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Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy

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

#41

Post by fnid »

kiba wrote: post #36
rdtsc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to help India's economy, or China or Russia. Unfortunately, US is not in the charitable business of helping developing economies.

You did not clearly understood the implication of "trade" part. If trade is central to the wealth of society, then more trading with other economies of the world will lead to increased wealth in the US. In fact, we have the largest free trade zone right here in the US. Goods and services in the US, for the most part, move freely.

Increase in wealth for whom? The upper class or the middle class or the lower class? I think qui bono is the central question in this issue. The wealthy in America benefit, but the middle and lower class does not.

Research shows, as the middle class increases in wealth, then so does the whole economy and through increasing H1B's, we are eliminating the middle class american worker to jobs overseas.

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

#42

Post by nanijoe »

Wow.. it is evident that most of the commenters here do not really understand 1. The H1B process and/or 2. What the author of the techcrunch article is saying.

In a nutshell, and H1B visa is attached to a company, so if you have one, you cannot go work for another company or even start up your own.

What the author is advocating is that the president/government lift these restrictions, so that the skilled foreigners who already live in the USA can go ahead and help the economy grow.

Of course lifting the restrictions would probably mean that employers will be less willing to sponsor people for H1B visas, knowing that they can walk away anytime they please.

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

#43

Post by kiba »

fnid wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did not clearly understood the implication of "trade" part. If trade is central to the wealth of society, then more trading with other economies of the world will lead to increased wealth in the US. In fact, we have the largest free trade zone right here in the US. Goods and services in the US, for the most part, move freely.

Increase in wealth for whom? The upper class or the middle class or the lower class? I think qui bono is the central question in this issue. The wealthy in America benefit, but the middle and lower class does not. Research shows, as the middle class increases in wealth, then so does the whole economy and through increasing H1B's, we are eliminating the middle class american worker to jobs overseas.

Common sense should already suggest that trade is mutually benefical because well, I get stuff that I wanted, and you get stuff that you want. Why should trade only specifically benefit some certain classes of society?

Read the article on comparative advantage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

This is the reason why we specialize and trade, because everybody will be better off.

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

#44

Post by petewarden »

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…

Four of the ten Techstars Boulder 09 companies were founded by people born outside the US. Two of the companies are run by folks like me who spent close to a decade earning green cards at big firms, but the other two face significant barriers to basing themselves in the US, even with investment.

Why does this matter? Even in the short term startups spend a lot of money here on services, and long-term they'll provide jobs for a lot of native workers.

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

#45

Post by TriinT »

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 lack of qualified medical personnel. It's interesting to note that in the former Soviet republics, being a doctor did not have the same status (let alone financial compensation) as in the West.

I know that Canada has been trying to lure medical doctors from abroad (Eastern Europe and elsewhere) in recent years, but they're after the young graduates, not the old veterans who were disowned by the fall of Communism.

Unfortunately, the doctors' lobby in the U.S. is too powerful. In order to keep their salaries inflated, they will never allow the U.S. to import doctors from abroad, even if that would mean that the average American would have access to more affordable healthcare.

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

#46

Post by cagey »

rantfoil wrote: post #9
vaksel wrote: post #4

yeah that's what we need, more H1Bs...after all its not like we have a lot of unemployed. The job growth rate has dropped significantly, why should we increase our population when we don't have the jobs to support them? these were posted on TC: 1950’s Population Growth = 11,516,000 Employment Growth = 7,215,000 (62.65%) 1960’s Population Growth = 19,449,000 Employment Growth = 13,862,000 (71.27%) 1970’s Population Gr…

There's two issues here -- one is that there's a brain drain in the United States. The best and the brightest are leaving. They can't stay, because we won't let them. The fix is letting them, by reforming H1B policies. Second is H1B abuse by large corporations. This is a legit problem -- some IT firms bring in people they shouldn't (sometimes thousands at a time), and this takes up H1B's from talented people who shou…

> there's a brain drain in the United States. The best > and the brightest are leaving.

