Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all! May 2008 be a much better year, especially to all you programmers and other workers who are getting screwed by Congress with all the offshoring and the visa histrionics.

A Fence Plus More

I do not believe that a border fence will be effective by itself. Here are the arguments supporting this from a colleague of mine:

Fences work best near large urban areas, where the illegals can overwhelm the effectiveness of any small contingent of enforcement police through a sudden swarming action and can quickly blend ("disappear") into areas with similar culture and language. Thus the fence near San Diego has reduced illegal entry there tremendously.

Virtual fences can only work if there's a will to enforce the law with boots on the ground, and since the lack of such a will has caused the problem in the first place, an expensive virtual fence is unlikely to do much except serve as a firearms target for coyotes. Bush promotes the virtual fence idea of course because it gives the appearance that he's doing something when he really isn't -- except wasting our money and stalling to run out the clock on his term of office.

Of course the most important thing is to remove the rewards of coming here illegally -- employment, driver's license, education, free healthcare for the putatively indigent, sanctuary cities, unwillingness to enforce the law. The courts, the government at all levels, and the cheap labor lobby have strenuously fought any such removal.

Where Do They Stand?

Do you want to know how the 2008 Presidential candidates stack up on the issues of illegal immigration and on importing foreign workers? Look no further than here. This grid will be frequently updated as new information is gathered.

As a left-leaning independent, the whole Democratic slate sickens me on these issues. Looking overall at both the Republican and Democratic slates, I can only ask why is it so damn hard to find a policitican that still believes in the concept of America?

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Looks like Boeing is paying through the nose for all the "quick easy savings" afforded by offshoring in this WSJ Article.

Anonymous reactions:

I remember the layoffs of 10,000s. Now they will pay 10 times the labor savings and probably go bankrupt.

I have seen companies having problems building two Test Stations alike and only 20ft. apart. Between off shoring to their vendors and the Matrix system they can expect more delays. They will never learn. I feel sorry for those on the first test flights.

The sad part is that those jobs are gone, the American workers paid the price and the CEO who made this decision got away with millions in bonuses.

"Foreign doctors" push back against Britain

Guidance making it harder for doctors from overseas to take up training posts in the NHS has been ruled unlawful.

The Department of Health said they could only be considered for a training post if there was no suitable graduate from the UK or European Union. The Court of Appeal has ruled that they must be allowed to compete for training posts on an equal footing.

See the remainder of the article here.

As an associate pointed out after reading this article, how many European or American doctors are allowed to compete in India for government paid training? No matter how you cut it, China and India are exclusionary, to the point that would not be tolerated in this country. This is a big reason why Americans compete on an unequal playing field.

 

Even Shortage Shouters Stumble

Professor Norm Matloff’s latest newsletter (November 20, 2007) pulled together some of the slipups from those industry where they don’t have their story straight (it is hard to be consistent all the time when you are lying). The following are quotes from the newsletter:

 

Jim McGrath, a Cisco executive for Global Leader of University Relations and Recruiting, let out this. While some students may believe IT won't provide a long-term career path because so many positions are outsourced to other countries, McGrath indicated this simply isn't true. "There are limits on the number of foreign nationals that can be hired due to H1-B visa caps. IT is one of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S."

 

In other words, McGrath is admitting that the H-1B program DOES displace American workers. If the cap were higher, he is saying, then those young people's fears that they would lose their jobs to foreign workers would be valid.  He is saying that employers would shun (even more) American workers in favor of H-1Bs if only Congress would allow them to do so.  And concerning the current level of the cap, even the most charitable interpretation of his remarks would be that the present cap is not hurting Americans but a higher cap would harm them. 

 

A few years ago, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Queen of H-1B in Congress, sought to address concerns that H-1Bs are used as cheap labor by proposing that any H-1B paid more than $60,000 be exempt from the cap.  Her spokesperson lauded the proposal, saying "$60K is peanuts in Silicon Valley."  Indeed!

 

The Minister of Commerce of India called H-1B "the outsourcing visa," totally contradicting the industry's claim to use the visa only to remedy staffing shortages.

 

Stephen Seideman, dean of the New Jersey Institute  of Technology's engineering graduate program, stated that foreign students "will do everything they can to stay here," thus demonstrating their exploitability, which is why the industry lobbyists are pushing Congress so hard now to provide special visas for foreign students.

 

Former Fed chair Alan Greenspan stated that we need H-1B in order to hold down American tech worker salaries.

