Trump Transition Leaders Call For Eased Tech Immigration Policy 156
theodp writes: In 2012, now-Microsoft President Brad Smith unveiled Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, a two-pronged strategy that called for tech visa restrictions to be loosened to allow tech companies to hire non-U.S. citizens to fill jobs until more American schoolchildren could be made tech-savvy enough to pass hiring standards. Shortly thereafter, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org emerged (led by Smith's next-door neighbor Hadi Partovi with Smith as a founding Board member) with a mission to ensure that U.S. schoolchildren started receiving 'rigorous' computer science education instruction. Around the same time, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC launched (with support from Smith, Partovi, and other tech leaders) with a mission to reform tech visa policy to meet tech's need for talent.
Fast forward to 2024, and Newsweek reports the debate over tech immigration policy has been revived, spurred by the recent appointment of Sriram Krishnan as senior policy adviser for AI at the Trump White House. Comments by far-right political activist Laura Loomer on Twitter about Krishnan's call for loosening Green Card restrictions were met with rebuttals from prominent tech leaders who are also serving as members of the Trump transition team. Entrepreneur David Sacks, who Trump has tapped as his cryptocurrency and AI czar, took to social media to clarify that Krishnan advocates for removing country caps on green cards, not eliminating caps entirely, aiming to create a more merit-based system. However, the NY Times reported that Sacks discussed a much broader visa reform proposal with Trump during a June podcast ("What I will do is," Trump told Sacks, "you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country"). Elon Musk, the recently appointed co-head of Trump's new Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had Sacks' and Krishnan's backs (not unexpected -- both were close Musk advisors on his Twitter purchase), tweeting out "Makes sense" to his 209 million followers, lamenting that "the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low," reposting claims crediting immigrants for 36% of the innovation in the U.S., and taking USCIS to task for failing to immediately recognize his own genius with an Exceptional Ability Green Card (for his long-defunct Zip2 startup).
Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump has tapped to co-lead DOGE with Musk, agreed and fanned the Twitter flames with a pinned Tweet of his own explaining, "The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born -- first-generation engineers over "native" Americans isn't because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy -- wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture." (Colorado Governor Jared Polis also took to Twitter to agree with Musk and Ramaswamy on the need to import 'elite engineers'). And Code.org CEO Partovi joined the Twitter fray, echoing the old we-need-H1B-visas-to-make-US-schoolchildren-CS-savvy argument of Microsoft's 2012 National Talent Strategy. "Did you know 2/3 of H1B visas are for computer scientists?" Partovi wrote in reply to Musk, Loomer, and Sachs. "The H1B program raises $500M/year (from its corporate sponsors) and all that money is funneled into programs at Labor and NSF without focus to grow local CS talent. Let's fund CS education." The NYT also cited Zuckerberg's earlier efforts to influence immigration policy with FWD.us (which also counted Sacks and Musk as early supporters), taking note of Zuck's recent visit to Mar-a-Lago and Meta's $1 million donation to Trump's upcoming inauguration.
So, who is to be believed? Musk, who attributes any tech visa qualms to "a 'fixed pie' fallacy that is at the heart of much wrong-headed economic thinking" and argues that "there is essentially infinite potential for job and company creation ['We should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States,' Musk has said]"? Or economists who have found that immigration and globalization is not quite the rising-tide-that-raises-all-boats it's been cracked up to be?
Fast forward to 2024, and Newsweek reports the debate over tech immigration policy has been revived, spurred by the recent appointment of Sriram Krishnan as senior policy adviser for AI at the Trump White House. Comments by far-right political activist Laura Loomer on Twitter about Krishnan's call for loosening Green Card restrictions were met with rebuttals from prominent tech leaders who are also serving as members of the Trump transition team. Entrepreneur David Sacks, who Trump has tapped as his cryptocurrency and AI czar, took to social media to clarify that Krishnan advocates for removing country caps on green cards, not eliminating caps entirely, aiming to create a more merit-based system. However, the NY Times reported that Sacks discussed a much broader visa reform proposal with Trump during a June podcast ("What I will do is," Trump told Sacks, "you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country"). Elon Musk, the recently appointed co-head of Trump's new Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had Sacks' and Krishnan's backs (not unexpected -- both were close Musk advisors on his Twitter purchase), tweeting out "Makes sense" to his 209 million followers, lamenting that "the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low," reposting claims crediting immigrants for 36% of the innovation in the U.S., and taking USCIS to task for failing to immediately recognize his own genius with an Exceptional Ability Green Card (for his long-defunct Zip2 startup).
Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump has tapped to co-lead DOGE with Musk, agreed and fanned the Twitter flames with a pinned Tweet of his own explaining, "The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born -- first-generation engineers over "native" Americans isn't because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy -- wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture." (Colorado Governor Jared Polis also took to Twitter to agree with Musk and Ramaswamy on the need to import 'elite engineers'). And Code.org CEO Partovi joined the Twitter fray, echoing the old we-need-H1B-visas-to-make-US-schoolchildren-CS-savvy argument of Microsoft's 2012 National Talent Strategy. "Did you know 2/3 of H1B visas are for computer scientists?" Partovi wrote in reply to Musk, Loomer, and Sachs. "The H1B program raises $500M/year (from its corporate sponsors) and all that money is funneled into programs at Labor and NSF without focus to grow local CS talent. Let's fund CS education." The NYT also cited Zuckerberg's earlier efforts to influence immigration policy with FWD.us (which also counted Sacks and Musk as early supporters), taking note of Zuck's recent visit to Mar-a-Lago and Meta's $1 million donation to Trump's upcoming inauguration.
So, who is to be believed? Musk, who attributes any tech visa qualms to "a 'fixed pie' fallacy that is at the heart of much wrong-headed economic thinking" and argues that "there is essentially infinite potential for job and company creation ['We should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States,' Musk has said]"? Or economists who have found that immigration and globalization is not quite the rising-tide-that-raises-all-boats it's been cracked up to be?
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
"Trump Transition Leaders Call For Eased Tech Immigration Policy"
Translation: "Trump Wants Cheap H1B Tech Slaves"
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Cutting wages and government spending, or increasing government revenue (taxes) should turn back inflation. This can be done by diluting the wages in the job market with an injection of skilled labor that accepts a lower wage. And by adding taxes such as tariffs. I assume that's Trump's plan.
Is that what MAGA voters wanted? I hope so, because that's what they're going to get.
Look forward to high unemployment, wages stagnation, and a cooling economy with a tightening of monetary policy. It's certainly a valid solution to a problem. Maybe not the one I'd choose first though.
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It's all bullshit propaganda that Trump and Musk have spread.
They've successfully convinced Cletus that Mohammed the neurologist is taking his job.
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H1B should be changed to offer a Green Card upon successful completion of a contract period. It is dumb to send productive H1Bs back to their home country, once they prove themselves they should get a Green Card and stay. This is something which could be address by Merit Based Immigration. Complete of an H1B tour would be worth a few points.
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The H-1B program needs to just be scrapped. If they are so valuable that they take a job in the US (and lets be realistic, the main reason they are brought in is cheap labor, and that when fired, they are deported), they should be given a green card from the get-go.
No lotteries (why we had two this year, with each H-1B taking a US job), and each lottery means 100,000 more H-1Bs, each year taking up jobs, and we had two.
Funny thing is that one of the pro-Trump voting things was that the H-1B program would b
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The system is essentially designed like that. I was on H1B 3 years and then got a green card.
It works a little bit differently for indian because there are quotas of green cards per regions to quick and dramatic demographic shift. And because there is literally a billion indians, the green card process is slow.
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H1B should be changed to offer a Green Card upon successful completion of a contract period. It is dumb to send productive H1Bs back to their home country, once they prove themselves they should get a Green Card and stay. This is something which could be address by Merit Based Immigration. Complete of an H1B tour would be worth a few points.
In the UK, if you're skilled enough to get a work visa here, the time you spend counts towards your Settlement. You need 5 years on an appropriate visa to apply for settlement (indefinite leave to remain) in the UK. It should work that way.
However the US's H1B system has been co-opted to get cheap, replaceable cogs that work for less than locals and don't demand things like rights or benefits.
In the UK, we're not just talking about skilled tech workers, we're not even talking chiefly about them, a lot
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"Trump Transition Leaders Call For Eased Tech Immigration Policy"
Translation: "Trump Wants Cheap H1B Tech Slaves"
Translation: Elon wants cheap H1B tech slaves.
Elon Musk sparks MAGA backlash after calling for more immigrant workers [salon.com]
South African-born Elon Musk was once an immigrant to the U.S., illegally overstaying his visa to build a future here. He employs hundreds of foreign-born engineers at his Tesla and SpaceX companies and says they fill a shortage of American-born workers.
