idea that 'a degree is a degree' is just silly.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    23. Re:I think I know their answer by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      At which point they stop sending money back to their home country, and start spending it here in the U.S.

      Well...not exactly. I mean why should they stop sending money home just because they have some new piece of paper that says they are American citizens? Although it depends on the culture to some extent and how poor their families back home are, probably they will still send money home. I suppose you could try to stop them from doing that by making such money transfers illegal, but immigrants from poor countries are usually going to send at least some money home to their poor relatives if they can. That's just part of being an immigrant country. Again...unless you want to try to specifically stop them from doing that.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    24. Re:I think I know their answer by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      The more sensible way to handle this would be to require companies to pay a minimum wage, and not a universal minimum wage, but one that follows the job description or something like that.

      But they're ALREADY bringing them in on one job description then assigning them to do other work. There are a couple of reasons for doing this, but one of them is to avoid the appearance of replacing the workers on the REAL job with lower-priced imported labor, without leaving a paper trail showing that's what happened.

      One of the problems with laws - "the economy of negative values" - is that the "trading partners" are strongly incentivized to find ways to loophole out.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    25. Re:I think I know their answer by jandersen · · Score: 1

      But they're ALREADY bringing them in on one job description then assigning them to do other work.

      That would count as fraud in my book and should be treated as such. If society has an interest in catching benefit frauds, then we should go after this kind of fraud as well, since .

      One of the problems with laws - "the economy of negative values" - is that the "trading partners" are strongly incentivized to find ways to loophole out.

      Calling it "the economy of negative values" is just an attempt at making immoral behaviour sound less immoral, isn't it? It is perhaps a fundamental problem of legislation that it can't cover everything; it has to be reactive in nature - otherwise we would have to take away all freedoms. But we could probably be a little bit cleverer about the way we construct our laws - take drugs legislation as an example (without getting into the discussion about whether some drugs should be legal or not): In UK specific mind altering drug were banned, so all the drug dealers had to do was make a small change to the molecule and it would be legal - thus the problems with legal highs. In other countries there was a generic ban on mind altering substances, or types thereof, presumably accompanied by a list of exemptions (since you'd otherwise break the law by making coffee). I'm not saying that this specific legislation is necessarily good or bad, but it illustrates that it is in fact possible to construct laws so they don't have gaping loopholes everywhere. I'm not an expert, but I imagine one might consider putting in a 'catch-all clause' in every law, where the purpose (the spirit, if you will) of the law is set out, specifically stating that going against the stated purpose is in itself breaking the law. Of course, I'm only a developer - as a developer, I put catch all clauses in the code for very much the same reason.

    26. Re:I think I know their answer by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      The more sensible way to handle this would be to require companies to pay a minimum wage, and not a universal minimum wage, but one that follows the job description or something like that.

      How about: companies must pay H1B's the "prevailing wage", plus a $100,000 annual fee per worker. Then we'd know they were actually unable to find a native worker for the job and not just blowing smoke.

    27. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given how few people with four-year degrees can write maintainable and testable code, I'm skeptical that a "6-month code academy" will result in better developer outcomes.

    28. Re:I think I know their answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sources? references?

      or did you just make this up off the top of your head because it makes you feel good and it sounds right?

  5. An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hopefully, the Trump administration will build upon this first step by properly increasing the minimum wages of an H1B worker to something more commensurate with that of a world class expert in science, technology, engineering or math. The wage should reflect the fact that the necessary worker is so rare and valuable that no US citizen living anywhere in the United States can satisfy the requirements. In my opinion, a person of such outstanding capability cannot be worth less than $250,000 per year in salary to the employer. If Google or Facebook or Apple need these people so desperately, it should be no problem for such wealthy corporations to pay what amounts to a pittance for skills and expertise which cannot, or so they claim, be found in any American citizens.

    1. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There needs to be different minimum for varying fields. For STEM jobs $250,000 sounds about right but should a prized literary professor be making $250,000? If this distinctions aren't made, H1B should be renamed as STEM only visa.

    2. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by guruevi · · Score: 1

      There are other types of visas for academia, actors etc - true talent which Microsoft and Google is always yammering on about does not come in on H1B. Bringing in a 'prized professor' on H1B is not something you do, H1B in academia is for assistant professors, research assistants etc for $20k/y.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    3. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The big companies like Goog, FB, MSFT all pay top market wage to US Citizens and H1Bs alike. If they could find enough talent locally they wouldn't hesitate to grab someone local and not have to deal with the hassle of a re-loc from a foreign country. If you really think top tier companies use foreign nationals to save money you obviously have not seen the type of offers that they get.

      This particular change just removes the expedited processing which just gets you processed fast for $$. It doesn't change the fact that the person still needs to win a spot on the H1B lottery and then still needs to qualify.

    4. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Pulzar · · Score: 1

      The wage should reflect the fact that the necessary worker is so rare and valuable that no US citizen living anywhere in the United States can satisfy the requirements.

      That's not at all what it means. Obviously, some US citizen can satisfy the requirements, just not any that are willing to quit their jobs and/or move to wherever this position is, or are just not that interested in that particular position.

      That's really not that rare. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many open positions out there sitting open for months.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    5. Re: An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It is extremely incorrect assumption that these skills can be found in American citizen. I am Indian, I am currently on H1B, working for one of the top companies earning close to $180K annually. And no I don't send single cent to india. Whatever I earn goes back to American economy is some form or shape.

      We have so many open positions for software engineering and it's so hard to find talented SW engineers that positions are kept open for long and we have to lower the interview bar. I have personally now interviewed close to 50 candidates on-site in past six months after initial phone screen and out of those 50 perhaps 3 made the bar.

      Let me tell you this: When conservative and Republicans cry that there is no shortage of home grown STEM labor, I agree with them. What they don't realize that there is shortage of Talented people.

      I have interviewed so many Americans and not one, not an effing single one made the bar. They cannot even answer simple questions like reversing link list, don't know different between swap and virtual memory etc etc.. We are so frustrated with lack of talent pool, that when I get some candidate who knows a little bit more than others he/she seems like a superstar. We get tons of resumes from Americans and foreign students, workers but only a fraction get passed phone screen and out of those fraction are good enough to get hired.

      Why do you think these companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon FB etc hire H1B .. because there is shorted of Talented pool. There is no shortage of stem workers. Having CS degree from community college is fucking not same as having it from top rated school.. it fucking shows on the interview process. And based on historical data, Indian & Chinese candidates simply outperforms every single American by miles. Even then we reject those Indian and Chinese candidates because they are still not good enough.

      I agree that some companies have abused the visa like TCS, Infosys etc.. and now there is this conceive notion that H1B is just about outsourcing jobs and cheap labor. This is true to some extent. Even I want reform so these outsourcing, cheap labor companies are outlawed. But this is not true for top tier companies. Google/MS etc doesnt give two shits if you are American, Indian, Martian etc .. they want top talent. My company and I both want top talent for our team and it's so difficult to find that we have to lower bar. That's why there is a constant difference of opinion between companies and general public. When MS or FB say there is shortage, they mean shortage of top talent. When public days there is not, they are talking about untalented random people with CS degrees.

      I attended one of the best engineering school in US. In our class, every foreign student had same mindset: That this is big opportunity to be in one of the best schools. They treated it as a priveledge. Every American thought: I deserve this, Party, Fun time, I can drop out and be whatever I want.

      Where I live, I see all Indian and Chinese kids/teens of first generation immigrants learning, going to school etc. And all I see is that American counterparts kids/teens just fucking around. And I think to myself what will become of these kids?

      It's just not difference in education level or class of education which is the problem. The problem.is cultural. Immigrants who live here feel privileged and work hard. American just fuck around and expect world to be handed to them. And public wants companies who are solely motivated by profit to hire lazy incompetent people just because they are US citizens.

      Solution is not to restrict or cut down on H1B visa. Solution is to make laws which prevent companies like Infosys, TCS etc to import mass labor. Solution is to let, people like me who are on H1B visa to change jobs freely, work and and let free market dictate so that companies can hire top talent. Think about it: if you had a company would you hire cheap incompetent guy? Nobody wants that.

    6. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just not any that are willing to quit their jobs and/or move to wherever this position is, or are just not that interested in that particular position

      at the price that those employers are willing to pay which is a key distinction that's often lost in translation. Try offering market wages or even somewhat more and you will fill your open position. Also, companies complain that they cannot find anybody with years of experience in a niche technology or tech product they're already using because they've fooled themselves into thinking that they shouldn't or don't need to spend even a nickel on training their employees. Competent American tech workers can learn what companies need them to on the job, but for some reason companies by and large don't want to allow this. Companies blame the workforce and our schools for the hiring problems that their unreasonable demands have created. They don't have a leg to stand on here.

      That's really not that rare. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many open positions out there sitting open for months.

      They need to pay more, offer better on the job training opportunities and allow time for workers to get spun up on their technology stack and work needs. Honestly, it takes at least a year and more like two in many cases to properly break in a new software engineer and get them productive, but the long term ROI can be huge for companies that are patient and do it right. Unfortunately, many managers don't care about the long term because they've had their heads filled with bullshit at business school or their MBA program that short term results are the only type worth pursuing.

    7. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with this is then you have H1B's the get a MINIMUM wage while Americans don't. If your going to impose a minimum wage on STEM jobs it needs to be for BOTH American workers AND STEM workers.

    8. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So let me ask an honest question here. I work at Google, I think Google doesn't abuse H1Bs, and while I think a minimum wage for H1Bs is an interesting idea, $250k would still be way high compared to what Google would offer.

