Trump caves

[BugI02]

[snip]

Unemployment is about 4.1%. That's under what is generally called "full employment." So yes, I will assert that we don't have enough workers and that you can't find enough Americans to do the jobs.

A portion of work visas are for very high paying jobs. It's not that there are plenty of qualified computer programmers who are sitting unemployed while Microsoft imports people from India and China to pay them tiny six-figure salaries. It's that there is more to do than there are people here with the skills to do it all. [snip]

Josh, you are naive if you believe this is only happening to jobs at the low end of the skill set curve

https://www.latimes.com/business/hi...dal-of-engineering-visas-20160226-column.html
A phony STEM shortage and the scandal of engineering visas -- how American jobs get outsourced

A year ago, the wholesale firing of IT teams at Disney, Southern California Edison, and other tech-dependent companies and their replacement by offshore workers with so-called H-1B visas caused a national scandal. We exposed this loophole at the time, and followed up by showing how Congress connived in the visa subterfuge.

View attachment 74420

Despite claims that H-1B visa holders have advanced educations, most hired by the Indian outsourcing firms hold bachelor degrees or less. (EPI / Ron Hira)

View attachment 74421

Wages of workers imported by the two major Indian outsourcing firms fall below the average for SoCal Edison workers in the same categories. (EPI/Ron Hira)

Yet, as was documented in testimony by immigration experts Ron Hira of Howard University and Hal Salzman of Rutgers, most of the H-1B visas aren't being used to hire people with specialized skills. "The vast majority of H-1Bs who are coming in have no more than ordinary IT skills," Hira testified.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-uc-visas-20170108-story.html
How the University of California exploited a visa loophole to move tech jobs to India

UC San Francisco, the system's biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they've been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
The training process was described by UCSF managers by the Orwellian term "knowledge transfer," according to Audrey Hatten-Milholin, 53, an IT architect with 17 years of experience at UCSF who will be laid off next month.
"The argument for Disney or Edison is that its executives are driven to maximize profits," says Ron Hira of Howard University, a expert in H-1B visas. "But UC is a public institution, not driven by profit. It's qualitatively different from other employers."

UCSF officials say the decision to outsource 97 IT jobs, about 20% to the total IT headcount, was forced on it by daunting economic challenges. The state requires UCSF Health, which encompasses the university's hospitals, to be fiscally self-sustaining, collecting its revenue entirely from patient fees, Chief Executive Mark R. Laret says.
The hospitals recorded a $42-million deficit in the last fiscal year on $3.4 billion in revenue, he told me. The red ink was partially the result of an increased caseload from Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, which was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. Medi-Cal reimbursements are so low that UCSF loses 40 cents on every dollar it spends on those patients' treatment, he says.
In searching for costs to cut, USCF concluded that the most expendable IT employees were systems maintenance staff, whose jobs could be done for so much less by foreign workers going without high salaries and fringe benefits.

So, you can see it has nothing to do with a shortage of qualified workers or workers willing to do the work. It is strictly about lowering wages. And I can tell you from personal experience when I was consulting in Cali over the years that the LA Times has consistently held this editorial opinion of the H1B program and bolstered it with factual reporting for over 20 years

 

[traderdan]

Please list out for me some of the decline you see occurring in the United States and how illegal immigration has caused it. Serious request here. I don't see a lot of decline in the U.S., and that which I do see I wouldn't lay at the feet of illegal immigrants.

You must be a young man...Even in the 1970's our culture as a whole would have laughed Bernie Sanders/ AOC types off a stage. Manufacturing jobs were still available that would support a family.

 

[traderdan]

Sorry - Are we talking about the YouTube or the television? Are we talking about the BS from the left or the right?

We are speaking of the lack of the ability of the general public to think critically...

 

[traderdan]

I have ridden a bus down through central Mexico, I've seen the palatial estates of the drug lords. I have been in small villages when the cavalcade of SUV's come to town, the police disappear and the shopkeepers wait...the common people head for home. Yep...a few decades and that is what it may look like HERE!

 

[Kutnupe14]

You must be a young man...Even in the 1970's our culture as a whole would have laughed Bernie Sanders/ AOC types off a stage. Manufacturing jobs were still available that would support a family.

