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"Sometimes the producer will pay half of the fixed cash compensation for the treatments or draft on execution of the agreement & half on delivery.   Sometimes he will pay half when the writer starts working & half when the writer finishes.   The agreement may even provide for partial payment after the writer writes & delivers a specified number of pages.   Other agreements will provide for payment in weekly installments.   If there are a number of drafts, roughly 50% to 60% of the cash compensation should be paid for the 1st draft, 25% to 30% for the re-write, & the balance for the polish.   In any event, the producer should always be sure to withhold enough money to motivate the writer to finish his work in a timely manner." --- Paul A. Baumgarten, Donald C. Farber & Mark Fleischer 1992 _Producing, Financing & Distributing Film_ pg 39

 
 

2008 May

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"The ultimate authority... resides in the people alone." --- James Madison

 
 
 

My 4*great uncle's (captain William Scott's) flag for the Republic of Texas.

2008-05-01

2008-05-01
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
LA Times, WSJ (and other) reactions to my study
 
Two journalists, one at the Wall Street Journal and the other at the Los Angeles Times, have reviewed my recent study that showed further evidence that the vast majority of H-1Bs are not "the best and the brightest", contrary to what the industry lobbyists claim.   Sadly, neither review was very careful.
 
For instance, WSJ's Ben Worthen says,
 
Stuart Anderson, executive director for the National Foundation for American Policy, which is in favor of boosting the H-1B cap, counters that there's a much more prosaic explanation for why the median worker on an H-1B visa isn't paid more: Most visa recipients are just starting their careers, he tells us.   In 2005, 41% of H-1B holders were younger than 30, and an additional 32% were under 35, according to the Department of Homeland Security. [Yes, they are used/abused to more easily engage in age discrimination.]   A better measure of their skill is education, he says, pointing out that 57% of new H-1Bs received a master's degree or above in 2006.
 
Worthen should have known Anderson's "explanation" is patently wrong, because the legal definition of prevailing wage FACTORS IN experience and education.   The prevailing wage levels for those young H-1Bs are set accordingly, and education is similarly accounted for.   My article discussed the various experience levels defined by the Dept. of Labor in detail.
 
(At least Anderson did choose to comment.   CompeteAmerica, the leading lobbying group that is pushing Congress to increase the H-1B cap, declined to comment when asked by the Lou Dobbs Show.)
 
My article also showed that even though the industry lobbyists try to portray the hiring of H-1Bs from Asia as stemming from supposed high levels of math talent in that region, the DoL data show that on the contrary it is the H-1Bs from Europe who are getting the higher pay, not the Chinese and Indians.   I had written that even though the lobbyists say employers hire H-1Bs because "Johnnie can't do math."
 
The lobbyists know that crying educational doom-and-gloom sells.   Even though it was mainly "Johnnie", rather than Arvind or Qing-Ling, who originally developed the computer industry, and even though all major East Asian governments have lamented their educational systems' stifling of creativity, the lobbyists have convinced Congress that the industry needs foreign workers from Asia in order to innovate.
 
The LAT's Tim Cavanaugh tries to "explain" this on linguistic grounds:
 
...immigrant tech workers from Canada and Germany command higher salaries than those from India.   That seems easily explicable: a Canadian worker would presumably be a native English speaker and thus a little more comfortable at negotiating a good price, while a German brings language skills that, given Germany's continued industrial and technological strength, would be worth paying a premium for.
 
I was surprised that Cavanaugh could be so far off base here.   Doesn't he know that the educated class in India speaks English?   Most have been doing so since they were in kindergarten or earlier.   The Indian foreign students at U.S. universities generally have higher GRE Verbal scores than the Americans, and they generally have richer working vocabularies while speaking and have better writing skills, relative to the Americans [though Britishisms are evident and some of their grammar and vocabulary is a bit defective].
 
