Does this stop the head of Volkswagen from traveling to the US to work-related meetings with leaders of Volkswagen US?
No, meetings are fine. Any business-related work in US is fine, as long as you're not getting paid by a US company for it. So, going to meetings, conferences, training, etc. is all fine. There are some grey areas when you work for a foreign subsidiary of a US company and you're staying for a week or longer at the US office... then it's often up to the security officer at the border to determine whether that's considered work or not -- many companies end up getting their employees short-term work visas for such trips, just in case.
If your spouse was killed by a drunk driver, would you feel better knowing that millions of drunk drivers didn't kill anyone? It's one of those things such that the consequences are so dire taking extreme measures is warranted. A hack can be business ending, or in the case of government agencies people could lose their lives.
I think you're taking things to extremes. Drunk driving has no redeeming qualities. Having full internet access at work has a significant positive impact on productivity.
Similarly, we're also not talking about the government here. The government should reasonably take extreme precaution to safeguard data that would cause lives to be lost.
As opposed to where else, Mr. Wizard? I can't think of a better, easier place to start a business in the entire world than in the US.
Exactly. People who haven't lived and worked in at least a couple of other countries don't realize how much better the opportunities to start something are here compared to most of the world... even with all the crap going on.
Are there rules in place now that prevent foreign investors from owning equity stakes in US companies (outside of sectors with existing statutory limits)?
No, you can invest as much as you want, but you can't work in US. That's the difference. Entrepreneurs want to start a company and do the work, and not simply invest in it.
A funny (and common, especially among Canadians who have summer homes in Florida) example -- you can buy a house in US and rent it out and earn money from it. But, you can't come over and do any maintenance work on your rental property -- you have to pay someone to do it.
Obviously, it's hard to enforce, but that's the law.
By the way, I find it kind of funny that I'm on this side of the conversation. Usually I am about protectionism.
You'll always find the most extreme views online. It's hard to support either side in these kinds of arguments, neither is willing to accept a bit of common sense.
Really? Sally is irritated she can't check Facebook during the work day so let's expose our intranet to hacking?
Millions are checking facebook from work without their intranet being backed. You can lower the chances of being hacked quite a bit without resorting to extremes.
And, if Sally is irritated, Sally will not work as well, or will not work there at all (any more). I think many companies employing software and hardware developers have long ago learned that keeping Sally happy is the best way to get a productive workforce, and keep a low turnover rate.
So that tells me that your company doesn't make enough money to support the workers that it needs. Find new streams in income or fail.
That's ridiculous logic. You've arbitrarily inflated the cost of workers we need by 100% and that you say that the company should fail if it can't support that.
It can support workers paid the typical wage. If you don't interfere by inflicting an arbitrary penalty on a US business, it wouldn't need to fail and lay off all the rest of their US employees.
This is because, in order to hire an H1-B, the employer must first advertise the job to US persons.
Not true.
The US applicants waste their time, and the H1-Bs get the positions. Give us a call when there are plenty of HIRES of US citizens for these, or any, positions.
The US applicants that don't get the job find something other than their bad interview/resume to blame, that's what it is. Tech companies have real openings, and many of them, but aren't yet willing to hire just anybody like they did in the early 2000s when a couple of keywords on your resume would get you a job a thousands of stock options.
Every offer my company makes is going against at least two others, and we're not even in California where it's probably even harder to get someone. Qualified EE/CE new grads (from US colleges) are getting scooped up a year before they graduate.
If there truly are no Americans who can do the job at 200% of the DOL wage rate, then employers should be happy to pay 200% to import the skilled labor they say they need.
Spoken like someone who's never employed anyone. If I post a job for $175K and get no takers here but a German applies for it and looks good... how can I be happy to pay $350K for him instead? That kind of a premium is pretty much not worth it for any talent. All that's going to do is make me reduce the output of the company so that I don't need to hire anyone.
Flooding any nation with immigrants until social structures break benefits no one. Immigration is a noble thing (both of my grandparents were immigrants), but there are practical limitations that need to be enforced.
Do you think that the H1B limit of 0.02% of the population per year is not a practical limitation?
We've built our society around a social contract where you work hard, make your employer rich, and get a little bit for yourself. That's the whole "American Dream".
The American Dream of moving up through hard work pretty much always included doing something yourself. It never was about working for somebody... maybe it was easier 50 years ago to work for somebody and live ok, but you were never coming out of the middle class unless you did something for yourself.
And, US is still the easiest place in the world to start a business and make some money, if you know what you're doing.
That's hand waiving. Corporations say they need H1B's because there aren't skilled Americans to do the job. Let them prove it by paying for it.
For "non-exploitation" H1Bs, they already pay high salaries and then have to pay quite a lot of money in relocation, legal fees to get that employee transferred to green card eventually, etc. It's not as much as $200K, but it's certainly at least half of that for most cases.
Remember, it's not that there aren't skilled Americans to do the job, there aren't skilled Americans *available*. If you look at the highly paid IT/engineering jobs that require 10+ years or experience, almost every company out there has a bunch of openings *all the time*. They are very difficult to fill.