      Here's what the company does, and I'll curious to hear how others would see it:

      - Google's goal is to hire as many as people as possible that pass interviews.
      - Interview feedback comes from people who don't even see visa status so it's entirely unbiased.
      - Salary/bonus/stack also doesn't depend on visa status (although it does depend on work location).
      - Starting salary is maybe $120k for junior engineers.

      So: is this reasonable? I'd argue yes. The salary could be raised, but I don't see how that helps anyone in the US. As a *starting salary* out of school, $120k seems good to me. Google could also stop hiring the H1Bs at this level, but they are beating natural born Americans in an unbiased process. If an immigrant is getting similar pay to an American while seeming more qualified, that seems like a fair hire right?,

    9. Re: An Excellent Start But More is Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having CS degree from community college is fucking not same as having it from top rated school.. it fucking shows on the interview process. And based on historical data, Indian & Chinese candidates simply outperforms every single American by miles.

      It sounds like you can't find what you need here in America. Maybe you should go back to India or China or wherever the fuck you came from. So run along then and mind the ass swatting door on your way back to bumfuckistan.

    10. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by russotto · · Score: 1

      > Interview feedback comes from people who don't even see visa status so it's entirely unbiased. Well, yes and no. If you see on their resume that they're coming off a degree at a foreign school, or a US master's degree after a bachelor's degree at a foreign school, you can certainly make a good guess.

    11. Re: An Excellent Start But More is Required by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

      I have interviewed so many Americans and not one, not an effing single one made the bar. They cannot even answer simple questions like reversing link list, don't know different between swap and virtual memory etc etc....we reject those Indian and Chinese candidates because they are still not good enough.

      That's the purpose of this idea called "on the job training."

      If your search for talent across the world is so barren of fruit, then bring in promising people, and train them.

    12. Re: An Excellent Start But More is Required by Hevel-Varik · · Score: 1

      This.

      A generation ago it was common. Know a 70 year old man, who was hired as a programmer for TWA back in the day. He had hardly touched a computer before he was hired but came highly recommended and made a good impression at the interview. He was put in a training program, he wore a trainee badge and in a matter of time he was trained in and he went on to have a lucrative career in software development. This was back in the days, that the TWAs of the world had their own home-rolled everything and there truly was a 'talent' shortage in software, so they had not illusions of unicorn candidates coming in and hitting the ground running...

      Wow, if reversing a linked list or distinguishing between swap and virtual memory is the hold up..well then that isn't exactly rocket science so develop a training program.

      Bottom line it is that corporate America has had to deal with talent shortages before, and the tried and true solutions has always been training.

    13. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by EmptyHead · · Score: 1

      Firemen and janitors make more than this in the SV area once overtime is factored in. Make it $400k for such renowned world treasures to uproot themselves to come help innovate our technical fields. Brings a tear to my eye, such a beautiful endeavor. Think of these brilliant minds that are currently being exploited. [/sarcasm]

    14. Re:An Excellent Start But More is Required by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      A prized professor should be on an O-1 visa for "alien of extraordinary ability."

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    15. Re: An Excellent Start But More is Required by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 1

      Well most companies consider universities as institutions of training rather than learning. That mindset is unlikely to go away under a capitalist system.

  6. This is actually not difficult, just blame Trump by El+Cubano · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it could be difficult to divorce the move Friday from the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown

    It is actually not difficult at all. The default position since Trump got elected has been to blame him. This despite the fact that it makes people who are otherwise legitimate, respectable public figures seem like raving lunatics. They seem like lunatics because this is their mindless reaction to anything they think they can associate with Trump, including things (like the Yemen raid) which were planned and prepared during the Obama administration.

    For example. I just saw an article how SXSW is now facing a public backlash over an immigration-related clause in this contracts for performers. People are just skewering them, calling for boycotts, etc. They are lamenting how SXSW is part of the immigration problem and awful their support for Trump's immigration policies is. The clause has been there for four years.

    Here is some more from the Wikipedia article on Deportation and removal from the United States:

    In the 105 years between 1892 and 1997, the United States deported 2.1 million people.[2]

    Between 1997 and 2001, during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, about 870,000 people were deported from the United States.[3]

    Between 2001 and 2008, during the Presidency of George W. Bush, about 2 million people were deported from the United States.

    Between 2009 and 2016, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, about 3.2 million people were deported from the United States.[4]

    As you read that, remember that during one of his State of the Union Addresses Clinton specifically called for greater enforcement of immigration laws, and got a bipartisan standing ovation at that comment.

    Also, just a couple of years ago immigrant rights groups were calling Obama "deporter-in-chief". I wonder why that was. I seem to recall Bush being branded a racist immigrant hater and immigrants came out in droves to vote for Obama. Twice. The single biggest deception in modern politics was Obama pulling a fast one on the entire immigrant population of the US. Twice.

    Absolutely none of that matters now. Since Trump got elected, we can just project everything on to him, even if it makes the people doing so look like raving lunatics.

    Seriously, he has been in office a whopping 6 weeks. Keep this up and in a few months nobody will be listening (c.f., The Boy Who Cried Wolf). Think about that: nobody will be listening.

  7. Holy Shit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No more Windows updates for a while!

  8. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For example. I just saw an article how SXSW is now facing a public backlash over an immigration-related clause in this contracts for performers. People are just skewering them, calling for boycotts, etc. They are lamenting how SXSW is part of the immigration problem and awful their support for Trump's immigration policies is. The clause has been there for four years.

    They're wrong to blame Trump for that clause, but they're not wrong to be more worried about it than usual at a time when Trump is directing the INS to run around and lie to police departments if necessary to get compliance for their raiding parties.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  9. Wow...a breath of fresh air... by bogaboga · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This man is delivering on campaign promises. What a [welcome] change!

  10. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Kergan · · Score: 1

    Didn't they change the definition of deportations during the Obama administration, so as to count random aliens that were caught crossing the border in addition to the usual ones that were detained before being sent back?

    Not saying one way or another - or that doing so - is right or wrong, or that one had more merit than the other. Just pointing out that comparing Bush stats and Obama stats is apples to oranges. (Apples to apples has Bush Jr throwing out a tiny bit more aliens if memory serves.) $.02.

  11. Vivek Wadhwa by dcw3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mr. Wadhaw apparently doesn't understand that premium processing does not buy you a visa, or increase your chances of getting one.

    http://www.nolo.com/legal-ency...

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
    1. Re:Vivek Wadhwa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's being disingenuous like everybody else in this administration.

  12. Not the first time by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    They also delayed processing in 2015, with the same reason given: so they could catch up on their backlog.

    My dream is that Slashdot become a place where people do a little research before commenting irrationally.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Not the first time by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      Slashdotters stop commenting irrationally? That's crazy talk. Next you'll want people to do things like RTFA. :)

    2. Re:Not the first time by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Next you'll want people to do things like RTFA. :)

      Nah, prefer they research a bit independently, because often the article sucks :)

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Obama delayed them for the right reasons. Trump is doing this because he is a racist and wants to hurt businesses. Microsoft needs their cheap employees that they can work a lot of hours since they can't quit. Their quality is terrible now. Things are going to get even worse if Microsoft can't hire more employees. We've had several disastrous Windows the past few years. We're going to have even more if Microsoft can't hire more cheap employees.

      Plus, I don't see how Trump will get away with this since so many companies like Microsoft are addicted to their cheap employees.

    4. Re:Not the first time by Imrik · · Score: 1

      Don't be silly, he said that he wanted people to do research before commenting irrationally. Didn't say anything about not commenting irrationally.

  13. Reactionaries by s.petry · · Score: 0, Troll

    I agree, but lets not forget how things have progressed so far under an administration which is taking immigration reform very seriously. The EU yesterday issued a statement that US visitors may lose rights to travel without Visas to the EU. A statement which should be seen by all Americans as a blackmail attempt, but the reactionaries on the left are celebrating the threat. The reactionaries on the left applauded the moratorium on immigration being placed on TRO. The reactionaries on the left have been screaming that controlling borders is racist. The reactionaries were further applauding Mexico dumping 150 million tons of sewage claiming that the US deserved it for wanting control of it's own borders.

    Don't put anything type of weapon out of their reach, because thus far they have shown that they are willing to destroy and let destruction occur to achieve their end.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      reactionaries on the left

      Yeah you're not biased at all. :\

    2. Re:Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The EU yesterday issued a statement that US visitors may lose rights to travel without Visas to the EU

      It's mostly the intelligentsia on the left that likes European culture and can afford to travel to European countries. The average Trump voter has probably never left the United States and likely wouldn't care about visa requirements imposed by European countries. They might even view it as yet further confirmation of their world views which already hold Democrats, liberals and "foreign" influences in low regard or even outright contempt. The Europeans should be careful about fanning the flames of Trumpism in America with a move like this, it could totally backfire on them.

    3. Re:Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I agree, but lets not forget how things have progressed so far under an administration which is taking immigration reform very seriously.

      A serious plan would have required a serious plan. Trump is like the idiot Minister for Magic in Harry Potter. He had to be seen to be doing something, even if it was hauling an innocent man to jail. His first ban was amateur hour. Do you think the courts are going to forget all his campaign statements? Those are context that speak to intent. Also, the existing immigration process takes around 2 years. It was hardly the wild west. Beyond that, the recent report stated that most people that commit terrorists attacks in this country are not radicalized oversees, but instead are radicalized right here. His plan was to be "seen doing something that sounded good" with little care about actual solutions.

