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Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

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Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#401

Post by angry-hacker »

digler999 wrote: post #373
mseebach wrote: post #310

Every time the topic comes up, I wonder how many of the HN'ers who are cross at H-1B workers because they are depressing wages are intellectually consistent (and honest) enough to accept that this position is part and parcel of the same system of nationalist thought that leads to a wall to Mexico and steeply increased tariffs on chinese import; of "America First"? If you find yourself reconciling the idea of protecti…

The way I saw it, the "build a wall" campaign was more about mobilizing the frustration many felt about cultural changes and (perceived) social costs of illegal immigration and less about "they're taking our jobs" (though I'm not saying that argument was never made). I think it was about people becoming upset at seeing their communities change for the worse, seeing signs and publications coming up in spanish, seeing…

And I would add that people saying they are racist live in nice neighborhoods somewhere in SV with smart people and say but look at these engineer friend of mine who is so smart, intelligent and cultural.

Zuck building walls and buying islands to live alone and peace, without having slightest idea what is it to live in average neighborhoods who get to taste the immigrations bad (and good!) sides, while preaching no walls, no borders, mass immigration is good.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#402

Post by rhapsodic »

rhapsodic wrote: post #75

The hubris and self-righteousness of SV billionaire bully-boys has reached the point where I'll favor practically anything that takes them down a peg. I'd love to see the Republican controlled federal government treat them the way the Democrats have treated, for example, the gun and coal industries. If a gun manufacturer should be held liable for the results of people misusing a gun, then why shouldn't Airbnb be held…

Oh yes, lecture us some more, Brian Chevsky, CEO of Airbnb:

http://news.sky.com/story/airbnb-flat-owner-jailed-for-rapin...

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#403

Post by brilliantcode »

acchow wrote: post #391
brilliantcode wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so pleased to hear this. Please, fellow American citizen hopefuls and potential American citizens tired of Trump, come on over to Vancouver or Toronto, we desperately need you to raise the decade old stagnation of tech worker's salaries. All is not well. You are going to have to deal with a significant salary cut around 40~50% not factoring in exchange rates. You also have to deal with small supply, high rent and…

Unless you make an obscene income (a few 100k) or lower your taxes by holding a mortgage, you'll be paying more taxes (which includes Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) in California than in Ontario or BC. The rest of your post sounds about right.

who is paying 100,000 USD / year in Vancouver vs 30,000 USD / year for a junior developer?

It's unbelievable that the average entry level's tech worker in Vancouver makes just as much as a barista in Seattle.

You can't compete or create a world class unicorn in Vancouver, period.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#404

Post by dragonwriter »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #397
baby wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the long wait for GreenCard (10 years). Can you explain this? I'm currently waiting for a greencard.

green cards are equally distributed to all countries. 7%? hence the amount of time you will wait is dependent on where you are from. for india/china, i believe its close to 8-9 years. but if you come from a country where no one applies for green card, chances are this process will be done in 6 months.

> green cards are equally distributed to all countries.

Well, no, but there is a cap on the per-country share of the total quota in each eligible category.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#405

Post by IgorPartola »

kemiller wrote: post #318
IgorPartola wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a Trump fan at all here, but technically I think it's more the other way around. Trump is buying up Goldman, rather than they buying him. I have yet to see a clear line of influence from Goldman to Trump personally. It seems more like he's hiring old buddies for potential future favors from them. Reverse lobbying! You heard it here first!

How is giving Goldman people government positions buying them if not by giving them the power to set rules as they like? It's not like they are in it for the cushy gov't benefits.

I am saying the causality here is backwards (I think). It is not the case that Goldman did something for Trump so now he has to make these appointments. It is that he is giving them these appointments so they return the favor in the future. I think he is doing this for future business needs after he is done being president, but I am sure it could be any number of other reasons.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#406

Post by yuhong »

nostrademons wrote: post #387
Akkuma wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also had artificially lower salary bands by colluding with other tech companies to not fight for talent.

Well, true, and I'm not exactly happy about that...but that cartel was eventually broken when Facebook refused to play ball.

