In my specific industry, “paying more” really is t an option
If someone told you "iPhones cost too much for me to buy one", is your first impetus to start a program to lower the price, or is it to tell the person, "bummer. Figure out how to pay for it."
Supply and demand aren't just for products. It applies to labor too.
They are also used by fashion models and fashion models are paid a pittance
There's a variety of visas. Not all of them are H1B.
Also, the solution to this problem is extremely easy: Pay more. Salaries/wages are not etched into stone tablets. If you can't find a US person, and you end up too low in the list, then you need to pay more.
That's not the problem you just solved. All you managed to do is ask for foreign saw mill workers to be paid as much as low undercut foreign doctors.
First, I have a very hard time believing you can't find US-born sawmill workers.
Second, supply-and-demand. If the position is cheap, then there's many qualified people, and it's not that hard to find a US-born worker. If you can't find one at the wage you are trying to pay, supply-and-demand still applies. Pay more.
we simply don’t get enough us-born applicants to meet our hiring needs.
First, the employees you describe are not eligible for an H1B visa. They have to be out of the country at the start. Second, why are you only doing an H1B visa? It's temporary. Sponsor them for a permanent one so you can keep them after you've trained them. Third, as I said in the first post, if you really can't find the workers in the US you should be willing to pay more than someone looking for the cheapest labor. Which means you get those H1B visas and the cheapasses don't.
Don't hand out the visas in a "lottery". Sort the applications by salary. Start handing them out for the highest-paid workers, and work your way down.
If you really can't find these workers in the US, you'd be willing to pay more to import them. If you're just looking for cheap bodies, well you're gonna end up towards the bottom of the list and not get any visas.
Odd. It was always my money and always has been. It is listed right there in my check as me having earned it, they just took it out and made it "theirs".
Your quasi-religious belief that "taxation is theft" does not change the basic accounting involved. The money you pay in today gets paid out tomorrow. It can't be "saved for you" if it's already been paid out to someone older.
And, here's the key to getting your head around this: The accounting has always been done this way. Since 1940, the tax money collected from the young was paid to the old.
Your contributions are only tracked to determine how much money you get from young people when you do retire.
Hm. After a moment's thought, I am fairly well along on the idea that you are a plant or government agent.
You've been on the receiving end of a lifetime of propaganda. You're going to have some cognitive dissonance when reality starts intruding on your carefully-astroturfed worldview. But your desire for reality to be different does not change what reality is.
The country can't be important than its people because the country is nothing without its people.
Pssst...."people" is more than you. "People" includes the elderly. That's why we, the people, decided to provide a retirement backstop for them.
We have hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars just sitting here, set aside for Social Security
We did not have hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars just sitting there, because there was not a large trust fund yet. The surpluses (in the years they had them) were fairly small.
So now, there are only "promises" in the Social Security account and Social Security payments are made from the General Fund.
So what? Breaking those promises would cause the economic collapse of the country. It would make 2008 look like a minor event. So they are not going to be broken.
The alternative you strangely think is superior would be to literally have a vault full of cash that returns exactly 0% interest. Which would have made the Boomer-GenX size problem even worse because interest payments could not be used to reduce the Social Security taxes collected.
You get the additional benefit of now pointing out that since Social Security payments to individuals are made out of the General Fund, we can all complain about how the old people are costing us money
You seem to have forgotten about the years before 1983 when Social Security did run a deficit and was paid from a transfer from the General Fund.....and there were no mobs seeking to off grandma.
We are only paying back interest we are not paying back principal.
False.
Bonds work like this: "You give me $100. In 1 year, I'll give you $105".
There are no "interest payments". It is not a credit card. When a bond comes due, both the interest and principal are paid.
At some point the usa is going to have to declare bankruptcy
Doubtful. We are still able to sell bonds at an extremely low interest rate, and that's not going to suddenly change. (There was a paper claiming there is an inflection point, but the authors of that paper "accidentally" forgot to include all the data they claimed to be using. Including all the data results in no "interest cliff".)