      The EU yesterday issued a statement that US visitors may lose rights to travel without Visas to the EU. A statement which should be seen by all Americans as a blackmail attempt, but the reactionaries on the left are celebrating the threat. The reactionaries on the left applauded the moratorium on immigration being placed on TRO. The reactionaries on the left have been screaming that controlling borders is racist.

      No matter how many times you try to avoid having to argue rationally by just lumping everyone as a reactionary, it, well isn't going to work, but nice try. Controlling borders isn't racist in itself. Trump clearly and by anyone's reasonably definition _is_. See his campaign, including day one. "They are rapists and murderers.." Then there is the 5 year con trying to portray Obama as other. Trump is a flat out racist. Any other conclusion is just delusion. The only other one is it is some scam to manipulate the people, but he has shot himself in the foot too often for me to believe that one, and in any case, it is not as if that is better.

      The reactionaries were further applauding Mexico dumping 150 million tons of sewage claiming that the US deserved it for wanting control of it's own borders.

      Haven't heard that one. Valid link? Oh well, maybe Trump shouldn't gut the EPA after all. They might be able to look into such things. If Mexico is dumping sewage, we need to work on stopping it, one way, or another.

      Don't put anything type of weapon out of their reach, because thus far they have shown that they are willing to destroy and let destruction occur to achieve their end.

      Trump was more than willing to destroy truth itself, to lie so frequently and so often that the average group of people could no longer agree on what objective truth is. He is not an enemy of democrats. He is an enemy of reason itself, for without objective truth, there can be no basic for any form of government. He was more than willing to let it all burn if it got him elected, and even now the fire continues to smolder.

      On the bright side, it is finally waking a few news people up, so perhaps there is a small amount of hope, but then Trump has been targeting all of them too, and they are fundamental to the design of our system of government. Without a free and vibrant press, we will find it very difficult to find what really is true, and then without that democracy is dead. It becomes pure garbage in garbage out. That is the world that Trump seeks to embrace. May he fail in it. Hell just today he alleged Obama was running a rogue wiretapping operation, with no proof whatsoever. The guy treats web sites as more definitive than national intelligence estimates. Sometimes I seriously wonder about mental illness.

    4. Re: Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some men need to be stronger than you are me. They are willing to do the things we simply can not. You are small, weak, and jealous. I was no better. The world is a shit hole. It is. We are lucky. We don't see it. 95% of Americans never even leave the country. Most that travel don't go to these bad places with bad people. It does not matter why they are bad or thier tough luck story. They will kill you for you food and pocket of cash.

      My fellow weakling. We need the strong. The soldiers willing to do the hard things we don't want to. And the tough presidents that understand this enough to give the orders.

      So we can continue to live here in our real life fantasy world where everyone is so kind and beautiful.

      Grow up.

    5. Re:Reactionaries by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Informative

      The EU yesterday issued a statement that US visitors may lose rights to travel without Visas to the EU. A statement which should be seen by all Americans as a blackmail attempt...

      Let's not twist the truth of the matter, shall we. Which is:

      The passing of the non-binding resolution comes after the US failed to agree visa-free travel for citizens of five EU countries

      ...

      It comes after the US failed to agree visa-free travel for citizens of five EU countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania – as part of a reciprocity agreement. US citizens can normally travel to all countries in the bloc without a visa.

      ...

      The Commission discovered three years ago that the US was not meeting its obligations under the reciprocity agreement but has not yet taken any legal action. The latest vote, prepared by the civil liberties committee and approved by a plenary session of parliament, gives the Commission two months to act before MEPs can consider action in the European Court of Justice.

      So, the real story here is that, if the US wants visa-free travel to the (entire) EU for its citizens, it must extend the same privilege to (all) EU nationals, but the US has been failing to do so. The EU calling out the US on this point hardly constitutes "blackmail".

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    6. Re:Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Europeans should be careful about fanning the flames of Trumpism in America with a move like this, it could totally backfire on them.

      Not really. Lets see from the events on the past few weeks: all talk about everyone having to do their part and so on and so forth, then the vice-president comes to Europe and drops on his knees to pay homage to US great allies and business partners, and talking about hope of furthering ties. Being the biggest economic market (on and off, depending on what day of the week you look) has some perks (well, US should know, they are the off when EU is the on). Or are you thinking Trump would do a military expedition to Europe? Good luck with that, thanks to Trump China has become good buds with Europe, and Russia is just waiting for a reason to get on the EU good graces again.

      Also, this was done because some countries (very few) in the EU aren't part of the visa waiver program, it was decided in solidarity with them. We're a single group of several Member States who share the same goals and values, EU is not a country but we have a national identity in regard to our country but we also share a supranational identity that is being European and part of the European Union. In a way is like some random country places arbitrary travel checks on people from any random State in the US.

    7. Re:Reactionaries by myid · · Score: 3, Informative

      "The reactionaries were further applauding Mexico dumping 150 million tons of sewage claiming that the US deserved it for wanting control of it's own borders."

      Haven't heard that one. Valid link?

      This is an article on the sewage spill. The article is called "'Tsunami of sewage spills' in Tijuana fouls U.S. beaches, may have been intentional".

      A massive sewage spill in Tijuana that polluted beaches in San Diego County last month may have been no accident, according to state and local officials.

      In a preliminary estimate, officials said about 143 million gallons of raw sewage spewed into the Tijuana River during a period of more than two weeks that ended Thursday. While cross-border sewage spills of a few million gallons are routine for the region, this is one of the largest such events in the last two decades, according to water quality experts in San Diego.

    8. Re:Reactionaries by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      It is a lot like blackmail to try to force the US to give visa waivers to poor countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and The Ukraine with so many English students who would love to permanently 'visit' the US for higher wages now that the UK is no longer an option. Although to be fair I don't really see it as a problem because immigration can still basically default deny entry to anyone from a poor country just like they always do. It's basically impossible to enter the country as a tourist from many poor countries.

      I mean c'mon how many Romanians really want to visit the US to see 'our beautiful country'. Romanian girls are hot though. So I say we should let all the pretty girls in in as long as their boyfriends and husbands are denied entry. The US is hardly the only country that does this to citizens of poor countries. It's a common policy all over the world. It's not hard to see the logic. Regardless of what they say maybe 7 out of 10 probably won't leave once they arrive. Or at least not until they've made a lot of money working illegally.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    9. Re:Reactionaries by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is nothing like "blackmail" when someone expects you to keep your end of an agreement you've signed, especially when the other party has been keeping theirs.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    10. Re:Reactionaries by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      And what does the Ukraine have to do with this discussion, seeing that it's not an EU member?

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    11. Re:Reactionaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't get it. The European project, beloved by Brussels bureaucrats, liberals and Europhiles everywhere is in trouble. The Greek debt problem hasn't gone away, it's just been kicked down the road until next year and the Italian banks are heading towards the edge now too. Meanwhile, the nationalists have won in Britain with the Brexit vote and Marine Le Pen and her far right nationalist party is making a strong run for the French Presidency, already threatening a "Frexit" if she wins, obviously ridding the same wave of popular resentment against globalization, multiculturalism and supranational government that swept Donald Trump into power in the United States and Britain out of the European union. The nationalists thrive on confrontation. They want to destroy the European Union and take back their countries for what they see as people like them and not everyone else. These people are itching for a showdown and waving the red flag of visa restrictions in the face of Trump administration in the United States is likely to draw an, "Go ahead, I dare you. Do it." response. That won't help the Europhiles one bit, which is why I said that this policy has the potential to backfire on them.

    12. Re:Reactionaries by russotto · · Score: 1

      I mean c'mon how many Romanians really want to visit the US to see 'our beautiful country'. Romanian girls are hot though. So I say we should let all the pretty girls in in as long as their boyfriends and husbands are denied entry.

      Why? So Chad Thundercock can make a few more conquests and a few more girls can ignore Slashdotters? No, no, definitely let the boyfriends and husbands in. Then when Chad moves in, sell popcorn at the fight.

  14. To curb abuses... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    USA should stop treating degrees from diploma mills in India as equivalent to degrees from accredited us universities. They can start a program to let foreign universities to undergo the same accreditation process. It pains me they treat IIT ivy league Caltech and colleges owned by Indian politicians selling degrees for cash as all the same. I am an IIT grad. I am nursing two h1b applications. One Indian from Caltech and a Chinese woman from ut Austin. It is a crime their applications go through the same lottery with crescent diploma mill, India.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:To curb abuses... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surely profit-seeking employers have figured out how to account for this and assess ability when they apply for an individual to receive an H1B visa...

    2. Re:To curb abuses... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      The body shopping companies like iGate, TCS, Cogniscent, and many other Indian companies don't care. They rent their employees out on contract. Constantly shift them around from one client to next. All they learn on the job while the body shoppers bill their clients.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  15. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by quonset · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The default position since Trump got elected has been to blame him.

    And the default position since Trump got elected has to been to hail him for the rise of the stock market, rising corporate profits, and better than expected GDP. So which is it? If he's going to get the kudos even though he's only been in office a few weeks he should also get the blame, right?

    things (like the Yemen raid) which were planned and prepared during the Obama administration.

    Planning is one thing, executing is another and it was Trump who gave the go ahead for the raid despite not going through the normal procedure to get an overview of what was to take place. From all reports Trump pulled this out of the hat and said, "Do it" without any thought or consideration. Even after they knew the raid had been compromised he went ahead with it. You can't blame Obama for this one. Trump said do it. He's the president and as the saying goes, "The buck stops here."

