Article

2011-10-04 Home Front: Culture Wars

Bloomberg Calls H-1B Visa Caps 'National Suicide'

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Besoeker 2011-10-04 06:20|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 Bloomberg Calls H-1B Visa ~~Caps~~ 'National Suicide'

FIFY. The explosion of H1Bs from a couple thousand a year to hundreds of thousands a year destroyed generations of home grown computer and electronic graduates. They removed the incentive to spend the time and effort to acquire the skills and knowledge as companies manipulated and gamed the H1B rules rather than invest in American employees. Better to have the immigration sword over the head of an imported employee than have to pay the market for true free labor and establish personnel policies that treated such employees as an asset rather than a liability.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-10-04 07:52|| 2011-10-04 07:52|| Front Page Top

#2 Other relevant Bloomberg quotes:

"I have Limburger cheese in my underwear!"

"Cows should be prohibited in the US. For the children!"

"I am a living god. I demand the city council appoint me to that position and build temples in my name."

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-10-04 08:01|| 2011-10-04 08:01|| Front Page Top

#3 How else are they going to pay CEO bonuses?

Posted by Skidmark 2011-10-04 09:19|| 2011-10-04 09:19|| Front Page Top

#4 I'm not happy about agreeing with Bloomberg on anything, but why do we have caps on visas for skilled workers with degrees when any idiot can walk over the border and start mowing lawns?

Posted by Iblis 2011-10-04 10:00|| 2011-10-04 10:00|| Front Page Top

#5 Well Mayor Droopy Butt, if it weren't for people like you in Manhattan skyscrapers inventing perverse incentives, maybe the 1+ million lawyers in this country would have become scientists and engineers instead of suing everything thing in sight and putting up regulatory roadblocks to every productive activity in sight. If it weren't for people like you shipping every damn job overseas or importing 20 million illegal aliens so you can become fabulously wealthy arbitraging the difference in wage levels, Americans would become the factory workers, construction workers and techs to build a better future instead of welfare spongers and drug dealers.

BTW, Mikey, I can call you Mikey. Ever been to an American university graduate science or engineering class? Notice one thing you won't see? Americans. That's where the next generation of inventions and industrial leaders will emerge. Notice where the classes are jam packed with Americans? Law and MBA programs. For now. Until the fall.

Posted by Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-04 10:09|| 2011-10-04 10:09|| Front Page Top

#6 ...but why do we have caps on visas for skilled workers with degrees when any idiot can walk over the border and start mowing lawns?

Because a lot of the most enthusiastic supporters of 'old' America are skilled immigrants who take those skills and opportunities in the traditional sense and make something of themselves, while the low skill elements are here for all the bennies with which pols justify redistribution. There are few potential future voters be gathered in the latter and far more in the former. Thus slack enforcement of immigration for the 'millions' in the 'walk across the border'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-10-04 11:00|| 2011-10-04 11:00|| Front Page Top

#7 The H1-b program should be suspended indefinitely.

First, its not true that this is for engineers and I doubt that even the majority are issued for engineers or scientists. I work in financial services and companies I've worked for seek H1-b's for any candidate they want to hire, be it finance, accounting, marketing, whatever. I've never seen an application denied.

Not true about engineering schools not haveing Americans. My kid is in engineering. It's hard, but more American kids would participate if compensation matched other professions. Tough for comp to rise if we continue to import cheap talent, and foreign kids are willing to work cheap to get a shot an an American passport.

Allowing cheap illegal immigrants into the country screws low skilled workers and H1-B's screw educated workers. Both are stupid policies.

Posted by DoDo 2011-10-04 11:18|| 2011-10-04 11:18|| Front Page Top

#8 It's class warfare. They don't want to pay an American middle class. It's just that simple.

And, on the lower end, ie. those who walk across the border and start mowing lawns, they don't want to pay an American working class.

It would be better if they had the balls and the brains to do something about inflation. Then they could afford to pay Americans.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-10-04 11:44|| 2011-10-04 11:44|| Front Page Top

Allowing cheap illegal immigrants into the country screws low skilled workers and H1-B's screw educated workers. Both are stupid policies.

