Smart Immigrants Going Home 770
olddotter writes "A 24-page paper on a reverse brain drain from the US back to home countries (PDF) is getting news coverage. Quoting: 'Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups — precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the US economy and to business and job growth." Adding to the brain drain is a problem with slow US visa processing, since last November or so, that has been driving desirable students and scientists out of the country.
Re:Let them go (Score:5, Interesting)
It's about time we make some room for real US citizens.
Presumably, most of those people originally wanted to become "real" (is there any other kind?) US citizens as well, but realized they have to jump through too many hoops for it to be worth it.
(or do you mean that "real US citizen" is a White Protestant guy with Anglo-Saxon lineage?)
Of course, you can have those guys working in engineering, physics or biotech fields in US - preferably as citizens - or you can have them working on thermonuclear warheads, delivery systems, and biological weapons in China or Russia. Your pick.
Re:Can you blame them? (Score:1, Interesting)
It begs a question, though. Will there be some time down the road when, should our economy rebound and achieve the levels that those people once sought again? And, if so, would we see a sort of inverse-mass-exodus? Only time will tell, I suppose.
and why do we care? (Score:5, Interesting)
Our educational system has become so damned expensive that only people who don't live here can seemingly afford it. So it makes sense... As to why the visa system is clogged... Maybe the economic hard times have hit government offices partially responsible for it as well? Oh, what sweet revenge. -_- More seriously though, what difference does it make how well we educate people (either people who stay or leave?) if the environmental conditions necessary for real progress are absent? Our intellectual property system has gutted any hopes of "desirable individuals" doing much of anything besides occupying a desk. The medical field is screwed because people are too afraid of litigation to actually practice medicine at less than a 6000% markup on procedures, which is literally killing people who can't afford it anymore. The lawyers are the only ones in this country that are well-off anymore.
It's no wonder people are jumping ship... Some people looked down the length of the bow and see a giant iceberg in front of the USS Our Future. An iceberg made almost totally of greed, because we couldn't look farther than the end of our damn noses as the social problems we're facing. And leaving is the smart thing -- how long until Canada starts patrolling its borders to keep illegal immigrants from the United States out? Probably not long.
They will lead a better life "at home" (Score:5, Interesting)
A colleague of mine decided to return to Africa. The money he collected over seven years in the USA would enable him live a better life in his homeland.
A mansion, with a swimming pool and three maids only costs him about 900 dollars to maintain. The respect he would get from the community would be greater and he'll have a chance to eat fresh "organic" fruit.
All in all...good for them...I wish them all the best.
When the economy picks up, I will welcome them to the mighty USA.
Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:visa's (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes its a loss, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it is only a short term loss.
A US citizen who will probably return to the US will probably be a short-term loss with a long-term gain. A foreign citizen may bring American ideals to their home country which, barring obesity, is probably a good thing. They may also spread a view of Americans that isn't from Jerry Springer.
Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, et (Score:1, Interesting)
Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More
Friday, 27 Feb 2009 | 4:39 PM ET
Posted By: Larry Kudlow
Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama's State of the Union speech and his budget.
He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.
That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all -- either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy's long-run potential to grow.
Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama's left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.
RELATED LINKS
Current DateTime: 03:39:08 03 Mar 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29434273
* Obama Walking Tightrope On Banks Bailout
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* Americans Mixed On Obama's Budget
* What's In Obama's Budget
This is nearly double the government-spending low-point reached during the late 1990s by the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton administration. While not quite as high as spending levels in Western Europe, we regrettably will be gaining on this statist-planning approach.
Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.
And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama's cap-and-trade program will be a huge across-the-board tax increase on blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, but new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.
The tax hikes will generate lower growth and fewer revenues. Yes, the economy will recover. But Obama's rosy scenario of 4 percent recovery growth in the out years of his budget is not likely to occur. The combination of easy money from the Fed and below-potential economic growth is a prescription for stagflation. That's one of the messages of the falling stock market.
Essentially, the Obama economic policies represent a major Democratic party relapse into Great Society social spending and taxing. It is a return to the LBJ/Nixon era, and a move away from the Reagan/Clinton period. House Republicans, fortunately, are 90 days sober, as they are putting up a valiant fight to stop the big-government onslaught and move the GOP back to first principles.