If you close the loophole of underpaid and cheap H1Bs, the rest of the system will work just fine. It's already very difficult and expensive to bring in experts on H1Bs.
You don't want tons of algae growing in your pool, but there's nothing particularly dangerous about it.
They are growing because of lack of adequate levels of chlorine, i.e. adequate sanitation. All kinds of other bad things are growing in there along with it.
Dumping some chlorine in doesn't solve the problem, as that chlorine gets used up extremely quickly trying to kill the vast amounts of organic life in the pool that's making it look green. It can take several days of continuous pumping, filtering, and scrubbing, along with keeping the chlorine at very high levels (4x to 10x the normal levels are needed to break down complex organism vs. just keeping them from growing in the first place) by frequently adding it to the water is needed just to clear up a green backyard pool..
It's really not my job to go the extra distance to improve their security. The card is the way it is, and if it's good enough for the banks, it's good enough for me.
I've had the card cloned a couple of time in the last five years, and it was never more than a minor inconvenience. Call the number in the back, tell them that I didn't spend $2000 on a strip club in Mexico, and they send me a new one.
Being transparent is also leaking information to Russia and *everyone* else, so I fail to see the difference.
I don't expect our president to be technically capable enough to secure their own data, so they have to rely on experts. And, let's face it, there are precious few experts out there that can secure data 100% when faced with a determined opponent. Government, top-secret projects, companies, etc. have all failed to secure data over time.
When it comes to skills needed to run a country, being able to personally secure their "secret data" is very low on my list, and I would've expected it to be low for most people here.
It truly boggles my mind how Microsoft have continually screwed their own customers over for decades, and yet still all the sheep out there keep buying their products, then are shocked/outraged when their turn inevitably comes around.
Maybe the explanation is that most of their customers don't feel like they have been "continually screwed" by them? I personally don't remember being screwed by them for at least 10 years or so.
What that tells you is that Clinton simply can't be trusted: she is incapable of securing secrets, whether it is DNC secrets or national security secrets
I thought we don't like secrets around here, do we? What better president that one that has no secrets!
And you wont be able to use your nice $300 earphones your got for your android device or laptop on your iPhone as well. No, now your get to buy two pairs of headphones for twice the price instead.
If you've spent $300 on headphones, I'm sure the $3 adapter will be within your means. Or maybe you can get the premium monster cable version for $30. Either way, you won't have to buy another pair of headphones.
I also don't buy it, but for another reason: The 2.5mm jack exists. If it was really about thinness, why not just use that?
Because you'd have everybody bitch about that, too, as you'd have to use a *gasp* adapter to plug in your headphones.
If you're going to change it to something incompatible, you might as well change it to something that might give you higher quality audio options *and* be thinner, instead of just thinner.
Nobody cares about the transistor counts, people upgraded because in about a year, your computer got twice as fast. This effect was known as a "Moore's law".
Just because you, your grandma, and CNN's tech section editor misunderstood something for a while, doesn't make it right.
There was a deal for Xbox One with an extra controller, $50 gift card, 2 games, all that for $269. If you were looking to get one for the kids, it's a very good deal.
There was some Samsonite luggage for 30% off... again, if you were looking for new luggage, it's a good deal.
I don't know about impulse buys, but there were good deals on things that you might've been waiting to get a deal on before you do buy. If you're lucky enough to navigate to them and find them, that is.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Very true, many of the products are poisoned by these "unbiased" reviews.. :(
No, meetings are fine. Any business-related work in US is fine, as long as you're not getting paid by a US company for it. So, going to meetings, conferences, training, etc. is all fine. There are some grey areas when you work for a foreign subsidiary of a US company and you're staying for a week or longer at the US office... then it's often up to the security officer at the border to determine whether that's considered work or not -- many companies end up getting their employees short-term work visas for such trips, just in case.
I think you're taking things to extremes. Drunk driving has no redeeming qualities. Having full internet access at work has a significant positive impact on productivity.
Similarly, we're also not talking about the government here. The government should reasonably take extreme precaution to safeguard data that would cause lives to be lost.
Exactly. People who haven't lived and worked in at least a couple of other countries don't realize how much better the opportunities to start something are here compared to most of the world... even with all the crap going on.
No, you can invest as much as you want, but you can't work in US. That's the difference. Entrepreneurs want to start a company and do the work, and not simply invest in it.
A funny (and common, especially among Canadians who have summer homes in Florida) example -- you can buy a house in US and rent it out and earn money from it. But, you can't come over and do any maintenance work on your rental property -- you have to pay someone to do it.
Obviously, it's hard to enforce, but that's the law.
You'll always find the most extreme views online. It's hard to support either side in these kinds of arguments, neither is willing to accept a bit of common sense.
They rolled it out in Austin, but most of the techies with lots of disposal income are living in suburbs that aren't served by Google...
Some, however, are now served by AT&T fiber -- probably side-effect of having Google in town, so I guess something good came out of it after all.
Millions are checking facebook from work without their intranet being backed. You can lower the chances of being hacked quite a bit without resorting to extremes.