    Since Trump got elected, we can just project everything on to him, even if it makes the people doing so look like raving lunatics.

    The only one looking like a raving lunatic is Trump with his, "Fake news!" every time his words and deeds are reported, his ramblings about vote fraud despite him claiming in lawsuits to stop vote recounts there was no evidence of vote fraud so there was no need for a recount, his, "The press is the enemy of the American people" comments and of course his latest tirade-without-evidence, Obama wiretapped him during the campaign.

    If Hillary had said any of the above you would be on here pointing out she was a lunatic, yet because Trump said it we're supposed to give him a pass?

  16. Admit reality, just once by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    has to been to hail him for the rise of the stock market

    Come on. The rise started literally the day after Trump was elected. Surely even you can admit Trump is responsible - not because of what Trump has done mind you, but what he is predicted to do.

    Regardless, Trump is responsible.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Admit reality, just once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      has to been to hail him for the rise of the stock market

      Come on. The rise started literally the day after Trump was elected. Surely even you can admit Trump is responsible - not because of what Trump has done mind you, but what he is predicted to do.

      Regardless, Trump is responsible.

      Yes. He is responsible for this bubble that will burst in a short while.

    2. Re:Admit reality, just once by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Clearly the rising wages, the accelerating GDP and business optimism in 2017 will be the result of the Donald.

      I know this just as much as I know that in 2018 the budget shortfalls, the eco disasters, the alienated allies and the failing economy will be the fault of Obama

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    3. Re:Admit reality, just once by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      If it does burst, then yes - Trump would be responsible for that also. But if it DOESS'T burst (because it's not a bubble) - well then would you also admit Trump is responsible? Not likely, even though it is so.

      Your problem is that you can't recognize growth that comes forth after the business environment has been retarded unnaturally for a decade. A lot of cash is being freed up this year which will go into real, stable business growth.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    4. Re:Admit reality, just once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      huh? 2015 was stagnant, 2016 was a great year for the stock market, prior to the election results. Of course the large caps excited for Trump, he has expressly said he was going to lower their taxes and possibly allow them to repatriate foreign funds, causing a *one time* re evaluation of all businesses by increased net income. It is a one time thing... As you will soon find out. It will also plummet at the first indication of uncertainty with respect to these promises. The commercial property collapse will likely happen under trump, a delicious irony. Time will tell if it takes the economy into recession.

  17. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by eriks · · Score: 1

    Since Trump got elected, we can just project everything on to him, even if it makes the people doing so look like raving lunatics.

    Seriously, he has been in office a whopping 6 weeks. Keep this up and in a few months nobody will be listening ...

    *Thanks* Obama!

  18. FU Censor by s.petry · · Score: 0

    If the reactionaries on the right had done the same thing it would be reported the same way. To you, anything "left" is a problem, not just the extremists on your side. At least be honest about why you censor opinions, asshole.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  19. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And the default position since Trump got elected has to been to hail him for the rise of the stock market
    Well when the entire left was saying for MONTHS how the market was going to crash I can see why they trumpet it every time it goes up.

    "The buck stops here."
    Sure does.

    "Fake news!" every time his words and deeds are reported,
    Yet most of them ended up being leak hunts he puts out there. He KNOWS it is fake news because he made it UP! The media is desperate for anything dirty on him they will run with anything with zero vetting if the story is remotely true. You blame trump for doing the same thing not 1 paragraph ago. Dont get it both ways.

    If Hillary had said any of the above you would be on here pointing out she was a lunatic
    She did say the same thing. https://www.redbubble.com/peop...

  20. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by ghoul · · Score: 1

    Till Raegan gave an amnesty people coming illegally felt they were coming temporarily, would earn and go back. With Raegan's amnesty illegal immigration became an actual viable path to citizenship and illegal immigration exploded. At the same time NAFTA meant that Mexico's corn industry got killed by cheap subsidized corn from the midwest. No wonder illegal immigration from Mexico has gone up and the corresponding deportation numbers.

      If Trump tears up NAFTA Mexican farm workers will have jobs in Mexico again and the push to move to US would be lessened. Similarly if he passes a bill which says that everyone illegally here will be allowed to stay and work but they and their children will forever be a underclass and never be given citizenship the pull factor for illegal immigration will go away too. At the same time a 6 month temporary farmworker visa should be established for people to come and pick crops during harvest season.

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  21. I held a H1-B visa and they are completely insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The process for getting it - the questions, the requirements, was absolutely and completely insane.

    Utterly and totally freaking crazy. The questions and process and requirements had nothing to do with anything realistic, real-life, meaningful or even remotely sane. Nothing to do with the market and lacked any semblence of sense or even rationality.

    The H1-B requirements are a complete insane joke. They have one function only, I would say, and that is to provide a barrier to entry. This was not intended, but it is the actual outcome.

  22. What we REALLY need... by Notabadguy · · Score: 2

    Is to read "U.S. to Temporarily Suspend H-1B Visa Program" followed by a snippet on investigation into rampant misuse and an intensive investigation.

  23. read the def by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yuo are being hypersensitive to your side

    reactionary
    rakSHner/
    adjective
    adjective: reactionary

    1.
    (of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.

  24. However, Trump Is Wrong Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm still not tired of all this winning.

    1. Re: However, Trump Is Wrong Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will be...You will be.

  25. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    Thanks.

    Mod +1, Insightful

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  26. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "They seem like lunatics because this is their mindless reaction to anything they think they can associate with Trump, including things (like the Yemen raid) which were planned and prepared during the Obama administration."

    ROTFLMAO, Obama refused to allow it that is why it did not happen during his administration. There was only ONE signature that counted Trumps, he too could have said NO.

    "The buck stops here" is a phrase that was popularized by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office.

    Trump needs to learn, being a man means taking responsibility for everything you do, being as good as your word. Its certainly NOT being a sexual predator.

  27. About D*MN TIME! by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    These stupid companies using the H1B, to hire people to come here and work for LESS than American workers is crap! Between that and offshoring crap.

  28. Need more up to date statistics by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    But when the majority of H1-Bs requests in 2015 coming from Infosys, Tata, Wipro, Accenture, IBM & Deloitte I fail to see how any company like Google and Microsoft are benefiting from H1-Bs which still seems strange since they're leadership is the one lobbying loudest in congress for them. Especially since they've all been yelling for Coding Schools and STEM education at the same time.

    Import the cheapest labor possible, it's 80%+ from India, and they're disposable. The American Dream.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:Need more up to date statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't believe Google is profit-driven directly for H1Bs. They are advertisers at their core. They know that reflecting good values, ultimately ensure their boat stays afloat and well.
      Fighting for H1Bs because "immigration is cool" is seen as good value/positive signal (some would say "virtue signaling").

      Note: I'm a H1B myself, one of these with a master and paid decently, in a silicon valley company (not Google though, but close)

    2. Re:Need more up to date statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am a tech lead and manager at Google.

      One of my reports has been trying and failing to get an H1B visa in the lottery for years. He joined fresh out of school but gets the same wage as other engineers who joined fresh out of school, he's got an education from a solid US university, and he is fully qualified doing solid work. But the H1B is a random lottery and he keeps getting unlucky, to the point where his initial visa ran out and he had to leave the country for a year because even though he had already had his job for 2 years, we are not allowed to keep him in the USA until he works outside the country for a year and switches to L1 (which actually costs the USA as Google now pays his salary in a foreign country plus his relocation costs). It's all just a ridiculously complicated mess.

      Because Google is looking for long time highly skilled employees, we don't need to be filing 100k+ applications a year, but when we find someone who's really good that we'd actually like to hire (and there's still a large number of these on H1Bs), years of uncertainty over lottery and gigantic processing time waits that have nothing to do with qualifcation really suck for both the employee and his team.

    3. Re:Need more up to date statistics by Endloser · · Score: 1

      You don't see how driving down the way of engineers and developers via staff augmentation is beneficial to companies that primarily hire engineers and developers? The first three companies you listed all focus their business models on undercutting the cost of having your own engineers and developers. They do this by hiring Indians for pennies on the dollar, promising them an H1-B. Many of the Indians come and do a good job and work hard while they attempt to gain citizenship. The companies they are working for though are vampires. For both the major tech firm and the tech consulting firm it's a super awesome fun time. However, for the American and foreign worker it kind of sucks to be taken advantage of in such an egregious manner.

    4. Re:Need more up to date statistics by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      I fail to see how any company like Google and Microsoft are benefiting from H1-Bs

      H1B, by design, lowers labor costs for corporations by artificially increasing the supply of workers. You could work for a company that employs 50,000 workers, not one of them visa holders, but the company would still benefit from the H1B program.

    5. Re:Need more up to date statistics by Virtucon · · Score: 1

      My point was, that the companies screaming the loudest are Facebook, Google and Microsoft. I agree that H1-Bs drives down the costs by introducing unqualified diploma mill replacements. I make a pretty good living un-fucking projects where a team of unqualified H1-Bs and their counterparts in Asia have done the million monkey march to developing a system. Contrary to popular belief the works of Shakespeare are not produced by this model and you wind up paying more in the end.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  29. clarity required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "you"????

    Ok, so you're not an American or a European and you are complaining that the US is only where it is because it had slaves, and Europe because it had colonialism and imperialism (and yes, like most of planet Earth, also slavery). You are clearly among the most ignorant on the planet.