 

And then of course there is the mother of all blurts, the entire YouTube video collection made by the Cohen and Grigsby law firm, showing employers how to legally hire foreign workers at below-market pay and how to exploit loopholes which allow an employer to sponsor a foreign national for a green card while legally rejecting qualified Americans.

 

A Really Great Site - NumbersUSA

I have written in past entries about NumbersUSA. This site makes it painlessly easy to track issues that are important to you and to easily contact your representatives in Congress. Set up an account (it’s free), check off the issues that you want to track, and sit back and wait for email notifications. It literally takes only a minute to send a fax to your congressman.

 

It is even easier than voting. If this is too much hassle for you, you shouldn’t be an American. Really.

A DREAM Denied

I got a copy of a pointed letter concerning the article What Happens to a DREAM Denied by Gary Endleman over on Immigration Daily that I’d like to share.

 

Mr. Endleman,

 

Perhaps you could explain to an unemployed American programmer why we should have more H-1Bs?

 

Specifically could you address the following:

1. If corporations get all the H-1Bs and green cards they want, can the long term consequence be anything other than total dependence on foreigners for technology?
2. Is Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrong? He testified to Congress:  “Simply producing more engineers and scientists may not be the answer because the labor market for those workers will simply reflect lower wages or, perhaps, greater unemployment for those workers.”
3. Is Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, a supporter of more foreign workers (he is one), wrong? He says “…the problem isn't the supply, it's the demand…we have enough engineers and scientists. The problem is that the salaries aren't there.”
4. Why are law firms, like the notorious Cohen & Grigsby, holding seminars on how to legally avoid hiring qualified Americans?   Lawrence Lebowitz’s famous quote explaining of the PERM application process to employers. "Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker, and that, in a sense, sounds funny, but it's what we are trying to do here."
5. Shortage at what price? My undergraduate economics professor made a big deal about it not making economic sense to claim a shortage without a price.  For example, claiming there is a shortage of good five cent cigars makes sense.  A claim that there is a shortage of cigars is foolish.   There is no doubt that there is a shortage of college graduate programmers at $20,000 a year, is there a shortage at what the average American programmer makes?  So the question is at what price?
6. If there is a shortage why are real wages going down?
7. Why is it that those employers who claim a shortage of American tech workers laying off so many of them?
8. Is socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrong? He says "What many of us have come to understand is that these H-1B visas are not being used to supplement the American workforce where we have shortages but, rather, H-1B visas are being used to replace American workers with lower cost foreign workers,"
9. Is Nobel economist Milton Friedman wrong when he says the H-1B is a subsidy?  He said "There is no doubt, that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy." 
10. Why not end the H-1B and other work visas and allow a free market solution?  An increasing wage will attract more workers to science and engineering and solve any supply shortage that MAY exist.  Free markets do not have shortages.

Thank You,

 

JHM

The Myth of the Indian Programmer

Do you know what an Indian software engineer does for a living? T. Surendar finds uncomfortable answers in this Times of India article.

They are the poster boys of matrimonial classifieds. They are paid handsomely, perceived to be intelligent and travel abroad frequently. Single-handedly, they brought purpose to the otherwise sleepy city of Bangalore. Indian software engineers are today the face of a third-world rebellion. But what exactly do they do? That’s a disturbing question.

They Lied!

During the comprehensive immigration reform battle, the pro-immigration side said that there were only 12 million illegals in the country, trying to keep from alarming those in the center.

Now the truth comes out that there are more like 37.5M.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070912/ap_on_go_ot/census_demographics

The number of immigrants nationwide reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country. But the effects have not been uniform.

Balls of Steel or Lying Through His Teeth

Bush: Protectionism will cost U.S. jobs

Alarmed by slipping support for free trade even among Republicans, President Bush is arguing that protectionism will cut Americans out of chances for more — and better — jobs.

These globalists just will not give up. They have no concept of honor, of country, of patriotism. They will lie, cheat, abuse to get what they want. They will destroy their country, their countrymen, anyone who gets in the way.

Unbelievable.

Finally, support for American workers in a TV ad

I was jolted to attention when it came on, even though I was working on my computer and the TV was only playing in the background. A wife tells her husband, "You didn't get the job, did you?"
and the husband replies something to the effect of: "No, they were only hiring foreign workers."

