Bay Area professionals indicted for H-1B visa fraud

>Hence why unemployment is going back to pre-crisis levels in Ireland, right?

You don't need to keep saying variations of "western economies are improving". I know what's going on in the world.

> The wealth gap between poor and wealthy EU countries is closing down thanks to the Single Market. That's the idea behind it, get together countries with wealth disparity and help the poorer become stronger, which in turn helps the rest by adding more wealthy buyers to your market. It's a win-win and it has worked wonders.

More specifically it's to do with EU membership, and stimulus packages arising from membership. It's not solely related to trading benefits within the single market, and in fact much of the improvements that have taken place in poorer EU countries are due to exports to non-EU countries (Russia/Ukraine etc), i.e. completely unrelated to the single market. But anyway, how is stimulus meant to work at a global level (bear in mind though that this conversation only started because somebody said anybody should be able to work in the US without restriction)

They certainly can apply for other jobs! True they can't quit and then look for work. I know some people do that, but most don't. The ones that do are usually very senior with good savings, so they can afford to take a few months off while they do their job search. Regular schmoes take a sick day to go interview.

> You don't need to keep saying variations of "western economies are improving". I know what's going on in the world.

No, I keep telling you unemployment is going down on EU countries. I won't fall for your trick - I'm not talking about the economy (so you can't talk about "economy is good only for big companies that employ migrants" or some other conspiracy theory).

Unemployment. Is. Going. Down. "Despite" (or partly thanks to). Migration.

> More specifically it's to do with EU membership, and stimulus packages arising from membership.

Stimulus packages that come from wealth created by having access to a bigger workforce and a richer market. Yes, I know how the EU works.

Do you think rich countries don't benefit of the EU? I know it's a complex topic that requires an active interest and probable some research, so let's do this: Sit back and watch how the UK tries to cling on to Single Market's membership. Even UKIP is already asking for it. UKIP, the anti-immigration party. Yep.

> It's not solely related to trading benefits within the single market, and in fact much of the improvements that have taken place in poorer EU countries are due to exports to non-EU countries (Russia/Ukraine etc), i.e. completely unrelated to the single market.

Yeah, Romania definitely started improving their economy when they started trading with Russian and Ukraine. Same for Poland and the Baltics, too. Or maybe we should ask Czechia and Slovakia?

The Single Market is not just a free trade agreement. I would recommend you to read up on how it works as it is a complex topic.

> But anyway, how is stimulus meant to work at a global level (bear in mind though that this conversation only started because somebody said anybody should be able to work in the US without restriction)

Now I've got a surprise for you: I don't think the US should do FoM with the world. It might make sense for them to start with Canada and maybe the UK in about 10 years, when we see how Brexit is panning out. Then in 15-20 they can look at the EU and analyse if it would make sense to extend it to the EU too.

Immigration is good, but you have to account for how fast can you scale up your infrastructures and services. Opening up FoM between US and EU could be quite impactful for either. US culture is very attractive for EU citizens and there's a lot of love for places like California or New York due to movies, etc. None of this cities would be able to take a couple of million new inhabitants in 12 months.

But my opinion on US FoM is based on weak research. Maybe a serious study shows there's less desire to move than I think. I would personally don't move due to the healthcare mess the US is - but that might mean US citizens from depressed areas might prefer to rely on Canadian or European healthcare instead.

> You blame unemployment on immigration, yet there's barely no unemployment. At all.

You must be trolling but I'll say it once again, I know the general state of western economies. I understand that we are NOW in a period of low unemployment. I'm talking about the effect that immigration to certain western countries (half of OECD countries) had on employment levels, which you can verify in the study above whether you want to or not.

And as for the rest of your post...of course unemployment grew for all demographics during the recession.

Perhaps you're completely misunderstanding my point, because I never said that immigration caused unemployment, I said that it affected employment levels, i.e. the rates of employment between migrants and nationals, which again you can verify from the OECD study.

One of your co-defenders on here also pointed out another OECD study which says:

> An OECD study of the impact of immigration on the unemployment of domestic workers in OECD countries (including the UK) during 1984-2004 found that an increase in the share of migrants in the labour force increases unemployment for those with skills most similar to the migrants in the short to medium term (over a period of 5-10 years), but that immigration has no significant impact on unemployment in the long run (Jean and Jimenez 2010).

which again verifies what I'm saying and corroborates the data from the other study. So you keep saying you can't find any evidence of migration having any effect on employment and you now have two Europe-wide studies from the OECD showing that it does.

I don't think I, or most other people who are against the H1B visa system, have anything against H-1B holders themselves. They're obviously everyday people who are doing what's right for themselves and taking a big risk that generally pays off pretty well for them. If I was in their place, I hope I would have the cojones to do the same thing. Picking up and moving to another country is a big deal.

What I have a problem with is the companies who employ them. The intent of the H1-B visa is for companies to be able to hire workers with skills they can't hire for in America. The reality is that 99% of H1-B programmers are hired because they're cheaper or some other anti-labor reason. There is not a shortage of programmers in the US - I'll grant there could be in Silicon Valley or California - these companies are not looking very hard for programmers, and they're more willing to get someone from a foreign country than pay for relocation for someone from say, Iowa, or to open an office there. So, frankly, I see virtually every tech company hiring H1-Bs as committing immigration fraud in order to screw over people like me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1b#No_labor_shortages - basically sums it up.

Unlike other people in this thread, I don't give a fig for free markets, except to the extent they make people's lives better, which they do have a decent track record of doing in many instances. Since I live in America and only the US government has direct power over the lives of Americans, I judge US government policy by that criteria. It seems clear to me a global free market for labor is the worst thing imaginable for Americans in the short term, and the world population in the very long run. Free immigration is a handout to corporations, who want to expand the labor pool as much as possible so they can play us all off against each other on a grand scale. It disgusts me enough to watch corporations and businesses play off state and national governments against each other for tax incentives and subsidies. I'm not interested in programming being a minimum-wage job or living under any more of a global techno-corporate system than I already do.