    First: Nearly every civilization on Earth throughout all of recorded human history has had slavery. Many places STILL have forms of actual slavery. The Europeans and Americans, influenced by Christians like Britain's William Wilberforce voluntarily CHOSE to end slavery - they were not forced to do it by a slave rebellion or some such thing. In The US, it was also Christians who formed the abolishonist movement which spanned from some of the founders (like Ben Franklin ) to the first Republican President (Abe Lincoln) and the bulk of the population supported the elimination of slavery which occurred as part of a civil war (rather than by external force or by slave rebellion). In other words: America and Europe reformed themselves on the matter,rather than being as unreformed and evil as you pretend.

    Second: Before the USA, colonialism and imperialism were the rule on planet Earth. The Americans were in fact colonial SUBJECTS rather than masters. It was the Americans who started the whole idea of being willing to wage war on behalf of others and then NOT take the territories conquered as "winnings". That's not something any african, asian, middle-eastern or south american nation ever did. Muslim societies to this day claim it to be morally correct to keep whatever lands they can conquer in perpetuity, making it an anti-Islamic act to ever recognize them as non-Muslim once they have been owned by Islam. Even the over-the-top RHETORIC of Donald Trump about "taking the oil" is part of his argument NOT that the US should have taken the territory of the middle east, but rather the "extreme" idea that the OIL in ISIS areas should have been taken TO OFFSET THE COSTS of the war and to deprive ISIS of the economic resource NOT as a permanent siezure of those lands to be added to the USA. The US conquered lands all over the globe in WWII and has givan back nearly all of it BY CHOICE, keeping only several small bits for the military needs of being able to operate as a peacekeeper (a role MANY Americans do not want). The UK gradually freed nearly all of its imperial empire, similarly retaining only a tiny fragment of lands outside its borders for mostly military reasons related to global peacekeeping activities. What non-American and non-European nation has done similarly? Has any asian or african or south american power exercised nearly the maximum military power it could produce TO FREE OTHER PEOPLE, and then walked away leaving those peoples AND the enemy to keep their own lands???

    What non-US and non-European lands do YOU hold out as morally-superior and what's your evidence? Do you have ANY evidence that any of the places that is not, by your reckoning, morally superior would have been "better" behaved if it had the same power??? Most who have not done the things you accuse the west of doing have either done them at the scale they were capable of, or were simply too backwards to ever rise to the level of having the power. Being to primitive and backwards to do evil is not the same morally as having the power and CHOOSING to not do it.

    1. Re:clarity required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that's not what I said at all.

      American civil war was an act of human courage to do the right thing. America is great not because of what white Europeans did. America is great because white-Europeans broke away from the traditional human instinct to be friendly only to people who look like you. America is great because of its immigration, it attracts the best and the brightest because it's the only country on the planet with a 'declaration of independence' that includes the words "all men are created equal".

      But you can't deny that American wealth (as a whole) was accumulated (prior to the civil war) on the backs of slaves.

    2. Re: clarity required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure that blanket statement that all wealth originated on the backs of slaves can be denied. Even if you just mean the majority of the wealth. Read about the economic drivers of the 1800s, when American economic output was taking off relative to Europe. Most activity was not slave-based. The industrial output of the northern states was driven largely by transportation improvements (canals and railroads) allowing resources (farm goods, lumber, minerals) to move cheaply to urban centers. Where it then drove manufacturing industries. The majority of factories were in the north, and were not worked by slaves.

      Some of that was built on slavery, and conditions for free factory workers could have been better (although often was better than what came before). And there's plenty that can be said about treatment of Native Americans and land ownership. But the innovations of Western culture have been one of the larger improvements to the human condition in the history of the world. And *most* of that was "on the backs of" free people, who also reaped benefits from those improvements.

    3. Re: clarity required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are incredibly stupid and naÃve if you think america was a place where all the Europeans came together to live in harmony. The different racial groups hated each other at first. We know this from the records kept from the boats they took to reach the Americas.

      But they integrated, and started to view each other as Americans first. This was not a fast process.

      Black people in many African countries still practice slavery, or are white people somehow responsible for that too?

  30. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by geek · · Score: 1

    The default position since Trump got elected has been to blame him.

    And the default position since Trump got elected has to been to hail him for the rise of the stock market, rising corporate profits, and better than expected GDP.

    Stock markets are bets on the future, not reflections on the past. Educate yourself and stop whining like a baby.

  31. try a dose of honesty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    the new POTUS labelled the "fake news" the "enemy of the American people". He did NOT say "all journalists are enemies of the people". He was attacking a media that has been relentlessly attacking him for well over a year, recently having been tallied as over 80% negative on him by media watchdogs. These so-called journalists at places like the New Your Times and Washington Post and CNN have openly admitted they were actively opposing him, and while they pretend otherwise, those outlets have been repeatedly caught lying and misleading their audiences. A journalist who tells the FACTS no matter who they report on is one thing, but a journalist who only "fact checks" ONE SIDE, who makes up factoids, makes up sources, makes up quotes, makes up events, etc is an entirely different thing and is in fact an "enemy of the American people".

    Obama prosecuted more journalists, and threatened more of them, and withheld more information from them than any president before him - yet you think Trump is against Freedom of the Press? Just what has Trump ACTUALLY DONE to the press????

    Obama ordered nuns to provide support for abortions, demanded Christians recognize gay marriage, fought in court to kick a German Chrsitian family out of the US because they wanted to home-school their kids, etc but non of that seems to you problematic. Trump comes along and wants the government to do extreme vetting of Muslims (a blend of a religion AND a non-democratic theistic government and laws) from regions where people with those views are slaughtering people and imposing their totalitarianism with terrorism while doing NOTHING to prevent Muslims already in the US from worshipping according to their faith and you thing Trump is the guy opposed to Freedom of Religion????

    Tell me something: Which Muslim-run nation TOLERATES Judaism and Chrsitianity and Buddism and Hinduism and Atheism? Which Muslim-run nation allows Christian churches and Jewish synagogues to be built??? WHY would any sane society that believes in Freedom of Religion allow the unchecked and uncontrolled entry of huge numbers of people with that PROVEN track record in???? The first generation of people who allow Islam to become the majority in any nation is the last generation to see Freedom of Religion in that nation - becuase Islam is NOT just another religion; it's a hybrid.

    1. Re:try a dose of honesty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Which Muslim-run nation TOLERATES Judaism and Christianity and Buddhism and Hinduism and Atheism?

      All of them. Why do you think there so many Jews and Christian fleeing from these countries after centuries of stability? The current climate in most of these countries has gotten really xenophobic, just like it has here. But traditionally, "brothers of the book" have always been welcomed.

    2. Re:try a dose of honesty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      half-truth.
      Non Islam had / have to pay-to-play (protection) money in those countries.

      CAP === 'geology'

    3. Re:try a dose of honesty by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      the new POTUS labelled the "fake news" the "enemy of the American people". He did NOT say "all journalists are enemies of the people". He was attacking a media that has been relentlessly attacking him for well over a year, recently having been tallied as over 80% negative on him by media watchdogs.

      He banned a good many legit news organizations from the White House. His idea of "fake news" is good honest reporting, because he apparently can't stand criticism.

      Journalists and top government officials should not have a nice cozy relationship, since any journalist who is unwilling to write something critical of the President is worthless.

      the unchecked and uncontrolled entry of huge numbers of people

      Straw man alert. We already thoroughly vet refugees, in a process that generally takes two or more years. Approximately nobody anywhere near the mainstream political spectrum is calling for unrestricted entry

      As far as freedom of religion goes, there's the ability to worship as you please, and then there's the ability to impose your religious beliefs on others. Those are two separate things, and precisely one of them is good for a society.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  32. nice try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most people on Earth have slavery or sefdom in their ancestry - including most white people.

    Most Europeans (and therefore by extension most white Americans) have ancestors who were serfs under European monarchs and earlier ancestors who were slaves under the Roman Empire.

    I personally have NO TIES to slavery in the US, my ancestors having arrives after the US civil war - but MY ancestros were almost certainly slaves of Rome.

    Where do I go for MY reparations? Just how successful would I be if I spent all my time whining about my persecuted ancestors and waiting for Italy to make things right?

    1. Re:nice try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What fine logic. I'd ask for daddy's money back from whoever taught you economics.... or logic, for that matter.

    2. Re:nice try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a fine answer to the question. Perhaps you should go upstairs and ask dad for some money to take a course in rhetoric.

  33. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    Your post is based on an assumption that is untrue.

    Net illegal immigration is essentially zero. Lots of Mexicans have been going back and, guess what, Obama extradited a lot also.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  34. The over work is an easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Outsource, to India.

  35. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your 105 year period? I really didn't take much to become or disappear in America. Also you could be dead and not reported as an immigrant as you had paper work.
    So better reporting, like rape since the 60's what you are relying for your view point.

  36. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you're missing his real point though.its not that Trump did not start this. It's that people won't be listening or looking at it anymore in a few month, and if real bad stuff happen them there could be no one interested to even look at it.

  37. Bad news for US economy. by jopsen · · Score: 1

    This is good news for the US economy as a whole, at least on the surface.....

    No it's not. You can claim it may be good news for US tech workers, that's unlikely to have any real effect, but for the economy this is undoubtedly bad.