This gives a new slant to the term "reality TV." It doesn't get much more real than this to the millions of us out here that have experienced this FOR REAL. And we have been below the radar screen until now, like being invisible. Here's a link for you to see the ad yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cNnK2M4OTs


Brought to you by the Coalition for the Future American Worker

http://www.americanworker.org/

We feel your pain -- but not too much

As Norm Matloff says, the depression of salaries shows there is no shortage of technical workers as the industry shills claim there is -- it is all just a sham. Here the collaborators in the sham admit so much for all to see. Does their arrogance mean that they don't fear any repercussion? Have things gone that far? Or is confession good for the soul even for these shameless destroyers?


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56744

excerpt:

"The cover article in the current issue of the Council on Foreign Relations magazine Foreign Affairs asserts globalism has harmed even well-educated workers in the U.S., creating a gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" greater than any time since the 1920s.

......

Scheve and Slaughter argue that under the globalization policies pursued by the Bush administration from 2000 to 2005, "Even college graduates and workers with nonprofessional master's degrees saw their mean real money earnings decline."

They conclude average earnings for 96.6 percent of all U.S. workers fell between 2000 and 2005, due largely to globalism."

Let Them Be Bathed

This is a press release from Elaine Chao, our illustrious Secretary of Labor. Its a public showing of contempt for resident workers. Long ago, this would have gotten someone run out of office. Of course, long ago, this would not have been merely passed off to the public - a real reporter would have been all over this. See what you think...

New York, June 28 – Foreign workers may be taking over jobs in the U.S. — not because they’re willing to work for less, but because they have better workplace skills and discipline. According to this Sunday’s Intelligence Report column in PARADE magazine, that’s the message Labor Secretary Elaine Chao hears from U.S. executives who are worried about America’s competitive edge. While job losses have been relatively low thus far — one study estimates that only 280,000 jobs out of 115 million in the service industry are outsourced each year – that could change. U.S. employers say that many workers abroad simply have a better attitude toward work. “ American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene,” says Chao. “They need anger-management and conflict-resolution skills, and they have to be able to accept direction. Too many young people bristle when a supervisor asks them to do something.”

As for our economic future, Chao notes that most of the fastest growing fields today require advanced skills and are “very high or high wage.” To learn what jobs are hot and how you can get retrained in the changing economy, go to Parade.com.

Let's talk about journalism for a minute.

The Committee of Concerned Journalists has a Project for Excellence in Journalism that has defined the nine principles which should guide journalists in their quest to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information.

1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience

Dean Takahashi is a "journalist" at the San Jose Mercury-News.

He wrote a column recently about Who are the `New Influencers'
(It turns out they are bloggers - maybe I have hope after all!).

I placed quotes around the word journalist when I describe his occupation because at best I consider him a second-rate "journalist", since in my opinion he doesn't follow any of the journalistic principles listed above.

In my opinion, his recent blog entry on the need to increase the number of H-1B visas issued smells of strong industry influence (can you say ITAA?) and seems to be more of his opinion than fact or substance.

By the way, Dean, I hope you enjoyed the BJ that you got from Robert Hoffman of Oracle for writing this trash!

Here is a recent article Dean wrote that really got my blood boiling...

(The above link requires free sign-up to Mercury-News web site,
so the full text of his article is shown below...)

Takahashi: We need more Andy Groves, Vinod Khoslas - not fewer
By Dean Takahashi
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News Article
Launched:05/24/2007 02:27:30 AM PDT

Seth Sternberg feels like he won the lottery. The chief executive officerof Web instant messenger firm Meebo in Palo Alto has spent many hourscoming up to speed on the H-1B visa program. In April, he and hisimmigration law consultants were finally able to secure H-1B visas for two employees in his 16-person firm.

But for every lucky winner, there are a lot of losers in the current immigration rules that govern how companies can bring temporary workersinto the United States to do highly skilled work. The current H-1B visa system is ridiculous and badly needs reform. The government should allow more technology geniuses into the country so that Silicon Valley and the nation can maintain leadership in technology.

The clearest sign of a dysfunctional H-1B system: The federal government received more than 130,000 applications in a single day for the 65,000 H-1B visa slots available for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. And the 65,000 lucky ones can't start work until Oct. 1.

We've heard for years that immigration reform is a priority in Washington,but only last week was there some progress. A number of H-1B bills have been introduced and the congressional leadership reached a deal last week with President Bush as part of a larger, controversial immigration package.The bills seek to nearly double the number of annual grants of H-1B visas, which are good for six years. The cap has been stuck at 65,000 for four years.

Immigration is a tough issue because it encompasses everything from national security to whether undocumented workers are taking jobs away from unemployed Americans. Nobody wants to address a piece of the problem without addressing the whole thing. The consequence for the U.S. tech industry has been a bureaucratic morass that keeps it from adapting to the realities of globalization.