Noteworthy up here on Wall Street, a great many Obama supporters -- especially hedge-fund types who voted for "change" -- are becoming disillusioned with the performances of Obama and Treasury man Geithner.
There is a growing sense of buyer's remorse.
Well then, do conservatives dare say: We told you so?
Re:Nice -- more of what we already knew (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh good god. Pick an industry and grow it "forever" and see where it takes you. Real estate? Fast Food? Cell phones? Even securities? Every market can saturate. The saturation of the securities market is what led to the creation of these risky-mortgage based securities -- they needed a new market to grow in.
And one thing I failed to mention that I wish I had (not that it adds much to the argument) is the still present trade deficit. We are buying more than we are selling. What we are selling is largely to ourselves in decreasing numbers. The poor are getting poorer.
We do need protectionism. We need to protect our assets. We once had the strongest agricultural production and now we don't. We once had the strongest manufacturing and now we don't. We once has the strongest technology development and it is rather doubtful that we can wear that badge any longer. What do we have then? The most "rich people?" We do still have a high concentration of wealth but that concentration is confined to less than a percent of the population and a non-existent middle-class.
Slow visa processing is old (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice -- more of what we already knew (Score:3, Interesting)
Tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]
I've been posting that link quite a bit, because it has been very, very appropriate in so many threads lately, and I've found--much to my surprise--that many people (not you, I'm betting you already knew of it) don't properly appreciate it.
Re:and why do we care? (Score:1, Interesting)
As to why is the visa system clogged... uhm. It's been purposely clogged.
Year after year, security concerns, screening methods and harsher guidelines have made it slower and slower.
The fact that you now keep and analyze so much data of the people who want to go to Disneyland, let's not even talk about the poor guy trying to study or work in the US, and the relative rise in visa's price - $100 bucks is a lot in some places, and inflation usually makes that $100 bigger and bigger over time - are just some reasons as to why the immigrant service has been slowing. And more and more immigrants are avoiding the US.
PS: I refuse to pay for a visa. When US citizens pay for a Mexican visa, then I'll pay for yours.
Re:There's plenty of room. (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as all of the truly bright people in the world come to the U.S. to work then the U.S. will continue to have a long-lasting advantage over the rest of the world.
Maybe you should fix your educational system so you'd have smart people on your own. Of course that means you'd also have to pay real wages to teachers, fire the incompetent ones who are unable to learn anything new, but have laid low long enough so you can't fire them legally, etc.
Oh, and actually teach the kids to think for themselves. In short: I don't see that happening anytime soon.
P.S. Do any of you find idiotic as well, that kids should learn everything at the same age, regardless of talent, abilities, potential and personal interests? For example, I've learned English from Cartoon Network, and by the time I got to English class at age 14, I was laughing at my teacher's horrible accent. Yet I still had to sit there for four years.
Re:Let them go (Score:3, Interesting)
Presumably, most of those people originally wanted to become "real" (is there any other kind?) US citizens as well, but realized they have to jump through too many hoops for it to be worth it.
I don't know about that. I live in a city with a high number of educated workers on a visa, and I know a lot of graduate students that will be looking for work on a visa. With a couple of exceptions, they are all pretty adamant about maintaining their citizenship and staying here on a visa only. The reasons vary, but most of them don't want to give up that part of their identity.
Of course this is all anecdotal, but in my experience the majority of the educated immigrants are here for the education and job opportunities, not to stay here permanently.
Re:and why do we care? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, I am living in Brazil, and while I got a visa to work here, we have in the same data center three other WHITE ANGLO AMERICANS working illegally, as far as the Brazilian immigration laws are concerned. (They are under a company contract, so as far as Brazilian taxes they are fine)
So, I don't think we will see the Brazilian DHS hunting my poor fellow citizens here and deporting them. But, many of the American brightest are already leaving, not only by individually emigrating, but also by being transferred overseas, as IBM for example is moving part of their American development team to San Jose dos Campos, a high-tech university town in Sao Paulo state. I mean: moving the WHOLE team, with their families, pets and furniture to a neighborhood where IBM got some houses bought.
Why I would stay in the US and risk getting laid off because some stupid Financial Officer messed up with the stock of the company, if I can be in Brazil, Australia, New Zeland, China or any other of the places still barely touched by the world depression?
