21–30 of 129 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> He is a Republican Senator from Alabama. He doesn't need to look at facts. Let's be fair here. That should read: He is a Senator. He doesn't need to look at facts.
A large pool of H1B quota is being misused for sure. Instead of those mediocre or low tech workers, if more highly skilled workers are let in, I guess it would be better and we can manage with current allotted quotas.
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly. If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you beco…
I think it's very selfish to oppose H1B visas. America is wealthy compared to almost everywhere, and phenomenally wealthy compared to many of the places these H1B workers come from. Furthermore, the best thing for the US in the long run is to import as many smart people as it can. The best thing for us in the long run is to import as many smart people as we can. There are economists who dispute increasing immigration, but there is to my knowledge no serious argument against importing smart people.
Again, there is to my knowledge no economist, who anyone takes seriously, who would say "The USA needs to import fewer tech workers". It's a gain for everyone except the worker being "replaced", and that's a fallacy anyway because the economic pie is not zero-sum.
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly. If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you beco…
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly. If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you beco…
As a left-libertarian it always disappoints me to see this attitude. But political opinions have always been about incentives, always about expressing your position in an in-group, and it's amusing in a depressing sort of way to see how peoples' political philosophies switch when their interests are at stake. In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in…
Do you see the difference? If MS, Google, Cisco et al want to import workers, they should be paying them the same amount as their American counterparts, rather than pulling them in to be temp workers and lay off higher cost employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He is a Republican Senator from Alabama. He doesn't need to look at facts. Let's be fair here. That should read: He is a Senator. He doesn't need to look at facts.
Actually, you can look at the fact that he historically doesn't vote for education bills, so that pretty much makes him a hypocrite. Can't blame a company for trying to hire the best trained people to do a given job.
Along those lines, the census agency says most STEM graduates do not work in STEM fields: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/10/cens...
You see this in practice. STEM graduates do 3 things, in my experience. Work in management, work in IT, and work in academia. I wouldn't count on any of having up-to-date science knowledge except the academic ones.
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly. If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you beco…
As a left-libertarian it always disappoints me to see this attitude. But political opinions have always been about incentives, always about expressing your position in an in-group, and it's amusing in a depressing sort of way to see how peoples' political philosophies switch when their interests are at stake. In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in…
> In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in their jobs, then you hear them talk about unions and protectionism and regulation and so on.
It seems you are in favor of open borders and ascribing extremist views--non-sovereignty of nation-states--to those who simply might not toe the liberal party line.
> Again, there is to my knowledge no economist, who anyone takes seriously, who would say "The USA needs to import fewer tech workers".
Since when did economists have tech worker interests in mind? All bow down at the altar of GDP, everyone else can burn.
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly. If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you beco…
Then there are not enough tech workers: supply and demand.
> Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly.
Then there are not enough experts either, though you try to blame this on the companies: how cheeky of them to hire more knowledgable people!