H-1B visas and career delusions

American Thinker ^ | 12/31/2024 | Mike McDaniel

[SeekAndFind]

It was expected: any and every opportunity to attack Donald Trump and divide panicky Republicans who continually re-earn the title “the stupid party.” At Real Clear Politics  Sasha Stone discourses on the H-1B controversy.

Stone correctly points out Vivek Ramaswamy is right in noting American culture has, over the last several decades, turned away from merit and in so doing dumbed us down. There’s a reason many tech companies hire highly qualified foreigners: we’re not producing enough STEM graduates. 

Graphic: X Screenshot

Obviously, such debates are a bit more complex than the surface treatment much of anti-America/Trump left allows, but I suspect another part of the reason such companies aren’t hiring Americans is some of our STEM graduates are also DEI graduates, people with enormous senses of entitlement without a corresponding work ethic. Consider Elon Musk. By most accounts, he reduced Twitter staffing by as much as 80%, yet the company is humming along. Or take the federal government, a substantial portion of which is “working from home.” Many are reportedly threatening to quit if forced back into innumerable empty buildings. It’s unlikely most of them are in STEM fields, but I’m certain most Americans are on their side to the extent of saying: “your terms are acceptable,” and “don’t let the door whack you on the backside on your way out.”

Stone’s article included a Newsweek graph depicting the top careers “Gen Z are Talking Most About on Instagram.” The top career is “model,” and the rest of the top ten, in order, are, artist, photographer, make-up artist, blogger, marketing, singer, personal trainer, actor and influencer. There’s a great deal of delusion there, like one of my former students, 5’8,” 145-pound youngster who was convinced a career in the National Football League was his destiny.

[SeekAndFind]

For every Instapundit, there are hundreds of thousands who make enough to slowly starve to death and even more who do worse. Most people can write, but few can write well enough to cause others to pay to read their work. For every Tom Clancy there are innumerable good writers who will never get the chance to be published. There are millions of blogs, but few that attract sufficient traffic to feed a blogger, to say nothing of their family.

Influencers tend to be people famous for being famous, and many are surely bloggers, laboring in obscurity. Virtually everyone with a cell phone is a photographer these days, but damned few will ever be able to make a career of it.

[central_va]

Why should anybody take the hard STEM courses, when you end up working long hours for low wages? It created Catch-22 vicious death spiral. American do not want to study these degrees, so foreigners are imported, so then even less Americans want to study these subjects.

--AZJEEP

[Alberta's Child]

H1B visa holders are only part of the challenge faced by people in STEM fields.

Look at the sheer numbers of manufacturing jobs that have disappeared in the U.S. over the last 40+ years. It’s much easier to relocate many STEM functions overseas than manufacturing functions. This is an inevitable consequence of many converging trends in the modern world — such as advanced telecommunications, standardization of IT processes and coding, and the growth of English as a near-universal language among professionals all over the world.

[TheDon]

Importing cheap labor is only making the situation worse by depressing wages and opportunities in the industry.

Also, stripping human capital from developing nations is immoral.

[BradyLS]

Welp, if Americans can’t into tech because “sTuPiD” or something, they can get into the trades and make a the techies pay through the nose to fix their HVACs, electricity, and plumbing. And for building their homes, add-ons, pools, drives, and decks.

[central_va]

Maybe Congressional Republicans ought to keep that in mind and create an educational and cultural environment that would produce a more realistic and profitable list. We wouldn’t need so many H-1B visas then, would we?

He mixes up cause and effect. Get rid of H-1B and more high IQ American kids will go onto STEM SIMPLY FOR THE MONEY THEY CAN EARN.

[MNJohnnie]

Do an experiment.

Go wander around social media outside Freeper and X.

No where else is anyone up in arms about this. The 10s of millions of non Conservative voters who elected Trump DO NOT CARE about these Ideological purity tests.

