Immigration is about talent, not costs • Hacker News Board

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#361

Post by bduerst » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #348

bduerst wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently false, and a common misunderstanding of immigrantion laws by U.S. citizens. >Requirement 4 - You must be paid at least the actual or prevailing wage for your occupation, whichever is higher. http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/h-1b-specialty-occupatio...

Dear police: please go home, you're not needed anymore. It's the law, and nobody will ever violate it.

Dont be crass. If there is evidence of violation, it means the immigration enforcement needs a bigger budget to go after employers. It does not mean we need to cut back on immigration because some citizens have a problem following the law.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#362

Post by tankerdude » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #263

tankerdude wrote: post #233

Time and time again, this type of article pops up. Time and time again, it's about economics, and the solution has ALWAYS been about economics. It's just that the companies that the political machines don't want to talk about it. Like I've said in the past, and it is a simple solution that would make people like AeroFS happy is to have an economic one: Your H1-B employee must be paid in the >95% (or more) percentile…

The author of the article areas with you! He says that hiring an H1-B is MORE expensive -- not only do you have to pay what the DOJ considers the prevailing wage for the area and the job but you have to pay legal bills, relocation, interview costs, a lot of personnel time plus you have to wait frigging forever to be able to finally employ the person. His experience is exactly my experience too: I have hired a lot of…

If he really did agree with me, then why did he point out how X and Y INTERN costs SOOO much money?

It is orthogonal to the conversation, and yet he brought it up. It is there for a reason, and that reason is to point out that it is costly to hire an engineer. Why would he bring up that point?

So what exactly where the salaries of those on H1-Bs? If you put on your job posting, that the salary range would be 250-300K, do you think you'd be digging through the bottom of the barrel for the resumes?

Lastly, what is the difference in costs to you? In house lawyer (if the company is large enough, can handle the docs). Paperwork for them is a few K. Relocation and interview process is nearly a wash for out of state candidates. Again, a few K delta.

That then is the excuse of a lower salary for the employee (by a significant amount).

So "expensive" in terms of processing seems like not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#363

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:54 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #339

logfromblammo wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want your comparison to be equally valid wherever you make it, you have to use the same basket of goods everywhere you go. Otherwise, I can't tell whether you are comparing apples to oranges or pears to grapefruit. When I look at the numbers for that basket of goods that I currently consume, and price it out for San Francisco, I find that it is completely unattainable for anything less than 3 times what I curr…

I agree that there's a big transparency benefit to using the same basket everywhere, but I don't think that actually gives the most realistic answer. Imagine that every day, for every meal, you eat spaghetti carbonara. You'd be almost as happy eating linguine with pesto, but you happen to have a slight preference for spaghetti carbonara. Now you move somewhere else where, for whatever reason, spaghetti is 100x the pr…

Realism takes a back seat to practicality here. A CoL calculator takes two cities and a dollar amount as inputs. A QoL calculator would need a lengthy list of preferences with reasonably accurate price estimates, and a complex network of likely substitutions. That seems like an academic project for a graduate student in economics, whereas CoL calculators are just a simple HTML form with a tiny bit of script and a database of scale factors for each city.

Thus, you can't really tell me how much I'd have to earn to be equally happy in SV as I am elsewhere, but you can easily tell me how much I'd need to maintain equal consumption there.

You can get some of your money back when reselling the house, possibly even within six months of listing it. I would not blithely make assumptions about any market when a bubble appears to be growing nearby.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#364

Post by otoburb » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:55 PM UTC

ta75757 wrote: post #183

There was an article submitted here a long time ago, it's title was: "Fuck you, pay me." I find it applicable here as well. If programmers were paid like doctors, more talented people would start considering programming over med school or finance as a career. And then you would have more "talent". That's economics, that's capitalism. (Yes, laws hindering immigration are a trade barrier, and hiring immigrants is "more…

The phrase originated from the movie Goodfellas (1990), and then was brought back into the memesphere when Mike Monteiro (co-founder of Mule Design Studio) used that phrase in a fun yet forceful presentation[1].

[1] http://vimeo.com/22053820

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#365

Post by tenpoundhammer » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

If this is only about talent then lets ensure that foreign workers are paid equally and have the same rights as US workers.

Let's see how many H1-B's are handed out then.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#366

Post by digitalzombie » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

It's about getting bare minimum talent and paying them less than the American counterpart.

If this become like the film VFX industry we as programmers are doom. Life of Pi, made millions and the VFX company behind it bankrupt.

If they keep on pushing for the immigration HB Visa stuff. We should all form a Union.

VFX is screwed cause they didn't have a union from the beginning and now it's much harder.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#367

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:58 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #191

tmorton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pricing a scarce resource doesn't "screw over" anyone.

> Pricing a scarce resource doesn't "screw over" anyone. Citation needed! For reference, here's a toy model where pricing a scarce resource screws someone over: - There are two people in the model, Alice and Bob. - Alice is very rich, Bob is very poor. - Each of them needs a loaf of bread per day to survive (100 utility), and would also enjoy eating a second loaf (1 utility). - Initially, each of them gets a loaf fro…

Not being able to afford the market price of a resource is not "getting screwed" and you're just being inflammatory by making it a matter of life and death. H1B visas are not a matter of life and death; we're talking about people who want to make more money, not people seeking political asylum.

Suppose we make your exact scenario about a rare/endangered species of caviar. Bob can still buy bread for one credit but you're arguing that the government should ensure the equitable distribution of caviar because the market price isn't fair to Bob who can't afford it. Bob is not getting screwed, Bob just can't afford caviar.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#368

Post by tn13 » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 8:58 PM UTC

manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

> It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt.

That is not true at all. If engineers get cheaper the result of their labor too gets cheaper and hence the entire American society benefits. American government's job is not to protect interest of Engineers but of everyone. American Medical Council for example has made it illegal for Indian doctors to practice in America and we can see the results. Doctors earn a lot but at the cost of average American.

But there is another important aspect that even the intelligent minds of HN seem to ignore. In highly skilled professions, jobs opportunities are not Zero sum games. Mr. Kumar got a job in US does not mean some Mr. John Smith lost one. On the contrary more engineers you have faster you can solve problems.

Key questions to ask is if US government completely bans H1B throws all Indian H1Bs out will that serve the interest of the American people ?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#369

Post by fargolime » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #328

fargolime wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing the size of the economy isn't the best choice, though. We have too many people in the US as it is. More people, more money, more stuff isn't always better. (Using a throwaway since it seems most people think more people and skyscrapers and traffic and higher taxes to compensate for the dwindling resources is wonderful.) No, we don't have unlimited room, unless you're planning to not feed or provide water t…

> We have too many people in the US as it is. Do you know how many children are born every day in the US?

Not offhand, but how is that relevant?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#370

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #361

x0x0 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear police: please go home, you're not needed anymore. It's the law, and nobody will ever violate it.

Dont be crass. If there is evidence of violation, it means the immigration enforcement needs a bigger budget to go after employers. It does not mean we need to cut back on immigration because some citizens have a problem following the law.

I dunno where you're getting these claims, and by the way it's the companies not citizens, but let's read the previous comments.

> LordHumungous : h1bs often get paid less

> bduerst: no they don't, because that would be against the law

> me: mocks foolishness

it's like you're deliberately unaware of companies' very successful efforts to modify the law in self-dealing ways, and even when that fails, to route around the law by stopping enforcement. Or the various well known and widespread h1b abuses that googling for seconds would find for you. Or even seen the list of posted salaries in your office, and noted they were way below market.