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After Healthcare Defeat, Can The Trump Administration Fix America's H-1B Visa Program? (bloomberg.com)
Friday the Trump administration suffered a political setback when divisions in the president's party halted a move to repeal healthcare policies passed in 2010. But if Trump hopes to turn his attention to how America's H-1B visa program is affecting technology workers, "time is running out," writes Slashdot reader pteddy. Bloomberg reports:
[T]he application deadline for the most controversial visa program is the first week of April, which means new rules have to be in place for that batch of applicants or another year's worth of visas will be handed out under the existing guidelines... There probably isn't enough time to pass legislation on such a contentious issue. But Trump could sign an executive order with some changes.
The article points out that under the current system, one outsourcing firm was granted 6.5 times as many U.S. visas as Amazon. There's also an interesting map showing which countries' workers received the most H-1B visas in 2015 -- 69.4% went to workers in India, with another 10.5% going to China -- and a chart showing which positions are most in demand, indicating that two-thirds of the visa applications are for tech workers.
Uhm... Clearly, that don't mean a damn thing.
And few people have noticed that Trump masterfully defeated Ryan
Only wishful thinkers among Trump supporters. Trump was calling all the shots during this past week; he was the one who insisted on a showdown vote yesterday, to put all the Freedom Caucus members' votes on record. Of course, it was cancelled when they saw they were going down in flames.
and is letting the fuse burn down to the Obamacare implosion.
More wishful thinkers, but this time including the President.
Let's see, Obamacare is a plague on the nation that must be killed right now. The GOP could do so much better. So they propose Obamacare-lite and can't manage to pass it even while controlling the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office. Let me guess, somewhere in Arkansas the county dog catcher is a Democrat and that gummed up everything.
Slow clap.
Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent?
When you send that question through a capitalist's mind, it becomes "Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent per dollar spent?" Guess what the answer will be.
Don't forget who pulls the marionette's strings.
Most politicians try to get past what they say. However the complexity of real life sets in. Most American career politicians try to do what they say but they are confronted by other politicians who say they will do the opposite. So they will either get what they want, fail to get what they want, or what is currently political death sentence a compromise where both sides get a little of what they want but not all of it, thus causing the stupid public to think they were lying vs actually trying to get what they felt was good for who they are representing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And unlike the career politicians he's actually followed through on his promises so far. Failure to repeal Obamacare is not a lie. He made the effort.
WTF?
Obama "made the effort" to close Gitmo throughout his whole presidency, does he get credit for that?
Because a lot of people count that as a "broken promise".
It would be a pretty hypocritical that Trump gets credit for "following through on his promises" by introducing a completely stillborn turd of a bill that his own party wouldn't pass.
Or would you have called Obama a success if instead of he'd introduced a bill to just shut it down while boasting... "I'm the best negotiator, its the best bill you'll ever see, everyone is going to love it."
then two weeks later when its obviously garbage and not going to pass even his own party... he withdraws it and says, "I made the effort. now we're just going to keep it open. So there. Oh... and Mitch McConnell now owns it. It's 100% his problem now."
But that capitalist has been conditioned to only consider short term benefits, so in his head the question really is "Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent per dollar spent this quarter?"
With the news about AT&T, Disney, and others forcing their existing domestic tech workers to train the H1B replacements, the true purpose of the program has been revealed: replace expensive domestic workers with cheaper foreign labor. That's why the H1B program won't get fixed: it does what it's meant to do.
Well, he said he cared about cleaning up Wall Street.
But then he picked Steven Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary and Jay Clayton for leading the SEC.
Obamacare isn't imploding though, for the most part it's working much better than anything that can't before it. So many people are now invested in it, reliant on it.
Trump is losing hard. His two flagship policies are on the rocks. The Muslim ban he promised isn't a Muslim ban any more and even then gets stuck down again and again. And now Trumpcare, because he sucks at making deals and massively underestimated how complex healthcare is.
Don't forget that he promised to defeat Isis by now too. He's a used car salesman who promises to fix everything, tells you it's going to be the best wagon you every owned...
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Fox is wrong as much as the other guys. Sean Hannity was out telling everyone Ryan's healthcare was good. His saving grace is that he also pointed out some of the problems with how it was planned and rolled out. Trying to be in the middle should not be the goal, being right should be the goal. RINOs pushing the bill were not right, and the Democrats putting their heads in the sand and doing nothing except cheerleading after the bill could not get off the ground were not right. Working to fix a horrible bill would have been right.