Musk’s companies rely on immigration policies that vastly differ from those pushed by MAGA. Per a Forbes review of Tesla filings, the automaker sponsored 742 workers for H1-B visas, a class of visa for specialized workers with a 2.5% rejection rate in 2024, down from Trump administration rates of 24% in 2018 and 21% in 2019.
I guess $250M in political donations gets you things ...
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He employs hundreds of foreign-born engineers at his Tesla and SpaceX companies and says they fill a shortage of American-born workers.
I don't know about Tesla, but this is definitely not true about SpaceX. SpaceX is governed by ITAR, which among many other things, puts really tight limits on foreign workers. While it is possible to hire H-1B workers, it's not at all trivial. The fact that the author carefully carves out the numbers for Tesla but says nothing at all about SpaceX other than lumping it in this sentence carries a heavy odor of editorializing. The department of labor openly publishes the H-1B counts for all employers out there
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Exactly. The entire goal of the immigrant Visa's are to bring in cheaper talent - "If, and only if no citizen has these talents"
The current system is rigged basically so that staffing agencies can bring in piles of indian immigrants and pay them mcdonalds wages to work tech jobs, and then they are burned out and sent back. This sucks.
Either:
a) Limit all Visa's to only recognized people working in that sector. So if you want to bring in a physicist (eg "the next Einstein") they need to have their PhD, and th
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Meanwhile competition for slots in STEM programs is cut-throat, but the job market for american recent college graduates is pretty much impossible. My son has a 1550 on his SATs, his odds of getting in to any top tier school are under 25% if he pursues ECE or computer science, and people who do graduate with those degrees are struggling to find jobs that pay better than other options.
The real issue is people with the brains and drive to get STEM degrees definitely have the brains and drive to do things whic
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How is it possible that there are these countries where a large percentage of the population is illiterate and living in poverty - and yet they are able to produce all sorts of highly skilled computer scientists?
The answer is: It isn't possible.
Of course it's possible. A "large percentage" isn't everyone.
India has 1.4 Billion people. Millions can be educated and capable despite most being poor.
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You obviously haven't traveled much. The top 0.1% of India is every bit as smart and rich as the top 1% in America. And since India has a much larger population there are plenty of people in that top 0.1%. Those poverty ridden illiterates living in India have landed a mission on the moon and built nuclear weapons.
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Those poverty ridden illiterates living in India have landed a mission on the moon and built nuclear weapons.
They invented neither and it is orders of magnitude easier to copy than to invent. I"m in no way saying there are no smart Indians, I've met many brilliant immigrants from India and have several friends from there, however, the overwhelming majority of H1Bs from India are absolutely not smarter than the top 1% of engineers here. Now, the few O1 visa holders I've met are legit world class. However, you can't just buy a ticket to the O1 drawing, you need to petition with documented proof of your achievements.
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Every advance is an incremental improvement over existing. China made the first rockets and guns. India invented the first metal encased rockets, and the British copied that (look up the history of the Congreve rocket which were the rockets Francis Scott Key mentioned about "rocket's red glare" in the US national anthem). India may not have invented nuclear weapons, but they have indirect economic and other contributions that assisted in its invention.
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They invented neither and it is orders of magnitude easier to copy than to invent.
No one invented either of them because you're describing goals or concepts. The reality is both of the things being talked about are the culmination of thousands of inventions and engineering solutions to problems.
Just because they didn't make the first bomb doesn't mean their bomb is the same as the one in the USA (not copied), just like their space program looks different (also not copied).
Thing a bit more about the topic of innovation in the future, and before you consider India's top scientists dumb, ju
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You obviously haven't traveled much. The top 0.1% of India is every bit as smart and rich as the top 1% in America. And since India has a much larger population there are plenty of people in that top 0.1%. Those poverty ridden illiterates living in India have landed a mission on the moon and built nuclear weapons.
The important question is whether those top Indians are the ones getting the H1b visas. From the numbers I've seen, the answer is mostly no. There are some with PhDs and earning more than $200k but very few. My coworker who fit this description failed on his first H1b lottery the first year. He then decided that it was too much of a risk to go through the lottery again, so he applied for an outstanding researcher visa instead. Ironically, the horde of low qualified and low paid Indians prevented a high qual
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You obviously haven't traveled much. The top 0.1% of India is every bit as smart and rich as the top 1% in America. And since India has a much larger population there are plenty of people in that top 0.1%. Those poverty ridden illiterates living in India have landed a mission on the moon and built nuclear weapons.