See, World Bank forecasts a GDP growth of 3 to 4% for Brazil this year, and a GDP growth of 8 to 9% for China. Meanwhile, we in the US will LOSE 4 to 5% of our GDP.
Brazil and China are not very friendly towards foreigners. If the immigrants don't blend fast in to their respective local cultures they are usually ostracized. But, they are very kind and friendly people if you adapt to them, so why not to adapt?
Any empire gets to the stage where it begins to fall to pieces. Rich countries built by immigrants, become emigrants' countries. Life goes on.
I am becoming a Brazilian myself. And I don't even see me going back to the US soon, at least not to live there. Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul (the Brazilian South states) are great places to work and live. I won't be in Rio de Janeiro or Bahia or Recife, for example. Those places are very violent and poor. But here where I am living, in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, I got a high quality of life, comparable to the US, and for half of the price tag I would have to pay at the cheapest American city.
See, I am an American expat, and I don't feel bad at all. I am tired of American cities crowded with criminal gangs, and lots of people living in the welfare, in ghettos, barely making it for living. You see those in Miami, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, pretty much everywhere.
I feel much better, and safer, here in Santa Catarina than I used to feel in Miami Beach.
So, why not to leave the old USA and live overseas? I see many smart people doing that, and I see lots of stupid people staying behind, so why not to follow the smart?
Re:There's plenty of room. (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you should fix your educational system so you'd have smart people on your own. Of course that means you'd also have to pay real wages to teachers, fire the incompetent ones who are unable to learn anything new, but have laid low long enough so you can't fire them legally, etc.
Oh, and actually teach the kids to think for themselves. In short: I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I'm American, and I can't tell you how much I share this desire for a better pubic educational system for the US. I would very much love to see the average US citizen be able to think for himself, rather than just absorb all the crap thrown at us through too many advertisements every day. If you're an average American (at least, this is my impression from what I see as stereotypes), your computer is Windows, your cable and Internet are Comcast high-speed (which isn't that fast on an absolute scale), you bought your car because either (a) it looks nice or (b) you heard that it's environmentally friendly, you work from 9 to 5 five days a week for a middle-class paycheck. And this little bubble is pretty much your life. It's safe. There's no need to think for yourself; the companies you pay monthly for their services have already done that for you.
Screw that. I wanna make my own decisions about stuff I do and buy!
Stupid visa tricks (Score:3, Interesting)
My cousin from El Salvador wanted to come to the US to attend school to get an education degree. She would have been a great teacher, especially for dealing with kids who needed bilingual help. She applied to school a year after 9/11, and her student visa was delayed, delayed, delayed, so she ended up staying in El Salvador and working in HR at a recruiting firm [tecoloco.com] in El Salvador.
Re:and why do we care? (Score:5, Interesting)
Insightful comment (haven't got any mod points unfortunately though).
I feel the same way about my home country (Australia). Australians deep down are quite patriotic, but it is a quiet, learned patriotism, rather than the overt 'God bless America' flag-waving culture you see in the US. If you asked us, we wouldn't say we were patriotic. But most would, as you say, defend it to the death if there was a real threat. Life is just too good here to give up easily, it truly is one of the world's best places to live (Canada is nice too BTW from what I've seen) :)
I'm qualified to talk about this distinction I think, because my wife is in fact an American who has just recently permanently moved here to Australia with me. (Incidentally she's well educated, a good example of the brain drain out of the US). I've also spent a lot of time in the US myself, both for business and pleasure.
I think the US a wonderful country with some of the friendliest people you will find anywhere. But the first time I visited I could not BELIEVE the awful, tacky, in-your-face patriotism. Flags from every freaking house (here, flags are pretty much just for government buildings etc). HUGE flags on the side of highways and stuff for no apparent reason (why? seriously, why?). In a way, the US displays its national symbol so much and so often that it loses it's importance and meaning I think. Here, we treat our flag with a great deal of respect and use it only for official occasions. And I think it is more symbolic and meaningful because of that.
So I think your last comment "You can't force anyone to love a country, but you can let them", is a perfect summation. In most countries, people come to love their country gradually and deeply, because they genuinely think it's a wonderful place. In the US though it does seem as if patriotism is more ... indoctrinated into people.