The answer is something Trump said a couple weeks ago. The Federal Government should never have gotten involved in health insurance. The answer is quite simple really, but I doubt his advisers would begin to do the right thing. Answer: GTFO of healthcare and provide vouchers to people who can't afford it on their own. Let the market set the rates, not the Government.
The Democrats passed the ACA on a line of bullshit. People needing assistance is not a reason for the Government to take over a complete line of business as they did with ACA. The arguments were a false choice. One should notice key changes in rhetoric, like calling Government Assistance of all forms "entitlements" instead of what they are, and arguing that health insurance is a right. The latter is bullshit. People should be able to get healthcare when needed, but that is not the same thing as health insurance.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
and suddenly when they are in a position of actually enacting a repeal and replacement bill into law they came up with nothing.
It's even worse than that. They've had how many years now to sit down and think about a replacement plan, to go through the details, crunch the numbers, and get their party on board with a plan so that when they eventually could put it into action they could succeed. Instead they did nothing and tried to push out a cobbled together mess that they couldn't even get enough of their party behind to hold an actual vote on it.
Both of our major political parties are completely dysfunctional at this point. The Democrats spent all of their effort trying to push their anointed party insider candidate who needed significant party help to make it out of a primary against a fringe candidate no one was talking about seriously in the lead up to the election and the republicans had such a weak and unappealing array of candidate that a loud-mouthed bozo that was a complete outsider (he'd only changed to a Republican in 2011, but had bounced back and forth between the parties before) practically take over the party.
Is that a reason to believe he gives a shit?
It's reason enough for me. He seems to be actually trying to pull off his campaign promises. We will see as time goes on.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Obama "made the effort" to close Gitmo throughout his whole presidency, does he get credit for that?
Obama made no "serous" effort to close Gitmo. If he did, it would be closed. Gitmo is a military base, it is completely under the control of the President. Congress can make bills and approve them requiring it to stay open but Obama could have vetoed them.
Obama used Gitmo as a political tool all through his presidency.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Given his business track record (75% complete failure
Please site your sources on this. I would be interested in where you got these numbers.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
It's reason enough for me. He seems to be actually trying to pull off his campaign promises. We will see as time goes on.
I think we've seen enough already.
None of the crazy pie-in-the-sky shit he promised is ever going to happen. He couldn't even close the deal on his wet dream of wrecking the healthcare system, and that's with a Republican president AND a Republican-controlled House and Senate. He couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Obama "made the effort" to close Gitmo throughout his whole presidency, does he get credit for that?
Nope, not in my book, and I voted for him twice. That was a promise he broke.
Now, getting back to President Bath Salts, how many of his promises will he break? How many has he already broken?
I suspect that he'll be running near 100% failure rate at the end of his term.
We all know the wall will never be built. We all know coal jobs aren't coming back.
We all know he's not going to defeat ISIS.
We all know he's not going to be able to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
We all know he's not going to be able to bring jobs back from overseas.
We all know Mexico's not going to pay for the wall.
We all know he's not going to be able to "get rid" of the EPA.
He's already broken his promise to "never take a vacation while serving as president."
We all know he's not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
He's not going to "Drop that "dirty, rotten traitor" Bowe Bergdahl out of an airplane into desolate Afghanistan without a parachute."
He's not going to bring back jobs from China. Hell, his own shit is made in China.
He's not going to "force Nabisco to once again make Oreos in the United States".
These are just a few of the hundreds of promises he made, all on record.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
He's been more truthful than any other head of state I've seen in my lifetime. Sad, yes, but that is the state of politics.
I don't know about truthful, but that sounds eerily like this quote:
“I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”
––Elie Wiesel, Night
Are you serious?!? Republicans have been bitching and moaning and wasting tax payer money on the topic for SIX years!!!
In the end, they have control over both houses in congress, full control of the executive branch, and a weakened judicial....
And the BEST they could come up with was a plan that they weren't even confident enough to bring up to their OWN party after multiple delays and negotiations.
Their next plan is a "wait and see"?! Just how absolutely incompetent does the US governing bodies have to be before the US public atleast stops coming up with excuses for them?
Don't forget that he promised to defeat Isis by now too.
ISIS? They're Junior Varsity, nothing to worry about.
Obamacare will need to be fixed before too long. Pelosi designed it to bankrupt the insurance companies and it's doing exactly that. What happens next is anyone's guess, but it can't go on the way it is.
