Having been unemployed in IT since 07 best start a business hoping it gets large enough to hire them cheaply for us
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Ryan<mailto:michaelrtr@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Kenneth H Werner<mailto:KHWerner@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: midrange jobs<mailto:midrange-jobs@xxxxxxxxxxxx> ; cpf0000<mailto:cpf0000@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: [MIDRANGE-JOBS] Fw: CW's Thibodeau speculates on what Obamawill do on H-1B, GCs
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That's pretty tacky...
> <grin> I have to end now and take my H-1Bs for 767 pilot training where
> they take lessons on just flying and bypass training on take offs and
> landings. <grin>
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:59 AM, Kenneth H Werner <KHWerner@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:KHWerner@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
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>
>
> No it is not just "lobbyist influence" is is cold cash money passed
> under the table.
>
> H-1B History
>
> The Congressman that wrote the original H visa law was at the time being
> investigated by the Federal Attorney in Philadelphia for corruption and
> accepting "dirty" money. The original H visa bill permitted universities
> to bring foreign staff to the US without proof there was a labor need
> for them, staff to lectured with an accent so strong student were better
> off not attending class. The Congressman called up then President Carter
> complaining about being investigated by the Federal Attorney. Carter
> called up his Attorney General Bell instructing him to immediately fire
> the Federal Attorney in Philadelphia for doing his job. On Sunday
> morning new shows Carter was grilled for ordering the firing on a
> Federal Attorney for doing his job. The Federal Attorney got fired and
> his replacement did convict the Congressman and the Congressman that
> wrote the original H visa bill to prison. Things have not gotten better!
>
> Because Congress has tied the hands of Federal agencies, local law
> enforcement and local judicial systems have sent to prison sponsors of
> H-1B for bringing females in under H-1B for the purpose of working then
> as prostitutes. By law the State Department has 7 days to approve or
> turn down a H-1B application; basically they only have the right to
> verify that questions are answered and basically have no right to check
> the correctness of the answers (if the person claims to have a college
> degree from a school in India, it likely would takes more than 7 days to
> establish that there is no institution by that name). The labor
> department has beefed up their enforcement of sponsors not paying
> workers the wage on the application or for deductions from their pay
> illegal deductions. Both the labor department and the GAO (the
> investigators and researchers arm for Congress) say clearly the
> legislative intent of H-1B is that the imported worker works solely for
> the sponsoring organization and can not be rented out to another
> organization, a very common practice. Forgetting the application process
> and incorrect answers, published this September an immigration study
> found that sponsors of over 25 percent of H-1Bs are not living up to the
> law or what is said on submitted application.
>
> <grin> I have to end now and take my H-1Bs for 767 pilot training where
> they take lessons on just flying and bypass training on take offs and
> landings. <grin>
>
> SJL wrote:
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>>
>>
>>
>> This newsletter from Norm Matloff of UC-Davis discusses /exactly/ what I mentioned
>> yesterday about the government's complicity in lowering the salaries of American workers
>> since 1990.
>>
>> Obama's proposed 'temporary' increase in H-1B smells of lobbyist influence.
>>
>> This comes straight from the ITAA, Compete America, and Stuart Anderson's 1-man
>> "foundation" which is ironically named the 'National Foundation for American Policy'.
>> Nowadays it appears that 'American Policy' is to favor foreign students and workers /over/
>> our native students and workers.
>>
>> Mark my words:
>> The Democratic majority in the 111th Congress will screw American high-tech workers even
>> worse than the do-nothing 110th Congress.
>>
>> - sjl
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Norm Matloff" <matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 11:51 PM
>> To: "Norm Matloff" <matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:matloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>> Subject: CW's Thibodeau speculates on what Obama will do on H-1B, GCs
>>
>>
>>> To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter
>>>
>>> The late Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle often gave "Unclear on
>>> Concept Awards" for ideas that clearly were not well thought out before
>>> implementation. For instance, he wondered about the wisdom of
>>> supporters of a SF city ballot proposition waving placards at commuters
>>> leaving the city in the afternoon rush hour--most of whom could not vote
>>> on the proposition, as they don't live in the city. I must say that
>>> the enclosed blog by Pat Thibodeau, an excellent writer for
>>> Computerworld, seems Unclear on Concept to me.
