Posted on 02/04/2015 2:59:54 PM PST by Enlightened1
You may be right. Seems there are always folks here with some sort of agenda...
I will say that between H-1B visas and several other government programs for foreign workers, foreigners here illegally—those surging across the border and those staying here past time on their visas, and robotics (an emerging job threat), the middle class is in danger of being squeezed out of all jobs...both high and low tech. I recently read that all new jobs growth has gone to foreign workers.
Some of these above threats are below the radar, but still, I don’t think people are stepping back and looking at the big picture. The total number of jobs is shrinking. Therefore, we need to jealously guard those we have, and I don’t think it is wrong that jobs in the US go to American CITIZENS...unemployed baby boomers or newly minted college grads. If we don’t have enough skilled workers, then our education system needs to be changed to address this—and NO COMMON CORE crap, Jeb!!!!
I have tried to counsel all of my children to be savvy and adapt to changing work force demands. But it seems to me that it is getting increasingly difficult to stay competitive. it is imperative that we HIRE AMERICAN!
“Ronald Reagan’s worst decision (Vice President pick) coming back to haunt us again.”
I had that same thought a short time ago when I read Drudge’s headlines.
he is already talking about “reforming conservatives”, in other words he is running against traditional conservatism instead of against the left.
We can face the” demographic crisis” by adhering to Obama’s “fundamental transformation” which is where your plan takes us, or we can resolve to preserve our nation. However, the demographic crisis occurs only in certain people’s minds. I would prefer to face the future as an unified nation rather than try to secure the future by turning the United States into a third-world hell hole.
I know you are a shill for Jeb. It's ok but I hope you are paid.
In an effort to take you seriously I will try to explain what is really happening.
Labor is one facet to an economy, it's true. The less the labor supply the higher the prevailing wage. As far as I know wages are way down for everyone.
That aside, what we are really talking about is that the USA is becoming poorer every day, year in and year out. Why? It has to do with wealth creation. There is only three ways to create wealth;mine it,make it or grow it. Well due to the gloBULList trend we have off shored a huge portion of our manufacturing sector. Thus over a third of our country's wealth and all the multiplier wealth effects are gone. There were a lot of winners and a whole bunch of losers it that game. The mining industry is under attack and the coal industry which provided Appalachians with some wealth creation is gone too.
So how do we get our wealth back? First repeal the 16th amendment, barring that cut income taxes to the bone. Incorporate a Nation Retail Sales Tax(fair tax). But that doesn't get manufacturing back. What's need are strict importation rules and a tariff which would reduce the labor advantage that the third world has over US workers. I would start with a 5% tariff and continue to escalate until we reach a trade balance with that country. Prices would increase about 5% but so what. What we have now is an idled work force anyway. The last thing we need is to import MORE unskilled workers. You say unions would benefit, well union participation rate in manufacturing is at 10% and falling fast.
As for the skilled workers when you see wages really skyrocket that is when the Universities will start to see interest in STEM programs.
In closing you solution means a quicker death of the economy and the American way of life, so no thanks.
I am not a shill for Jeb Bush and I do not support him for President.
I also feel your pain and am, in fact, sharing your pain and have been doing so for the last 15 years or so.
Your wages are stagnant not because of domestic job competition for American jobs here in the US by foreign high tech sweat shop labor , but because we have been sold out by our political class and moronic corporate MBA class that has pursued policies that resulted in the wholesale migration of entire American industries that we invented and the jobs associated with them to countries like China, India and Vietnam.
Your competition is some foreign sweat shop labor in a foreign country who has killed your job slot in the US and relocated your job to a foreign country.
Software development, by it's nature, is especially vulnerable to this sort of off shoring.
Our ill conceived push to off shoring has devastated American manufacturing and since talent must be proximate to manufacturing it has also devastated the network of tech support and sub contractors who keep an dynamic high tech manufacturing base moving.
The problem is not that H1-B workers are stealing jobs here, it's that American jobs are being gutted and moved to foreign countries which is destroying our entire industrial base, our high tech talent poo and thus our ability to compete with foreign competitors.