As to the value of speaking German, surely Cavanaugh must know that knowledge of the Chinese language is far more valuable today.   According to his linguistic theory, the Chinese H-1Bs should be making top dollar, which they generally aren't.
 
Cavanaugh adds:
 
Shouldn't this last point address hyperbole about how "Johann" or "Jean-Luc" can't do math?   I mean, the media self-flagellation about poor math scores concerns American students, not Western European students, right?   Is Matloff saying Americans and Western Europeans are interchangeable?
 
Actually, the math and science PISA test scores for German and French kids are similar to those in the U.S.A., below the scores of the Asian countries.   (Note: Neither [Red China] nor India participates in that study.)
 
The German and French press engaged in the same self-flagellation; see "La France, élève moyen de la classe OCDE" (France, average student of the OECD class) Le Monde, 2001 December 5, and "Miserable Noten für deutsche Schüler" (Abysmal marks for German students) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2001 December 4.
 
Worthen's write-up was mostly fair, but this passage was an exception:
 
A chart accompanying Matloff's study shows that tech companies, many of whom are lobbying Congress to grant more H-1Bs, tend to pay more than prevailing wage, with M$ and Oracle leading the way.
 
That's just plain wrong.   My chart shows that most of the firms were paying [only] between 5% and 10% above [the "official"] prevailing wage, which even Worthen admitted in his phone interview of me is hardly in the "world's best and the brightest" range.   M$ did indeed have a higher premium, 19%, but that still obviously is not genius level.   On the contrary, my article showed that M$ O-1 visa hires -- this visa type is for those "of extraordinary ability", thus best and the brightest by definition -- were getting [only] 40% higher than average.
 
It's also too bad that Cavanaugh and Worthen overlooked my point (which I stressed with Worthen when he called me) that this newest data merely supplements previous work on this topic, which I wrote about in earlier articles.   I've cited the work of former Assistant Secretary of Labor David North, for instance, which showed that the foreign students studying in U.S. universities are mainly in the lesser-ranking institutions, again contrary to their claimed "best and brightest" status.   I've also analyzed the list of winners of the annual Best PhD Dissertation Awards given by the Association for Computing Machinery, in which the numbers of foreign students is proportionally lower than their numbers in the CS PhD population.
 
I've been interviewed by the press many times over the years, with the reporters being quite even-handed in the vast majority of cases (with some exceptions, one of which I'll mention shortly), so I was taken aback by these 2 blogs.   There seems to be an underlying assumption on the part of both of these journalists that "Matloff's report can't be right, so let's figure out where the flaw is."   One must wonder what causes such attitudes.
 
A few years ago I was a guest on a radio show hosted by Marty Nemko, a San Francisco-based author of books and newspaper columns for job seekers.   He was pretty hostile to me, which seemed odd until the truth suddenly came out: He resented me because I'm a supporter of Affirmative Action, a fact he'd seen in my bio.
 
He told me that he was bitterly opposed to Affirmative Action, having been rejected for a faculty position long ago (ironically at my university, UC Davis), in which he claims he was passed over in favor of an Affirmative Action applicant.   To him, Affirmative Action is anti-merit, and my work on H-1B amounted to protection of meritless Americans against genius Asians.   Needless to say, I don't agree with such an analysis, and in fact I have always strongly supported facilitating the immigration of the genuinely best and the brightest.   I mentioned to Worthen, for example, that there are at least 2 members of my faculty, one from India and the other from [Red China], who would not have been hired had I not vigorously worked to convince my colleagues to vote in favor of hiring them due to their brilliance.
 
Presumably Cavanaugh and Worthen don't have a personal axe to grind like that.   But their pieces were biased, that's for sure, and it would be interesting to know just where they're coming from.
 