Were those union jobs?

 

[CampingJosh]

You must be a young man...Even in the 1970's our culture as a whole would have laughed Bernie Sanders/ AOC types off a stage. Manufacturing jobs were still available that would support a family.

The excellent manufacturing jobs in the U.S. from the 1940s to the 1970s were not because the U.S. was special. They were because the U.S. was especially far away from the destruction of WWII. The majority of factories in France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Russia, Austria, China, and Japan had been destroyed. Excellent manufacturing jobs here were due to the lack of competition worldwide. That was always going to be a temporary thing, no matter what economic policies were put in place or what cultural shifts occurred.

In any case, the change hasn't been a decline for the U.S. We are today better off than we were in the 1960s and 1970s. It's just that the rest of the world finally got back on their feet by the 1970s, so we're no longer as far ahead as we used to be. But that doesn't mean we've gotten worse.

I agree that AOC and Bernie would have been laughed off stage back then. I also think that Donald Trump would have been in the very same way. And on those accounts, I think that we were better off back then.

But still no one has pointed to decline caused by illegal immigration.

 

[CampingJosh]

Josh, you are naive if you believe this is only happening to jobs at the low end of the skill set curve

I didn't say only. I didn't even say anything about a majority. I said "a portion," and that's exactly what I meant.

"Only" a bachelor's degree is ahead of 2/3 of adults 25 years old and up. It is advanced education.

So, you can see it has nothing to do with a shortage of qualified workers or workers willing to do the work. It is strictly about lowering wages. And I can tell you from personal experience when I was consulting in Cali over the years that the LA Times has consistently held this editorial opinion of the H1B program and bolstered it with factual reporting for over 20 years

What is the unemployment rate for skilled computer programmers and IT professionals?

I don't believe that the market should be artificially limited so as to drive up prices. Stopping work visas would be artificially limiting the market so that workers here can earn more.

Markets work best when everyone competes fairly. Locking a huge class of people on the sidelines isn't competing fairly.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I didn't say only. I didn't even say anything about a majority. I said "a portion," and that's exactly what I meant.

"Only" a bachelor's degree is ahead of 2/3 of adults 25 years old and up. It is advanced education.



What is the unemployment rate for skilled computer programmers and IT professionals?

I don't believe that the market should be artificially limited so as to drive up prices. Stopping work visas would be artificially limiting the market so that workers here can earn more.

Markets work best when everyone competes fairly. Locking a huge class of people on the sidelines isn't competing fairly.

You're taking a globalist point of view. Let them compete fairly in their country, and we'll compete fairly in our country.

 

[actaeon277]

It's only "fair" if everyone uses the same rules.

American manufacturers get their hands tied behind their backs following our rules.

 

[CampingJosh]

You're taking a globalist point of view. Let them compete fairly in their country, and we'll compete fairly in our country.

That has been happening... and the vast majority of manufacturing has moved to "their" countries.

And the globalization of trade has been positive for nearly everyone.

Still not anything about U.S. decline caused by illegal immigration.

 

[CampingJosh]

It's only "fair" if everyone uses the same rules.

American manufacturers get their hands tied behind their backs following our rules.

Can't lay that at the feet of illegal immigrants.

 

[actaeon277]

Can't lay that at the feet of illegal immigrants.

No. Illegal immigrants depress wages.
Illegal immigrants aren't going to go to the government because they feel cheated by their employer.
Just like illegal immigrants are not very likely to report crime, because they are worried.

 

[CampingJosh]

No. Illegal immigrants depress wages.

Maybe. That's not really clear.

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration-reduce-wages

Conclusion
Our research produced two broad results. First, when Borjas’s methods are extended a few years, the wage elasticity of immigration is −0.2 rather than −0.3 to −0.4. Second, Borjas’s assumption of perfect worker substitutability within cells cannot be correct as the wages of men and women both increased as women entered the workforce from 1960 to 2010. Empirical methods that relax the two assumptions described above likely lead to estimates that more accurately describe the impacts of immigration on native wages and that are either very small or zero

Illegal immigrants aren't going to go to the government because they feel cheated by their employer.
Just like illegal immigrants are not very likely to report crime, because they are worried.

Again, that is blaming the bad actions of the American employers on the illegal immigrant employees.