I would propose the hypothesis that retaining highly skilled foreign students educated here by granting them H1-B visas makes our already badly depleted industrial base stronger and more competitive with the foreign competition, especially if said foreign talent says here on an H1-B instead of going back home and joining the foreign competition which contributes to our brain drain.
Your concern should not be some recently graduated PhD student with H1-B killing your pay scale, it should be that same PhD student going home to Taiwan or India and helping a company there put the company you work for out of business or forcing your country to off shore your job function.
If that PhD student stays here, not only does that make the US economy stronger, by supporting our industrial base and keeping jobs here, but it keeps his income here which stimulates domestic demand for goods and services and also contributes to our government's tax revenue. He also creates jobs (or prevents the loss of existing jobs to off shoring) for other Americans so they can create domestic demand for goods and services and pay taxes as well.
In short, you are worrying about some guy depressing your wages by working here when what you should worry about is that same PhD going home and stealing your companies business to a foreign competitor and putting you out of work altogether.
FWIW, I agree 100% that we need to protect America's industrial base from what amounts to China and other developing countries predatory trade policies which amount to a high tech variation on the old fashion practice of dumping by foreign monopolies and cartels.
My son is graduating with top marks from a highly regarded STEM program and he and all of his fellow students are in hot demand with multiple job offers at very high wages due to a serious shortage of qualified entry level job candidates in their field.
I am responsible for hiring STEM employees where I work and we cannot fill all of our available positions with qualified personnel so, for us at least, there is a shortage of skilled job applicants , but we are precluded by law from hiring foreign nationals.
where I work and we cannot fill all of our available positions with qualified personnelat the wages being offered
Fixed it.
It is called supply and demand.
What helps Jebbie the most is that uninformed Republican primary voters recognize his name.
Illegal aliens from Mexico and South America, arrested not the skilled worker force we need using that argument. When Bush talks immigrants, that is who he is talking about.
I'm stating my personal experience, not an opinion.
I was there.
Your opinion or experience may differ
I appreciate the name dropping but for every Scott Scott McNealy there is a Vinod Khosla and for every Bill Joy there is an Andreas “Andy” Von Bechtolsheim
FWIW, part of the experience to support my position is because my world view was shaped in in no small part by the input from some of those American guys whose names you listed
Jeb Bush supports illegal immigration, which I strongly oppose.
I also strongly oppose Jeb Bush for President due to his support of illegal immigration.
However, in the case of this article, his support is for legal immigration of high skill, highly educated foreign workers to help drive economic growth and overcome our impending demographic disaster of retiring Boomers.
In this, he has a valid point to help address a serious problem we will be facing in the next few years.
Nice, but again, you provided no facts to back up your “fact” statement. So it is a matter of opinions.
Oh, you were there? Where is there? Where where you???
I was “there” too....in grad studies in Engineering program that gave in-state tuition to foreign students. Students who would arrive here and ask where the line for “foreign students” to move to front was....Seats that could have and should have gone to US CITIZENS went to students from China, Saudi Arabia, etc...Yes, I was “there.”
Did you know that in 2014, the University of Illinois went TO CHINA TO RECRUIT 600 FRESHMEN ENGINEERING students? How do you think that makes me feel as an Illinois tax payer? A parent of a student that might have applied to UI Engr. and been denied??? (No, my kids went to different schools and were not denied, so no agenda).
We have sold ourselves down the river. I have seen this coming for years —and so has my husband, a PHD in a science field. People who promote H-1B visas programs are a part of the problem.
BTW, I am not name dropping, I just provided a listing of US citizens who dominated the tech field bt forming companies and I don’t think that you could match my list...I was just getting started. As I said, my son works in that industry and I was a tech corporate recruiter, so I know a little about the field.
I don’t have an agenda...my kids, having advanced degrees in tech fields, are probably better positioned than most to advance in the future economy. My fear is for those just entering college, or those who went to college to “Follow their dreams” which had nothing to do with employability.