    Studies have showed that while the H1B program:
    1) have been beneficial to the US economy as a whole (because cost of software development, and lack of developers strangles growth).
    2) have possibly lowered wages for well paid tech jobs (this is not conclusive, but there are hints in this direction),

    That said, there probably has been some abuse, there certain is a lot of anecdotal evidence on slashdot. But the premium processing, which costs extra, is probably used most by the legitimate H1B applicants. To a company that pays 150k/yr for a developer a few thousand extra to speed up expedition is nothing.

    So I doubt this halts the abuse... The easy fix there is imposing a minimum wage, although that is not an elegant long-term solution, since you'll have to update this arbitrary number every few years.

  38. Fake news on H1B - the "spin" begins by takochan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Though I did not vote for Trump, I have to say he is certainly right about all the fake news (on this topic at least)..

    The "spin" regarding H1B in news articles spewing out since this was announced this morning is amazing...

    Everyone (on this site at least), knows that H1B is all about getting rid of Americans in IT jobs in the USA to replace them with cheaper Indians onshore for roles that companies were not able to offshore to India for whatever reason..

    On major sites as of this morning..:

    On Google News / CNN:
    http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/0...
    "Large firms say they need the visas to bring in engineers and other high-skilled workers they can't find in the U.S. " ...the article has the above, plus a whole bunch of unrelated sob stories about people who cannot find doctors (an H1B edge case).

    again, the fake "skills shortage"..while in reality our IT grads are working in $30K annual salary jobs, Best-Buy and Starbucks because they cannot find good IT work. I know plenty of smart folks in situations like this..

    On Reuters:
    http://www.reuters.com/article...
    "The H-1B non-immigrant visa allows U.S. companies to employ graduate-level workers in several specialized fields, including information technology, medicine, engineering and mathematics." ..slightly better, but the article again fails to mention the actual issue anywhere in the piece..that virtually all the of the H1B visas issued are used by outsourcing or IT companies to replace Americans in IT roles in the USA with cheaper onshore Indians flown in from India.

    I have to hand it to him, Trump may be rather nuts overall, but he is actually doing what he said he would do, and he is the first person in office to actually address this issue (or even mention it).., which is more than you can say for either the R's or D's that have been president up to now. (I don't really consider Trump to be an 'R', either, for what its worth..he is following his own agenda mostly unrelated to the R party from what I can see..)

    Kudos to him, maybe I was wrong about him after all..

    1. Re:Fake news on H1B - the "spin" begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. There are abuses of H1Bs but it's simply a lie to say that's what a place like Google is doing.

      Google's interview process does not even make visa/immigration status visible to the people making the decisions either on hiring or on salary. It is an unbiased process designed to hire as many people as possible above a certain bar. There is indeed a steady stream of job applications, but they are staggeringly incompetent. I'm sure their friends think they are smart but if someone isn't fully comfortable independently solving a basic problem in their language of choice, I'd pay money to get them *off* my team,. And yes, that is the level of most applicants to Google, never mind the degree. US applicants are generally below average if anything. I say this as a natural born American citizen who leads a team at Google and just wants good engineers and doesn't give a fuck what they cost Google.

      And please explain how making a slow bureaucratic process slower solves the problem. A good fix would be changing the laws to curb abuses (e.g. raise the application fix), not just adding interminable delays for 100% of applicants.

    2. Re:Fake news on H1B - the "spin" begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone (on this site at least), knows that H1B is all about getting rid of Americans in IT jobs in the USA to replace them with cheaper Indians onshore for roles that companies were not able to offshore to India for whatever reason..

      On Reuters:
      http://www.reuters.com/article...
      "The H-1B non-immigrant visa allows U.S. companies to employ graduate-level workers in several specialized fields, including information technology, medicine, engineering and mathematics." ..slightly better, but the article again fails to mention the actual issue anywhere in the piece..that virtually all the of the H1B visas issued are used by outsourcing or IT companies to replace Americans in IT roles in the USA with cheaper onshore Indians flown in from India.

      Umm, not really. I am from India and I did my Masters (in Computer Science) in USA. I'm currently working (in OPT) for a big networking company in an engineering role, not IT. About 60% of our team are non-Americans like me; i.e., from another country (China, India, South Korea, England, Italy and Singapore) who came to USA to pursue Masters or PhD. Except few of them (who have PR), most of them are still dependent on H-1B.

      I am not saying that few companies are abusing the system, but it is totally ridiculous to claim that all H-1B visas are used to replace USA IT roles with cheaper Indians.

  39. Re:I held a H1-B visa and they are completely insa by jopsen · · Score: 1

    The process for getting it - the questions, the requirements, was absolutely and completely insane.

    Yes, I still don't understand why so many US immigration forms carries questions like: "Do you intend to commit acts of terror? [ ] YES; [ ] NO".

    I mean do they really think a terrorist is going to answer yes... The only thing they'll catch with a form like that is trolls.

  40. 100 years from now by superwiz · · Score: 1

    These programs will be studied by historians as the modern-day workaround around prohibition of slavery and indentured servitude. The only thing which will be remembered will be the living conditions suffered by many of these visa holders and their delayed rights to participate in political process despite being bona fide immigrants. No one will remember or care about their salary levels. It takes 3x as much money in SF to buy the same life style as one could buy in, let's say, Omaha. The 10-15% difference in salary is simply meaningless in situations where people are living in this "hotel California" (you can check out, but you can never leave).

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  41. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a fucking retard!

  42. I voted against him, twice. However by raymorris · · Score: 2

    I have to hand it to him, Trump may be rather nuts overall, but he is actually doing what he said he would do, and he is the first person in office to actually address this issue (or even mention it).., which is more than you can say for either the R's or D's that have been president up to now. (I don't really consider Trump to be an 'R', either, for what its worth..he is following his own agenda mostly unrelated to the R party from what I can see.

    I also voted against Trump. I also got my wife to come vote for her first time, against Trump. Mostly because a) he said obnoxious things and b) had no political experience. Though on point (a) I know he's made a career of saying things to get media attention - like Hpward Stern, he says stuff to get press converage, and largely believes "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Compare most politicians including Hillary who say whatever they think will get *good* press. Anyway, the dude is obnoxious, though in part that's calculated.

    On the other hand, I live in the US, so I want the US President to be a good one. He's the President, so I want to see him do well. He's gotten busy doing exactly what he said he would do. Unlike almost all major politicians, he's not *dependent* on large donors. As you said, he's not really a Republican, hence the whole "Never Trump" thing. The real leader of the Republican party, speaker Paul Ryan, wouldn't endorse Trump. Heck Trump funded the Clinton campaign last time. Not really a Republican. Unfortunately, perhaps, the primary votes from people who wanted a Republican were split between several similar candidates, while Trump very successfully positioned himself as different, as the alternative to "all those guys" (and he *is* different).

  43. Eliminate the lottery by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Replace it with a salary auction for the limited number of H-1Bs available. A company would 'buy' H-1Bs by bidding a minimum yearly salary for each visa, which it would then be required to pay the visa holder for the duration of the visa. The company with the highest bid wins the visa. Cap the number of visas available such that the minimum winning bids average 10% more than the salary paid to an American worker for the same job. That would allow Google and Microsoft to buy as many of the offshore geniuses as they want (or can afford), while putting a fork in the IT outsourcing firms who game the current lottery system.

  44. Cmu silicon valley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cmu silicon valley, They are the poster child for foreigners buying into America. Their entire student body are masters students paying buttloads of money to attend their bi annual job fairs to show off their asst professors' project ideas they worked on to get those jobs here. That is so funny that they were mentioned here. They are in Moffett Field for the sole purpose of guaranteeing their students paying jobs on their student visa with NASA and Google, and Apple and any company willing to launder money through their research assistant program.

    Wow, that's funny.

    1. Re:Cmu silicon valley? by gwjgwj · · Score: 1

      foreigners buying into America.

      Only Indians are not foreigners in America.

    2. Re:Cmu silicon valley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which Indians, feathers or dots? By America do you mean the United States, or North America? If talking about indigenous peoples, which tribes? Here is an incomplete list of Canadian first nations. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people/ Some of these bands straddle the Canada/US border. There are also some bands that straddle the US/Mexico border. Where are you drawing the lines for foreign and domestic? Since you're positing that only Indians are not foreigners in America, where is home for everyone else born on the same soil claim? Are mongrels given claims based on percentages of their hereditary?

  45. "You don't have to." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When everyone does it, we do. Perhaps you don't need the money, but we do.

  46. WHY? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do I keep hearing conservatives bringing up the idea of raising H1B minimum wage but yet think that's the worst commie idea ever for their own people? I know! HYPOCRISY!

  47. case for more H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It has everything to do with an understaffed, overworked, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,"

    Easy! I suggest you fix that problem by issuing more H-1B visas to cover those posts!

  48. Buying your way in by nicolaiplum · · Score: 4, Insightful
    --
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
    1. Re:Buying your way in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure this must work somewhere, but in Vermont there was a huge scandal and resulting issues from fraud related to the QBurke resort. Burke is recovering. The rural community took a big hit over this and they deserve to prosper.

  49. I don't buy the Premise... by sycodon · · Score: 1

    ...that Third World countries which are still trying to get basic sanitation to its populace is the wellspring of talent that can't be found in the U.S.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:I don't buy the Premise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, that certainly explains the poison water supplied to Flint, MI. Isn't that in some third world hellhole?

  50. I'm Not Buying it. by sycodon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Third World countries that still can't provide basic sanitation to their populace are highly unlikely to be producing technical talent that can't be found in the U.S.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:I'm Not Buying it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not seeing the connection there. Governments providing basic sanitation have little to do with producing technical talent.