The important question is whether those top Indians are the ones getting the H1b visas. From the numbers I've seen, the answer is mostly no. There are some with PhDs and earning more than $200k but very few. My coworker who fit this description failed on his first H1b lottery the first year. He then decided that it was too much of a risk to go through the lottery again, so he applied for an outstanding researcher visa instead. Ironically, the horde of low qualified and low paid Indians prevented a high qualified and high paid Indian from getting a H1b visa.
More or less my experience as well. Not to say that folks coming on H1b visas can't be capable, but I don't think it's a secret that the best and brightest in India have plenty of opportunities in India at this point, and I think the natural compulsion of most people is to stay where they find familiar if opportunity exists. The folks coming to the US as H1b's are largely mid to low tier talent equivalent to anything coming out of run of the mill US colleges. There's gems in there of course, but the system
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H1B visas should be sold at auction based on the pay. The highest paid job opening gets filled first, then the next highest paid, all the way until the quota is reached.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
How is it possible that there are these countries where a large percentage of the population is illiterate and living in poverty - and yet they are able to produce all sorts of highly skilled computer scientists?
The answer is: It isn't possible.
The only "talent" or "skill" that these foreign workers possess is a willingness to work for low wages.
The USA proudly sits at place 138 on the UN literacy list with a 86% literacy rating so you guys don't really have any standing to piss on other countries over their literacy rates. There are 60 countries on that UN list with a literacy rate 99% or higher and if you don't believe that statistic, the National Literacy Institute estimates that 21% of adults in the US were illiterate in 2024 which is actually even worse. The USA is simply playing the same game as the UK, it's cheaper to import highly educated foreign talent than it is to educate your own people. Furthermore, for profit corporate schools out to deliver the crappiest possible education at the highest possible price and the fact that whatever remaining schools that do offer quality education cost more than most regular Americans chan hope to afford, has led to a serious deterioration of US education. Worse yet, now that the USA is run by the MAGA movement which has adopted wilful ignorance as one of its core values and proudly encourages efforts to stultify the US public, importing large quantities of well educated skilled labour is something the USA literally cannot function without.
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Rated "Troll". Damn, those USAliens sure do go bang when they get triggered, don't they? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You can train somebody to program (Score:4, Insightful)
This website is full of old farts. We know damn well that what the H1B's are being brought in for isn't anything Americans can't do with some vocational training. We know that because a bunch of us had entire careers with just a bit of vocational training.
This isn't to say college is worthless. You get a hell of a lot more math out of college and it means you can do more than just code monkey about. But those "best and brightest that we just can't get by without from India" are almost entirely code monkeys trained in vocational schools over there.
Even then it's still desirable to have all that training paid for overseas so you're right about that. But there's absolutely no reason why the 80% of Americans who can read just fine can't take those jobs
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In about 6 months. 12 if you need them to do something complicated.
This website is full of old farts. We know damn well that what the H1B's are being brought in for isn't anything Americans can't do with some vocational training.
If it were that easy for everybody to do, you wouldn't have spent your whole life on welfare. Angel o sphere has been doing it for 30 years and he still sucks at it.
We know that because a bunch of us had entire careers with just a bit of vocational training.
You've already shown that you're not one of them. Some people get it in their heads that they just go to a coding bootcamp and they're a professional software engineer. That rarely works. Other people are self-taught and yet still outperform their peers with full blown CS degrees. Every person is not inherently well suited to every possible care
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In about 6 months. 12 if you need them to do something complicated.
hmmm.
I am not sure. If someone is trainable in programming, then certainly, well at least something moderate within 12 months. All depends on what you mean by complicated. There are some people who just don't "get" it somehow. Now in some cases, this isn't because they can't learn it, it's because the teaching method is wrong and a radically different approach works. And by radically, I mean starting in the most simple, mechanistic, nothin
Did you ever work with any mainframe programmers? (Score:2)
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The GOP had a majority in the house. The Senate has the filibuster. Minorities can still rule effectively in this country. Regardless of how senile or criminal your favorite presidential candidate might be.
And I didn't like either in 2020.