There could be a potential problem if we had to stop issuing bonds in US Dollars. That's what happened to countries like Greece and Spain - the Euro meant they couldn't use monetary policy to make their downturns less painful. But the US is going to issue bonds in US Dollars for the foreseeable future.
But that's not entirely true. Social security works for a pre-1950's death and birth rate.
It also works for the current death and birth rate. The increase in taxes to build up the trust fund has never been rescinded. That increased tax rate makes up for the smaller difference in generational size. Or almost makes up for it. Depends on who's predictions you want to believe about the economy 40-50 years from now.
It will work as long as the following generations are at least a little larger than the previous ones. GenX will probably be fine - Millennials are larger than GenX, and the subsequent generation looks like it will be larger than Millennials. We can't really make any decent predictions about the Millennials since that relies on guessing how many kids will be born to people who are currently toddlers.
Even if the predictions of an eventual shortfall are correct, the fix is pretty damn easy: Raise the cap on the tax. Income inequality means that Social Security taxes no longer apply to a significant percentage of total US income. Raise the cap a bit, and you get back to applying to the same percentage of income.
Nowadays there are more people retiring than people entering the workforce
That would be the entire reason for the Greenspan Commission and the creation of the massive trust fund. Baby boomers are retiring.
It is a lie to pretend that this trend will continue forever. Because the Baby Boom followed by GenX is an anomaly.
There is an even bigger myth that the Social Security plan is a good investment.
What makes it a "good" investment for retirement is it is an extremely safe investment. It's the backstop for when all else has failed. Which means comparing it to the return you could get from a 401k or IRA is not the best idea. Those could utterly fail you if you happen to be unlucky, such as if you retired in 2006.
So what you need to compare it to is the return on a similarly safe investment. Such as...the US bonds the Social Security trust fund invests in.
For fuck's sake, I'm not entirely sure the country will exist when I hit retirement age
Then you're more interested in being edgy and nihilist than reality.
But shit, I could mean the life-sustaining condition of the landmass
No prediction about climate change renders any of the US uninhabitable by humans. It's a huge problem for agriculture, but humans can still live where specific plants can not.
Or I could mean our entire species
Extinction of an entire species with as many individuals as humans is extremely difficult. Climate change could kill billions, but that still leaves billions alive.
But some people think massive hyperbole is the best way to get people to care about it, so they push it.
"When you retire" is so far off radar I'm struggling to depict the gap.
And the people seeking to destroy Social Security know that and are counting on it. 'Cause you're not going to kill yourself, but you will vote many more times before retirement starts to feel real to you. (And that reality is not necessarily pleasant. It could really feel like you're going to have to work until you die)
The US is becoming more like Europe where generations tend to live together instead of each new generation setting out on their own
The US was dominated by multi-generation households until after WWII. Each new generation did not set out on their own until we created massive suburbias.
Slashdot Mirror
In my specific industry, “paying more” really is t an option
If someone told you "iPhones cost too much for me to buy one", is your first impetus to start a program to lower the price, or is it to tell the person, "bummer. Figure out how to pay for it."
Supply and demand aren't just for products. It applies to labor too.
They are also used by fashion models and fashion models are paid a pittance
There's a variety of visas. Not all of them are H1B.
Also, the solution to this problem is extremely easy: Pay more. Salaries/wages are not etched into stone tablets. If you can't find a US person, and you end up too low in the list, then you need to pay more.
Supply and demand apply to labor too. If the salaries are currently not as high, then they will rise when supply is less than demand.
The problem with that is California and New York would get as many visas as needed while Austin, Raleigh or Denver companies would not get any.
Not hard to fix. Multiply the salary by a cost-of-living index.
Also, in Raleigh we're getting paid like we're in California. It's quite nice.
That's not the problem you just solved. All you managed to do is ask for foreign saw mill workers to be paid as much as low undercut foreign doctors.