Norm
H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest
CIS: H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest
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Lou Dobbs transcript
 

2008-05-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 91,675 job ads

2008-05-01 05:57PDT (08:57EDT) (12:57GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Lay-off announcements jumped to 19 month high of 90,015
Philadelphia Inquirer
Earth Times/Reuters
Sydney Morning Herald
"major U.S. corporations announced 90,015 job reductions in April...   Announced lay-offs through the first 4 months of the year [January through April] have grown to 290,671, up 9% from a year ago.   Financial companies announced 23,106 lay-offs in April...   Telecommunications companies announced 8,007 lay-offs, more than half at AT&T...   Media industry lay-offs are running 57% of last year at 7,949 as compared to 11,700 media industry lay-offs in all of 2007.   In February, for instance, a total of 1.35M workers were let go [in mass lay-offs from large firms], representing about 1% of total employment, according to the latest available data from the Labor Department.   By comparison, 2.06M people quit their jobs voluntarily in February."

2008-05-01 05:30PST (08:30EST) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 336,344 in the week ending April 26, an increase of 8,158 from the previous week.   There were 267,672 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.2% during the week ending April 19, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,976,512, a decrease of 77,579 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.9% and the volume was 2,448,102.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending April 12."
graphs

2008-05-01
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Congress, DHS & the State Department Import 182K Immigrants into the USA Every Month
"Every 30 days, our U.S. Congress imports 182K immigrants into the United States.   About 100K arrive legally and from 82K to 100K arrive illegally each month.   They flood our cities at a rate of 2.2M to 2.4M annually.   Several other sources show greater numbers from visa over-stays, chain migration and anchor babies that never make the population charts."

2008-05-01
Chris Isidore _CNN_/_Money_
Immigrants and jobs: A closer look
"Foreign-born unskilled workers are less likely to be out of work than their U.S.-born counterparts, but educated Americans have an edge on foreign-born [until the effects of the DHS rule-change on OPT kicks in]...   The Labor Department's monthly report does not distinguish between immigrant and native-born workers.   But its latest annual reading on the issue shows that while the unemployment rate rose for foreign-born workers in 2007 -- to 4.3% from 4.0% in 2006 -- it was still lower than for native-born workers (4.7% in each year)...   For U.S.-born workers aged 25 and older with a high school degree or less, the unemployment rate was 5.2% last year, while the rate for foreign-born workers with the same characteristics is only 4.6%.   Among educated workers, however, the unemployment pattern was reversed: 1.9% for the native born and 2.5% for immigrants.   [These statistics do not make clear the toll in under-employment and workers driven out of the official labor force.]"

2008-05-01
_PR News Wire_
iGate Mastech Inc. to pay $45K for discrimination against US workers: It's only the tip of the visa-abuse ice-berg
Earth Times
Biloxi Sun Herald/McClatchy
IDG/PC World
ComputerWorld/IDG
eWeek
Rick Merritt: EE Times/CMP/UBM
Composite: "The Department of Justice today announced that iGate Mastech Inc. (iGate), a Pittsburgh computer consulting company, has agreed to pay $45K in civil penalties to settle allegations that iGate discriminated against United States citizens in its employment practices.   The settlement also requires iGate to train its recruitment personnel and to post a non-discrimination statement on its web site.   A complaint against iGate Mastech was filed by the Programmers Guild in 2006.   John Miano, who founded the guild, said in a statement that the DoJ's announcement 'is probably the most visible result' of the guild's campaign against companies that discriminate against U.S. workers 'in favor of cheap H-1B workers'.   The Programmers Guild, a lobbying group for software developers, claims it has tracked as many as 5K such on-line ads from 1K companies.   The iGate compliant was one of 300 the group has drafted, about 100 of which it has actually filed with the DoJ, said John Miano, a software consultant who founded the group and serves as its treasurer.   'We're just dealing with cases where people actually have posted blatant ads like this, not necessarily all the cases of people who abuse H-1B visas.', said Miano who earned a law degree and actively investigates such cases on behalf of the Guild.   Miano claims the majority of H-1B visa holders in the computer field come from what he called 'body shops' that obtain H-1B visas for technical workers for a fee and then rent out their services once they are in U.S.A.   Many wind up working in the computer departments of large end-user firms such as Wall Street brokers or insurance companies, he added.   The workers are typically paid about 20% less than their local counterparts, he claimed.   'For the last few years the U.S. has imported more H-1B than it has grown new engineering jobs.', said Miano.   'This program is out of control.', he said.   The settlement stems from the Department's finding that, between 2006 May 9, and 2006 June 4, iGate placed 30 job announcements for computer programmers that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other legal U.S. workers.   Such preference constituted citizenship status discrimination and is prohibited by the Immigration and Nationality Act...   iGate was one of nearly 30K companies employing a total of 126,219 H1-Bs last year.   Send e-mail to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) in the Civil Rights Division, which conducted the investigation... or visit the [OSC] web site."