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Promoting a senile corrupt candidate and pretending he's not for 4 years as President should have discredited the anti-MAGA crowd long ago.
Wait I though Trump was the head of the MAGA movement, not anti-MAGA?? Is this some 4D chess move I'm missing?
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
"now that the USA is run by the MAGA movement"
Are you in a time machine? The USA hasn't been "run by the MAGA movement" for 4 years and even then it was hampered by the faithful opposition.
It will be run buy MAGA for the next four years and I read their Project 2025 ideas for rigging the US system so thoroughly that they’ll never again lose an election. I don’t need a time machine to know what the Trump Admiin Version 2.0 will look like. I was around to witness the Trump Admiin Version 1.0 in action, I am familiar with the concept of the past behaviour of a politician being the best predictor of his future behaviour and I am capable of thinking a few steps ahead.
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I don't care what he does, as long as when he's through doing it there's an Enlightened corpse swinging from every lamppost.
Stephen Miller? ... is that you?
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
1. India has about 4 times the number of people in it than the USA.
2. Simple solution to H1B workers is that they must earn 105% of the average wage of all US citizens doing that job so that it's not cheaper to hire H1B visa workers. You hire them because you need the minds, not the cheap labor.
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2. Simple solution to H1B workers is that they must earn 105% of the average wage of all US citizens doing that job so that it's not cheaper to hire H1B visa workers. You hire them because you need the minds, not the cheap labor.
I'd concur with that. Just set a minimum H1B salary to something like $200k, problem solved. If they're truly high performers, that salary is basically nothing.
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A minimum wage for H1B would not keep up with inflation. Look at the federal minimum wage.
If these immigrants are so skilled and desirable, we should let them improve jump ship and improve their financial situation at any time, without starting the H1B process all over again. Enforce that the new employer's wage has to be higher, if you must. This would drive wages up, not down.
Even if they are let go, sending them back on very short notice because of an employer's financial situation or retaliation, witho
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The Elons and Viveks of the world would still go for it, because someone working on a H1B can't leave their employer as easily as a citizen, as their right to be in the country could evaporate if they do.
They want cheap indentured servants, but I'm sure just getting indentured servants would be an acceptable compromise for them.
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The Elons and Viveks of the world would still go for it, because someone working on a H1B can't leave their employer as easily as a citizen, as their right to be in the country could evaporate if they do.
You may as well say I have the same problem -- right now I'm in Los Angeles, a place I don't particularly care for. If I had to leave my job, voluntarily or otherwise, I wouldn't be able to afford to stay here anyways, this place is just too fucking expensive and not at all worth it. Here you either pay a ton of money for what is mediocre by most of the country's standards, or you live in the fucking ghetto. The only saving grace is I'm bringing in over a quarter of a million a year. The first thing I would
Re: Translation (Score:2)
isn't it essentially already like that? There is a salary requirement to be higher than typical salary in that location and typical salary in that position in that location. (I suppose you were saying 105%, though I don't think 5% would make much of a difference.)
And provided the location is always some tech hub or city, the salaries are typically high.
Or am I missing something here?
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1. India has about 4 times the number of people in it than the USA. 2. Simple solution to H1B workers is that they must earn 105% of the average wage of all US citizens doing that job so that it's not cheaper to hire H1B visa workers. You hire them because you need the minds, not the cheap labor.
While I like your idea, I'd ask a simple question pertaining to the reality we find ourselves mired in: How do you go about getting that rule put into place when the laws are written by and sponsored by the corporations that want to use the H1B program to hire people for suppressed wages to do technical jobs that should be high earning?
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The answer is: It isn't possible.
You mean like India? I've met many of them that you wouldn't hold a candle to.
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If India can't produce talent, Elon Musk put an Indian in charge of this AI program at Tesla because he really wanted an untalented person doing it? Google put an Indian as CEO because they didn't need a highly qualified CEO? That's the premise of your argument?
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Right. Four times the population of the US, which has been being dragged backwards in education thanks to the religious right (or rather, the religious wrong), US education keeps showing worse...
And people like you imagine the only smart people are here.
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Mask off (Score:3, Informative)
They're not even pretending anymore. Just look at what president elect Elon is saying. https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning, in response to Replit CEO Amjad Masad, suggesting that the industry needs to look outside of the United States for its engineers.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk continued in another post. “Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”
Are we great again? How are the grocery prices doing? I haven't heard a peep about those since the election.
pro sports team are union and have minimum salary (Score:2)
pro sports team are union and have minimum salary's that are a lot higher then tech people make. also they don't have 80+ hour weeks.