The tech industry's main concern is the more narrow issue of how to deal with the
smaller group of immigrants whose skills are so scarce that they can do jobs for which there aren't enough similarly qualified U.S.citizens.

Sternberg is on the front line of this problem. His company, Meebo, which makes software that enables consumers to look at their instant messages no matter where they are, often has to make 100 screening phone calls just to find a candidate worth hiring. He has 13 open positions and has hired only two people recently. Last year, Sternberg hired a foreign worker but,without a visa, that worker had to work outside the country.

Good candidates are rare. Two-thirds of those getting electrical engineering doctorates in the United States are foreign nationals. Sternberg believes he should be able to hire candidates who are best qualified, regardless of where they live.

"It's incredible that, as the CEO of a company, I have had to become intimately familiar with the details of immigration law," Sternberg said.

CEOs of big companies, such as Mike Splinter at Applied Materials, say that every person who gets a doctorate ought to be entitled to a green card. Executives like Splinter and other tech leaders have joined together in lobbying groups such as "CompeteAmerica."

But Sternberg says that leaves out the very bright foreign students whohave lesser degrees but are brilliant. The proposal would ignore folks, like Bill Gates, who are technically smart but drop out of college.

Sternberg is willing to pay H-1B hires as much as equally qualified U.S.workers. That makes the H-1B hires more expensive due to relocation expenses and the costs of the lawyers needed to bring them here.

Beyond fixing the H-1B program, various tech lobby groups say the government should expand the number of training visas it gives to recent foreign graduates, give priority to spouses of H-1B visa holders, and expedite the processing of highly skilled immigrants applying for permanent residency. Those "green card" applicants have historically been at a disadvantage compared with those seeking family reunification. If the government were better at processing the green cards for skilled workers, companies wouldn't have to resort to H-1Bs, says Jenifer Verdery, director of workforce policy at Intel.

Some critics say H-1B hires displace American workers. At current levels, H-1B visa holders are 0.07 percent of the American workforce, and 57 percent of them have master's degrees or higher, according to the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-profit research group that favors expanding the H-1B program.

Some of the bills before Congress require companies to show that they have made good-faith efforts to hire Americans. And Sternberg says the government can use the IRS returns of H-1B visa recipients and other company employees to determine if the companies are underpaying the immigrants.

"It's critical that the government ensure that no one is cheating the system," Sternberg said.There are other things to criticize about the program, such as the high number of visas that wrongly go to overseas outsourcing firms. Overall, enforcement actions are on the decline and the outsourcing problem has been overblown, according to the NFAP. But if the U.S. can't produce enough engineers and we don't encourage the most talented tech workers to come tothis country, it will be at a disadvantage to other nations.

"America benefits by bringing talented people here who can make the country more competitive and create jobs for Americans," Sternberg says. "The more we have talented people, the better off our economy is."

If today's immigration laws were in effect decades ago, Silicon Valley probably wouldn't have the benefit of immigrants such as Intel's Andy Grove or venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Would you say "no thanks" to them ifthey showed up on your doorstep?

Contact Dean Takahashi at dtakahashi@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5739.

Jobs Americans Won't Do

Well the tidal wave of criticism against Bush and his pro-immigration, anti-american worker policies has hit. The Cohen & Grigsby video got pulled by an embarrased set of attourneys, but not before two Congressman got ahold of it and started the questions.

In the spirit of piling on, I'd like to list the "jobs that Americans won't do", you know, the ones that are outsourced and heavily insourced...

Financial Advisor
Legal analyst
Programmer
Engineer
Research lawyer
Radiologist
Architect
...

Construction worker
Nurse
Teacher
Waiter
Soldier
...

Of course, reality is that there are no jobs Americans won't do. There are just a lot of jobs that employers refuse to pay enough money to attract resident workers.

Its About Cheap Labor, Stupid

The cheap labor lobby and immigration lawyers are usually very, very careful to not actually say that "its about cheap labor." Every once-in-a-while, they slip up. Here is a quote from a video at a recent conference that reveals all:

And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. And you know in a sense that sounds funny, but it's what we're # trying to do here. We are complying with the law fully, but ah, our objective is to get this person a green card, and get through the labor certification process. So certainly we are not going to try to find a place [at which to advertise the job] where the applicants are the most numerous. We're going to try to find a place where we can comply with the law, and hoping, and likely, not to find qualified and interested worker applicants.