Yep.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2011-10-04 12:00|| 2011-10-04 12:00|| Front Page Top

#10 Not true about engineering schools not haveing Americans.

It is. I did 4 years in a PhD engineering program. Americans were a definite minority, between 20-30% at my school.

Posted by Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-04 12:06|| 2011-10-04 12:06|| Front Page Top

#11 Americans have never been as keen on engineering PhDs. Partly because a BS in engineering pays considerably better than most bachelor degrees, and partly because most of those who study engineering prefer to learn on the job rather than forgo three years of salary to come in at a starting salary around what they would get with 3-5 years of experience, given about equal promotion prospects. That certainly was the calculation Mr. Wife made, back in 1982, when he decided to go into industry instead of go on for further degrees, his original plan. Had he wanted to stay in academia, the PhD would have been mandatory, however.

The sciences are different. With a BS you can be a lab technician, just the same as if you had a high school diploma; it takes a PhD to get into management, as it's been for generations.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-10-04 12:50|| 2011-10-04 12:50|| Front Page Top

#12 The STEM (science, engineering, technology and math) grad programs at our major state university are heavily populated by Chinese and other nationals. University Prez actively seeks this since their govts pay lots. How else can he pay the layers of highly paid administrators?

Posted by lotp 2011-10-04 13:02|| 2011-10-04 13:02|| Front Page Top

#13 Does stopping outsourcing to foreign workers bother you that much Loonberg??? Goooooood....

Posted by Fat Bob Bourbon9196 2011-10-04 14:10|| 2011-10-04 14:10|| Front Page Top

#14 When I went to college thirty plus years ago, my university let all the foreign students in on in-state tuition. I as a student from a neighboring state, had to pay out of state tuition.

Every American in this country should be required to watch this video prior to voting in the next election. Watch it and weep.:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/16421&ts0hb=&story=ht

Posted by Jeque Hupairong2828 2011-10-04 14:19|| 2011-10-04 14:19|| Front Page Top

#15 The oligarchs & people at the top, like Bloomberg, don't want to pay an employee any more than they have to, because it decreases their share of the pie. Importing cheap labor at all levels fills their pockets, and to hell with the rest of the country.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-04 16:05|| 2011-10-04 16:05|| Front Page Top

#16 WaPo had an article today about one mechanism the insiders are using:
Corporate boards aim to pay their executives at levels equal to or above the median for executives at similar companies.

The idea behind setting executive pay this way, known as peer benchmarking, is to keep talented bosses from leaving.

But the practice has long been controversial because, as critics have pointed out, if every company tries to keep up with or exceed the median pay for executives, executive compensation will spiral upward, regardless of performance. Few if any corporate boards consider their executive teams to be below average, so the result has become known as the Lake Wobegon effect.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-04 17:14|| 2011-10-04 17:14|| Front Page Top

#17 "peer benchmarking,"

Something unions picked up for their retirement packages. If union A got it in the next building, next town, state, etc, then we should have it too.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-10-04 17:29|| 2011-10-04 17:29|| Front Page Top

#18 I suspect peer benchmarking has a far more destructive effect on for-profit corps, but maybe that's just me. At least I get to vote, one way or another, now & then, on public employee unions. I get no effective vote on for-profit corps, unless I should own most of their stock, and sometimes, even that is not enough.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-04 17:31|| 2011-10-04 17:31|| Front Page Top

22:54 rjschwarz
22:31 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:22 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:16 gorb
21:58 Procopius2k
21:54 Procopius2k
21:31 SteveS
21:11 Barbara
21:07 Sping Panda9115
20:58 Barbara
20:32 newc
20:26 Lord Garth
20:16 Bright Pebbles
19:43 Thing From Snowy Mountain
19:10 Glenmore
19:07 Glenmore
19:04 Glenmore
18:54 SteveS
18:49 SteveS
18:44 Glenmore
18:42 Anguper Hupomosing9418
18:36 Anguper Hupomosing9418
18:19 Bright Pebbles
18:07 Anonymoose