2008-05-01
Lisa Stein _Scientific American_
Congress Passes Bill to Prohibit Genetic Discrimination
US News & World Report
"The House today passed a measure by a whopping 414-to-1 margin that would prohibit health insurers from canceling or denying coverage or hiking premiums based on a genetic predisposition to a specific disease. The legislation, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), also bars employers from using genetic information to hire, fire, promote or make any other employment-related decisions. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) was the lone dissenter. The measure, which unanimously passed the Senate last week, now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign it into law... In the 1970s, many blacks were denied jobs and insurance coverage because they carried a gene for sickle-cell anemia, including those who lacked the two copies of a mutation necessary to get sick. In 1998, it was revealed that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA, had secretly tested employees from the 1960s to 1993 for sickle-cell anemia, syphilis and pregnancy without their knowledge or consent (they were told that they were undergoing routine cholesterol screening). In 2002, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway company paid three dozen employees $2.2M to settle a law-suit they had filed charging that the company had genetically tested them without their knowledge after they submitted work-related injury claims."

2008-05-01 14:23PDT (17:23EDT) (21:23GMT)
_Forbes_/_AP_
AeA, lobbying group for tech executives, spent $256K to bend government & media ears in 2008Q1
"In the January-to-March period, AeA, formerly known as the American Electronics Association, lobbied Congress, U.S. International Trade Commission, U.S. Trade Representative's office, National Security Council, Commerce Department and other agencies, according to the report filed with the House clerk's office April 21."

2008-05-01
Michael Smith _Med Page Today_
CDC alarmed over 71 measles cases in US in the last year
Madison Wisconsin State Journal
"CDC officials are bracing for the worst measles year since 2001 [when 114 cases were reported], with 64 cases already reported as of April 25...   Of the 64 cases formally reported to the CDC, 54 were regarded as 'importation-associated', she said...   An 11-case outbreak in San Diego, for instance, occurred in a school with a 'high proportion' of children who had not been vaccinated.   The index case was an un-vaccinated child who had traveled to Switzerland...   Ten of the 64 cases were direct importation, 5 by visitors to the U.S.A., and 5 by Americans returning from over-seas, while others were either 'linked in a chain of transmission' to the travelers or their virus had characteristics similar to overseas strains.   'The vast majority of the 64 cases had clear links with outbreaks in other areas.', Dr. Schuchat said.   Of the 64, she said, 13 patients were under the age of 12 months and were too young for routine vaccination.   Seven were 12 to 15 months old and had not yet been vaccinated, while another 7 were under the age of five and had not been vaccinated owing to delay or missed opportunity.   For infants younger than 12 months known to have been exposed to the virus, the immunization rules have been relaxed to 6 months, she said.   This has also been done for infants traveling to endemic countries.   There were 14 patients 19 years or under who all had claimed a religious or personal belief exemption, as well as two older than 20 who had made such a claim.   Finally, there were 14 adult patients with unknown vaccination status, one with evidence of immunity through birth before 1957, and one who had proof of getting 2 doses of MMR vaccine."