Re: Mask off (Score:2)
Re: Mask off (Score:4, Informative)
I heard an interview the other day telling a story about a Musk employee (living in Charlotte VT) who was in the delivery room with his wife and reportedly got a call from Musk saying, "I need you in the office now," and that he could head to the office or look for another job.
He got another job.
Industrialists apparently don't want people who have an option to look elsewhere.
Americans don't put up with that shit and the purpose of having a rich industrial society is that you don't have to.
We should cut way back on H1-B specifically because it creates inhumane working conditions and Native Americans have to compete in that job market.
NOW they're complaining that Americans aren't training for jobs where they have to compete with indentured servants. Which they never can.
Everybody knows that H1-B is run in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment and that is bad for every American Citizen. It's a National Security Risk to deliberately neuter the native workforce in critical areas for private shareholder profits.
The fraudulent degrees are just the grease in what is already an illegally run machine.
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“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning, in response to Replit CEO Amjad Masad, suggesting that the industry needs to look outside of the United States for its engineers."
The problem in this quote is "Silicon Valley". Why don't you try looking at other cities outside of Silicon Valley? You couldn't pay me enough to move back there. Boston is a good place to start. You might eve
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I suspect Musk might be right about the shortage because:
1. College computer science is a joke now. All colleges have watered-down the curriculum so they can cash in on the interest in the salary it pays. They churn out people who can't actually deliver and subsequently leave the industry.
2. As high as software development salaries are, they aren't high enough to compete with other knowledge-work fields. Anyone smart enough to be a truly great software developer is smart enough to do something else that
Re: Mask off (Score:2)
Add to it that in the US it's more expensive to get an education than to get drugs.
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Re:Mask off (Score:5, Insightful)
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk continued in another post.
He's right. Why should we be motivated when tech companies force us to work in the Silicon Valley, with the highest cost of living of any city in the U.S., and then lay off 80% of their staff [cnn.com] to save money? Who the hell is motivated by knowing that they have zero job security and millions of dollars in housing debt?
Those problems are still going to be a problem no matter how many people you import into the Bay Area, because the fundamental problems resulting from consolidating so many wealthy individuals into a single area (high cost of living in particular) will still exist and the fundamental problems with the companies (low job security) will also still exist.
The best anyone can hope for with that strategy is trading one set of people who will get fed up with their bulls**t with a different set of people who will get fed up with their bulls**t, but burning them out more quickly because they can't afford to live on what folks like Musk want to pay them, resulting in higher rates of turnover and downward-spiraling product quality.
And that's if you optimistically assume that the imported workers will be as good as the home-grown workers were, which isn't a given. Chances are, a sizable percentage of the better foreign workers are *already* being imported, in which case the more people you import, the lower the average quality of those workers will be.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will retire in our forties or fifties and watch and laugh as tech stocks crater because their leaders are too focused on pumping in more workers to replace the burned-out people who are leaving to notice that their behavior and those of their C*O friends are the main reason why workers are burned out and leaving in the first place.
To be clear, I'm not saying that there's not a shortage of tech talent in the U.S., because there actually is one. But the second he starts saying that there aren't enough *motivated* tech workers, that's the point where he becomes so full of s**t that he smells like a latrine, making it clear that he wants to bring in far more workers than are actually needed in an attempt to drive down salaries, ignorant of the reality that adding more people in the Bay Area without more housing will only drive costs up, which will mean that most of those people will refuse to take jobs at lower salaries, while other workers who have been around longer will demand bigger raises that make any savings evaporate.
Sometimes the smartest people can act like the biggest fools. Musk and people who treat workers the way he does can take a long walk off a short pier.
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Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
The con artist doesn't hire [cnn.com] Americans [forbes.com] at his failing properties. Why not apply the same principle to America?
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Forget hire, how about marry? Neither the Trump nor his VP could find a woman to marry in the whole US? Seems we have a bride shortage too. He couldn't find even one woman to grab by the pussy?
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Hey now, the nude model introduced to him by the pedo date arranger had special talents that allowed her to not only enter the US, but to bring her family with her.
