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To: Mr. Bird
No offense, but how do we demand "free markets" from our competitors while closing our labor market at the same time?

The alternative is we open our market to them while their market is closed to us. that is insanity. we demand free acess to their market or they face a cut off of access to our market it is really simple.

I would revise your proposal in some ways: don't end H1B altogether; there are non-IT jobs that rely on foreign workers, notably in health care.

There are a number of Americans looking for these same jobs. I would suggest a good faith effort at hiring and training and paying a sufficient wage to attract the appropriate talent.

Kicking them out of the country will do actual harm to regular Americans.

This assertion needs proof before we maintain H1B workers in this nation.

Demand that IT workers stop blaming external factors for all of their job woes. An IT worker willing to relocate has a good chance of landing a job. An IT worker wanting a job to come to him has no room to complain.Give me a break. I can cite numerous cases of highly skilled and educated IT workers who are the cream of the crop and were making six figure incomes from consulting less than two years ago who can not now find a position for $40,000/year. yes, tehy are willing to travel and relocate. The big question is why you want Americans out of work so that foreign nationals can be employed? maybe you resent IT professionals or engineers or maybe doctors it really does not matter. You will note my proposal states that free access to our markets would be granted to those nations that in turn give free access to their markets. What you seem to want is only the USA to be subject to an unlimited exploitation by cheap foreign labor.

By the way I, you will note that my proposal include the same principles of free and fair trade for manufacturing as for IT and every othereconomic endevor. The modern IT worker has much in common with the factory worker of the early 20th century. It is no longer an elite field, untouchable to the masses. Too many people keep flocking to certification programs, recalling the laughable exhortation of the '60's that "plastics" were the future. What is needed is creativity. If you want to be a standard IT worker, you're going to be treated like a textile worker, because you are now a dime a dozen. Create, innovate, do something different: that's what the market will reward.

9 posted on 05/16/2003 6:05:36 AM PDT by harpseal (Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown)
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To: harpseal
I can cite numerous cases of highly skilled and educated IT workers who are the cream of the crop and were making six figure incomes from consulting less than two years ago who can not now find a position for $40,000/year.

Very true, but this has less to do with an influx of foreign workers than an overall increase in the supply of qualified native labor. If you go to Monster or CareerBuilder, there are over 4000 jobs listed for programmers, more than any other occupation except maybe sales. The jobs are out there, but there are too many of you fighting for them.

11 posted on 05/16/2003 6:19:24 AM PDT by Mr. Bird
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To: harpseal
Hi Harpseal, thanks for the post.

"Kicking them out of the country will do actual harm to regular Americans. -
This assertion needs proof before we maintain H1B workers in this nation."

That is ordnance on target.

Despite the often repeated assertion that H1B's actually represent free market competition, they are an artificial manipulation of the labor market. The original purpose was to alleviate shortages in some high demand professions - there is no shortage of programmers and engineers after the whopping loss of over 1.6 million jobs in the last few years.

This doesn't even begin to address the security concerns of having a South Asian or Chinese programmer working on software used by banks, government, insurance, credit and defense institutions.
62 posted on 05/16/2003 11:47:29 AM PDT by Thisiswhoweare
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