2008-05-01
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1862
What makes Optional Practical Training [OPT] so pernicious is that Americans are excluded from the entire hiring process
 
[Two] blatant propaganda pieces [were recently published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Baltimore Business Journal, both from the same publishing company, American City Business Journals Inc.], but there is one tidbit of information in each that's worth noting: notice the way they recognize that Optional Practical Training is a de facto H-1B visa.   These two quotes tell it all:
 
'When we go to hire someone, they are typically working off of their student visas,' Scott said.   '[Because of the H-1B scarcity], you don't know if these individuals that you've hired are going to ge a [visa] and if you're going to be able to continue to employ them past a particular date in that year.'
 
Other applicants are still worrying, though.   Henry Suelau, a lawyer with Miles & Stockbridge PC in Baltimore, said his firm submitted about two dozen applications for clients.   Many applicants, such as Baltimore Aircoil's, work on extended student visas that expire a year after their college graduation.   But the visas they applied for this month don't become effective until October 1.   Workers whose student visas expire next month may be forced to leave the country before they learn the status of their application.
 
I find it more than interesting that these two articles, by two different authors, writing for two different magazines, had such similar things to write.   Oh well, it's probably just one of those weird coincidences!
 
What makes Optional Practical training so pernicious is that Americans are excluded from the entire hiring process.   Here's how the process works to leave Americans out of the hiring game:
 
* A foreign student at one of our universities is hired by a company.   The student is given authorization to work as an intern either before or right after graduation by using Optional Practical Training (OPT) program.
 
* That student can work up to 29 months, in which time his employer can file for an H-1B visa or a green card.   The time limit used to be 12 months until the DHS recently extended the window to 27 months (see recent news-letters about OPT).   In effect, when the DHS increased the time window, they allowed far more aliens to work here without having to obtain H-1B visas.   It's a convenient way to get around the H-1B cap, and that's why the OPT extension acts as a "de facto" H-1B increase.   By extending the window the DHS will create a huge new pool of educated foreign workers waiting for H-1B visas who will be like airplanes in a holding pattern, at an airport, waiting to land.
 
* During the time the student is working as an intern with OPT, the employer never has to look for another worker.   American students, and those who recently graduated that may have several years work experience, are never even considered because the job position is already filled.
 
* When the H-1B visa is granted the foreign student on OPT, for all practical purposes, becomes a permanent employee.   The employer never even has to interview for a new hire.   No interviews mean that Americans looking for work never knew there was a job opening.   The OPT gives employers plausible deniability if they are ever asked if they looked for American workers because they never actually had an open job position -- they had an INTERNSHIP instead.   Of course employers aren't required to consider Americans for OPT or H-1B, but at least H-1B regulations state that they should make a "good faith" effort to look for qualified Americans.
 
Norm Matloff discussed OPT in a 2006 news-letter called "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act Of 2006" [which was about the Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion proposals floated that year].
 
For the last 5-10 years, it has been typical in the industry to have a policy in which it is very difficult for a new graduate to get a software development job without having had internship/co-op experience.   And if you don't get into a development position at the beginning, it is quite difficult to get one later.   IOW, internship/co-op experience is crucial to being able to have a development career.
 
Moreover, often in internship/co-op positions a bond develops between the employer and student, making it much easier for the student to get a permanent job with the employer after graduation.
 
The situation Matloff and I describe is not theoretical.   In the year 2000 Norm Matloff uncovered a case where this exact scenario played out at a company called womenconnect.com, who hired a student from Mexico who was attending a U.S. university.
 
I helped Matloff to do research that nailed womenconnect.   At the time both of us thought the story would be a smoking gun that would cripple the H-1B program.   Unfortunately the story was ignored by the media so it turned out to be a dud instead of a smoking gun.   We sure tried though!
 