Thanks to Rob Sanchez for finding this and Norm Matloff for notifying us.

A Very Rare Moment of Honesty

Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University was interviewed on Morning Edition today (4/30/07).

He says that the "US is far ahead by any milestone" when asked about the quality of U.S. engineering graduates versus those from India and China.

In a not-so-indirect way, he thus acknowledges that behind the scenes company executives admit that Americans are the more capable workers (just too expensive), that H-1B visa is all about cheap labor, that companies like Microsoft are definitely gaming the system with their claims of worker shortages.

He says that "outsourcing R&D jobs is not good for the USA".

In closing, when asked "if you were a tech entrepreneur (starting up a new company), what would you do differently?" , he indicated he would act in his company's best interest and get the cheapest labor at the best quality (i.e., he would offshore jobs).

Quote:
"That's capitalism - the system rewards you for doing what's in your own interest. Bill Gates
interests as chairman of M$ are different than Bill Gates' interests as a philanthropist. He doesn't get paid to worry about US competitiveness and to worry about social issues as the chairman of M$".

(posted for AmericanProgrammer)

Strange Bedfellows

As I have stated in a previous posting, not too long ago, I considered myself a liberal Democrat. My times have changed. Below is a citation of an article by Phyllis Schlafly. Now in my previous life, I considered her to the right of Atilla The Hun and would be embarassed to share anything in common with her. Now all I can say is that her article hits the issue dead on - I couldn't agree with her more. The political landscape is changing. Neither the Republicans or Democrats have a clue...

Tech Industry Has Ulterior Motive Regarding H-1B Visas
by Phyllis Schlafly
Posted Dec 18, 2006

The technology industry has dispatched its fat-wallet lobbyists to demand that the new Congress vastly increase the number of foreign computer software techies and engineers who can be imported on H-1B visas. This demand is based on the claim that we suffer a labor shortage in those fields, but that's a bare-faced lie to erect a smoke screen around the real reasons.

(follow link above for complete article)

Shame On You, NPR

Date : 5/24/2007 10:03:49 AM

Dear NPR,

A few minutes ago, I heard a piece on the "immigration reform" going on in Congress. You gave the ITAA, which represents most of the large corporations, a lot of airtime, giving their usual spin about "industry shortages". Anyone who spends at least a little time researching this subject is well aware of the "shortage shouting" that has occurred over the decade (yes, I said decade).

I am forced to conclude that you have either not done your homework, that you consider the corporate point-of-view as the be-all of the issue, or that you cant be bothered interviewing anyone on the other side of the issue, like Professor Norm Matloff, who might give your listeners something closer to the truth on the issue.

When the Republicans had control of Congress, the threatened to cut the funding to NPR. I was very vocal in defending you. Next time I think Ill just tell them to "go ahead and cut because itd make things better for everyone."

Very Disappointed,

Disgusted in Austin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NPR Services responds:

Thank you for contacting NPR's Morning Edition.We regret that our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal. We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration. Thank you for listening to Morning Edition, and for your continued support of public broadcasting.

Message I sent this week to Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Labor:

From: AmericanProgrammer
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 9:09 AM
To: Robert Reich
Cc: Norm Matloff;
Subject: Econ 101 - Supply, demand . . . and an impending thud

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/05/30/PM200705305.html

Dr. Reich -

I listened with interest to your commentary on the U.S. market yesterday (30-May-2007) on the Marketplace program on NPR.

As you noted in your commentary:

"When the supply of something decreases while the demand for it stays up, its price rises."

Apparently basic economics must NOT be a factor when it comes to high-tech employment in the USA.

In the last few years, pay for IT professionals and engineers has NOT risen considerably - in fact, it has stayed flat or declined in terms of purchasing power, but the large American high-tech employers such as Intel and Microsoft keep shouting about so-called "shortages" of workers, lobbying Congress for unlimited H-1B visas.

Norm Matloff has written about this phenomenon on numerous occasions. He has also done considerable research that shows that the average H-1B worker makes at least 20 % less than a citizen or LPR in a similar job.

This must be covered in Econ 201...Do you care to comment publicly on this topic?

Regards,

AmericanProgrammer


----------------
Reich's reply:

Dear Mr. xxxxxxx,

Please send me a citation to Norm Matloff's work.

Thank you.

Robert Reich

-------------------
Dr Matloff''s response to Dr. Reich's inquiry:

H-1B is not about "innovation," this year's buzzword of choice by the
industry lobbyists. I strongly support bringing in "the best and the
brightest" from around the world, but they comprise only a tiny fraction
of the H-1Bs.