According the trickle down capitalism, if we let the millionaires save millions of dollars by hiring immigrants, those savings will trickle down to the unemployed americans! You know, the white middle class unemployed americans, not those other ones, the ones on welfare.
It isn't their savings that trickles down. According to Reagan's trickle down economic (not capitalism) theory, the wealthy were supposed to take the extra money garnered from the tax cuts they received and invest it, creating jobs by doing so.
The reality is that the rich just saved it – they put it in the bank. They never invested it. No jobs were ever created by tax cuts for the rich. Why? The rich like seeing their wealth grow, not shrink. They hardly ever want to spend it on risky ventures like starting a company and hiring employees.
Money saved by allowing companies to hire H1-B workers is merely to improve the bottom line and pay bigger dividends to share holders and give bigger salaries and bonuses to the CxOs. Nothing about H1-B was ever about trickle down.
He is not more truthful than any other head of state. As every head of state before him, he tries to get through his agenda. But differently than many an head of state before, he vastly overestimates his own abilities. So far, all of the prominent election promises he tried to implement were wrecked because the way he tried to implement them didn't work. Maybe he will learn. Maybe he recognizes that there is more to being a president than making bold promises. Maybe he finds out that there is a reality which does not care about ideology but just is as it is. And reality does not change just because the President of the United States watches TV and misunderstands what he sees.
Mod up a hundred times. We have too many politicians who are unwilling to compromise to make progress. The only form of government where somebody gets everything they want is a dictatorship.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
He couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
THIS is the exact reason Trump is sitting in the White house. It will of the reasons he will be sworn in, in 2020 for a second term. You constantly underestimated Trump from the time he threw his hat in the ring all the way up to election night. You where so sure that you had this in the bag you where already celebrating while he was mopping the floor with you.
More over you are letting your hatred and bitterness, this oppose Trump at all cost, blind you to what is coming down the road. Everyday people are getting tired of it. Even people like me who didn't vote for Trump, and who didn't think he would have made a good President, are starting to change our minds.
Americans don't like losers, but we detest sour losers. And that is exactly what you are coming off to be. The oppose Trump at all costs, instead of working with him is going to cost you more than the Whitehouse. When the next elections come around Americans are going to remember this, and are going to start removing the obstacles. Meaning Democrats.
Funny thing is, those of us who don't subscribe to any real political party see this. But democrats don't, Other libertarians in my group, we predicted that Trump would win. We are also predicting he will win in 2020.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I think you're giving them too much credit. While what you write is true with respect to the long term effects of using imported educated workers, most companies and executives are strictly focused on the current fiscal quarter and year. They don't care what the impact of importing H1-B workers does to their own company in five years, let alone have interest in examining what it does to the country or the world.
And that's capitalism right there. If it's cheaper to poison the water, poison the air, have the laborers work in unsafe conditions, cut medical benefits, cut education costs, etc... for the next year, then the decision is automatic.
Perhaps electing a con man with zero political experience into the single most important political position in the country wasn't such a smart idea...
Pricing is the right approach, although using percentages to alter pricing is risky because you run the risk of "A10" workers being paid even less in nominal terms so that they're still cheaper WITH the added taxation.
I think with a lot of the outsourcing mills that are foreign-owned, you might end up seeing complex compensation systems that involve fractional payment deferred or paid into accounts overseas so that the nominal wage remains competitive even with additional marginal taxes.
I would tweak your plan slightly:
1) H1B workers must be paid 125% of the job's regional maximum
2) H1B workers must be employed and paid directly for the business who is the end beneficiary of their work -- they may not perform any contractual labor
3) H1B workers are fee to switch employers during the term of their visa
4) Violation of these terms is a crime. Employers are subject to a fine of 3x the employee's annual salary and a 5 year ban on hiring any H1B workers. H1B workers are subject to immediate detention and deportation for violating these rules. Employers who violate these terms for more than 1 employee concurrently are subject to criminal prosecution.
(1) Insures they are no longer cheap labor and business-critical innovation geniuses will make this kind of salary anyway.
(2) Prevents them from being used in labor mills or enabling foreign-owned firms from side-channel payments. They must be direct hires.
(3) No indentured servitude. This prevents businesses willing to accept higher salaries but who set extreme working conditions to cost-average their output to local salary levels ($/hr).
(4) Puts teeth into enforcement.