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First, the only item I saw that might lead me to beleive he had ever employed anyone was his stint as a software developer, but that doesn't mean employeer.

Uh, whoever claimed that the professor ever employed anybody? Not necessarily that he hasn't, but that claim was never made. He performs RESEARCH on trends in the software industry, and is considered an expert on the statistical analysis of those trends.

Next, outside of a almost perfect far left resume. I see one of his buds is our most respected Wen Ho Lee, and a Mr. Luh fired from NASA, perhaps he was one of those sorry foreign engineers you talk about. Mr M thinks they are victims

He was invited to join a committee looking into possible racial discrimination against Wen Ho Lee, he was not, as you assert, his 'bud'. I am unfamiliar with the Luh case. In case you're thinking that I'm against hiring ANY foreign engineers, that's not what I'm saying. I'm against the CURRENT H1B policy that allows just about ANY warm body from another country to come here and replace American workers. The FORMER policy required that the individual be considered an EXPERT in their line of work.

Now that I think of it, I suppose it would be an idea to post a little something about the Luh case that I just read..

Dr. Luh, an immigrant from Taiwan, gave up his legal battle a few months ago to overturn his 1992 firing by NASA Ames in Mountain View. Luh's firing appears to be the result of his exercising his right to free speech on the Internet---ironically, in which he opposed Pelosi's bills which would revoke China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status if China failed to improve its human rights record.

NASA claims that Luh was terminated because his use of government computers to participate in an Internet electronic discussion group on China was unrelated to his work. Yet, in internal government documents obtained by Luh via the Freedom of Information Act, NASA admitted that it is common for employees to participate in nonwork-related Internet groups; it is a form of recreation (at no cost to NASA), no different from NASA's tennis courts. Indeed, NASA continues to make those groups freely accessible on NASA computers to this day.

So, it appears that Dr. Luh, a immigrant from TAIWAN, had offended somebody by posting articles AGAINST MFN for CHINA. Gee whiz, I wonder if he was a FREEPER!

He went on to say that he and his wife have been told that if they ever come back for a visit as American Citizens they will not be allowed to leave ever. He also went on to tell me that now the Chinese are very carefull to be sure that they are holding enought of any abroad students relatives to insure that they will be back. I haven't heard anyone complaining about all the H1B's for Mainland China, are there any? Are you getting the picture?

A) There are obviously H1Bs from China, as you just described one.

B) How do you know for sure that this fellow you were talking to was telling you the truth? Not that I'm saying it's not, but how would you know for sure?

C) I'm sure that in at least SOME of cases of H1Bs from China, they are here as spies for the Chinese, and as such, would not have ANY problem with the Chinese government for coming to work here in the US..

I see Mr. Matloff is developing lots of software for the Chinese, in case you missed it, fourth paragraph of the bio.

By 'lots of software', are you referring to the ONE Chinese language application he wrote called KuaiXue? You know, the one that teaches the Chinese language?

It also sounded like rather powerfull stuff, but maybe you can tell me, it's not my field. Did it ever occure to you that perhaps there is another agenda at work here?

I guess it'd have to be in order to teach such a difficult language such as Chinese. Another agenda? Yeah, maybe he's working for the government (hint: who would be interested in understanding Chinese text and communications?)

Since the Mainland Chinese are going to keep their best, and requiring most Multi Nationals to locate R&D in China as a condition of doing business wouldn't it be to their advantage to see to it that we are unable to get the best from any other country?

So what are you saying, China is forcing us to accept their H1B workers?

Now I am not saying that all H1B's are the best I would suspect only 5%, but with China's 5 to 1 population advantage over us we will have to draw on that 5% best from all over the world to keep ahead of them in our last hope, R&D. Now wouldn't it be to their advantage to shut down any program we have that might do that for us?

Not if those they are sending are here to collect data and return home with it.

I see almost nothing in his bio that indicates he is working for Americans as much as he is working for the Chinese. Perhaps you can show me the error of my thinking.

You falsely stated that the professor has written a plethora of applications for the Chinese, where in that context, he hasn't. He wrote a application that teaches the Chinese language, big difference. Additionally, he has performed much in the way of presenting important issues to the software community, as evidenced by the following excerpt..

Dr. Matloff also writes about social issues such as immigration, affirmative action, and age discrimination. He has served as an expert witness in litigation regarding the age discrimination issue in the software industry. He has presented invited testimony to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on a number of occasions, and his advice has been solicited by the federal Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services and State Department, as well as the State of California Little Hoover Commission. His writings on immigration have been used as course materials at Stanford and Cornell Universities.

Finally, although the professor, who does in fact work in a highly left leaning environment, isn't a radical leftist as you describe. He might not be a member of the John Birch society or subscribe to many conservative agendas, but that doesn't nullify every piece of work this man has done. You are engaging in character assination, as you have apparently given up on discussing the facts.

Sorry I haven't had time to get back to you, gotta work for a living.

I want to go over a couple of things from your post, and then give you some detail outside of the Prof's statistical anylasis.

My comment about the Arm Chair General stands. While stat. anyl might be of some comfort to those who wish buy into their supporter's bend on the stats, if unbiased it only tells you what happened NOT THE FORCES THAT ARE DRIVING IT.
Thus, I put little faith in a paper that is devoid of the driving forces from the otherside of the fence.

Let me give you a few examples. Under "WHAT EMPLOYERS SHOULD DO" 12.3. "Hire on general talent not specific skills" "Do not shunt competent programmers to positions like customer support" "Look for applicant who looks promising but somewhat HIGH RISK" Then suggests hiring a PhD in physics who has done some programming. "Place less emphysis on grades and prestige of institution" If most employeers followed the Prof's advice there would be a lot more unemployment of Americans.