      Us techies just need gadgets, free time and Internet access to thrive in the hardest soil. Heck, technology is one of the escapism drugs, where geeky folks explore technology to escape their rough life. It certainly was for me and others I know.

      So a country without basic sanitation is no obstacle.

  51. Economy as a whole...but who benefits? by swb · · Score: 1

    1) have been beneficial to the US economy as a whole (because cost of software development, and lack of developers strangles growth).

    I think the economists are probably right when they say trade, immigration, etc. benefit the economy as a whole.

    The problem is that it's kind of a hollow argument because rising income inequality means that the growth in the economy as a whole isn't getting distributed to rank and file workers. Usually cost reductions and efficiency improvements end up as corporate profit which gets unequally distributed to senior executives and/or shareholders, not wage earners.

    It's great that we're baking a bigger pie every year, but why is my piece the same size but people with big slices end up with even bigger slices?

    Worse yet, many of the "benefits the economy as a whole" components have direct negative impacts on individual workers -- unemployment, vanishing labor sectors, downward wage pressure, etc.

    And for a lot of people they see the pie is getting bigger, but not only are they not getting a bigger slice, they're getting a *smaller* slice. In some cases, they're not getting a slice at all, and someone's taking away their fork and plate, too.

    Benefiting the economy as a whole is being decoded by a lot of people not by its macroeconomic benefits, but as a euphemism for increasing wealth inequality and people will start supporting ideas which actually hurt macroeconomic growth because they know longer believe that macroeconomic growth benefits them and in fact is hurting them.

    Economists as a whole need to stop focusing so much energy on macroeconomic growth and focus more on reducing income inequality. People will support macroeconomic growth if they feel like they get something for it.

    1. Re:Economy as a whole...but who benefits? by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      When they are talking about the economy 'as a whole' they may be referring to the world economy and indeed free trade is good for that. However if what you are worried about is your own piece of the pie as a highly privileged elite who benefits greatly from artificial borders and the resulting income inequality then that is not necessarily a good thing for you personally.

      Maybe someone who will be happy to work for $1/hour can do your job as well as you can. Would that be good for the world economy? How could it not be? But it won't help you specifically if you want to live a good life. I think there is clearly at least some zero sum game aspect to the current world economy. What is good for Indian and Chinese people is not necessarily good for North Americans and Western Europeans and in fact may often be very bad indeed. But for the planetary economy and overall human progress it's great.

      Eventually the people accepting the $1/hour wages will demand a raise and the market will stabilize at a higher level, but that level will probably be a lot lower than it is now. Probably the current mega-corporation wage-slave-worker-drone model is partly to blame for all this. It's really not a very good model for the majority of humans. Corporations have way too much power compared to individuals and behave like sociopaths.

      Nevertheless I'd be interested to see what would really happen in a world entirely without borders where everyone was allowed to physically live and work anywhere they wanted. It would be an interesting experiment. I'm not sure such a world would really be that different though because most poor people don't have the money for airline tickets or other international moving expenses and don't have good enough educations to really compete with people educated in first world countries. Although presumably some of the HR drones may not be able to distinguish between well educated and badly educated applicants. And it's not like the whole world would suddenly get better at speaking English.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    2. Re:Economy as a whole...but who benefits? by swb · · Score: 1

      However if what you are worried about is your own piece of the pie as a highly privileged elite who benefits greatly from artificial borders and the resulting income inequality then that is not necessarily a good thing for you personally.

      Yes, as a fact I am worried about my piece of the pie and I don't want it taken away. The global morality is immaterial to me, I am unwilling to sacrifice 90% of my standard of living to raise that of others by 2%.

      Nevertheless I'd be interested to see what would really happen in a world entirely without borders where everyone was allowed to physically live and work anywhere they wanted. It would be an interesting experiment. I'm not sure such a world would really be that different though because most poor people don't have the money for airline tickets or other international moving expenses and don't have good enough educations to really compete with people educated in first world countries. Although presumably some of the HR drones may not be able to distinguish between well educated and badly educated applicants. And it's not like the whole world would suddenly get better at speaking English.

      I think it looks lot like Western Europe's influx of migrants, actually, and that's an example where you actually have borders, where poor people can't afford airline tickets and don't have the language or job skills to compete for any but the most menial of jobs.

      As a thought experiment, if you actually did say "OK, borders no longer exist and people can move freely" it would be a disastrous set of chain reactions. You'd merely have a mass migration of poor people where no economic expansion could happen fast enough to provide them with jobs or adequate housing. It would look more like a refugee crisis.

      Transit barriers (like the North Atlantic ocean) would only delay the problem in North America until opportunists began using bulk freighters to ship people -- if you'd risk drowning in the Mediterranean to cross a few hundred km of sea in an overloaded old fishing boat, being crammed into a bulk freighter for a couple of weeks wouldn't be seen as any worse.

      And the sociological ramifications would be terrible -- local residents would band together to keep migrants out on the local level by any means necessary. It's being debated nicely and with political process now in the EU, but a true open border situation? All those pretenses would stop. Governments would face civil war trying to stop it.

    3. Re:Economy as a whole...but who benefits? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Free trade helps everybody's economy. The US economy benefits from access to inexpensive stuff. This shouldn't be confused with helping everyone in the economy. It makes the US pie bigger, but generally makes the division more lopsided. I'd rather see free trade and government action to shift the distribution of income than hurting our economy and hoping for trickle-down benefits.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  52. Progress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Indians

  53. There's plenty of local talent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they could find enough talent locally

    If they stopped (intentionally) looking at the wrong metrics, they could.

    The only real question, and test for employment, should be "can the applicant do the job?"

    Where/if they went to school, credit report, arrest record, weight, health, where they live, remote/local worker, how old they are, how they dress, religion/lack, sexual prefs, etc... these are all wholly inappropriate metrics in this day and age. But they're definitely an active, standard part of the corporate scam to bring in cheap foreign labor. Even when there are laws against some of these things, they happen silently anyway, substituting one objection for another.

    Luckily, I've made my egg (entirely outside of the corporate scam, btw) and am happily retired. But you young people... you're truly in deep trouble.

    1. Re:There's plenty of local talent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they stopped (intentionally) looking at the wrong metrics, they could.

      The only real question, and test for employment, should be "can the applicant do the job?"

      Where/if they went to school, credit report, arrest record, weight, health, where they live, remote/local worker, how old they are, how they dress, religion/lack, sexual prefs, etc... these are all wholly inappropriate metrics in this day and age.

      Who looks at anything else besides if they can do the job?? You know how few Americans our education system spits out every year who can:

      - Actually write anything in C?
      - Who have any clue about how memory management works?
      - Understands anything about interactions between user space and kernel space?

      The types of job I'm trying to fill are for experienced and smart people who have a deep understanding of everything, not just how to use bootstrap to make a crappy looking web site quickly.

      The truth is that there are only ~50k new comp sci graduates in the US each year yet the industry is growing at a rate close to 10x that. Getting an IT diploma at your local community college doesn't always give you the skills you need for those top tier jobs.

  54. Democrat here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can end that shit permanently.

  55. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!

    Get over it! BOTH parties (Democrat AND Republican) are CONTROLLED! They do what their masters tell them to do. Trump is NO exception!
    If Hillary had been elected this country would be in just as much trouble as we are now. Probably EVEN WORSE! Under a Hillary administration EVERYTHING would have been up for sale to the person donating the most to the Clinton Foundation! That's the Fact Jack!

    Politicians, Law enforcement - they are all compromised and corrupt! Law enforcement can legally BREAK laws you and I will go to jail for.
    Examples:
    1) it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to posses or use and sort of "jamming" device. Law Enforcement are free to posses and use them all they want.
    2) It is unlawful to lie to a government agent, even if you:
      made the false statement without the obligations of an oath,
      didn’t receive warning of the law or its consequences,
      were not trying to cheat the government out of money,
      or lied about something that was not materially influential to government matters
      (Title 18 of the US Code, Section 1001)
    HOWEVER - law enforcement are FREE to LIE to you all the want.

    How many times do politicians do illegal things that you and I would go DIRECTLY to jail for????

    Think about it....

  56. Act of War. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Act of War.

    If intentional, that is an Act of War.

    It is about time we use the military to deal with miscreants in our own hemisphere instead of fucking around in the Middle East.

    War on Mexico for the Win!

  57. Re:I held a H1-B visa and they are completely insa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The process for getting it - the questions, the requirements, was absolutely and completely insane.

    Utterly and totally freaking crazy. The questions and process and requirements had nothing to do with anything realistic, real-life, meaningful or even remotely sane. Nothing to do with the market and lacked any semblence of sense or even rationality.

    The H1-B requirements are a complete insane joke. They have one function only, I would say, and that is to provide a barrier to entry. This was not intended, but it is the actual outcome.

    In case you have not figured it out by now....

    Coming to America is a privilege, not a right. We can be as selective as we want to be because it's OUR COUNTRY not yours.

    Try your whining on Australia or Canada. While both of those countries accept immigrants, they both follow the concept of merit-based immigration. So if your whining proves to lack merit, then you don't get to come into Australia or Canada.

  58. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by quantaman · · Score: 1

    This despite the fact that it makes people who are otherwise legitimate, respectable public figures seem like raving lunatics. They seem like lunatics because this is their mindless reaction to anything they think they can associate with Trump, including things (like the Yemen raid) which were planned and prepared during the Obama administration.