And, if Sally is irritated, Sally will not work as well, or will not work there at all (any more). I think many companies employing software and hardware developers have long ago learned that keeping Sally happy is the best way to get a productive workforce, and keep a low turnover rate.
That's ridiculous logic. You've arbitrarily inflated the cost of workers we need by 100% and that you say that the company should fail if it can't support that.
It can support workers paid the typical wage. If you don't interfere by inflicting an arbitrary penalty on a US business, it wouldn't need to fail and lay off all the rest of their US employees.
As requested -- it's not a good idea because many would not be very happy working in such an environment.
And, what does "it works" mean -- what have you achieved through this process?
Doesn't everybody have a phone on which they check personal emails (and post on slashdot) even when not on breaks?
Not true.
The US applicants that don't get the job find something other than their bad interview/resume to blame, that's what it is. Tech companies have real openings, and many of them, but aren't yet willing to hire just anybody like they did in the early 2000s when a couple of keywords on your resume would get you a job a thousands of stock options.
Every offer my company makes is going against at least two others, and we're not even in California where it's probably even harder to get someone. Qualified EE/CE new grads (from US colleges) are getting scooped up a year before they graduate.
No, there are plenty of *real* jobs out there.
Spoken like someone who's never employed anyone. If I post a job for $175K and get no takers here but a German applies for it and looks good... how can I be happy to pay $350K for him instead? That kind of a premium is pretty much not worth it for any talent. All that's going to do is make me reduce the output of the company so that I don't need to hire anyone.
Do you think that the H1B limit of 0.02% of the population per year is not a practical limitation?
The American Dream of moving up through hard work pretty much always included doing something yourself. It never was about working for somebody... maybe it was easier 50 years ago to work for somebody and live ok, but you were never coming out of the middle class unless you did something for yourself.
And, US is still the easiest place in the world to start a business and make some money, if you know what you're doing.
For "non-exploitation" H1Bs, they already pay high salaries and then have to pay quite a lot of money in relocation, legal fees to get that employee transferred to green card eventually, etc. It's not as much as $200K, but it's certainly at least half of that for most cases.
Remember, it's not that there aren't skilled Americans to do the job, there aren't skilled Americans *available*. If you look at the highly paid IT/engineering jobs that require 10+ years or experience, almost every company out there has a bunch of openings *all the time*. They are very difficult to fill.
If you close the loophole of underpaid and cheap H1Bs, the rest of the system will work just fine. It's already very difficult and expensive to bring in experts on H1Bs.
They are growing because of lack of adequate levels of chlorine, i.e. adequate sanitation. All kinds of other bad things are growing in there along with it.
Dumping some chlorine in doesn't solve the problem, as that chlorine gets used up extremely quickly trying to kill the vast amounts of organic life in the pool that's making it look green. It can take several days of continuous pumping, filtering, and scrubbing, along with keeping the chlorine at very high levels (4x to 10x the normal levels are needed to break down complex organism vs. just keeping them from growing in the first place) by frequently adding it to the water is needed just to clear up a green backyard pool..
It's really not my job to go the extra distance to improve their security. The card is the way it is, and if it's good enough for the banks, it's good enough for me.
I've had the card cloned a couple of time in the last five years, and it was never more than a minor inconvenience. Call the number in the back, tell them that I didn't spend $2000 on a strip club in Mexico, and they send me a new one.
Being transparent is also leaking information to Russia and *everyone* else, so I fail to see the difference.
I don't expect our president to be technically capable enough to secure their own data, so they have to rely on experts. And, let's face it, there are precious few experts out there that can secure data 100% when faced with a determined opponent. Government, top-secret projects, companies, etc. have all failed to secure data over time.
When it comes to skills needed to run a country, being able to personally secure their "secret data" is very low on my list, and I would've expected it to be low for most people here.
Maybe the explanation is that most of their customers don't feel like they have been "continually screwed" by them? I personally don't remember being screwed by them for at least 10 years or so.
I thought we don't like secrets around here, do we? What better president that one that has no secrets!
If you've spent $300 on headphones, I'm sure the $3 adapter will be within your means. Or maybe you can get the premium monster cable version for $30. Either way, you won't have to buy another pair of headphones.
Because you'd have everybody bitch about that, too, as you'd have to use a *gasp* adapter to plug in your headphones.
If you're going to change it to something incompatible, you might as well change it to something that might give you higher quality audio options *and* be thinner, instead of just thinner.
Just because you, your grandma, and CNN's tech section editor misunderstood something for a while, doesn't make it right.
I think he does know, because that's the very next thing he said in his post that you failed to read.
There was a deal for Xbox One with an extra controller, $50 gift card, 2 games, all that for $269. If you were looking to get one for the kids, it's a very good deal.
There was some Samsonite luggage for 30% off... again, if you were looking for new luggage, it's a good deal.
I don't know about impulse buys, but there were good deals on things that you might've been waiting to get a deal on before you do buy. If you're lucky enough to navigate to them and find them, that is. :)