Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#51

Post by maggie » Sun, Aug 30, 2009, 11:35 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #21

More programmers to free the economy? Come on... To REALLY free the economy we need a million of doctors from France, India, UK and Cuba competing here, locally, against our home grown millionaire surgeons. The #1 reason companies are outsourcing and people are leaving is this enormous burden of medical racketeering. Come on, the world is so much larger than the information technology sector and most problems that ca…

Freeing the H1-B wouldn't just help out programmers, but all disciplines, including doctors.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#52

Post by jquery » Sun, Aug 30, 2009, 11:44 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #21

More programmers to free the economy? Come on... To REALLY free the economy we need a million of doctors from France, India, UK and Cuba competing here, locally, against our home grown millionaire surgeons. The #1 reason companies are outsourcing and people are leaving is this enormous burden of medical racketeering. Come on, the world is so much larger than the information technology sector and most problems that ca…

Yes, and we could also get rid of the requirement of an undergrad before med school, as well as increase the caps on med school enrollment.

There is so much low hanging fruit that has mysteriously remained almost completely absent in the current USA health care debate.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#53

Post by TriinT » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 12:01 AM UTC

fortes wrote: post #50

TriinT wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the collapse of the USSR, lots of medical doctors and other specialized workers found themselves without a job. Today in Western Europe you can find construction workers who were doctors in the Ukraine SSR or Moldova in the 1980s, These people are a huge source of qualified work, but to the best of my knowledge only one country (Portugal) has shown any interest in re-training them as doctors to meet the severe…

Little Portugal can't take on the huge surplus of doctors from Eastern Europe -- many still end up construction workers as well (although the salaries compared to back home end up being worth it). Definitely a shame we can't get them to the US. It is insane that we have roughly the same number of doctors as we did 30 years ago, despite increases in population and average age.

I don't know much about Portugal, but I know it's a small country. I didn't claim that Portugal can take on the huge surplus of doctors from Eastern Europe, but they seem to be taking steps in the right direction, just like they did on drug decriminalization. Other countries could and should follow Portugal's steps.

Not all of healthcare consists of curing cancer and performing open heart surgery. A lot of medical practice is terribly dull and vanilla. It would be hard to go against the doctors' lobby, but perhaps a compromise could be reached. Doctors want to keep their salaries high. People want affordable healthcare. There are a lot of people who simply can't afford healthcare anyway, so they are not even in the market. Re-training foreign doctors could be a step towards a more-affordable healthcare system.

Worst-case scenario, ask Bill Gates for a couple of billion USD. Hire foreign doctors, retrain them and place in Vancouver. Then allow American citizens to cross the border to have access to healthcare. The colluding doctors of the U.S. could not fight it.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#54

Post by nanijoe » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 1:24 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #7

Totally off-topic, but this is the first thing I saw after getting my new shiny US visa. Couldn't help but share.

It's almost funny that someone from Canada would need a visa to work in the US and vice versa. For long stretches of time when I'm in Canada, I forget that I'm in a different country

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#55

Post by studentx » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 1:25 AM UTC

kareemm wrote: post #47

rdtsc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But those same startups have to jump through a million hoops just for the right to exist in our borders. > I don't claim to know to what extent our economy could be affected positively or negatively, but it is real. The question then is, who are we trying to help here? Do we want to help the immigrants or the American economy? Unless, we can show how the hassle of immigrants trying to setup startup is seriously dam…

> Do we want to help the immigrants or the American economy? These aren't mutually exclusive. I was an immigrant from Canadian (first on TN, then H1), started a company with an American co-founder, provided opportunities for hundreds of Americans to make money doing what they do best - teach. American economy +1. I learned a ton, met some amazing people, got some good experience, and am confident that I could do it a…

So--is there an acutal way to do start a company without a US citizen as your co-founder?

Just graduated from a US college on a regular foreign-student visa...