Re:There's plenty of room. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't wait for the first wave of immigrant technical workers to reach middle-age. I'm going to laugh my ass off when they start complaining about competition from younger, smarter, harder-working people. I can't wait until they have to visit the chiropractor 2 to 3 times a week for their chronic neck and back pain from all the time they spent hunched over a computer. It'll be amusing when they are completely screwed by the companies they helped build and divorced by their spouses for years of neglect.
I'm guessing that the ones that go back to their countries of origin will be the lucky ones. They'll probably go back to a more "humanly" paced culture that believes that families really do take care of each other instead of farming the old folks out to some Dickensian nursing home.
As long as the U.S. maintains its dominance in the world there will always be some country where the young people will long to be a "corporate tool". Buy hey, I'm not bitter. No, just wiser.
Re:The Truth Behind the Trolling (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, this.
Give them back all of the management grads.
See if we can export some of ours too.
Re:Nice -- more of what we already knew (Score:5, Interesting)
And one thing I failed to mention that I wish I had (not that it adds much to the argument) is the still present trade deficit. We are buying more than we are selling. What we are selling is largely to ourselves in decreasing numbers.
Actually exports have been rising (until 2009) as well as imports: see here [calculatedriskblog.com]. And keep in mind that those $3 trillion in imports are still pretty small compared with the $13 trillion domestic, non-imported US economy.
On the other hand, a global trade war would risk the $1.8 trillion in US exports and all of their respective jobs (my industry makes 1/3 of its revenue from exports), so let's not mess around with that! Plus it would raise prices on basic consumer goods, which would affect the poor the worst!
Re:If the playing field were level, ... (Score:5, Interesting)
H1-B wages are not the problem. By law, an employer is required to pay H1-B at least as much or more than the US market average for the given position.
It is only a violation if you get caught. There is, and always has been, exactly $0 in the government budget for enforcement of the wage parity requirements of the H1B program.
Re:H1B's leaving (Score:1, Interesting)
Get off of your high horse. It means shit.
None of your ancestors came there and had to take any test. They just took stuff, and then separated from their original countries.
Then they mixed up a non-culture of street grids filled with crap food stores, giant malls and tons of plastic fantastic double-standard facade in the cities, and one-road hick-towns of religious fundamentalist rednecks everywhere else.
The time of the western empire(s)" is over. Like the roman empire, the Egyptians and other large empires. They always fall. It's just a matter of time.
The next could be China and/or the Arabic countries. So one thing does not change: The world is fucked up anyway.
Re:This is bad strategy. India/GM-Canada/GM-EU (Score:2, Interesting)
I like to listen to The World, from BBC/NPR... In today's audio...
http://www.theworld.org/node/24849 [theworld.org]
"Delhi-based economic journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha tells anchor Lisa Mullins why India's economy is managing some growth while many neighboring economies are slipping."
But, what did *I* learn today? (this is from memory, and some of it my own adding...)
India's economy is set or on track to grow some 3-5% this and next year, even though the rest of the (industrialized) world is stagnating. Why? India's economy is not nearly as integrated with the rest of the world as is the US', Japan's, Korea's, UK's, etc.
Some 1/3 of Indians go to bed starving, but some 2/3 of "Americans" are classed as "overweight". Indian make of some 1/3 of the world's IT force, yet India's own domestic infrastructure is ~ or http://www.theworld.org/node/24850
I learned:
"General Motors and Chrysler produce nearly a quarter of their North American vehicles in Ontario. So they're asking Canadian taxpayers to pitch in almost a quarter of the money that the companies say they need to stay afloat. The World's Jason Margolis has more."
So,
Canadians produce around 25% of GM's cars, and GM wants Canadians to ante up (help out) with some 20% of the money GM needs. Including benefits, Canadian GM workers earn about $49/per hour! But, effective take-home pay is about $25/hour. Canadians, understandably, are concerned that GM or other US-carmakers will get them to sign on to a Canadian-citizen-funded auto industry bailout program, then take the money to less-expensive Asian areas, or back to the US.
Interesting report...
