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How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

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Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#411

Post by Chris2048 »

comments_db wrote: post #376
Arizhel wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we will start departing in hordes and take that American Dream appeal with us. And where will you go? I can't think of very many nations which are remotely competitive with the US as a place for tech work. Either their infrastructure is terrible, the culture and government too corrupt, their government too oppressive, the quality of life and standard of living too poor, the ability to immigrate too difficult, or the…

India for East Indians, but not right away. It'll take continuous backlash against tech immigrant for a period of 4-8 years. Then you are going to witness new Silicon Valleys growing up organically in those places. Remember not much can be expected when everything is going smooth. That's why so many failed Silicon Valley projects. Think 10 years, not right away.

And how will you combat the corruption?

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#412

Post by Chris2048 »

sctb wrote: post #193
mrtree wrote: post #9

Immigration is the bane of the West. The less, the better.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the guidelines after being asked to stop.

Please also ban https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bannedtruth

edit: downvoted. wonder who that was :-D

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#413

Post by Chris2048 »

Retric wrote: post #370
johncolanduoni wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but then why do you refuse to accept multiplying X by the actual market wage for the job instead of picking a fixed number (in which I see no X)?

Because supply is influenced by price. The supply of gold is huge if I am willing to pay above market rates. If I want a conductive metal I am going to chose something other than gold in the vast majority of cases because of price. In the case of gold the price is based on both demand and resource extraction costs. Moving to the workforce, students pick jobs in part because of what they will pay. Over time this feedb…

I think the problem here (with this conversation) is what I call "All roads lead to GMF[1]".

You can't explain things based on an entire economy without taking into account the entire economy, and all it's parts and interactions; much like, say, blood-sugar levels in the body involve multiple organs.

If you focus on one area of the economy, you must avoid those 'non-local' attributes, unless you are willing to do this. If you analyse the attributes of any local economic part enough, you will eventually hit upon a non-local attribute; Hence, any analysis eventually hits this roadblock.

Back to context, the specific effect of H1B visas, on national salary is complicated, because salary not only is non-local, but involves the silent interactions of supply vs demand across and outside the nation. You'll hit all sorts of GM-like fallacies if your analysis is too shallow.

This is why it is necessary to take it, almost as 'faith', in the mechanics of the market; A true analysis of market principles is a complex process indeed, most people can only take them on faith at some level. Even mathematicians accept some (personally) unchecked axioms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#414

Post by cpursley »

Roboprog wrote: post #238
cortuso wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to predict what will really happen. Some businesses will hire more IT personal overseas, to amortize the costs and avoid H1B application at all. Some will start really searching for a local talent with higher price (that's what this idea is meant to do I guess). But considering that IT reports constantly shortage on candidates, a big gap indeed, regardless top notch universities, makes me think it's not abo…

Possibly they might look at hiring outside of the Bay Area in such exotic locations as Boise, DesMoines, Minneapolis, Detroit or other places where they have recent college graduates who would have been motivated to study STEM fields.

There's places outside of the Bay Area? Blasphemy!

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#416

Post by dang »

nanistheonlyist wrote: post #199

Yes, Immigration from high IQ euro countries.

We've banned this account for trolling. HN is not for political and ideological battle. Accounts that use HN that way are abusing the site, and we ban them.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13550662 and marked it off-topic.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#417

Post by mywittyname »

DrScump wrote: post #391
mywittyname wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep hammering the fact that these people are job producers, not consumers. If you can prove that one skilled H1B results in additional two jobs being created in the region, then it becomes an easier pill to swallow. I work in a rural region with a high number of H1Bs because one of the biggest companies in the area is a tech giant. Most people I've talked to (outside of tech) realize that these people bring in a lot…

without them, 10s of millions of dollars would disappear from the local economy The positions would disappear, and the company fold , rather than the company offer enough to attract domestic talent (including Resident Aliens)? That's odd.

The positions would be relocated to a different region if the H1Bs weren't available, thus the money would disappear from the local economy.