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#56

Post by studentx » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 1:27 AM UTC

rantfoil wrote: post #10

rdtsc wrote: post #3

> Hundreds of thousands of mostly very smart and highly educated workers who could be starting companies are not. Alright, but millions of Americans could be starting companies as well, but are not. In fact, America is _not_ as an entrepreneurial country with lots of little small business owners as we'd like to think. That is the propaganda bullshit we get fed on every election cycle "we got help America's small busi…

Even within YC, our own Summer 08 batch, there are several startups by non-Americans that have been very successful at building useful products, raising money, and altogether creating value for the US economy. But those same startups have to jump through a million hoops just for the right to exist in our borders. So this effect is real. I don't claim to know to what extent our economy could be affected positively or…

Would you happen to know if these non-Americans were mostly students using their post-graduation time for work (<= 29 months), and also working for US co-founders on paper? That seems like the only way it could be.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#57

Post by netsp » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 2:07 AM UTC

TriinT wrote: post #45

old-gregg wrote: post #21

More programmers to free the economy? Come on... To REALLY free the economy we need a million of doctors from France, India, UK and Cuba competing here, locally, against our home grown millionaire surgeons. The #1 reason companies are outsourcing and people are leaving is this enormous burden of medical racketeering. Come on, the world is so much larger than the information technology sector and most problems that ca…

After the collapse of the USSR, lots of medical doctors and other specialized workers found themselves without a job. Today in Western Europe you can find construction workers who were doctors in the Ukraine SSR or Moldova in the 1980s, These people are a huge source of qualified work, but to the best of my knowledge only one country (Portugal) has shown any interest in re-training them as doctors to meet the severe…

Letting an opportunity like that slide (from the perspective of US employers) cals in to question the US' supposed non socialist system.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#58

Post by netsp » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 2:10 AM UTC

ankeshk wrote: post #40

gaius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But these same protectionist rules that made Sparta glorious for little time, led to Sparta decline in the long run. What did for the Spartans was all dying glorious deaths before having enough kids. The Spartan economy, operated by the Perioikoi and Helots, was strong enough, but it relied on there being a critical mass of adult male Spartans to maintain it. Protectionism was little to do with the fall - the Perioik…

1. Yes but Spartan rules of being killer fighters made immigration impossible. 2. The Perioikoi could trade with whomever they pleased - but - but no one wanted to trade with them because of the iron slabs being used as currency of exchange. Dig a little deeper into the motives as to why such rules were made by the Spartans and you will see that it was pure protectionism.

where would you suggest digging to uncover the motive of illiterate bureaucrats from 2500 years ago?

I imagine it should be easy compared to uncovering the motives of living politicians in information societies.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#59

Post by TriinT » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 2:40 AM UTC

netsp wrote: post #57

TriinT wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the collapse of the USSR, lots of medical doctors and other specialized workers found themselves without a job. Today in Western Europe you can find construction workers who were doctors in the Ukraine SSR or Moldova in the 1980s, These people are a huge source of qualified work, but to the best of my knowledge only one country (Portugal) has shown any interest in re-training them as doctors to meet the severe…

Letting an opportunity like that slide (from the perspective of US employers) cals in to question the US' supposed non socialist system.

So much passion for free markets, yet they only exist in theory...

The U.S. is run by interest groups, unfortunately. Other countries are run by interest groups, too, but at least they have the decency not to claim their system is a capitalist one.

Re: Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

#60

Post by vaksel » Mon, Aug 31, 2009, 3:23 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #35

vaksel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't buy the brain drain issue, sure there are probably some geniuses in the millions of H1B people, but majority are not that much better than the average American worker. So out of those few geniuses, what tiny percentage leaves? They aren't leaving for the sake of leaving, they are leaving to exploit the opportunities in their home countries

The emigration of even a "tiny percentage" of geniuses is a great loss -- they're geniuses! And if the "majority" are "not that much better than the average American worker" -- but still just a little better -- why can't they stay? Everyone above average brings up the average -- why not have them producing great stuff here rather than elsewhere?

because if they are at the same level, then the same level job goes to the Indian, because he can get paid half as much. When there is economic prosperity, noone really cares about immigrants because there are jobs aplenty for everyone, but when there is a down turn, people start wondering...why should we import 100,000 people who are not better than the thousands of our own unemployed people.

The geniuses are welcome, it's the lesser skilled people, who are imported solely to drive down wages and take jobs away from Americans that people have problems with.

Who said they are more skilled? You ever read code written by someone on an H1B?

Because they aren't producing great stuff, most programming jobs aren't at Google, they are at places where you maintain some crappy code written 10 years ago. This mundane crap can be worked on by the thousands of American programmers that are unemployed, because they aren't willing to work for $40K/yr like their H1B counterparts