What are you talking about is mainly relevent with respect to trade policy. However, the productive capacity of the US was developed independently of what you are talking about.
I _do_ think the US needs to learn to deal with _much_ more expensive imports-and pass the full cost of maintaining these trade routes onto the public.
Re:Immigration DOES work - I.T. does too.....
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
The question is what kind of playing field should be presented here to companies. Should the US borrowing $0.5 Trillion/year to avoid restructuring the tax system? Should immigration be promoted as a corporate right instead of giving tax breaks to American families?
I don't think automation is the problem per see-but when you have a bad tax system, you can create a situation in which it is _VERY_ difficult for folks to get into productive career track employment. Nader's tax proposal is IMHO quite interesting-but it hasn't been seriously enough examined.
Re:Man, don't you just HATE this economy?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Please address the points in the article.
Unemployment isn't a good measure of joblessness anymore. Home ownership doesn't mean much-you need to look at equity levels. Wealth? Look at median levels of wealth-and ask how is wealth increasing relative to population.
Re:Damn, whatever happened to just being humane?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Part of what I was trying to develop here: first the government should endeavor to do no harm to its citizens. I honestly feel that trade and immigration policy (And for that matter tax policy) have done a lot of harm to a lot of people in the US. I hope that harm can be undone without hurting immigrants or their countrymen.
Re:Progressive view of Milton Friedman is uneducat
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Milton Friedman is pro-business in that he would like to see a much larger portion of economic activity carried out in the private sector instead of the public sector. He would like the market to sort out how that is divided between large and small businesses-and tend to feel that can be done with minimal regulation or tweaking of tax policy(something that I tend to disagree with him on- I think his estimates of monopoly impact on the economy are way too low).
Re:Have we really lost jobs under Bush?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Read the article please. Much of what you talk about is explicity covered there.
Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
I would suggest I'm more of a progressive in the tradition of folks like Norm Thomas and Henry George than most folks that call themselves "progressive" today. A lot of rich folks have made a lot of money by recent US immigration policy at the expense of the broad range of the American public. Those rich folks should pay to clean up the mess they've made. What is sad is how many "progressives" are rally just catering to the opinions of political and economic elites today.
Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
The thing is: vdare has tried to focus on the immigration issue-which is something on which there is a huge gap between elite opinion and that of the mass of the american public. Recent US immigration policy was made by and for the rich. Why is it facist to expose that?
Re:Immigration in and of itself is NOT the problem
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
I think you need to look at how tax and trade policy have made it very, very difficult for young Americans to have children.
Re:anti-immigration sentiment
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Over 75% of the American public object to the current immigration policies. Those policies are put in place by monetary influence over the political process--that is what I would suggest is truly objectionable here.
Re:What a HORRIBLE article..
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
This isn't about blaming immigrants-it is about looking at policies that were constructed specifically to make rich folks richer.
Re:OK it is an election year...
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
First off, there are alternatives to immigration for handling workforce development:
automation/robotics
life extension technologies
changing tax policies so folks can afford to
have kids
Not to mention significantly expanding the resource base through stuff like developing of the oceans(which is more immediate) and space development(Which is an interesting long term bet).
Secondly, if you read my article, I don't blame immigrants for the problems. Most of them are just hard working folks trying to get ahead. I blame the politicians that made policy here because they made a very, very bad set of policies that don't encourage wealth creation and don't appropriately set a level playing field. Trade predicated on a half trillion dollar deficit is just plain not a good idea. Letting companies use immigration rights as corporate perks is just plain pork.
In my article, I was referring to 2003. Another the problem of course is that the L-1 program has been expanded to take up the slack from present curtailment of H-1b quotas.
Re:You've left out Litigation
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
I would check out the facts about the Mexican judiciary. 1. In Mexico the federal judiciary employs 29,800 employees; in the much larger and richer United States the same number is 34,000.