---
And, here:
GM Europe 'could run out of cash'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7922186.stm [bbc.co.uk]
----
GM Europe 'could run out of cash'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7879372.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Temporary pain for later gain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can you blame them? (Score:1, Interesting)
I often see people from the United States complaining about their "crumbling infrastructure". I travel to the US quite often on business and I don't quite understand where this perception comes from. I have yet to see one example of actual crumbling infrastructure. The roads for the most part are smooth and well maintained. When you plug something into a socket, you can depend on it having power. So, I just don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that your infrastructure is crumbling.
The conclusion I have reached is that you and people like yourself are simply typical ignorant Americans that having never been outside of your own backyard assume that a pothole at the end of your driveway must mean that your country is falling apart. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have no idea what real difficulty means. And that is precisely why after having possessed our country since 1492, we'll have it back piece by piece and we won't have to take it, you'll give it to us.
Re:This is bad strategy. (Score:5, Interesting)
We need to end the cheap (H1-B) labor for engineering.
If businesses "need" more engineering labor than the market has available, they need to pay for it, just as they would for marketing or management. Instead they suppress the salaries by importing cheap labor from overseas.
We also need to undo some of the cultural bias we have for "management" and stop treating management as some kind of aristocratic/Mandarin class entitled to special wages & privileges above the common people.
Re:It should be a two-way street (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember that slashdot article.
But, the guy who wrote the article had no intention of actually getting a job in India or China. He was just trying to get somebody to say something stupid at the consulate.
Actually, if you work for a Chinese company, they will put out a press release to the local media that their company is so great that even American want to work for them (it did happen! though it was for a student who was working at a Chinese factory - not really for wages but for experience).
Brains leave to go home (Score:3, Interesting)
H-1B program is hurting US STEM education (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=334764 [computerworld.com]
Re:H1B's leaving (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, having a lot of education does not make one highly skilled. Especially younger workers without much experience thrown at jobs that treat technical people as commodities.
Some of the best engineers I've known are highly educated people from China or India. However, some of the worst engineers I've met were also highly educated people from China or India...
Re:H1B's leaving (Score:3, Interesting)
THIS... after 20 years in IT, I've worked with a lot of H1B's. My experience has been that the bell curve of ability among immigrant workers seems to be inverted -- they tend to be either insanely talented or completely incompetent, with very little middle ground between the two.
Standard disclaimers about confirmation bias and limited sample size apply.
Re:It is a shame... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's why I moved back to Canada and decided not to work in the U.S. again, even though I have had a number of calls and offers to come back in the short time I have been away (even in this recession). It leaves me feeling a bit down since I really liked living there in Saint Louis; the first city I have really been home sick over. It drove me crazy that it was such a pain in the ass to get a green card even though I spent all told 7 years there on work visas. I kept my nose clean, at worst I got two parking tickets which I paid, and contributed time and money to a local non profit group that tries to take care of various issues the old blues musicians in town run into (the one's who are poor because of the way they were ripped off on royalties by the same recording companies trying to sue single mothers). Meanwhile I keep hearing how congress wants to grant immunity and green cards to all those who have been living there for more than a couple of years illegally.
Another thing, many Americans don't realize that working on many/most of the various work visas means you have a month to back up and get out of America if your job ends, something that does kind of wear on you after a while... especially in a slowing economy. That is, knowing you might have to not only look for new work if your job ends, but also new work in a different country while still being away (not as easy as if you are there), and finding a new home in a different country and all the moving issues around that. I left the middle of last year from the U.S. (I quit, I didn't get laid off) because of all of those kinds of issues.
"Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free..." maybe that is more true than I thought. If I am not poor or longing to be free, if I don't need welfare or government assistance, maybe that's the reason it is so hard to get a green card if you are a computer professional. I should have applied for welfare. Ha! That's it! If I ever do go back to work in the U.S. I'll swim across the border... that way I might have a better chance of getting a green card. When the economy goes south, you want to keep the good minds since they are the ones most likely to help you get it back on the road. The reverse brain drain is a case of the U.S. having its cake and finding out what it's like to want to eat it too.
Re:H1B's leaving (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this is because of H1B hiring tendencies. Employers either go with H1B workers because they can't find someone as highly qualified locally as the foreign applicant; or because they want cheap labor.
(granted it's not cheap to go through the H1B process, but if you've got a marginal worker who has to go through a mess of bureacracy to change jobs, you've essentially got indentured labor that you can exploit)
Re:US tech was stronger before the flood of h1bs (Score:3, Interesting)
Rose-colored glasses, you must have. Remember that XP was a buggy steaming pile of dung when it was released, too.