Quickest solutions to this is amnesty.

 

[actaeon277]

Or, let in legal immigrants.

 

[Libertarian01]

Let me break this down a bit more.

"No, increased prices cut demand; you're not going to get away with denying one of the most basic aspects of economics.

Even in the law firm example, some of those customers are going to going to make different choices based on the increased prices. They will still have someone mow, yes, but they might choose decorative plants that are less labor intensive, or they might choose to decorate with more gravel than grass.

And landscaping is an industry where a huge portion of the expense is labor. A $400 trimmer is going to get maybe $1000 in fuel and many, many thousands of dollars in labor costs. Increased labor costs in landscaping raise the price quickly."

Let's be real. First, I said "not necessarily," I qualified my statement. If you don't want to qualify mine, do I get to take you at face value? So, according to you, if gasoline prices raise by $0.01 / gallon, demand will fall. Really? An increase in price does not necessarily cut demand. It can, but the simple reality is more complicated than you are grasping. If the lawyers in that firm raise their hourly rate from $300 / hour to $305 / hour do you think someone who is a client is going to run away? Again, really? Of course they're not. And it also will not stop a new client who is happy with the interaction they had with the attorney from hiring them. (Per Hough, the attorney must also agree to take the client. I'll remember to bring a large case of cash in $50 bills)

As I already stipulated in landscaping, yes, homeowners would be more likely to shop around and drop the landscaping company, but not all. Business owners would leave, potentially, if only a small few were raising their rates, while the rest of the unscrupulous landscapers continued to break the law and hire illegals that depressed the wages.

"So you think restaurateurs are stupid? If just raising the price of a hamburger brings in more money, then why are they keeping their prices down now? That burger should already be $3.85.

Either that or your example is flawed enough that it is of no use."

Restaurateurs are limited by what the market will bear. There are many restaurants that charge well over $50 for burger. These are mostly what you would call a niche market. There is even one (1) that charges around $800 for a burger made from wagyu beef. They're not stupid. They're in business. But that is again a niche. Let's say Bernie Sanders got his way and across the nation raised the minimum wage to $15 / hour, prices on everything would go up. So would income. Things would initially take a hit. However, a new normal would come into play in a few years and sales would rebound.

Most of what a burger costs, on average, is guided by McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Rally's, etc etc etc. They create through their size and familiarity to consumers an expectation of cost. So it is difficult to radically exceed that cost and keep business flowing. But it does happen. Buy a burger at Applebee's, or any upper scale restaurant and the cost will be higher, along with the expectation of quality.

"Irrelevant. Actually maybe works against you. After all, if a worker has to spend all they make, that's consumer spending, right? Consumer spending is a big driver of economic growth."

This is very misguided thinking. Spending what is necessary does NOT drive the economy. So to make the bare bones survival in a community costs $25,000 per year. A person bringing home $25,000 per year, including all tax refunds, etcetera spends their money on utilities, gas, food, and so on. This keeps some retail businesses operating, and the utility companies content. However, the retail market doesn't make much of its money on required spending. It makes it on what I mentioned before - disposable income. This means money left over after all of the necessities are met.

So if the person making $25k annually got a new job at $35k a lot would change. Some of that extra money would go into an IRA, or a 401k. This would actually fuel the market. They might buy a new plasma TV. The markup on which is much higher than potatoes at the food store. This is what fuels the growth and success of an economy. It isn't just spending, it is spending on things beyond the necessities.

"Unemployment is about 4.1%. That's under what is generally called "full employment." So yes, I will assert that we don't have enough workers and that you can't find enough Americans to do the jobs."

This is irrelevant. It isn't who is working or not, it is "can they survive on their incomes? What is pushing unemployment low isn't that jobs are plentiful, it is that people are working more than one (1) job just to make ends meet! They are working at Walmart and somewhere else to put food on their tables. They are working in a store and Ubering just to get by. One of the reasons, not the only one, but certainly a contributor is unfair competition from businesses using illegal labor that depresses wages.