This is entirely due to a shortage of talent willing to locate to Nowhereville, USA. The compensation here is very generous, and they advertise it. But there's just not enough Americans willing to move here, regardless of how much you can make.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#418

Post by pm90 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #404
pm90 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually I don't give comments like yours the dignity of a reply but it seems like even the best of people in this forum have latched on to certain incorrect ideas, so I'm gonna try one more time. I wasn't saying your friends and family are incompetent, I was saying they are incompetent programmers , at least right now. I don't believe that everyone can or wants to do software engineering for a living, just like not e…

> they are incompetent programmers, at least right now So train them. They will want to be trained and fill those roles if the salary is high. > I don't believe that everyone can or wants to do software engineering for a living Why can't they? Offer easy entry, and the promise of a high salary, and more people will want to do these jobs. If everyone got to do what they wanted, we'd have a surplus of firemen and veter…

> Why can't they? Offer easy entry, and the promise of a high salary, and more people will want to do these jobs. If everyone got to do what they wanted, we'd have a surplus of firemen and veterinarians, and few accountants and garbage men.

I'm not gonna argue too much on this since people seem to have set their minds on it. Having personally taught in American high schools as part of various outreach programs...I can say that, no, programming is not something you can "train" everyone into. Sure, there are some with aptitude for it, others without it who do want to learn and can be "trained" as you say. But you need to rethink the whole public education system from a very early stage to make it easier for students to be good learners and ultimately good programmers.

> easy entry, and the promise of a high salary

Its already there, yet....crickets.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#419

Post by geebee »

jacquesm wrote: post #91
anton_tarasenko wrote: post #76

The tone of tech companies does not resonate with the electorate. The Bay Area basically says to America: We have foreigners here who founded some companies and got rich, so we don't want your visa restrictions. How do tech executives motivate the average American to support this stance? Taxes? IT companies and their owners enjoy a very friendly tax treatment. Jobs? The largest IT companies employ only 20-60k people…

It may not be the desired tone but essentially that's how America got populated in the first place, a place where foreigners with some disadvantage in their country of origin could get rich. And many did. Kicking the door behind you closed once you've got yours or because you're afraid new immigrants will take your job is hypocrisy of a terrible kind for a nation that was founded on immigration.

I'm coming to this late, but I do want to point out that the US takes 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year, in a process that has essentially nothing to do with the H1B or employer controlled work visa programs.

These immigrants are free to choose what they study and where they work. High tech doesn't like that, because smart educated people who have the right to choose can find better options than staring at a computer screen looking at JIRA tickets in a big loud open office, in a field where they get elbowed out after age 40.

So high tech has lobbied for an alternative immigration system, that they control though their HR departments, where they get to decide who gets to come here and the circumstances under which they are allowed to remain.

I'm honestly bewildered when I read arguments like the one you just made, that opposing the H1B visa means you're opposed to immigration.

I think that immigration has been a marvel for the US, but that pretty much every system we've tried for bringing in immigrants who are not free to choose their job has been an unmitigated disaster. The H1B is hardly the worst of these, but because it doesn't preserve the freedom of the individual, it is ultimately unfixable. It must be replaced by a system that allows the immigrant to decide what to study, where to work, how to live.

It actually turns out we have a system like that, it's called immigration, and we take 1.2 millions people a year under it. From the way Silicon Valley talked it, you'd think that entire path didn't even exist.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#420

Post by pm90 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #401
pm90 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly why people are railing against H1Bs so hard. How can you even suggest that an h1b be used for an entry level job? Because all your friends and former classmates can't code even if their life depended on it. I went to school in one of the best CS programs in the country. Believe me: there are all kinds of outreach programs, high school outreach programs etc. to get more Americans involved in Tech. An…

> demand far outstrips supply and this difference is what drives wage. Every time you try to reduce the gap, you drive down wages. > can't code even if their life depended on it No, there just isn't enough money willing to proactively train more people. The outreach programs can take an unlimited amount more funding. If you are claiming that there is literally a shortage of people that can be trained below loss for m…

> and this difference is what drives wage. Every time you try to reduce the gap, you drive down wages.

I'm not going to argue any more on this reasoning at all. I have explained quite clearly why this kind of thinking is incorrect and hasn't worked so far and won't work in the future either. See my peer comments.

> No, there just isn't enough money willing to proactively train more people. The outreach programs can take an unlimited amount more funding.

> If you are claiming that there is literally a shortage of people that can be trained below loss for most of the IT industry, I'd like to see more evidence.

I don't quite understand what you're trying to say here. Of course my evidence for shortage is anecdotal. You seem to agree that the demand outstrips supply and so far Americans have not taken up CS in large enough numbers to satisfy that demand. That is my only "evidence".

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