12.4 "What Recruiters should do" Here he wants me to hire a person to find a person to fill a specific job, yet come back with another HIGH RISK and the recruiter cut his fee. Dream on.

One question regarding Mr. Luh

Luh's firing appears to be the result of his exercising his right to free speech on the Internet---ironically, in which he OPPOSED
Pelosi's bills which would REVOKE China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status if China failed

So, it appears that Dr. Luh, a immigrant from TAIWAN, had offended somebody by posting articles AGAINST MFN for CHINA. Gee whiz, I wonder if he was a FREEPER!

I have to wonder if he was for or against before I wonder if he was a FREEPER. Please read or post with care it does make a difference.

Now don't get me wrong, the Prof does have a few ideas, internship is a good one. I had thought the industry was doing that anyway. I am not going to go into anymore examples regarding the rest of his paper, because I have some ideas from the other side that I think are worth everyones thoughts.

In a nutshell, I think the software industry for the the most part is a industry ready to move offshore very quickly. This wouldn't be the first time it has happened to us, and won't be the last. I think that focusing on the H1B program as a scapegoat ignors both the lessons of history in other industries, and elimination of the program now that it is in place will cause the industry to move quicker.

Lets take a quick look at history. The Atomic Bomb, we had it first, and I might add it was for the most part a Jewish immigrant development. Lost it in two years to Russia and then most of the rest who wanted it had it in the next 30. Had we offered all those foreigners in nuclear physics lots of money and a soft life we might have been able to keep it a lot longer, but not forever. Of course a few like Russia and China used force and restriction to keep their physicists.

Now, remember the electronics industry from 1950-1975? We went from all out production, sometimes three shifts a day. Some production workers were at close to $13p/h big money, and a car cost about 3K. Then along came the Japs at 1/10 the rate base. Production plants closed, only to open a day later. In most cases owned by the former plant management now working as "contractors" for the manufacturer, and the same production workers at 1/2 pay. We even moved plants to the south for low cost workers.

Then in our last desperate effort, the plants closed and farmed out assembly to home workers on a piece basis. Labor dept, IRS, etc gave the final death blow by changing the definition of contractor and EPA regs. The industry went over a period of about 5 years. As a side benifit, engineering, and semiconductors started to go too.

Now with software. It sounds like most of your competition is from India. FACTS.

Pop 1.029B India
.278B US

Lit rate 52% 535,080,000 IND Educated pop
97% 269,717,000 US

Per cap GDP $1,800 IND
33,900 US

Langu Offical Hindi/Associate offical English

Software training is a low cost subject to teach in a poor country. A few computers, and most of the rest is paper. Now I am not saying that they turn out a quality product, but they can turn out twice as much at about 6% the wage base.

So why hasen't the industry run like scalded dogs to India? Political stability. But our helpfull friends the Chinese are going to help out with that.

In CRN 6/24/02 is a story about the big Indian software house Majest (not sure of name) that the Chinese want to relocate to China. The Chinese will take care of the political stability issue, and the Indians seem to think it is a good idea.

I am sure you know that now China requires manufacturers as a condition for doing business in China a R&D facility incountry. And they made it clear no token facility, only cutting edge. Motorola just announced a new R&D center to replace their token one. Can you believe, HP just moved their cartridge production from MEXICO to CHINA

Now I do have some suggestions regarding H1B. If you cancel the program or do so by making it so restrictive as to accomplish the same, you will drive them all back, and market pressure will drive the domestic software either to outsource, or send three managers to India/China and setup.

Rather, allow the H1B but allow them a Green card within 6 months of entry. Have the green card renewed every year with proof of employment at the minium salary level of their initial entry. I think we need to do this for every tech profession. Read on before you flame.

Why, I agree that the H1B does grant the employeer a de facto servitude relationship with the employee. This would allow the good ones to receive proper pay from another employeer, and not depress the domestic rate. The bad ones would not be allowed to take another job at lower pay and stay, back to the old country for them. The H1B can be used as a filter to get the best, we are going to need them

Now getting back to how the electronics industry has fared since it's move offshore. We have been lucky to be able to keep the R&D and some very specialized manufacturering. But China is very aware that the R&D is the key and they are using their access to their market to force anyone who wishes to sell there to R&D there. We are in deep trouble if we don't get some leadership on this, and we don't have any time for lots of debate on it. Our exclusive Country Club (USA) is about to have it's legs broken.

Now what else can we do? I wish I had a lot of answers, but one thing as a business owner really hits me when I do previous year runs. If we can somehow get beyond some political correctness and really examine things we do to ourselves that will raise our cost of living without also examining how many jobs it will cost, or generate.

We have got to demand more return for our tax dollar, or a reduction of taxes. I just received my new and improved real estate tax bill, taxes are now 30% of my mortgage payment. My long distance rate is one third of what it was 10 years ago but my bill is the same, taxes makeup the savings. Dito with my basic phone service. Power bill now has a 20% utility tax. I call the power co to report a outage, it's all auto, put in my phone number and it's done. Call the county to report a pot hole and I go through three people. Where is the efficencies we are supposed to get from all the fancy computer equipment we are buying for our govt. I would expect to see the same downsizing as industry. Any other suggestions?

In summary from the other side of the equation, I see Mr. Matloff's study providing soultions that will only drive your industry offshore quickly, and most likely to the Chinese who are welcoming software developing Co's with open arms. I do wonder who paid for this "study" and how much KuaiXue costs? We are going to need it very soon. I also wonder if his simulation software works for neutron multiplication and reflection?