I once saw a Hispanic guy interviewed at an industrial meat processing plant. He said, "We're not stealing jobs. I've been here ten years and I've never seen a white person apply." This is probably true. I take him at his word. I presume him to be an honest man telling the truth. However, what he may not be aware of is what would happen if every single meat processing facility was guaranteed to be raided and have illegal immigrants removed. The entire industry would be forced to go out of business, or.... offer higher wages to bring other workers. If they offered $28 / hour you'd get folks lining up. But they don't. They don't for a variety of reasons, one of which is they don't need to because the illegals who work there are content with a steady, lower income compared to where they came from. ALL come from counties with standards of living which are lower than the USA's. ALL. No one has a significantly higher standard of living than we do, so what even a British citizen would be content with would make them happy in living in America (I fully concede there would be other things they would miss, but not the standard of living overall.)

"A portion of work visas are for very high paying jobs. It's not that there are plenty of qualified computer programmers who are sitting unemployed while Microsoft imports people from India and China to pay them tiny six-figure salaries. It's that there is more to do than there are people here with the skills to do it all.

Stopping work visas for farm labor will only change one thing. The people who hand-pick fruits and vegetables will still be people who were born in Latin America; it's just that the farms here will close and more farms in Mexico will open. That's cutting off a finger from your left hand to make sure your right hand has an advantage."

I am willing to wager almost no work visa is necessary in the USA. We have the people and talent. What we also have are employers willing to cut the corners to increase profits by arguing otherwise to bring in cheap labor.

The beautiful thing with farming is that it is regional. What grows in one region won't necessarily grow in another. Rainfall that deviates by only a few inches per year can mean the difference between success and failure. So no, you can't just up and move farms like a mobile home.

"First, you're describing crimes committed by Americans and assigning the blame to illegal immigrants. Employers are the ones dodging taxes, not employees. That's how the withholding system works. (Yes, I understand that employees who don't have enough withheld still owe the taxes. But it's still the employer is dodging taxes for sure.)

Second, that's not an argument against the illegal immigrants. If anything, it's an argument why strict immigration laws are bad, since they create the opportunity for this black market.

Third, what do you mean they don't pay a water bill? They don't pay for garbage collection? Is there anywhere that those things are paid for out of income taxes?"

First, you are correct. These American employers should be slammed, and HARD. However, let's ask the LE on here, "When was the last time you went after a white collar crime other than something like embezzlement where the company itself was complaining, or practically handing internal audits to the prosecutor?" One company knows another company is using illegals, who do they go to that will act on it in a timely manner, and follow up to see that it doesn't happen again.

There have always been unscrupulous people, including business owners. There always will be. It isn't so much of a problem when one business in a hundred acts unethically, but when the numbers grow it forces ethical business owners to face a reality - act unethically or go out of business. This does contribute to the "everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I" mentality.

Second. NO! That is why strict immigration should be enforced! I get angry when I see prosecutors or LE showing off what they arrested. I'm glad they did when a violent bad guy goes to prison, but what about the white collar criminals? How many times do we see a prosecutors office trying to make headlines there? Almost never. They don't want to. That takes real work. Significant time and resources. Perhaps a forensic accountant even. And then, they do, in their defense, need a person to complain. A restaurant hires three (3) illegal immigrant bus boys. Who complains? Not another restaurant, because they don't know. And even if they did, well, they've hired two (2) themselves.

Third. Water was a bad example, but not impossible. I'll concede that one. However, fire protection, LE protection, road repairs, etcetera are all paid out of taxes generated by multiple sources. So say an illegal person comes to stay with legal relatives. They still strain the system because they use resources, have issues, but don't pay for it.

"So you are good with just declaring amnesty immediately, right? That takes away the opportunity for scummy Americans to dodge taxes. That would be a good fix then, right?"

I am. ONCE! And it already happened. Back in 1986 by Pres Ronald Reagan. Since it has been done and only encouraged more, never again.

"If someone who grew up in the U.S.--with the advantage of public schooling and being a native-born English speaker--doesn't have any skillset that allows them to outcompete a person who grew up in a "s***hole" country and doesn't even speak the language, I honestly don't have a ton of pity.

Develop a skill. Make yourself more valuable. There are tons of opportunities to do so. (I mean "yourself" in the general sense rather than directed at you, Libertarian01.)

Using the government to limit competition so that you can win is very much anti-libertarian."