    It's more complicated than that:

    1) The President gets final approval on the execution, he's supposed to be the one asking hard questions and making sure the operation is a good idea, not just in planning but when it's time to execute. By all accounts Trump didn't do this, his position was apparently to greenlight whatever the military wanted to do.

    2) The President can be held accountable by voters in a way that generals cannot, that's why civilian oversight of the military is so important, so the public can constrain the military. Trump is throwing blame for the death of the soldier on the generals, by claiming that he's not accountable for the actions of the military it's a lot harder to hold the military to account.

    For example. I just saw an article how SXSW is now facing a public backlash over an immigration-related clause in this contracts for performers. People are just skewering them, calling for boycotts, etc. They are lamenting how SXSW is part of the immigration problem and awful their support for Trump's immigration policies is. The clause has been there for four years.

    Here is some more from the Wikipedia article on Deportation and removal from the United States:

    There's always incidents of overreaction, but the clause is of concern now in a way it wasn't before.

    In the 105 years between 1892 and 1997, the United States deported 2.1 million people.[2]

    Between 1997 and 2001, during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, about 870,000 people were deported from the United States.[3]

    Between 2001 and 2008, during the Presidency of George W. Bush, about 2 million people were deported from the United States.

    Between 2009 and 2016, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, about 3.2 million people were deported from the United States.[4]

    As you read that, remember that during one of his State of the Union Addresses Clinton specifically called for greater enforcement of immigration laws, and got a bipartisan standing ovation at that comment.

    Also, just a couple of years ago immigrant rights groups were calling Obama "deporter-in-chief". I wonder why that was. I seem to recall Bush being branded a racist immigrant hater and immigrants came out in droves to vote for Obama.

    I don't really recall much of that criticism of Bush, but Obama never claimed to be in support of open borders.

    Obama's two things were to instruct border control to prioritize criminals and to offer a path to citizenship for certain classes long-standing illegal immigrants. Trump has basically told border control they can deport whomever they want, so you're seeing people who have been law-abiding members of their communities for decades now being deported.

    The that's part of the reason why the SXSW clause is of more concern now, because being an otherwise law-abiding undocumented resident is no longer a good defence against deportation.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  59. Re:I held a H1-B visa and they are completely insa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean do they really think a terrorist is going to answer yes... The only thing they'll catch with a form like that is trolls.

    As crazy to you as it seems, it's actually a common technique for ensuring the penalty for terrorists (or any other criminals) is as harsh as possible. Lying on the form would subsequently count as another felony with its own additional punishment.

    Unfortunately this practice is widely used elsewhere, including less serious things like insurance. That's why insurance paperwork is a minefield of traps, where a "wrong" answer will lead to a denial of payment.

    I agree that the question and practice is abhorrent, but that's what you get when your society keeps screaming "safety at any price" for over a decade.

  60. Just Hire American by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just hire American! No pesky H1B delays, no risk of overseas travel coinciding with bans, no walls to scale, no unintelligible speech to tolerate, no surprising blood sacrifices, no bizarre smells in the lunchroom. Just hire American.

  61. He's a businessman. He's used to keeping promisea by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    We have had decades of bullshit and hand wringing saying how hard it would be to change ANY law. This guy gets in on a populist platform and makes a lot of promises that most expected him to renege on (in typical politician fashion). He is delivering.

    And the political establishment is surprised. But they shouldn't be.

    Politicians welch on promises and their voters are used to it. (What are they going to do - elect another politician who promises something they like less?)

    Businessmen work hard to make deals that give them a bunch of what THEY want - and promise the other party what HE wants. Then they deliver - because if they make a practice of flaking out, nobody will sign future deals with them.

    They also do things FAST - so they can get their capital freed up and applied to ANOTHER deal that gets them MORE of what they want.

    So he's used to keeping promises and getting the difficult stuff done right away. What a (pleasant) non-surprise that he's still acting like a businessman and doing it in his latest endeavor, after centuries of politicians have acted like politicians and failed to deliver.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  62. Sucking the oxygen out - media ran the pumps. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, perhaps, the primary votes from people who wanted a Republican were split between several similar candidates, while Trump very successfully positioned himself as different, as the alternative to "all those guys" (and he *is* different).

    IMHO the media thought that Trump would be the easiest for Hillary to defeat and did their best to sabotage the campaigns of the regular - and irregular - politicians in the Republican primary.

    They did this mainly by focusing on Trump and giving little coverage to the others. They even spoke of it as "Trump sucking the oxygen out of the room" whenever he entered it - when in fact they were the ones running the pumps.

    Once he was nominated, of course, they turned on him - only to discover that he'd promised exactly what voters controlling enough electoral votes wanted, and he wasn't dependent on them to get the word out to his supporters. And the harder they tried to slam him, the more they discredited themselves (while Hillary managed to shoot herself in the foot, up to both knees.)

    Oops!

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  63. Great idea! by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Replace it with a salary auction for the limited number of H-1Bs available.

    Great idea. I'd mod you up "insightful" if I hadn't posted in this article already.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  64. Expel Indians from USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Leeches cannot live Independently http://www.petition2congress.c...

  65. Leeches cannot live Independently by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Leeches cannot live Independently; http://www.petition2congress.c...

  66. Re:He's a businessman. He's used to keeping promis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol, yeah america will soon be great again.

  67. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

    Obama changed the statistics so that people turned away at the border would be counted as "deported." This artificially inflated his deportation numbers. In fact he deported (i.e., removed from the interior of the country, the definition used for "deportation" before Obama) far fewer people than recent presidents.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  68. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by ghoul · · Score: 1

    If you are not going to count people stopped at the border as deportees than none of the people stopped at Airports by Trump's Muslim Ban were deportees as they were stooped at the border and sent back. So which is it? Do you want to worship Drumpf for deporting people with valid visas or castigate Obama for not deporting illegals. You have to stick to one definition.

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  69. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

    1. I'm just stating a fact about the way the definition changed under Obama, meaning comparing Obama "deported" numbers to previous administrations' "deported" numbers is meaningless because they changed the definition. If you wanted more deportations, be mad at Obama, and if you wanted fewer deportations, be happy with Obama. Regardless, let's get the definition right so we're talking apples to apples.

    2. I don't really care about the statistics of people turned away at airports?

    3. I don't know why I bother talking to someone who says "Drumpf." Using that just outs you as an idiot, same as anyone unironically referring to Obama as "Obongo."

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  70. So: is this reasonable [about Google hiring]? NO by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    Why?

    * $120K in Silicon Valley for a single person means either soul-destroying commutes or living like a student with three random housemates
    https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

    In Google's defense, when people try to build relatively affordable housing around SV, towns tend to permit more office space but will not allow more housing -- even as that is starting to change (maybe too little too late though?):
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

    Google private buses do make the commutes easier though -- at a social cost:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    * But even if there was cheaper housing, for singles, SV still has a dating problem other than the year 2038:
    https://slashdot.org/story/17/...

    * Google no longer has quite the reputation it had now that "don't be evil" is just a memory -- especially as Google has become thought of as a key player in the surveillance/malware state (e.g. with Android).

    The fundamental problem here is that the software and services the world desperately needs to be resilient, healthy, and free are not the centralized software and services that will make a company like Google the most money (or maybe that much money at all -- e.g. Gnu/etc/Linux/BSD).

    * Google's stock is unlikely to appreciate as significantly as in the past given competition, changing digital landscapes, (re)branding issues, falling computer and networking costs makign personal search engines more viable, federated computing and an emerging social semantic desktop, and more

    * Google insists everyone work on-site (ironically, for a company about computer mediated experiences) -- and most of the sites are in expensive places to live (and most US jobs are not at the cheaper cost-of-living sites) -- all of which reduces cognitive diversity at Google from a lack of rural perspectives

    * Google's 20% time is now 120% time (one big perk gone)
    https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...

    Also, Google has not figured out how to try new products without then abandoning ones that are not growing and thus alienating both employees and customers (e.g. Google Reader)

    * Google tends to screen out qualified employees by a biased hiring process that, reading between the lines, Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, indirectly admits has failed -- meaning that the current population of Googlers may not be a diverse enjoyable group of people to work with -- while also indirectly implying a very high fine-grained surveillance of all employee activities:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06...

    * Googlers tend to have little work-life balance, working long hours (made worse by being on-site), meaning Google can't readily attract older workers who have families or participate in community obligations or take vacations
    https://www.glassdoor.com/Revi...
    "Cons: Absolutely no work life balance. Deteriorating health conditions thereafter."

    * But even if Google could boast work-life balance to be of interest to older workers, Google, like most SV companies practices rampant age discrimination anyway

    For example:
    http://www.computerworld.com/a...

    Not that the last is specific to only G

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  71. Re:So: is this reasonable [about Google hiring]? N by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    "$120K in Silicon Valley for a single person means either soul-destroying commutes or living like a student with three random housemates"

    In looking further at this, probably I have overstated the housing case. Housing is still problematical, but probably the new hire could afford a nearby one bedroom apartment or such with a secure parking spot on that salary in SV. Still not great for the supposedly very best CS graduates who will be working 60+ hours per week -- but better than what I first outlined.

    Of course, if they have big student loans and also want to save for a down payment on a SV house and start a family...

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  72. Re:This is actually not difficult, just blame Trum by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    You should stop getting your news from Breitbart.

    Obama didn't change the reporting, he changed the policy on how people are returned to Mexico. The numbers are still counted the same way as before, but what happens to illegal immigrants has changed.

    None of this changes the fact that I posted that illegal immigration of Mexicans is either net zero or negative.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!