As for banks, that has nothing to do with engineers or coders, that has to do with top-level decisions and deregulation.
Keep in mind that Citibank's core software was developed in India long before any of this shit hit the fan.
Correlation !- causation, and it's either ignorant or disingenuous of you to link either MS's crapware or ting fiasco with H1B employees.
Please read any number of the posts above that explain why increasing the labor supply is important to maintaing the US economy in the long run.
Re:man, where to start (Score:3, Interesting)
This can be addressed by changing how we use water, how we approach development, etc. This is not a problem without solutions (pardon the pun) -- restrict development in water-limited areas. Reduce water consumption (I did mention reducing standard of living, and egregious consumption is part of that -- I also mentioned the unsustainable natural resource use, which water is part of).
The economy needs to be retooled. Increasing the labor pool also increases demand for consumer goods -- and reduced wages will enable us to competitively manufacture consumer goods (especially as fuel and energy costs continue to rise globally).
The affordable housing issue will sort itself out, if we have the contraction that is needed. It'll be painful... but note that the intense inflationary period we'll be going through in the next decade will wipe out a lot of the housing pain. We need to pay the piper.
Ah, here is where your true nature shines through. Let me give you hint -- first, the global economy is very different than it was in the 1800s. Just advances in transportation have changed the very nature of how economies work. Never mind the fact that the economy went to shit plenty of times before the institution of the Fed, of income tax, etc -- the Fed was created BECAUSE the economy went to shit so often.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:H1B's leaving (Score:2, Interesting)
An infant born in America will grow up in an American cultural environment, and will have American probabilities for growing up to be a decent person.
I'd hate to break it to you, but the rest of the world is a big place, and while you might consider yourself moraly superior to large parts of the world, that world (usualy people in that same large part that you feel superior to) considers what you feel is a 'decent person' to be a guntoting fanatic that's loud obnoxious and has an inflated sense of selfworth because he has been indoctrinated from birth that the US of A is the best.
I'm not American
And, like my neighbour, I also am the queen of Sheba
Re:Can you blame them? (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it bizarre that the US and Canada don't have something similar to the Schengen agreement in Europe (in Europe you have the right to work in any country that's an EU member if you are a citizen of an EU member country). It seems that the US and Canada just have the free trade agreement but no freedom of movement agreement.
Can hardly blame them (Score:3, Interesting)
The INS Dehumanization of Foreigners Act is to blame. OK, so I joke, but having worked on a project in the US for a few years (before returning home). Here's my experience of the visa process.
First I was on an L1 as an intracompany transferee. I wasn't cheap to my company either - they did indeed pay the prevailing wage, and on top of that, a substantial international service allowance that paid all of my living expenses and then some (the ISA was something like double my actual basic living expenses). Since they are a big firm and have many people working in many different countries, they have a whole department that looks after people on international service. This department does things like visa paperwork. They are very experienced with it.
However, my visa application was refused (section 224g IIRC, "insufficient information") and the US Embassy demanded that I go and have a visa interview at the embassy. The ream of paperwork, incidentally, was filled out just like they had been doing successfully for some months - but they explained to me that every so often the embassy staff changes, and some new footling jobsworth rule changes, and they just start bouncing applications. I was just unlucky enough to hit a staff change. So I go up to London, where you have to line up outside the embassy at the crack of dawn for a good hour or so. Then you have to line up to get a delicatessen style ticket. Then you sit down and wait, while they call numbers.
You can't read a book while they are doing this - the numbers are called in seemingly random sequence, and you just know after your initial experience already with the embassy if you are reading, and miss your number, they won't call it again and you'll get sent home to repeat the experience some weeks later. So you sit and get bored. If you do decide to read, they have these "newspapers" around called something like "Going USA". The first half of which bizarrely seems to be dedicated to how terrible your own country is, how great the USA is, and what a good time your country folk are having running gas stations in Florida. The second half of the "newspaper" is dedicated to how they aren't going to give you a visa anyway.
