Job market collapse has people packing

San Francisco Chronicle ^

[RCW2001]

Jobless and broke, Bryan Clouse sits among the dwindling possessions in his studio in San Francisco's Fillmore District getting ready to leave what he once thought was a computer nerd's promised land.

In a week, the 35-year-old programmer will load up a rented SUV and say goodbye to the city that has been his home for the past nine years. He will go to live with his grandparents in Brooklyn, Mich., a tiny town of brick storefronts and clapboard houses a few hours west of Detroit. There, with no rent to worry about, he will look for work.

[Red Jones]

The IT collapse of last few years is very different from oil collapse in OK in 80's. Because of h1b program. H1b is a government program heavily supported by Republicans that is in reality an ethnic cleansing program. There are 1 million h1b's today, then there are more who've been through h1b program and are either green card holders or citizens working in this market.

Let me explain how h1b works. American corporations spend about $2,000 to contract a recruit in India to find a person to fill a job. The recruiter in India has graduates from technical institutes to feed to the american corporation. The recruiters normally lie on the resumes of the people and exaggerate their credentials greatly. Congress actually investigated and proved that they normally lie, but it doesn't matter to the corps, they want an indentured servant, that's what they get. The deal is made while the person being hired is in India. They agree to come to the US and work here and that if they're still working for that same company after 6 years and if that same company still wants to keep them employed after the indentured servant period, then they can get a green card and work freely in the US. If they for any reason quit that employer during the indentured servant period, then the 6 year time schedule will start over if they find another h1b sponsor/corporation/owner. If they do not find another h1b sponsor/corporation/owner to employ them and lose their job for any reason, then they must go home. So, these people are not working as free people on an even playing field with american providers of this labor. They are willing to work very very hard to ensure that they can become US citizens.

The h1b people do not pay social security tax to the social security program. Instead, the same money goes to their home government to induce those governments tofund the technical institutes. India's technical institutes are very well developed, it seems even superior to ours'. So, h1b takes an average of $45,000 from the social security program and sends itout of the country to fund training for people to replace americans in the job market for every one of these one million h1b people in the country now. Congress has approved 195,000 new h1b's every year.

So, these terrible events of the huge masses of american high tech people losing their jobs is particularly awful. It is not the noral ebb and flow of a market. It is not creative destruction of the free market, it is ethnic cleansing that government has created through raw power.

There are some bigoted people who believe that americans can't do high-tech work and that therefore, the government is doing the right thing in back-stabbing their own citizens in the marketplace. But americans have led the world in technical innovation since 1800 and have not just led the world by a small margin, but by a wide margin. We did it by rewarding the innovators in a free marketplace. This new system of indentured servitude is not built around rewarding the producers, it is built around extraordinary manipulation of the market through special laws to apply only to parts of the labor market for the purpose of procuring indentured servants to an unholy managerial class.

The American nation has always produced quality people to do this type of work. But now that will change. Young americans now studying engineering, especially software or computer related engineering, have the deck stacked against them. Read Professor Matloff's research, link below. He's found that if you major in software or computer related stuff today you have it seems in reality between a 5 and 10% chance of being able to establish and keep a career in this field that lasts more than 10 years. Lots of very capable and hard working people are just being thrown away in the name of making the market work efficiently. It is a system of ethnic cleansing.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html

The h1b program is a republican program. When it was initially created 3/4's of all republicans voted for it while 2/3's of all democrats voted against it. H1b has successfully driven wages down by at least 30% in these fields. If we don't get rid of the h1b program, then young americans will successfully be discouraged from even majoring in the engineering field so that our corporations can encourage a larger supply of slaves to pick from when they hire people for this type of work. That hasn't happened yet, the young people are being successfully conned into majoring in this at this time. Matloff identified that during 1990's there was in fact massive increase in americans majoring in this stuff. Matloff says that 94% of engineering majors in american universities are american. Only in grad schools do the foreigners dominate, that is because the market punishes americans who go to grad school in these types of fields. Read Matloff if you doubt me in anything I've said here.

One of the key things that made me decide to never again vote for GWB is when I saw him on tv asserting strongly that people who are opposed to h1b are racists.

[BuddhaBoy]

There are some bigoted people who believe that americans can't do high-tech work and that therefore, the government is doing the right thing in back-stabbing their own citizens in the marketplace.

You dont have to be a bigot to realize that Math and Science education in America has gone to hell, and that for the most part, the best engineers, programmers and scientists no longer come from the U.S.

Dont let my screen name fool you, I am an American born and raised, but that doesnt keep me from accepting that Americans have themselves to blame for H1B.