Rules for thee and not for me. This is just one of the almost uncountable reasons you should not forgive what Trump is going to spearhead over the next four years, nor forgive anyone who expressed support for him.
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It very much looks like you're saying "smart men" need women who come from societies where women are the lesser and learn values based on that.
That's not for me but knock yourself out with women who have been given interiority complexes by growing up in societies that don't value them.
Holy names (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a Name Soup. Nothing but dropping a bunch of names as if they're in some kind of schoolyard bully fight. Nothing but he-said she-said bullshit.
Seriously, is this what America has come to?
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Seriously, is this what America has come to?
Yes. Look at the next president. This is what people wanted.
Everything Is Zero Sum (Score:2, Funny)
Resources are finite. Time is finite. Growth happens at a pace. Jobs are not created instantly. Geography (and borders) means there is not "one big pie" but many smaller pies. Everything is zero sum. If it wasn't zero sum, we wouldn't see job losses in the US, we would just see expansion elsewhere.
Any economist who says otherwise is using the economical equivalent of spherical people and neglecting friction.
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Re: Everything Is Zero Sum (Score:2)
If you buy my car for $2tn and I buy your car for $2tn, what's the difference? The government sees $4tn of 'work'.
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If everything actually is zero sum, then no improvement is possible, and we're all still living like we did on the savannah, with no possibility to making things better for us, as a whole.
Yes, it's a reducto ad absurdum to show that your premise is, indeed, absurd. It's irrelevant that there is a "pace". Job losses in the US are because of the policy the US uses to labor, which is to replace workers who place demands and want rights with indentured servants. That has precisely nothing to do with pace of gro
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you will need to explain this one.
It's not actually a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Cognizent pays about half of what Nvidia pays. Why? Because Cognizent is ripping off both Americans and Indians.
The system is built from the ground up for abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
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But worth mentioning Cognizant lost a class action recently [bloomberg.com] and Facebook is looking at one [reuters.com].
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The main abuse isn't in salary, but in ensuring the employees can't leave for another job when treated unfairly. That's not even remotely as easy to see on a list.
Being an indentured servant, unable to do anything about mistreatment in the workplace, truly sucks and is damaging. I met a lot of people in that situation in the US. They made decent money, but that doesn't help much when living in expensive areas.
Vivek Ramaswamy is lying (Score:5, Insightful)
The c-word these "tech leaders" actually are thinking about, when they say they "need" to hire more H1-Bs, is cost.
It will be curious to watch this play out, given Trump claims he's all about "America First" and has been loudly critical of H1-Bs in the past. But he's also - demonstrably - very suggestible, and tends to parrot whatever the last person to speak to him says.
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It's always been posturing. He hires illegal immigrants for his properties for the same reason all the people like him do - they're as close to slaves as they can get their hands on, people who work for peanuts and take abuse because they're afraid to go to the cops and get deported.
Why would he change now? The problem for Musk is that the kind of people he hires can't be trucked in without being noticed.
Shortages huh (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Tech(tm) is still shedding talent with layoffs. Should be plenty of domestic hires available.
school children what? (Score:2, Troll)
"...allow tech companies to hire non-U.S. citizens to fill jobs until more American schoolchildren could be made tech-savvy enough to pass hiring standards."
How is eliminating public education going to make schools children tech-savvy? And sure, Trump's gonna open up immigation. Trump isn't interested in building anything, only stealing everything. And an educated public is not in his interest. Leona has a lot to learn.
culture? (Score:2)
Never ending circus (Score:4, Interesting)
It will be fascinating to see what happens over the next four years. On one hand we have populist rhetoric.. throw them out, save our jerbs, make America healthy again, lower debit, lower taxes, deregulation..etc.
On the other hand Trump's swamp is filled with billionaires looking for ROI. They want cheap "super motivated" labor, cheap food, industry subsidies and weaponized regulation to stifle competition and generate demand for products and services.
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which kind? (Score:2)
There are 2 kinds of immigrant tech "talent": (a) The highly talented and (b) grunts. The problem is to fix H1B to only bring in type (a).
Well that was fast... (Score:2)
President muskrat wants his H1B serfs to till his fields, so suddenly immigrants are a good thing in MAGA-land. I would LOL, but it's not as though this flip nullifies all of the other upcoming horrors. In fact, I would wager that immigrants will be the devil again and "build the walls" will be back before the inauguration. Anyone want to start a betting pool on the number of days until they flop back?