I suppose those like myself (CA-born holder of a [20 year old] lowly BSEE from a Cal State uni, veteran of Silicon Valley for the same duration) that remain are the second echelon (of dimwits) who are somehow managing to hold things together as the true geniuses are booted out? Somehow I didn't notice, but clearly collapse is nigh (the sky is falling!) and I'm too blind^H^H^H^H^Hxenophobic to see it coming.

And OBTW if this is true, isn't it merely "fair"? After all, aren't the home countries that these [exploited] individuals are returning to going be benefiting enormously from the returnees brightness? I mean, it's really the [evil U.S.] corporations, at whose request the H1B system was created by the [corrupt] U.S. government in the first place, who are harmed, and that harm is merely "chickens coming home to roost", right?

And once the geniuses return to their home countries, they'll start spawning off startups left and right, further uplifting the surging economies of India, Taiwan, China, Russia, Belarus, etc. A net benefit to the world will result! It seems selfish to view this thru a U.S. centric lens.

Summary: oh happy day!

> the fix requires the government to figure out who > is abusing it

Cool. "There ought to be a law." Congress oughta "do something"! Full employment for [immigration] lawyers! Hurrah! I'm sure the [evil] corporations will step aside and let the right laws be written this time around. Uh huh.

Instead, why not abolish the H1B system entirely? Stop the U.S. (evil corporations) plunder of the rest of the world's "best and brightest"! A level playing field across the globe! Justice at last! (Another round of "oh happy day!")

Whew. Clearly I'm an out of touch [ranting] xenophobe.

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

#47

Post by kareemm »

rdtsc wrote: post #23
rantfoil wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 again. Immigrant +1.

Problem is that US policy makes it difficult to do it again without an American co-founder.

And this is what I don't understand: doesn't America want start risk-takers who leave their country to come and start businesses, grow the total pie, and earn a small slice of it? Isn't that how the country became so great?

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

#48

Post by varjag »

ankeshk wrote: post #34

To protect their populations against internal and external threats and revolts, Sparta - the ancient Greek city-state made a few decisions. 1. Every Spartan citizen has to join the army and train since childhood to become the best fighter possible. Weaklings are killed at birth. 2. The currency of Spartans was changed to heavy iron bars. Prevented folks from other neighbouring city-states from doing business with Spa…

Isolationism is not the same as protectionism.

And Spartans sucked anyway, not leaving much to the history except barracks sodomy, heroic deaths and a handful of 2nd grade poets. Must have something to do with all the weaklings they gotten rid of.

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

#49

Post by zhyder »

I agree with the author's thesis but I'm bothered by the way the numbers are presented. Other articles in favor of making immigration for skilled workers easier usually are guilty of the same number fudging.

In the article: "My research team documented that one quarter (http://ssrn.com/abstract=990152) of all technology and engineering startups nationwide from 1995 to 2005 were started by immigrants."

The linked source says it more precisely: "We found there was at least one immigrant key founder in 25.3% of all engineering and technology companies established in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005 inclusive."

The key words in the second quote are "at least one immigrant key founder"; there are typically 2-4 founders in a startup (YC's avg is 2.5). If we just calculate what fraction of founders are immigrants across all startups (=total_immigrant_founders/total_founders), the number should only be ~ 11% [1], which sounds less dramatic but is more accurate in terms of how much credit immigrant founders deserve for the startups.

Similarly "more than 25% of U.S. global patents had authors who were born abroad" should really mention what fraction of inventors listed on patents are foreign-born, since patents typically have many coinventors.

[1] - There's probably actual data on this somewhere, but if we assume the probability p of a founder being immigrant is independent of other founders, and the number of founders per startup = 2.5:

=> 1 - (1-p)^founders_per_startup = probability_that_startup_has_at_least_1_immigrant_founder

=> 1 - (1-p)^2.5 = .25

=> p = .1087

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

#50

Post by fortes »

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…

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.

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