First, I have a very hard time believing you can't find US-born sawmill workers.
Second, supply-and-demand. If the position is cheap, then there's many qualified people, and it's not that hard to find a US-born worker. If you can't find one at the wage you are trying to pay, supply-and-demand still applies. Pay more.
we simply don’t get enough us-born applicants to meet our hiring needs.
First, the employees you describe are not eligible for an H1B visa. They have to be out of the country at the start.
Second, why are you only doing an H1B visa? It's temporary. Sponsor them for a permanent one so you can keep them after you've trained them.
Third, as I said in the first post, if you really can't find the workers in the US you should be willing to pay more than someone looking for the cheapest labor. Which means you get those H1B visas and the cheapasses don't.
Do you have even the slightest idea of how a company gets an H1B visa for a worker?
Part of the process is telling the government 1) you want one. 2) how much you will be paying the H1B worker.
Golly.....it's so difficult to figure out how someone could come up with a list!
Until the project rockets past the deadline and the cost overruns start piling up. Then they call it "re-shoring" and bring it back to the US.
(Then 5 years down the line, management has been replaced due to turnover, and the new management has the brilliant idea of offshoring the work again)
Are you under the illusion that offshoring is new? Or that billions have not been spent trying to make it work?
Don't hand out the visas in a "lottery". Sort the applications by salary. Start handing them out for the highest-paid workers, and work your way down.
If you really can't find these workers in the US, you'd be willing to pay more to import them.
If you're just looking for cheap bodies, well you're gonna end up towards the bottom of the list and not get any visas.
That already exists, and is called "offshoring". It tends to not work all that well in practice.
No, a small fraction of people did. The vast majority stayed where they grew up. And grandma lived with them.
Odd. It was always my money and always has been. It is listed right there in my check as me having earned it, they just took it out and made it "theirs".
Your quasi-religious belief that "taxation is theft" does not change the basic accounting involved. The money you pay in today gets paid out tomorrow. It can't be "saved for you" if it's already been paid out to someone older.
And, here's the key to getting your head around this: The accounting has always been done this way. Since 1940, the tax money collected from the young was paid to the old.
Your contributions are only tracked to determine how much money you get from young people when you do retire.
Hm. After a moment's thought, I am fairly well along on the idea that you are a plant or government agent.
You've been on the receiving end of a lifetime of propaganda. You're going to have some cognitive dissonance when reality starts intruding on your carefully-astroturfed worldview. But your desire for reality to be different does not change what reality is.
The country can't be important than its people because the country is nothing without its people.
Pssst...."people" is more than you. "People" includes the elderly. That's why we, the people, decided to provide a retirement backstop for them.
We have hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars just sitting here, set aside for Social Security
We did not have hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars just sitting there, because there was not a large trust fund yet. The surpluses (in the years they had them) were fairly small.
So now, there are only "promises" in the Social Security account and Social Security payments are made from the General Fund.
So what? Breaking those promises would cause the economic collapse of the country. It would make 2008 look like a minor event. So they are not going to be broken.
The alternative you strangely think is superior would be to literally have a vault full of cash that returns exactly 0% interest. Which would have made the Boomer-GenX size problem even worse because interest payments could not be used to reduce the Social Security taxes collected.
You get the additional benefit of now pointing out that since Social Security payments to individuals are made out of the General Fund, we can all complain about how the old people are costing us money
You seem to have forgotten about the years before 1983 when Social Security did run a deficit and was paid from a transfer from the General Fund.....and there were no mobs seeking to off grandma.
We are only paying back interest we are not paying back principal.
False.
Bonds work like this: "You give me $100. In 1 year, I'll give you $105".
There are no "interest payments". It is not a credit card. When a bond comes due, both the interest and principal are paid.
At some point the usa is going to have to declare bankruptcy
Doubtful. We are still able to sell bonds at an extremely low interest rate, and that's not going to suddenly change. (There was a paper claiming there is an inflection point, but the authors of that paper "accidentally" forgot to include all the data they claimed to be using. Including all the data results in no "interest cliff".)