Instead, H-1B is used as cheap labor by virtually every U.S. tech firm,
large and small. That is what drives things.

For links to some of my writings on this issue, see

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html

Norm Matloff

Hillary's Great Sellout

Until about three years ago, I was a Liberal Democrat. But that was before the Great Awakening. Now I consider myself an independent progressive. I cannot stand what the Republican party has become. I am repulsed by much of the Democratic party's stance on issues.

To wit: look at Hillary Clinton's stance on visas and offshoring. She recently announced her "innovation agenda," which is an industry buzzword for strongly supporting the industry's stance of "the more visas the better." Her adament support of companies like Tata Consulting is established, but thanks to an indiffernt press, not publicized much. Norm Matloff has written extensively about this.

I used to cheer for Hillary, when Bill was in the Whitehouse. Now she turns my stomach. If she is the Democratic candidate, then I'm staying home on election day.

The Big Green Light

So, lets say that this illegal immigration reform passes in some version like what is proposed. What will be the net effect on those currently outside our country? If you believe Bush, it will increase security. If you use common sense, you'll see that the spigot will get turned on just that much more, as it will be a huge encouragement for those people to come here. After all, the worst that could happen is they could get a visa and the best is they could get citizenship.

Amnesty

So Bush has all this talk about immigration reform, about how its not amnesty. Well here is the definition of amnesty (Webster):

Amnesty - a forgetting or overlooking of any past offense

If someone is in this country illegally, they must have broken a law, and at least on paper, there is a punishment. So not only would offenses not be punished, they would be rewarded. So here is a new phrase we should use since amnesty appears to not quite capture the moment:

Platinum Amnesty

You heard it here first.

Its money, money, money, stupid!

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies shows how, far from the being a source of highly skilled labor, the H-1B program now operates mainly to supply U.S. employers with cheap workers. Analysis of data from the Department of Labor shows that very few H-1B workers are ''highly skilled,'' and that their wages are well below those of comparable U.S. workers.

Why There is No Life After Death

Robert Cringley just had an article about a massive layoff at IBM coming by the end of 2007. I tend to agree with him that this is essentially IBM CEO Sam Palmisano doing nothing but plundering the company for nothing but personal greed.

I really take this as proof that there is no "life after death." For if we were reborn to walk this earth again, then Tom Watson, the founder of IBM, would scream in frustration and releave Sam of his earthly shackles.

Obviously this means there will be no spiritual, divine, or inspired intervention on behalf of the thousands of IBMers who showed the company loyalty and diligence.

VDARE and Paul Craig Roberts

I read a few columnists opportunistically. I browse a few blogs here and there. But I stumbled across Paul Craig Robert's syndicated columns on VDARE about 9 months ago. I have to tell you that no writer has ever gotten my attention like he does. All those thoughts that mill around in my brain are brought together concisely and clearly in his writings. I strongly recomment anyone with a shred of patriotic fiber left in them to check him out. Here are a couple of columns that are absolutely dead on.

Commentary & Analysis: Economists In Denial; Blind To Offshoring's Adverse Impact

Outsourcing—A Greater Threat Than Terrorism?

The Narrow View from Globalists

Here is a Washington Post article on globalism. A relative asked my my opinion on this piece, so I include it next.

As usual, this author, William H Overshot, picks and chooses the things he wants to talk about. He also gets it wrong in many places.

If you look at high tech wages, they are either flat in all areas or have fallen in the past 5 years (Business Week survey). His claims about the workers getting a cut of the profit that the high level managers get is absolutely false for the high-tech industry. What other industries has he been sloppy with?

Its great that prices are better at Wal-Mart. For those who are poor and barely making it, this is a godsend. He claims that this is a 5-10% "effective boost" to everyone's income. What he should say is that its a boost to those who still retain their jobs. In the tech industry, people have lost their jobs due to globalization and have taken subpart jobs with incomes at half (or less) of their old job. If we are going to be thorough, as the author claims, lets be sure to count that %50 loss for these people.

He claims that the assertion that upper managers are getting fat on globalization is "mostly false." Lets put some numbers to that. I believe that the latest figure of the ratio of top CEO pay to worker pay in the US is now at an astronomical 425 or 1. This is unprecedented in history and the closest rival figure is in Great Britain, where its 13:1.

He also makes the favorite globalist claim that globalization is really helping to improve the living standards and conditions in other countries. Well if this is a laudable goal and a primary reason to support globalization, lets go back to that 425:1 figure. Lets scoop off say the top 80% of the CEO salaries and start pumping that into charities that focus on improving the lives of those in third world countries.