This is the always whining Conservative Inc looking for something to go into histrionics about. They are useless dead weight in any political movement they join. They do nothing but bitch daily then demand their personal dogmas be immediately implement when Trump wins despite their dead weight.

Conservative Inc is like the belligerent drunk ranting at a bar. No one takes them seriously about anything

It is the height of narcissism and arrogance for Conservative Inc, who never created anything or been elected to anything, to presume to lecture Team Trump on how to govern now.

[Brian Griffin]

“Vivek Ramaswamy is right in noting American culture has, over the last several decades, turned away from merit and in so doing dumbed us down. There’s a reason many tech companies hire highly qualified foreigners: we’re not producing enough STEM graduates.”

Problems tend to get greater attention than everyday success, especially on FR pages.

There are lots of teachers and students in the USA performing well. Students still head off to college with Calculus AP credits.

“Indiana high school student Felix Zhang became the 1st person in the world to get a perfect score on the AP calculus AB exam.”

via Luxxle

“In 2023, a total of 273,987 students took the AP Calculus AB exam, and 58% of test-takers scored a 3, 4, or a 5. Over the past four years (2020-2023), this percentage has averaged around 56.4%. That’s an encouraging success rate, considering how challenging AP Calc AB can be.”

https://collegeprep.uworld.com/ap-calculus-ab/scores-and-calculator/

“we’re not producing enough STEM graduates”

The number of jobs done by STEM people is far less than the market caps of technical companies.

[Wilderness Conservative]

Do an experiment by asking anyone who lost their job after having trained their H1B replacement and see how they feel.

[Diversity Is Our Weakness]

STEM is ok but includes soft sciences like zoology and sociology. Better to focus on PEMCIT - Physics, engineering, math, chemistry, and Information Tech.

[NobleFree]

“highly qualified foreigners”

H-1B has nothing to do with highly qualified foreigners. More disinformation from MINO (MAGA In Name Only).

[teevolt]

Yeah, the days of folks clamoring for Musk to be speaker are gone : )

And we learned Vivek has resentments from High School.

LOL, onward!

[Diversity Is Our Weakness]

Too many stupid illegals in our k-12. They don’t even want to learn since their “dream” is crime and welfare. Section 1324 title 8 says its a federal felony to let them use our schools.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324

(A)Any person who—

(iv)encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or
(v)
(I)engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or
(II)aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,
shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).

(B)A person who violates subparagraph (A) shall, for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs—

(iv)in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v) resulting in the death of any person, be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined under title 18, or both.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Ideological purity tests.

Resisting the Doubling, Tripling, etc. of the fraudulent H1B visa program is a not a purity test. It’s protecting US Jobs and Talent. It’s simple to meet the voters’ demand on this issue. Don’t do it

[Brian Griffin]

“It is the height of narcissism and arrogance for Conservative Inc, who never created anything or been elected to anything, to presume to lecture Team Trump on how to govern now.”

Free Republic is usually a good place for the frank, fruitful discussion of important issues.

May Team Trump benefit, directly or indirectly, from our key pecking.

[Sirius Lee]

No where else is anyone up in arms about this.

Exactly! Stupid drunks droning on about their Bibles and guns. No benighted people care. Eff ‘em. They should shut up and withdraw to their double wides.

[cpdiii]

The solution is simple. Establish rules that H1B workers be paid the same salary and benefits etc. as American workers. The companies will hire locally. An exceptional engineer or Doctor will be hired from abroad as the company values his or her great skills. My cardiac surgeon saved me. He is from India, and I am glad he is here. He is exceptional and head of cardiac surgery at a major hospital. I chose him based on his record. It was a wise choice.

[MNJohnnie]

You want to live in your little bubble world, feel free. But don’t try to lie to the rest of us that your alternative reality has any relevance to the 10s of million of voters who don’t share your political dogmas.

They matter, the always whining choir in Conservative Inc, does not. Sorry the truth hurts but it doesn’t change the facts here.