Anyhow, after 4 hours, my number came up. The guy asked me a single question - what are the dates of service with your company? I told him. He said, "That's great, you'll get your passport back in about a week". They could have asked me that over the phone and saved me a completely unproductive day (and a great deal of expense). Now I have no quarrel with the guy who did the "interview" at the embassy, he was perfectly courteous and polite. But the whole bureaucratic machine is a red-taped mess.
I had a second run-in with the Embassy's bureaucratic machine again when my visa got extended. It was actually approved by the INS in the United States, all I needed to do was if I went back home on a trip, was to get the new visa stuck in my passport. The Embassy literally had nothing to do other than print the thing as it was already approved. There was another form to fill in for the Embassy (which merely duplicated all the information the INS already had when they approved the new visa), so I filled this in, sent it and the paperwork from the INS in the USA to the Embassy. They refused my new visa! My new pre-approved visa! Why? Because the form was out of date. So I downloaded the new form off the Embassy website and it was...exactly..the..same....as...the...one I sent, apart from the date at the bottom. Exactly the same. This bureaucratic stupidity cost me another couple of days as the new paperwork had to make yet another round trip.
Now I'm not singling out the USA here. My current next door neighbour is Albanian - she's very smart, has an engineering degree, and fluently speaks English, German and French (and of course Albanian). But the British embassy treated her like a liar and criminal - they were deliberately extremely unpleasant, rude and aggressive to her face (and indeed, she wouldn't have come here if it wasn't
Smart immigration / trade policy (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't compete.
The only way you can reasonably compete with someone in a third world country who lives in a plywood shack and eats a bowl of rice a day is if you are willing to live the same lifestyle.
In an International economy, money is a bit like water. It's always going to roll down to the low points. While it's true that this has the advantage of raising the standard of living at the low end, it also decreases it at the high end. This is why there are borders and tariffs - to build a dam between economies that regulates the flow.
I've seen more than a few sentimental references to that poem on the statue in NY harbor. That poem was put there during the immigration boom of the early 20th century. Recall that during those years, we had low wages and abuse of workers on a massive scale. We tried to patch it then (and ever since) by running in circles passing more and more regulations on business. By nature, regulations limit freedoms and cost money to enforce. It could have (and still can) be done another way.
The real problem was that jobs and applicants are a supply and demand market. The demand for workers was finite, but the supply was unlimited. So a worker's value (to the company) was near zero. In a more balanced economy where the labor supply was closer to demand, employers would have had to make some reasonable concessions. But they were under no such pressure.
What's needed is a sensible trade and immigration policy - one that balances immigration with the job market, and prevents us from competing openly with countries who do not share our standard of living. Yes, it's true that prices would go up without cheap imports. But wages would hold too and we would have a balance.
Re:Can you blame them? (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it bizarre that the US and Canada don't have something similar to the Schengen agreement in Europe
I suspect Canada would be open to such an agreement, but would require that it be reciprocal, and allow Canadians to travel and work in the US. I'm guessing that this is the sticking point. The US seems happy with the free trade agreement because Canada honours it, and the US simply ignores it whenever it is inconvenient for them (see the soft wood lumber dispute).
They will be back (Score:1, Interesting)
Once they spend a few years in their native land they will realize what they gave up when they left.
They will be back, trust me. I have seen it dozens of times.
Re:It is a shame... (Score:3, Interesting)
You are not kidding there.
Yesterday I went to the USA Consulate to get a tourist visa for my daughter. She is going to Disney World in June.
Anyway, I was stuck inside an open area, with the temperature almost at 100 degrees, for 2 hours. Without a place to sit. Yes, there were some wooden benches, but way too many people. Some of the other applicants were there for 4+ hours. All the visa officers were behind bullet proof glasses, and talked to us using something that passes for a mic/speaker. And when, because of that, I could not understand what the visa officer was saying, I've got insulted by him.
I mean, c'mon. I was there to give the USA money (tourism is still one of the best sources of income for a country, last I checked). And I've got stuck on an open warehouse-like area, got treated like I was trying to visit someone at the jail, got insulted and, to add insult to injury, had to pay to have the passport mailed back to me by our local equivalent of FEDEX, at DOUBLE the normal rate for that service.
Interesting enough, the local people that works at the consulate (ie: non-visa officers) were all very nice and helpful. However, the USA citizen working there were treating me like crap. But my 13yo daughter wants to visit Disney World. I know I, for one, will take my vacations somewhere else.