The sucking sound you hear isn't jobs be lost this time. Its the sharp intake of breath of The Comfortable who are aghast at anyone threatening the piles of money that they have so rightly earned. It'll be a cold, cold day in hell, when anyone other than the working class fund the improvement of third world living standards.

Outsourcing everything that isn't nailed to the floor...

This is just too funny. Thanks Rob at JobDestruction for pointing this article out. This first line of the article content is

Last month, Lori Danes, 43, called the prayer line of a major television ministry and requested prayer for her mother's persistent ulcers. But her prayer representative, who called himself "Darren," prayed in a strong Indian accent that "all the gods would bless her mightily."

Parsing the Truths About Visas for Tech Workers

THE United States has benefited immensely from its role as a magnet for the best and brightest workers from around the world, especially in innovative fields like high technology. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, sounded precisely that theme in Senate testimony last month when asked about the visa program for skilled workers, the H-1B. Mr. Gates said that these workers are “uniquely talented” and highly paid — “taking jobs that pay over $100,000 a year” — and that America should “welcome as many of those people as we can get.”

But that is not how the H-1B visa program as a whole is working these days, according to an analysis by Ronil Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The median salary for new H-1B holders in the information technology industry is actually about $50,000, based on the most recent data filed by companies with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. That wage level, Mr. Hira says, is the same as starting salaries for graduating computer science majors with bachelor’s degrees.

Yet salaries, according to Mr. Hira, are only part of the story. He says that while Microsoft may be paying its H-1B visa holders well and recruiting people with hard-to-find talents, other companies have a different agenda. The H-1B visa program, Mr. Hira asserts, has become a vehicle for accelerating the pace of offshore outsourcing of computing work, sending more jobs abroad. Holders of H-1B visas, he says, do the on-site work of understanding a client’s needs and specifications — and then most of the software coding is done back in India.

“Information technology offshore outsourcing has just swamped the H-1B program in recent years,” he said. The list of the top 10 companies requesting H-1B visas in fiscal 2006, the most recent government data available, was dominated by Indian-based technology outsourcing companies like Infosys Technologies, Wipro Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services, and a few other companies that offer outsourced services and have sizable operations in India like Cognizant Technology Solutions, Accenture and Deloitte & Touche, according to a paper last month by Mr. Hira, which was published by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group....

Read the entire article here (registration required).

Gone in 60 Seconds

From The Orange County Register

It took just hours Monday for federal officials to log in about 150,000 applications for visas for high-skilled workers to come to the United States, more than double the 65,000 permits that became available on April 2.

Citizenship and Immigration Services has closed the application period and will use a lottery system to determine which employers will get to bring in the workers they want. Companies that don't get the visas they want now won't be able to apply again until April 2008.

Lobbyists like to claim that this is a sure sign of huge increases in the limits on visas. But lets get a few facts straight first.

Companies were told that all applications submitted prior to April 2 were going to be discarded and that a lottery system would be used if demand outstripped supply. This is nothing more than a pressure tactic to whip companies into a hysteria so that they can allocate huge blocks of visas "just in case." If this were gasoline, we'd call this hoarding. But because its foreign labor, everyone gets a free pass.

Instead what this shows is that the industry cannot get enough of cheap labor (as compared to a resident or citizen worker). Doing the simple math shows that 150,000 visas per business day means that our vaunted industry's appetite is closer to 36 million visas per year. Bill Gates has argued recently before Congress for unlimited visas.

Just think hard about what that would do to society as we know it.

To Laugh or To Cry, That is the Question

Offtopic: a paraphrase of what I saw on CNN. This kind of captures the political mindset on this nicely, doesn't it?

We should stop insulting illegal aliens with such a harsh term and instead call them pre-citizens!

STRIVE bill again

Its good to see that not all congressman have forgotten who they are in congress to represent. Check out Congressman Lamar Smith's view on this.

STRIVE

Just as the SKIL fiasco was averted, here comes its second incarnation, brought to you by such senators as Kennedy and Cornyn, called the STRIVE bill. This is more of the same in a relentless attack on resident workers.

Rising Above the Gathering Storm

Here is a public response I made to the Committee of Science and Technology of the US House of Representatives concerning their recently released report at http://sciencedems.house.gov/Media/File/Reports/natacad_compete_exsum_6feb06.pdf

I read the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" and had some observations to add.

