Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
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.)
He's on a great start to be our best President ever.
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.
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.
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.
No more Windows updates for a while!
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.'"
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.
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
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."
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
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?
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
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!
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.
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**
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.
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.
Thanks.
Mod +1, Insightful
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: ...the article has the above, plus a whole bunch of unrelated sob stories about people who cannot find doctors (an H1B edge case).
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. "
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: ..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.
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."
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..
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
"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.
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.
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?
foreigners buying into America.
Only Indians are not foreigners in America.
" a message from the government that you "can't buy your way into America.""
You can buy your way into the USA just fine. It will cost you $500k, or $1M if you don't want to deal wth a poor rural area, and some paperwork setting up a company.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
...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.
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.
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.
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.
Exactly my point, luxuries.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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**
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.
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.
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.
"$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.
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!