I am glad your child was a STEM (very popular term now) graduate—batchelor’s degree? and all of his/her friends have job offers and lots of them, but I just think you have a very shortsighted view of what is coming... Better get a clue.*
HIRE AMERICAN
*Oh, in several posts, you made mention of people retiring creating a void in tech jobs....Given the economy, I think there are many tech and non-tech people who would like/need to keep working...oh and I personally know several.
Fixed it.
It is called supply and demand.
Listen s**t head, you have no idea what I do for a living.
It's one thing to have a debate on issues and have differing opinions in a civil fashion, but you crossed the line to being insulting about issues you are obviously ignorant of.
My company pays outstanding wages to top flight technical talent to work in a very challenging and rewarding environment.
Such people are in very short supply.
I would love to be able to hire H1-B visa job applicants to broaden our applicant pool but we are precluded by law from hiring foreign nationals so I have no dog in this fight from a personal perspective or agenda.
Turns out very few American citizens are willing and able (mostly lack willingness, not ability BTW) to put in the 10+ years of hard work and rigorous study it takes become qualified to perform the job functions we require.
Contrary to your assertions, there is such a thing as a labor shortage and for what we we do it's hard to find qualified personnel regardless of nationality at any price.
If you dispute the fact that we have a looming threat of serious demographic issues with our Social Security Entitlement system due to too few baby busters in the work force to support too many retiring baby boomers and that the loss of Baby Boomer s to retirement is going to result in brain drain from the economy as well as a significant tightening of the labor market over the next 5-10 years due to Boomer dropping out of the work force you are simply too stupid to breathe, much less have a serious opinion in the subject matter.
This is insane...dramatically expand immigrants coming to work!?!
With the lowest participation rate in almost 2 generations, Jeb thinks we need to pile on the American worker.
Republicans have sold their middle class base to the highest bidder: Chamber of Commerce, China, Free Trade Alphabet, Mexican Cartels Transitioning to Corporate Investing.
Democrats are immoral hedonists.
Where is the party of the real people?
There are 330 million people here in the USA already and 10’s of millions of immigrants (more than any country) . only 118 million jobs and no jobs for Americans . you are an insane brainwashed democrat. immigrants will vote democrat which means socialism and economic collapse
We don’t have a party.
Jeb Bush's primary point is that we need to recruit new highly educated, high skill immigrants to foster economic growth.
We are facing a huge demographic tsunami that is just starting to hit as the leading edge of the Boomer generation hits 60 this year and begins to retire.
As of now the Boomer bust has really not hit us but already we have , according to, official government BLS stats, only 1.75 Full Time Non Governmental/Public Sector Workers supporting each Social Security recipient which is simply shocking.
I did not even know that was possible and it's going to get much worse as the Boomer retirement accelerates. In 10 years we will have lost about 10- 15% of our workforce with a corresponding increase in the number of Boomer retirees pulling Social Security.
I’ m fully aware that the economy sucks and a lot of people are currently out of work and will be for the foreseeable future, but in 5 years or so we will see the situation flip as Boomers leave their jobs as productive, tax paying Tech professionals and become recipients of Social Security entitlement transfer payments.
We will then be hit with a one - two sucker punch to the economy.
First, there will simply be too many Boomer retirees being supported by too few baby busters and our ratio of Full Time Private Sector Workers supporting Soc Sec recipients will drop from the current already scary 1.75 to 1 to a number of less than One Full Time private Sector Worker supporting each and every single Soc Sec recipient.
At the same time the Tech sector economy is going to be hard hit and undergo a huge negative economic impact at the worst possible time when we need to fund the retirement of the boomers.
There are simply not enough baby busters in the workforce to cover the retirement induced shortfall caused by the boomer retirements, especially in STEM ( I hate that term BTW) fields where Americans have fallen behind in enrollment due to a lack of willingness to expend the level of hard studying the coursework demands combined with the increasingly poor job the American K-12 Public School system does in preparing students in general for the rigorous course of study in Science and Engineering.
The fact that medical doctors are dropping out of the economy even faster due to the ObamaCare does not help the situation.