1. Many of the recommendations do indeed support the need for "high quality, knowledge-intensive jobs." This is where we agree.

2. The list of consulted experts include academia, government, and captains of industry. Nice try, but this group omits the largest group involved in this issue - the science and technology workers themselves. What makes you think that this blue ribbon panel provides such a diverse base to draw on? All three groups typically align on policy issues. Why don't you try looking for some grassroots representation - or would this irritate the corporate representatives too much?

3. In the exhaustive list of criteria that multinational corporations use in determining where to locate, you left off one of the biggest factors. How can such a group that is so thorough make such a mistake? How about the criteria of environmentally restrictive laws? For energy companies, this may be the biggest factor of all. Take a look at Shell Oil and what's happening in Nigeria for a striking example of this.

4. Recommendation A-1 is aimed at "attracting 10,000 teachers". I would say that all the establishment of grants and such are really secondary efforts. How about making sure that there is a viable job market for future teachers. How does the importation of thousands of teachers from the Phillipines (because they speak English) and the resulting depression of wages and unemployment of existing teachers give aspirants confidence that this is a good field to work in?

5. Recommendation C aims to "retain the best and brightest in the US and in the world." Wake up and smell the coffee. The US economy is no longer, and may never be again, the premier economy to work in. Economies like India and China are booming with high rates of growth due to the substantial outsourcing of jobs from the US to there. Why would someone educated here stay if they can work back home where family, friends, and culture reside?

6. Recommendation C-6, advocating an increase the H1-B visa, is the most disengenuous recommendation. These visas are typically wolfed down by industry, hitting caps early in the year. These are prized for providing a source of cheap labor for corporations. These are not ability-based at all. Upping the limit by 10,000 will do nothing to alleviate any shortage of science and technology workers.

In fact, there is no shortage, today at least. If there were, the unemployment rate in these areas would be zero. If you would like a detailed analysis of this topic, just look up Professor Norm Matloff of UC-Davis. He makes the strong case on many fronts that these visas do not typically attract "the best and brightest." I would strongly recommend that you focus efforts on luring, attracting, and employing existing citizens and permanent residents.

7. Captain of Industry, quote #1: “We go where the smart people are. Now our business operations are two-thirds in the U.S. and one-third overseas. But that ratio will flip over the next 10 years.” –Intel spokesman Howard High. This is the standard industry line. In fact, what he means is, "we go where we can get reasonable performance and the cheapest cost. If there are any negative social consequences to the US for this policy, too bad."

8. Captain of Industry, quote #2: “When I compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow.” –Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation. This is a really rich comment. Mr. Gates ran around the country telling kids to stay in school and go into high tech and then turned around and used his substantial lobbying efforts to get the SKIL bill introduced into Congress. This bill will be instrumental in busting the science and technology job market, ensuring that kids today will become shoe salesmen and restaurant workers.

The very common, and tired industry theme is to mix up two problems to help confuse people. Demand low wage workers today, but blame it on tomorrow's education problem.

Friends of India Redux

As alluded to in an earlier post, the Friends of India is a congressional caucus designed to further the needs of Indian businesses at the expense of citizen and resident workers here. The chief troublemaker is our own Sen. John Cornyn. His main assistant is... (drum roll)... Hillary Clinton. That's right, this is not a Republican vs Democrat issue. All politicians are equally for sale. Clinton is the co-chair. There are other notables too - Kennedy and Lieberman come to mind. In fact, many members of the Senate are falling all over themselves to help Indian businesses displace workers here.

For the "official," "sanitized" description of the caucus, see http://www.usindiafriendship.net/congress1/senatecaucus/senatecaucus.htm. For a more realistic point-of-view, see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/Hillary5.txt.

Chamber of Confusion

Rob Sanchez has reported in his Job Destruction newsletter that "U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue says that anyone who opposes guest worker programs are dumb as a box of rocks. Donohue was defending Bush's proposal to allow unlimited numbers of guest workers into the UnitedStates to take our jobs."

I'm sure that Donohue really meant to say that many American workers now
have as much chance of getting a job as a box of rocks. Or maybe that
anyone that supports guest worker programs are dumb as a box of rocks.
I think Mr. Donohue is confused. It seems that he has some trouble getting
ethics right, also, as evidenced by the following headline, also from Rob's
newsletter: "Chamber President Tom Donohue Has Vested Interest in
Campaign to Limit Consumers Legal Rights as Steward of Two
Scandal-Marred Companies"

Watch Donohue on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjQF7v72YMg