2. Mexico employs about 900 federal judges; in the United States it is 1700.
3. The Mexican Supreme Court employs 3400 individuals; in the United States the corresponding number is 430.
4. The Mexican federal judiciary employs more chauffeurs than judges.
Re:Kerry's Official Policy .....
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I think what you are missing here is quite how massive a population shift this would mean. We'd be looking at 20-30% of the population of Mexico in the US(something similar to what we saw from Puerto Rico before social programs were expanded to allow folks to stay in PR).
Part of the problem is that there are all kinds of "invisible" transfer programs. That large a movement of population would involve need to substantially expand US infrastructure-and it isn't obvious the businesses that employ these people really pay enough taxes to create that infrastructure.
Even if you could adjust the tax rates accordingly, there would _still_ be the effect of using immigration rights as partial compensation of private employees.
I would support any measure that removes some of the corporate welfare aspect of H-1b. However, the problem was never really training of the US citizens. The US has some fundamental problems with trade, immigration and tax policy that are affecting the human capital investment in the US.
Re:What About the Constitution?
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
Something that is worth noting here: Until 1875, immigration policy was largely handled by the states. Exclusive transfer of immigration policy to the federal government was part of the gradual expansion of federal powers that I expect you would oppose.
Recent US immigration policy is an extreme example of corporate welfare of the type you oppose. Literally companies and the affluent are using immigration policy to further concentrate wealth in their hands.
Here are figures on the correlation between H-1b presence and cost of housing. What is more interesting is the correlation between H-1b workers and concentrations of high income individuals. I don't have a state by state breakdown of loss of IT jobs by state yet-I would be interested in anyone who can provide those figures.
The fact that Enron chose to do business in india _and_ chose to use Indians to main their IT department both show the company was open to doing business with Indian business interests. The folks in the IT staff had the data to show criminal activity early on in the game. That data may or may not have been used-but at the very least there is a real interesting coincidence here that bears investigation.
Lots of coders have access to _very_ sensitive information. In the case of Enron, that included information that could incarcerate the upper management of Enron. What makes you so sure that information wasn't used in that way?
So you don't think that that the fact that Enron had substantial illegal operations in the US-and the fact that a lot of the people who had access to the data that could incriminate the companies managers has anything to do with the fact that there was a substantial boondoggle in the country where the people with incriminating evideence came from? You think this is all just a coincidence?
What hasn't really made it into the press is that about $3 billion of the $12 Billion in shareholder losses at Enron were in India. Did this have anything to do with the fact that the lion's share of Enron's US IT staff were H-1b workers from India? Certainly the H-1b program gave Enron's management more rope with which to hang themselves-for example Enron had entire team software projects with no legal purpose! (A Spectrum Article talked about that one).
I don't have the numbers handy-but the Pacific Northwest has been wacked even harder than California. Unemployment isn't really a good metric here. You also need to look at things like hunger(which is quite a bit higher in the Northwest). Unemployment figures tend mostly to count people that are collecting unemployment insurance-lots of folks drop though the cracks. The PNW had it share of dot cons-but the dot con thing is only part of the story. You also need to look at places where the H-1b fad has been big--and that is NYC/California. H-1b/L-1 have been a much bigger factor in displacing US workers than the dot com crash _and_ outsourcing _and_ the business cycle put together--Just look at the number of visas issued--and the number of jobs lost. By 2002(according to Norm Matloff), there were over 400K H-1b workers--and that doesn't count the folks on the other visas--or the folks that got green cards--and the fact that H-1b/L-1 are often used to facilitate outsourcing.
The recount issue opens a lot of cans of worms. Both major parties have serious issues with fraud. The fact that Daley's son did the negotiations for Gore says something right there.
As far as judges: they do tend to "go native" once in DC and on the supreme court. Still, I tend to think they'll tow the line on big issues.
I think you are _way_ underestimating how fast some of these markets can move in response to political directives. Basically the businessmen do what they think Bush's policies given them incentives to do. Different policies make for different incentives.