We only have five years to prepare for this and the only realistic option we have to dress this demographic black hole is by importing young workers to support our aging retirees.
Our political class is trying to address the impending demographic black hole by looking the other way while millions of foreigners cross our borders every year to become illegal aliens.
Unfortunately, most of these people are illiterate, uneducated unskilled laborers who can't even read or write in their native language, much read, write or speak english so you can't build a demographic fi with only illiterate and unskilled people, you need educated and high skilled immigrants of the type who can only be recruited via the legal immigration system..
For the record I don't like this or agree with it but what are the options?
I don't have the answers.
But you can not make informed decisions unless you understand the underlying problems that need to be solved.
People on this forum seem to be evaluating our immigration problem in a vacuum, without considering the primary reason our politicians allowing the massive levels of illegal immigration to continue which is back door solution to the demographic hole caused by massive number of Boomers flipping from people paying into the Soc Sec system to people bleeding the system with no tax paying workers to replace them.
My experience with the H1-B program was completely limited to allowing world class recent foreign PhD and Master level grads from places like UC Berkley, Stanford, Cal Tech, Cal Poly, MIT, Harvard, University of Arizona and Yale to stay in this country and work towards American citizenship. Most of these grads had unique, cutting edge skills that were irreplaceble as a consequence of their research for their degrees. This was a win win for the country and the H1-B visa recipient.
I have never personally seen foreign nationals be brought in via the H1-B program simply to displace existing American workers at a lower wage. If that is being done it is wrong.
I have also only seen foreign University Students recruited when American students of suitable qualification could not be recruited or when they were admitted because their government paid big money to sponsor them and even then only if they met the same high standards as the rest of us.
If the University of Illinois went to China to recruit 600 freshman Engineering students then turned down 600 fully qualified Illinois residents for Engineering school I would be furious, but i would not be surprised. BS like that is the reason I am glad I left the academic world.
I share your fears for those just entering college, or those who went to college to “Follow their dreams” which had nothing to do with employability because they are going to have a rough time if our demographic problems create a situation where economic dislocation overwhelms a tight job market to kill career opportunity.
You may agree with my analysis or not, but at least consider this dynamic in your evaluation because I can assure you our demographic problems are a major factor driving political policy on immigration issues and we really need to get this right because our politicians can not be trusted to get things right.
Germany faced this same problem in the 1980s and they totally screwed by importing millions of Muslim “guest workers” , mostly from Turkey, who have become poor guests who have refused to assimilate and who have overstayed their welcome for sure.
To quote the most famous of Tonto's quotes, "What do you mean 'we,' white man?
To quote the most famous of Tonto’s quotes, “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?
Good point.
I’m looking at my exit strategy options.
Hope it all works out for you though :-)
I hope so too. But I still don't regret my decision to retire at age 69(!) I did it for the best of reasons, having seen two of my fellow workers (and friends) meticulously plan their retirement for years, eagerly anticipating a comfortable, if modest retirement. Both were way past minimum retirement age.
One died before triggering all his plans.
The other took his first real vacation in 10 years, bought a new truck and RV and took off for a Mexico vacation and never came back; he died the day after he arrived in Mexico.
That was sobering, and all that is the "good" news."
The bad news is that I chose as my retirement date .... September 2007.
Just in time to enjoy the wonders of "Hope and freakin' Change," and the miracles of fundamentally changing the foundations of the most envied political, social, free-exchange private enterprise Constitutional republic in history.
And returning to the labor force at my age is literally impossible.
As an interesting bonus, I have lived in the most amazing period of our history to date, and the wonders of technology in every meaningful field --- save politics.
I have enjoyed three now adult children, all successful and never likely to see an EBT card up close and personal, and at least one grandchild, who I hope enjoys a less hopeless future than the present political trend suggests.
The slide in common sense and the resulting egalitarian disaster is still playing out, and now I just hope to participate in the second civil war, which is certain to arrive, when the fruits of the most inept and corrupt administration in American history self destructs, and takes the entire country down with it.
I've certainly lived in interesting times.
Isn't that an old Chinese curse?
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