The fun thing is that it also probably reveals a bunch of other problems, like the issue of admission of wrongdoing in settlements.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#407

Post by mywittyname »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #377
ivemadeahugem wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be shortages and you could also be able to hire people by pricing competitively. If there are 100 open positions and 80 available software engineers, if 1 of those positions is able to pay twice as much as the next highest, they will get that software engineer - it doesn't change the fact that there are 80 engineers to go around, and no matter how high they offer in pay 20 positions will go unfulfilled.

No. That just means that there are unviable businesses when software engineers are priced correctly. If there are 10 businesses that each need to hire 10 engineers, but there are only 80 engineers, then the price of the engineers will be determined by which 8 businesses have a business model that can afford those 80 engineers. The other two businesses don't have a viable business model. They can't sell enough X to ac…

> Find someone that looks good on LinkedIn and offer them double their salary.

You make the assumption that individual employees are economically rational individuals. That is, they will optimize their lives to maximize income without regard to other factors.

It also asserts that employers clearly advertise pay for a position, which we know is not usually the case. It's not like you can peruse job boards and know exactly what every company will pay you. Sure, sometimes they have (very side) salary bands, but the vast majority of tech workers don't know what their offer will be until it is made.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#408

Post by guard-of-terra »

valuearb wrote: post #223
HillaryBriss wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shipping lower skilled jobs to other countries mean higher margins for US companies. Which is good in itself for the US economy. US companies and the collection of US voters are different. Their interests do not always coincide. One might say that higher margins are "good for the US economy", but that doesn't mean they're good for every person participating in the US economy -- which is what the US voter cares more…

The shareholders are us, our 401ks, our pensions, etc. Overall, higher margins are good for us. Walmart should not sell higher cost products just to have them made in this country. The ability to specialize is why free trade makes both parties wealthier, if we can't make bicycles as well as the chinese, then let them make the bikes and we'll sell them smartphones and apps. If you were a lawyer making $300 an hour and…

Specialization only works on seller's market, i.e. when there's more demand than capacity. If there's more capacity than demand, it makes sense to try and capture bigger share of the market while being less efficient at delivery.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#409

Post by theflork »

valuearb wrote: post #198
davidf18 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all of the political candidates, only Trump and Sanders spoke out against H1-B visa abuse used to depress wages. (Former) Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio of Florida wanted to triple the number of H1-B visas to 250,000 from 85,000 and accepted $2 million donation from Disney. Disney of Florida had recently replaced 250 US IT workers with foreigners on H1-B. Trump especially spoke out against this move. C…

The "depressing wages" point is dumb. These engineers will still be part of the labor pool, they'll just be doing work for our foreign competitors. And HP can still hire them, do you want them to just open up more space in Bangalore, or would you rather those wages go to US based locations? And it's not a zero sum game. One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company.…

and someone like this smart person in your example would now be highly unlikely to get an h1b visa with the current lottery system. once you introduce a lottery, it's no longer about hard to find skills, it's about how can you churn out most applications to win most visas. i'll be looking for the elimination of the lottery system in any proposed fixes.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#410

Post by ch4s3 »

valuearb wrote: post #238
ch4s3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way SV would have grown to what it is now without foreign talent. So the shortage has been real for the last 30+ years I don't think you can prove this point, because you're arguing a counterfactual without proving the base claim that foreign talent was in fact necessary or that similar development wouldn't have otherwise happened. You're also confusing what is meant be a labour shortage, which isn't ab…

I've been at a startup where a few key hires (one an h1B) led to 140 jobs. And H1B holders can work anywhere. Why do we want them to work overseas for our competitors?

> Why do we want them to work overseas for our competitors?

We don't necessarily. As with many aspects of economic policy, it's a bit of a balancing act. You need enough immigration to satisfy demand for talent, but not so much that your drive down wages, and diminish taxable income while also upsetting constituents. You also don't want visa policies that encourage skilled workers to come, stay long enough to learn how to copy American businesses, and leave (sort of IP/business process remittance).

Generally I'm pro skilled immigration but H-1B as implemented is too easy to use for wage suppression vis-a-vis contracting through outsourcing consultancies like TCS or Infosys.

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