With the first part I partially agree. However, we're not talking about just careers, but entry level jobs. Let's say that a young person with some promise but from a poor family wants to go to college, or get a trade so they can improve themselves. They can qualify for some help, with the tuition or other things. However, they need to leave home and go somewhere else to live to get this training. While there they try to get an entry level job to help pay the way. With illegal immigration competing they may have it more difficult than what the normal, legal free market would allow. The free market should be free of unfair competition as well.

Developing a skill takes time and resources. The resource of money would be more abundant in some areas with fair competition.

This is in no way using the government to limit competition for goodness sake. It is for enforcing an equal and fair playing field for all. Just like when we go to court certain rules apply to both parties, so too do rules need to apply to all people within the country.

"Do you seriously want to use that as your analogy?

These people are working and paying their own way. This isn't a matter of someone else living in the area you pay for.

Honestly, this analogy sounds like you want your neighbors to ask your permission before they decide to have children. After all, what is the difference between a child from Honduras who lives in the appartment building down the street and the white family in the very next apartment having a baby? That's just going to be another person competing for my job!"

Yes, I really do want to use that analogy.

They are NOT paying their own way! When one (1) group gets to operate outside of the law it creates, by its very existence, an unfair balance.

Actually, there are some breeder units I do wish we had a say in, but I am glad we do not.

I do not give a damn about race. Let's make it two (2) Honduran families instead, one legal, the other not. Those that are born here legally were supported by folks who followed the law, used their own social security number, and any burden they place upon the system is part of the social contract we accepted by also living here and being born here. We alone can change it.

In the end it comes down to one simple ideal: I believe in the rule of law! Period. I believe in people operating within the law. If the law is a law then change it! Make a new one. Fix a bad one. Break it and challenge it, but in doing so be prepared to face the consequences if you lose the challenge.

I would guess I am one of the more socially liberal folks on this board. Some are farther left, but not the majority. You want to advocate for simplifying immigration rules? I agree! You want to advocate for a path to citizenship for folks brought here as children and raised here (aka dreamers?) I agree.

But until those changes are made - enforce and obey the law.

Regards,

Doug

 

[CampingJosh]

Or, let in legal immigrants.

I didn't say "best"; just quickest.

But I agree that we need a lot more legal immigration.

 

[Leadeye]

We could make employing non-citizens a felony tomorrow and the need for the wall would not go away. There would still be the drug flow. Not to mention the underground economy that is bolstered by drugs and illegals.

Hang drug dealers, non citizens go to scaffolds at the border.

 

[bwframe]

If we could only get tough on enforcement like that for any reason the wayward folks might well start following the law.

 

[CampingJosh]

Hang drug dealers, non citizens go to scaffolds at the border.

If we could only get tough on enforcement like that for any reason the wayward folks might well start following the law.

Or we could end Prohibition again.

 

[BugI02]

I didn't say only. I didn't even say anything about a majority. I said "a portion," and that's exactly what I meant.

"Only" a bachelor's degree is ahead of 2/3 of adults 25 years old and up. It is advanced education.

[Not germane. The H1b program is predicated on there being a domestic shortage of uniquely skilled workers (such as PhDs) thus providing the rationale to preferentially import them. If they're importing people no better than a recent college graduate, they are abusing the program - care to guess why? Not only are the individuals willing to work for less, they are virtual indentured servants. They must be sponsored by a US corporation, and if sponsorship is revoked they go back home. There is no shopping your skill set for a better offer, the visa is not transferrable. So the US employer has no worries about them accepting a better offer from a competitor, so just how is the market not 'artificially limited' on the employer side to drive down wages?]

What is the unemployment rate for skilled computer programmers and IT professionals?

I don't believe that the market should be artificially limited so as to drive up prices. Stopping work visas would be artificially limiting the market so that workers here can earn more.

[This is specious. Virtually all domestic employment markets are so limited. If you had an advanced degree, do you think you could simply move to Germany or the UK or even India, for that matter, and just accept a job and go to work?]

Markets work best when everyone competes fairly. Locking a huge class of people on the sidelines isn't competing fairly.

The first sentence above is correct. The second one is just a warmed over open borders talking point, they've always been locked out. The captains of industry are interested in depressing wages for jobs anywhere below the boardroom level