There could be a potential problem if we had to stop issuing bonds in US Dollars. That's what happened to countries like Greece and Spain - the Euro meant they couldn't use monetary policy to make their downturns less painful. But the US is going to issue bonds in US Dollars for the foreseeable future.
If you're self-employed, your social security "investment" triples
You're paying both halves of payroll taxes if you're self-employed. If you're paying 3x payroll taxes, you need a better accountant.
But that's not entirely true. Social security works for a pre-1950's death and birth rate.
It also works for the current death and birth rate. The increase in taxes to build up the trust fund has never been rescinded. That increased tax rate makes up for the smaller difference in generational size. Or almost makes up for it. Depends on who's predictions you want to believe about the economy 40-50 years from now.
It will work as long as the following generations are at least a little larger than the previous ones. GenX will probably be fine - Millennials are larger than GenX, and the subsequent generation looks like it will be larger than Millennials. We can't really make any decent predictions about the Millennials since that relies on guessing how many kids will be born to people who are currently toddlers.
Even if the predictions of an eventual shortfall are correct, the fix is pretty damn easy: Raise the cap on the tax. Income inequality means that Social Security taxes no longer apply to a significant percentage of total US income. Raise the cap a bit, and you get back to applying to the same percentage of income.
Nowadays there are more people retiring than people entering the workforce
That would be the entire reason for the Greenspan Commission and the creation of the massive trust fund. Baby boomers are retiring.
It is a lie to pretend that this trend will continue forever. Because the Baby Boom followed by GenX is an anomaly.
There is an even bigger myth that the Social Security plan is a good investment.
What makes it a "good" investment for retirement is it is an extremely safe investment. It's the backstop for when all else has failed. Which means comparing it to the return you could get from a 401k or IRA is not the best idea. Those could utterly fail you if you happen to be unlucky, such as if you retired in 2006.
So what you need to compare it to is the return on a similarly safe investment. Such as...the US bonds the Social Security trust fund invests in.
For fuck's sake, I'm not entirely sure the country will exist when I hit retirement age
Then you're more interested in being edgy and nihilist than reality.
But shit, I could mean the life-sustaining condition of the landmass
No prediction about climate change renders any of the US uninhabitable by humans. It's a huge problem for agriculture, but humans can still live where specific plants can not.
Or I could mean our entire species
Extinction of an entire species with as many individuals as humans is extremely difficult. Climate change could kill billions, but that still leaves billions alive.
But some people think massive hyperbole is the best way to get people to care about it, so they push it.
"When you retire" is so far off radar I'm struggling to depict the gap.
And the people seeking to destroy Social Security know that and are counting on it. 'Cause you're not going to kill yourself, but you will vote many more times before retirement starts to feel real to you. (And that reality is not necessarily pleasant. It could really feel like you're going to have to work until you die)
It isn't in the US. So winners on US game shows have a big tax bill the following April.
Then explain how there are more Millennials than GenXers.
Did you really think the web page to buy treasury products would somehow demonstrate the lack of a budget surplus?
Or are you under the delusion that you can't run a budget surplus if a deficit exists?
Basically, I'm trying to figure out which flavor of wrong you are.
you can manually do that for known port ranges like Xbox or most things
If you only have one on your network.
The US is becoming more like Europe where generations tend to live together instead of each new generation setting out on their own
The US was dominated by multi-generation households until after WWII. Each new generation did not set out on their own until we created massive suburbias.
I'm not sure where all the disparagement towards millenials is coming from.
IMO, it's a combination of older people always having "these kids today" complaints, and the Boomers losing power for the first time in their lives.
If you want people to buy your stuff, you need people who have the money to buy your stuff.
But...but....then I couldn't buy by 8th mansion!!! You don't expect me to get by on only 7, do you? That is so selfish of you!!