I think that for most folks what we need is better means of helping them get the data together that they want to look at. One guy did this at an interesting site. The other thing is that folks need a better way of handling relations and statistical functions. Right now, you need to learn a _lot_ to do stuff that shouldn't be that hard. Its almost like folks wanted to make sure that any project of this nature would need a DBA _and_ a script developer(or team) _and_ a statistician to get work done. That really shouldn't be the case.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you talking about is mainly relevent with respect to trade policy. However, the productive capacity of the US was developed independently of what you are talking about.
I _do_ think the US needs to learn to deal with _much_ more expensive imports-and pass the full cost of maintaining these trade routes onto the public.
The question is what kind of playing field should be presented here to companies. Should the US borrowing $0.5 Trillion/year to avoid restructuring the tax system? Should immigration be promoted as a corporate right instead of giving tax breaks to American families?
I don't think automation is the problem per see-but when you have a bad tax system, you can create a situation in which it is _VERY_ difficult for folks to get into productive career track employment. Nader's tax proposal is IMHO quite interesting-but it hasn't been seriously enough examined.
Please address the points in the article.
Unemployment isn't a good measure of joblessness anymore. Home ownership doesn't mean much-you need to look at equity levels. Wealth? Look at median levels of wealth-and ask how is wealth increasing relative to population.
Part of what I was trying to develop here: first the government should endeavor to do no harm to its citizens. I honestly feel that trade and immigration policy (And for that matter tax policy) have done a lot of harm to a lot of people in the US. I hope that harm can be undone without hurting immigrants or their countrymen.
Milton Friedman is pro-business in that he would like to see a much larger portion of economic activity carried out in the private sector instead of the public sector. He would like the market to sort out how that is divided between large and small businesses-and tend to feel that can be done with minimal regulation or tweaking of tax policy(something that I tend to disagree with him on- I think his estimates of monopoly impact on the economy are way too low).
Read the article please. Much of what you talk about is explicity covered there.
I would suggest I'm more of a progressive in the tradition of folks like Norm Thomas and Henry George than most folks that call themselves "progressive" today. A lot of rich folks have made a lot of money by recent US immigration policy at the expense of the broad range of the American public. Those rich folks should pay to clean up the mess they've made. What is sad is how many "progressives" are rally just catering to the opinions of political and economic elites today.
The thing is: vdare has tried to focus on the immigration issue-which is something on which there is a huge gap between elite opinion and that of the mass of the american public. Recent US immigration policy was made by and for the rich. Why is it facist to expose that?
I think you need to look at how tax and trade policy have made it very, very difficult for young Americans to have children.
Over 75% of the American public object to the current immigration policies. Those policies are put in place by monetary influence over the political process--that is what I would suggest is truly objectionable here.
This isn't about blaming immigrants-it is about looking at policies that were constructed specifically to make rich folks richer.
First off, there are alternatives to immigration for handling workforce development:
automation/robotics
life extension technologies
changing tax policies so folks can afford to
have kids
Not to mention significantly expanding the resource base through stuff like developing of the oceans(which is more immediate) and space development(Which is an interesting long term bet).
Secondly, if you read my article, I don't blame immigrants for the problems. Most of them are just hard working folks trying to get ahead. I blame the politicians that made policy here because they made a very, very bad set of policies that don't encourage wealth creation and don't appropriately set a level playing field. Trade predicated on a half trillion dollar deficit is just plain not a good idea. Letting companies use immigration rights as corporate perks is just plain pork.
In my article, I was referring to 2003. Another the problem of course is that the L-1 program has been expanded to take up the slack from present curtailment of H-1b quotas.
1. In Mexico the federal judiciary employs 29,800 employees; in the much larger and richer United States the same number is 34,000.
2. Mexico employs about 900 federal judges; in the United States it is 1700.
3. The Mexican Supreme Court employs 3400 individuals; in the United States the corresponding number is 430.
4. The Mexican federal judiciary employs more chauffeurs than judges.
I think what you are missing here is quite how massive a population shift this would mean. We'd be looking at 20-30% of the population of Mexico in the US(something similar to what we saw from Puerto Rico before social programs were expanded to allow folks to stay in PR).