>>>
>>> Addressing proposals such as those by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, "Queen of H-1B,"
>>> to give essentially automatic green cards to foreign students in STEM
>>> graduate programs at U.S. universities, Thibodeau asks rhetorically why
>>> Congress would enact such legislation in today's severe economic times.
>>> His answer is that Obama's campaign promise to increase research
>>> spending will require giving the foreign students these easy green
>>> cards.
>>>
>>> It's unclear whether this is merely speculation on Thibodeau's part or
>>> Obama's people have actually given him indications along these lines.
>>> He doesn't cite any Obama aides. In any case, the entire notion just
>>> doesn't make sense.
>>>
>>> First, the foreign grad students themselves don't have much of a green
>>> card problem in the first place. As I've noted before, people with grad
>>> degrees, especially PhDs, already have priority for green cards, with
>>> short waiting times. The much-lamented long waiting times for green
>>> cards are experienced mainly by those who just have a bachelor's degree
>>> (see the data at
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WadhwaIII.txt<
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WadhwaIII.txt>).
>>>
>>> Second, as I've often noted, the reason there are so many foreign
>>> students in U.S. tech PhD programs is that doctoral study is simply
>>> financially unattractive to American students. Even the industry-oriented
>>> NRC study found that an American student incurs a lifetime loss in
>>> earnings by studying for a PhD. That in turn is due to the presence of
>>> the foreign students themselves, who act as cheap labor both in graduate
>>> school and later in the workforce--all planned by our government
>>> National Science Foundation.
>>>
>>> I've often cited that NSF position paper, but it's so important that I
>>> will excerpt it again here. Recall that the NSF specifically advocated
>>> bringing in a lot of foreign students in order to attain the NSF's goal of
>>> holding down PhD salaries. The paper commented on the consequences:
>>>
>>> # A growing influx of foreign PhDs into U.S. labor markets will hold down
>>> # the level of PhD salaries to the extent that foreign students are
>>> # attracted to U.S. doctoral programs as a way of immigrating to the
>>> # U.S. A related point is that for this group the PhD salary
>>> # premium is much higher [than it is for Americans], because it is based
>>> # on BS-level pay in students' home nations versus PhD-level pay in the
>>> # U.S...
>>>
>>> # [If] doctoral studies are failing to appeal to a large (or growing)
>>> # percentage of the best citizen baccalaureates, then a key issue is
>>> # pay...A number of [the Americans] will select alternative career
>>> # paths...For these baccalaureates, the effective premium for acquiring a
>>> # PhD may actually be negative.
>>>
>>> And again, note that it's not just the industry salaries for PhDs, but
>>> the large numbers of foreign students keeps stipends for grad students
>>> low too, around $15,000 for the 9-month academic year. Comparing this to
>>> the $60K or more that a new bachelor's holder starts with in industry,
>>> you can see now why the NRC found that doctoral study is a financial
>>> loser for domestic students, something the NSF recognized too in the
>>> last passage above. That's why there aren't so many domestic students
>>> in grad school.
>>>
>>> If Obama really does increase research funding (actually, I think he
>>> will simply reallocate other research funds to energy research etc.), we
>>> would not "need" the foreign students, as the blog claims. All that
>>> would need to be done is to raise the graduate stipends.
>>>
>>> I served as graduate admissions coordinator in my department for 13
>>> years, and thus have seen this up close. Money does indeed motivate
>>> potential grad students. Give them a stipend even half of what industry
>>> is offering, and they will apply in droves. Every computer science
>>> graduate admissions officer knows this only too well. Even Hillary
>>> Clinton made this proposal during the primary campaign.