It is way out of hand now, but it started as a legitimate program for augmenting workforces. Every country eventually faces foreign competition. It has now reached our shores, and instead of complaining, we need to better prepare our own workers for the coming struggle.

[Red Jones]

I appreciate your view. Certainly it is true that back in 89 when H1b began and in early 90's there was a lot of what appeared to be good reason to support h1b. But program has become a monster and is just as I described it. Read Matloff's research.

the story on our education system is as follows: grades 1-12 are very poor in their quality. American kids are sandbagged by this. But in college lots and lots of americans make up for those short-comings. Our engineering colleges at the universities are thought of as being excellent in comparison to those in any country anywhere on earth. We have lots of young people studying in those majors. Particularly in computer related stuff there's been large increases recently in americans studying these subjects.

I am perfect example, I didn't start studying engineering at college until late 20's. I required remedial courses because my high school preparation was poor and so much time had passed. I in essence took high school types of classes before the university level courses. But I graduated summa cum laude. I overcame.

Read Matloff's research I posted link to. Young americans graduating today do not stand a reasonable chance of having a good career in engineering, especially computer related stuff. This is tragic. Our own nation has been by far the best source for such people. We are destroying that source.

I know you're a good fellow. But it is very sad to see americans supporting a program that destroys the livlihoods of many of their own fellow americans. Wake up people!!! Americans cannot sell their labor in 6 year time blocks. American law won't allow it. That is why corporate managers prefer to hire h1b people, because the labor comes in 6 year packages that are priced out at the beginning of that 6 years before the person is allowed even to come to the US.

Normally in high-tech, especially software, few employees become valuable. But some will become very valuable. When an american becomes valuable he walks into his boss' office and says 'I want $100 an hour'. When an h1b becomes valuable he is still an h1b and cannot get a raise. The managers have circumvented the free labor market through h1b. This does not really build wealth in the long run. It discourages our citizens from producing. It has caused a massive waste of americanlabor in preparing to do high-tech work when our government has conspired to destroy their careers in advance without them even knowing it.

If we implemented an h1b type program for airline pilots, then within 10 years airline pilot salaries would be 30-40% less, the airlines would be happy and the industry would be ethnically cleansed. If we did it for doctors or nurses, then the result would be the same. If we did it for hamburger flippers the result would be the same.

It just goes to show that people are just as bad today as they were in 1650 when the original indentured servitude program was created to satisfy the desire of cheap labor for companies that were colonizing America for the king.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Bottom line IMHO: America and capitalism are highly dynamic. Classic case in point is the fact that the supermarket has to completely reorganize its inventory display arrangement every few years because of the continual migration of the product mix they sell. A lot of that is just "New! New!" hype but some of it is actual product improvement. And when you look at the need for pharmaceutical developement to treat or prevent Alzheimers and so forth, conservatives can only think that further development is crucial.

The good news is that the dynamism built into the American system tends produce the new things we need. The bad news is that the self-same dynamism tends to cause the obsolescence of work-force skills. The typical position of unionism is that "this is a terrible place to have to work, and we want lots of people working here getting paid very well. The logical position of a union is slightly different:

"This is a terrible place to work and we want people to get jobs elsewhere. We don't want people to apply to work here, and we want the ones who are here to find better jobs and quit, leaving the rest with high-paying jobs."

But that, of course, would invoke an entrepreneurial spirit among the workforce--and unionism is anti-entrepreneurial at its core. Unionism preaches fear, making it a natural part of the Democratic Party.

[justsomedude]

i thought that 'this time it's different?'

The 'old economy' is dead. Long live the 'old economy.'

[nanny]

I don't doubt the liberal mentality of the folks in San Francisco is bad, but you can't blame them for all of it. The same scenario is happening all across this country.

[ComputationalComplexity]

Not true, an american engineer can still get a great job, but only if he has an IVY league or elite engineering school's diploma.

[nanny]

"When the blue collar worker was crying about being replaced by low cost foreign factories,"

So true. I remember when they were talking about sending all the jobs south. When someone asked what would Americans do for jobs, their answer was we would become the high-tech leader of the world and everyone should go to college and learn about computers. I wondered at the time if those people actually thought the rest of the world was so stupid they couldn't learn 'high-tech'. They knew better, but they made their big dough from all of it and just don't care.

When everyone thought blue collar workers shouldn't make a decent living and was gloating about the demise of the unions, they didn't realize union or not, those middle class Americans were paying taxes and helping to keep this nation together. Now I am not defending the unions, so don't jump. But it is going to be really fun to watch the look on those 'bust the unioners - bring in illegals" when these illegals become union members and that will happen and soon.

[nanny]

"Bumper sticker from the 80's oil bust here in OK is apropos to the IT collapse: "Please God, send us another oil boom...We promise not to piss it away next time." Probably some similar wording being used today by many in high tech."