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History shows that fascists don't give up after a defeat.
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History shows that fascists don't give up after a defeat.
Or even admit defeat.
Nah - try again. (Score:2)
You don't hear about the ones who give up because they did give up. The Fascists in the interwar UK did indeed give up...
Don't confuse people with facts (Score:2)
They only get upset...
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I'm not convinced that most people know what is left wing or what is right wing. The media seems to get the political spectrum wrong so frequently and it's not taught in US schools that where could a layperson possibly learn about it. (I mean other than having access to the world's largest library in their pocket)
George Orwell's essays on fascism mentioned both Left and Right politics, but is rarely clear on which one leads to fascism.
Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism doesn't mention right or left ideologies at all.
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LOL logic is not the strong suit of the MAGAnuts.
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As bad as h1b programs can be for domestic talent, h1bs tend not to show up looking for handouts from local and federal social services. People tend to notice that sort of thing.
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going against that would lead to midterm wipe-out.
Trump incoherently rambles mutually contradictory things at rallies (and also simulating oral sex with a microphone), and his voters somehow retcon this and their views into policies that fit the views they happen to hold. We also know that he achieved very few of his promised and left wildly unpopular after his first term and yet people swung around to inventing some alt history where this didn't happen.
IOW, he can do anything he wants and his supporters th
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Yes, because Trump would never lie to the electorate about what he intends to do, or not do, would he?
If you believe a single word that man says, you've proven yourself to be a gullible idiot. He will say or do anything to attain power, and then do what is best for HIM with it, not YOU.
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>"the very recent election was won on anti-immigration sentiment"
No, it was won, partially, based on severely curbing the severe ILLEGAL immigration and scam "asylum" immigration. That is a very, very different thing entirely.
No, it really isn't. Most of those undocumented immigrants overstayed their visas. They didn't sneak into the country. A wall won't help. Yet Trump's campaign preyed upon the ignorance of the masses to convince people that this would somehow solve something, largely based on racist stereotypes about how illegal immigration happens that have little basis in reality, and his solutions will therefore have minimal effect, because they are not grounded in objective reality.
As long as there is a valid case that visas are needed for people to fill jobs for which there are not enough qualified Americans, this is a clear win for America.
There has always been a valid case
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Where are you getting the numbers that most undocumented overstayed their visas?
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NPR [npr.org].
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>"No, it really isn't. Most of those undocumented immigrants overstayed their visas"
You are not "undocumented" if you had a visa and you are an illegal alien if you overstay your visa.
>"A wall won't help"
Yes, physical barriers *DO* help with illegal entry. Any thinking to the contrary is just crazy/irrational.
The general consensus is spending billions on a wall will cut illegal immigration by maybe 1%, because most people don't go across the border at random spots where they are easily apprehended by CBP. They find ways to sneak across inside trucks filled with other things. They come across with border crossing cards and then don't leave. They fly in by air on a tourist visa and then don't leave. Pedantically, yes, it will help, but spending the same amount of money on having more border patrol agents would
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You seem to be under the impression that we owe everyone else in the world entry. We don't.
>"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore."
That is a poem, written in 1883, and long before we became a welfare state. It is not in the founding documents or part of the US Constitution.
>"That's transparent racism right there. Anyone who says otherwise is only kidding him/herself."
The post wouldn't be complete with such a ridiculous
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You seem to be under the impression that we owe everyone else in the world entry. We don't.
>"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore."
That is a poem, written in 1883, and long before we became a welfare state. It is not in the founding documents or part of the US Constitution.
The United States is a nation of immigrants. Not a single person here can trace their ancestors back much more than a few hundred years except the Native Americans, and even their ancestors are originally from Asia. What makes our nation great is our diversity. We are a melting pot of different peoples and cultures.
It is literally the very core of what makes us who we are. It is the driving force behind many of our amendments. For example, it's why we have a constitutional prohibition on a national rel
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And then you lost and created the first man in U.S. history to be elected president three times in over 80 years. So please pour yourself a tall frosty glass of shut the fuck up.
Elected three times? If you're having trouble counting beyond two, maybe you shouldn't be voting.
Re: Nikki Haley Rips DOGE Co-Chief Ramaswamy (Score:2)
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Which was caused by 40 years of the Republican Party shitting on education and educators and doing everything possible to make the problem worse instead of better.
Now we all reap the beshitted harvest.