>>>
>>> It's even more true now that tech layoffs are beginning. The classical
>>> pattern is that in times of economic slowdown, grad school applications
>>> surge. And we're in much more than a mere slowdown now, with the
>>> implosion of the financial sector and its shock waves felt by most other
>>> sectors. I mentioned the other day, for example, that in recent years
>>> about 30% of Carnegie-Mellon University graduates in electrical
>>> engineering have been hired by the financial industry. Since that
>>> industry is laying off like crazy, and there isn't much hiring
>>> elsewhere, a lot of this year's CMU grads are going to find grad study
>>> to be a good option. If only we offer them a reasonable stipend, even
>>> more will apply.
>>>
>>> Regardless of those conditions, academia and industry are going to have
>>> to wean themselves from this dependence on foreign students anyway. As
>>> I have noted frequently, including the other day, interest among foreign
>>> students in U.S. study had been declining in the last few years anyway,
>>> well before Wall Street's implosion.
>>>
>>> For details on this, I again refer you to the materials in
>>>
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WadhwaIII.txt<
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WadhwaIII.txt> where you can see
>>> quotes from immigrant executives in the U.S. explaining that the tech
>>> markets in India and China have grown to the point at which new grads
>>> find it more attractive to stay home than to come to the U.S. Here
>>> is a condensed version of the comments you can find at the above link:
>>>
>>> [Quoting Lin Lee, director of Sun Microsystems' government strategy in Asia:]
>>> ...said many [Chinese] entrepreneurs want to join startups in China — where
>>> even five years ago they would have tried to immigrate.
>>> ...
>>> [Quoting Rosen Sharma, a U.S. CEO who graduated from India's top top university,IIT:]
>>> Of the 40 people in Sharma's graduating class at IIT Delhi [in 1993], he
>>> says, all but three came to the U.S...Last year, only 10 of the 45 IIT
>>> graduates...decided to pursue jobs in the U.S.
>>>
>>> So even if our economy improves, expecting to rely on the foreign
>>> students in the coming years is utterly unrealistic.
>>>
>>> If Obama really wants people to staff his ambitious research projects,
>>> he should avoid the advice reported/speculated in the enclosed blog, and
>>> take up Sen. Clinton's suggestion on grad stipends.
>>>
>>> Norm
>>>
>>>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Government&articleId=9119398&taxonomyId=13&pageNumber=1<
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Government&articleId=9119398&taxonomyId=13&pageNumber=1>
>>>
>>> Computerworld
>>>
>>> FAQ: Why Obama may back an H-1B increase even in a recession
>>>
>>> If the president-elect moves quickly to boost basic research funding, the
>>> visa issue will be part of the debate
>>>
>>> By Patrick Thibodeau
>>>
>>> November 6, 2008 (Computerworld) President-Elect Barack Obama has
>>> supported the H-1B visa program and wants to make changes to green
>>> cards that would help tech firms. There wasn't much said about this
>>> issue during the presidential campaign, especially after Wall Street
>>> collapsed. It also never came up in the debates between Obama and
>>> Republican John McCain. Now we're in a recession and unemployment is
>>> rising. Can Obama push ahead on tech-related immigration issues at this
>>> time? He might, and in this FAQ, here's an explanation of how that
>>> might happen.
>>>
>>> Does Obama support the H-1B visa program? Obama supports the temporary
>>> visa program but also wants it reformed. It needs reform. A U.S.
>>> Citizenship and Immigration Services report released in October said as
>>> many as one in five visa applications are either fraudulent or flawed.
>>> Some of the problems were egregious, including H-1B visas approved to
>>> shell companies.
>>>
>>> If that weren't enough, the U.S. Department of Labor added to the
>>> evidence of abuse, including a settlement last month requiring a
>>> Virginia-based company that also operates an offshore center in India
>>> to pay $1.7 million to 343 employees. Obama says he wants to "hold
>>> accountable employers who abuse the system and their workers," (PDF
>>> Page 8 on Obama's tech platform under the section titled: Reform
>>> Immigration ).
>>>
>>> Will Obama increase the H-1B cap? Obama supports raising the H-1B cap
>>> and did so in the U.S. Senate immigration bill in 2007. It would have
>>> increased the current 85,000 cap, which includes 20,000 visas set aside
>>> for graduates with advanced degrees. The Senate effort, which died in
>>> the House, would have allowed increases of up to 180,000 H-1B visas, as
>>> well as additional visas for advanced-degree graduates. Obama also
>>> continues to support comprehensive immigration reform.