Or maybe some good middle-class blue collar jobs-----------

[nanny]

"You own company's middle-management will fight that every step of the way. "

Just how far do you think they will get with their fighting. They will either bring in more foreign people for middle-management or tell them to 'like it or leave it' - because jobs are not going to be that easy to find.

[ComputationalComplexity]

well, this is just my opinion(I'm working as a consultant), on average those "indentured servants" from india are significantly better than your average american software engineer.

[MissAmericanPie]

Don't forget cancer.

[ladyjane]

The Big Dig is part of it. Building and rehab is still going on too. Expect that will slow dramatically. Soon.

[nanny]

"I know you're a good fellow. But it is very sad to see americans supporting a program that destroys the livlihoods of many of their own fellow americans. Wake up people!!! Americans cannot sell their labor in 6 year time blocks. American law won't allow it. That is why corporate managers prefer to hire h1b people, because the labor comes in 6 year packages that are priced out at the beginning of that 6 years before the person is allowed even to come to the US."

I was not really aware of this program until visiting FR.

But I don't think it is limited to high - tech jobs only. I lived in an area where chick production is really big. At one time, it offered low-wage jobs for people, both black and white. It gave summer jobs to high school kids and helped them save for college. Then the illegals began coming in. This stopped the jobs for most Americans, but the blacks suffered most. People in the area began to complain about the illegals. The chicken producer bought one (or more) chicken processing facilities in Mexico. ABout 5 years later, they built a huge processing plant back in the community where I previously lived and the word was they were brining in 400 families from Mexico. I asked how was that possible and was told they were being brought in under the 'skilled worker' program. Now I will bet none of you knew that processing chickens was considered a skilled job and that no Americans were capable of doing this job. I do not actually know how the workers were brought in, I do know they were.

Now my thoughts on bringing in the high-tech foreign workers because we had no educated people - why didn't someone consider EDUCATING OUR OWN PEOPLE!! If they had to import workers, why not make it a year to year thing. How long does it take to educate someone for those jobs?

[ComputationalComplexity]

for a hi-tech worker it really depends, a skilled engineer can take anywhere from 4-10 years to train, a chicken herder, I'm not that sure about.

[dfwgator]

I should have been a damned lawyer. It's going to be the only well-paying job left in this country at the rate we're going.

[nanny]

"well, this is just my opinion(I'm working as a consultant), on average those "indentured servants" from india are significantly better than your average american software engineer. "

Well, I truly don't know, so I won't argue the point. But I will say, if that is true, then why not educate our people. Please don't tell me that the only reason they are hired is because they are better workers.

So because these are better workers, we just scuttle the American people, we just forget about the generations to come.

But once again, just like the illegal aliens, the cost to the corporation who is profiting from them might be smaller - but the overall cost to the American taxpayers and America as a whole is huge.

[ComputationalComplexity]

EDUCATING OUR OWN PEOPLE!!

This is really the problem, our high schools are not turning out too many people who are competant in math and science, and the universities produce many engineers who are also not that good. The H1B visa bring in exceptionally good workers. In the case of my profession, software engineers from india, and believe me an indian programmer with a visa is better than an american college grad 9 times out of 10, they know more languages, more experienced, and better work ethic. I don't think this is a good thing, but quite frankly the nature of competition is to be better than your competitor not to cry foul and get the government to help whenever things don't go your way.

[PJ-Comix]

He will go to live with his grandparents in Brooklyn, Mich., a tiny town of brick storefronts and clapboard houses a few hours west of Detroit. There, with no rent to worry about, he will look for work.

Brooklyn, Michigan. That's where the Michigan International Speedway is located. If you can't make money there, you might as well give it up. I once earned over $700 in less than an hour (and I made a lot more the rest of the day) at that Speedway. I won't go into details on how I did it but as I tell people, put me in a crowd of racing fans, add in LOTS of beer, and there is no way I can't make buku bucks. The only problem is that there are only a few races per year at that Speedway but still....

p.s. If you go to that Speedway (or any racing track) and see a guy walking around in a bathrobe and slippers, that's my friend Gene. After he split from his wife he has done nothing but travel from car race to car race all around the country in his RV. He is always well into the Cerveza and makes great barbeques for the folks. If you mention my name, you will probably earn yourself a steak.

p.s. And Gene ALWAYS wears a bathrobe and slippers, even when he is not at the races---He decided to totally relax forever.

[ComputationalComplexity]

We Americans pride ourselves for being better, more efficient, more innovative than any other nation on earth. But clearly in this case, there needs to be some seriously improvement in education, there must be more math/science in the curriculum and less liberal arts.