Part of the problem is that there are all kinds of "invisible" transfer programs. That large a movement of population would involve need to substantially expand US infrastructure-and it isn't obvious the businesses that employ these people really pay enough taxes to create that infrastructure.
Even if you could adjust the tax rates accordingly, there would _still_ be the effect of using immigration rights as partial compensation of private employees.
I would support any measure that removes some of the corporate welfare aspect of H-1b. However, the problem was never really training of the US citizens. The US has some fundamental problems with trade, immigration and tax policy that are affecting the human capital investment in the US.
Something that is worth noting here:
Until 1875, immigration policy was largely handled by the states. Exclusive transfer of immigration policy to the federal government was part of the gradual expansion of federal powers that I expect you would oppose.
Recent US immigration policy is an extreme example of corporate welfare of the type you oppose. Literally companies and the affluent are using immigration policy to further concentrate wealth in their hands.
Here are figures on the correlation between H-1b presence and cost of housing. What is more interesting is the correlation between H-1b workers and concentrations of high income individuals. I don't have a state by state breakdown of loss of IT jobs by state yet-I would be interested in anyone who can provide those figures.
The fact that Enron chose to do business in india _and_ chose to use Indians to main their IT department both show the company was open to doing business with Indian business interests. The folks in the IT staff had the data to show criminal activity early on in the game. That data may or may not have been used-but at the very least there is a real interesting coincidence here that bears investigation.
Lots of coders have access to _very_ sensitive information. In the case of Enron, that included information that could incarcerate the upper management of Enron. What makes you so sure that information wasn't used in that way?
So you don't think that that the fact that Enron had substantial illegal operations in the US-and the fact that a lot of the people who had access to the data that could incriminate the companies managers has anything to do with the fact that there was a substantial boondoggle in the country where the people with incriminating evideence came from? You think this is all just a coincidence?
What hasn't really made it into the press is that about $3 billion of the $12 Billion in shareholder losses at Enron were in India. Did this have anything to do with the fact that the lion's share of Enron's US IT staff were H-1b workers from India? Certainly the H-1b program gave Enron's management more rope with which to hang themselves-for example Enron had entire team software projects with no legal purpose!
(A Spectrum Article talked about that one).
I don't have the numbers handy-but the Pacific Northwest has been wacked even harder than California. Unemployment isn't really a good metric here. You also need to look at things like hunger(which is quite a bit higher in the Northwest). Unemployment figures tend mostly to count people that are collecting unemployment insurance-lots of folks drop though the cracks. The PNW had it share of dot cons-but the dot con thing is only part of the story. You also need to look at places where the H-1b fad has been big--and that is NYC/California. H-1b/L-1 have been a much bigger factor in displacing US workers than the dot com crash _and_ outsourcing _and_ the business cycle put together--Just look at the number of visas issued--and the number of jobs lost. By 2002(according to Norm Matloff), there were over 400K H-1b workers--and that doesn't count the folks on the other visas--or the folks that got green cards--and the fact that H-1b/L-1 are often used to facilitate outsourcing.
The recount issue opens a lot of cans of worms. Both major parties have serious issues with fraud. The fact that Daley's son did the negotiations for Gore says something right there.
As far as judges: they do tend to "go native" once in DC and on the supreme court. Still, I tend to think they'll tow the line on big issues.
I think you are _way_ underestimating how fast some of these markets can move in response to political directives. Basically the businessmen do what they think Bush's policies given them incentives to do. Different policies make for different incentives.
I think that for most folks what we need is better means of helping them get the data together that they want to look at. One guy did this at an interesting site.
The other thing is that folks need a better way of handling relations and statistical functions. Right now, you need to learn a _lot_ to do stuff that shouldn't be that hard. Its almost like folks wanted to make sure that any project of this nature would need a DBA _and_ a script developer(or team) _and_ a statistician to get work done. That really shouldn't be the case.