>>>
>>> Excuse me, but how can Obama support increasing H-1B visas during a
>>> recession? Good question. Tech companies are cutting employees and the
>>> recession isn't stopping offshore outsourcing. The largest users of the
>>> H-1B visa are India offshore companies. When a U.S. company hires an
>>> outsourcing vendor, U.S. workers may be required -- if they want their
>>> severance -- to train their H-1B holding replacements. Moreover,
>>> offshoring is increasingly being aimed at higher-level jobs.
>>>
>>> Obama has pledged "to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship
>>> jobs overseas," but he hasn't linked the H-1B visa to this issue.
>>> Indian offshore firms are worried he may do so.
>>>
>>> Why not increase green cards instead? Last May, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren
>>> (D-Calif.) tried to bypass the immigration deadlock by introducing
>>> several bills to clear a direct path to permanent residency -- green
>>> cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with
>>> advanced degrees. Congress isn't expected to act on those bills during
>>> the upcoming lame-duck session.
>>>
>>> The tech industry argues that restrictions on the green card are as
>>> much of a problem as the H-1B visa issue. Easing access to green cards
>>> is an issue Obama supports. "We should allow immigrants who earn their
>>> degrees in the U.S. to stay, work and become Americans over time. And
>>> we should examine our ability to increase the number of permanent visas
>>> we issue to foreign-skilled workers," he said in his platform.
>>>
>>> Isn't increasing H-1B visas and permanent residency green cards a
>>> nonstarter of an issue during a recession? No. In fact, the visa issue
>>> may reappear with a vengeance, and here's why. Obama wants to double
>>> basic research spending over 10 years, and a lot of that money will
>>> fund research at U.S. universities that enroll thousands of foreign
>>> students.
>>>
>>> In the fall of 2007, of the approximately 112,559 students enrolled in
>>> U.S. engineering graduate programs, IT related and otherwise, 50% were
>>> non-U.S. citizens, according to the Council of Graduate Schools, in a
>>> report released in September (Report PDF ). Visa proponents argue that
>>> it makes little sense to improve basic research at universities only to
>>> force graduate students back to their home countries.
>>>
>>> Basic research is a cornerstone of Obama's tech and energy policy, and
>>> the polar opposite of the Bush administration, which actually cut basic
>>> federal research funding. (See this chart by the National Science
>>> Foundation.) If Obama can find the money to increase basic research,
>>> then the issue of keeping foreign students in the U.S., especially
>>> those students who work on government-funded research projects, brings
>>> these two issues together.
>>>
>>> Some tech lobbyists believe that increases in H-1B visas and green
>>> cards won't happen as long as U.S. companies are cutting jobs. But that
>>> will mean the debate will shift as well. "What do we need to do to
>>> ensure that we can grow our way out of this [downturn], innovate our
>>> way out this? You can't have that discussion without talking about
>>> immigration," said Robert Hoffman, vice president of congressional and
>>> legislative affairs at Oracle Corp., and co-chairman of Compete
>>> America, a lobbying group that supports raising the H-1B visa cap.
>>>
>>> Isn't this just too hot of a political issue for Congress and Obama?
>>> Opponents argue that the visa policies are partly to blame for
>>> declining computer science enrollments by Americans. Because the H-1B
>>> program offers the prospect of employment after graduation, it
>>> encourages foreign students to enroll, and those large enrollments are
>>> discouraging U.S. students from entering IT-related fields.
>>>
>>> This argument may rise again during the next debate on the visa issue,
>>> but it's not new and it's not an argument that finds support in Obama's
>>> platform. The bottom line is this: Obama has said nothing during the
>>> campaign that rules out either H-1B or green card increases. If
>>> anything, his tech platform, especially his plan to boost research
>>> funding, offers an argument for encouraging foreign enrollments and
>>> increasing access to visas.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
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