IMPORTANT: My previous news-letter showed how you can give public comment on the new DHS Extension to 29 months.
-30-
 

2008-05-01
Richard W. Rahn _View from 1776_
Higher Taxes Only Harm

2008-05-01
D.W. MacKenzie _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Continuing Socializing of Health Care
 

2008-05-02

2008-05-02
Kim Berry _Programmers Guild_
Saxon Infotech is yet another body shop gaming the H-1B program
due diligence check of LCAs

2008-05-02

DJIA	13,058.20
S&P 500	1,413.90
NASDAQ	2,476.99
10-year US T-Bond	3.85%
crude oil	$116.32/barrel
gold	$858.00/ounce
silver	$16.47/ounce
platinum	$1,908.20/ounce
palladium	$420.00/ounce
copper	$0.23875/ounce
natgas	$10.765/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.9664/gal
heatingoil	$3.2187/gal
dollarindex	75.525
yenperdollar	105.31
dollarspereuro	1.5412
dollarsperpound	1.9730

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Futures Movers" and "Metals Stocks" columns (and BigCharts and FT Interactive).
 
 

2008-05-03

2008-05-03
_Pittsburgh Tribune-Review_
H-1B visas and the ruses of "best and brightest" and "talent shortage" exposed
 

2008-05-04

2008-05-04
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Salzman and Lowell published by Nature
 
The British journal Nature is one of the two or three most prestigious scientific publications in the world.   Thus Hal Salzman and B. Lindsay Lowell have achieved quite a coup in having the findings of their study on American capabilities in math and science published in the journal, even if it is in the form of commentary.
 
Salzman and Lowell, you will recall, published a study for the Urban Institute a few months ago in which they debunked the myths that American kids are abysmal at math and science, that we are not producing enough people with degrees in those fields, that our average math/science scores are misleading because sadly we have not solved the problem of educating the under-class but the main-stream is fine, and so on.   It is the most thorough, careful study related to the H-1B issue I've seen in years.   See my postings on the study at
First
Second
 
The Nature column by Salzman and Lowell not only summarizes some of their previous findings, but also makes some points that are, I believe new.
 
One of these new points is striking: In absolute numbers, the U.S. has more top-scoring kids in math and science than any other country studied -- by far.   The authors point out that it is mainly these kids who become the innovators later as adults, and we've got an excellent supply of them.   This is completely counter to what one constantly sees in the popular press.
 
Which leads to a point Salzman made in announcing his article to the Sloan Industry Centers e-mail discussion group: "We'd welcome reactions and particularly thoughts on why the S&E shortage claim is so strongly believed despite lack of evidence."   The answer, of course, is that the groups that stand to benefit from a public perception of an S&E shortage -- the tech industry (who want an expanded H-1B work visa program for its cheap labor), the immigration lawyers (who want an expanded H-1B for obvious reasons), the education lobby ("Give us more money so we can remedy the shortage") and so on hire the slickest PR people money can buy.   They've been at it for years, to the point at which many people in Congress, the press and the public at large simply take it for granted that "Johnnie can't do math".
 
The Nature article (pdf).
 
Norm
-30-
 

2008-05-04
_CareerBuilder_
Hard to find... Jobs hitting the road
"Engineers, machinists and skilled trade workers are mongh the nation's [allegedly] most challenging positions to fill, according to the latest survey from [body shop] ManPOWER Inc...   Also making the list were mechanics, laborers, IT staff and production operators [and people with a pulse]...   what are the short-term and long-term effects of sending jobs over-seas on the growth and stability of the US job market?   Researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have sought to answer those questions in a new study titled, 'Jobs Beyond Borders', based on a survey of more than 3K hiring managers and HR professionals and more than 6,700 workers across teh country.   The study found that 13% of employers said their companies out-sourced work to 3rd-party vendors outside the country in 2007, with about the same amount saying they would do so in 2008.   7% of employers off-shored job functions to foreign affiliates in 2007, 9% plan to do so this year...   among employers who off-shore, 44% estimate less than 5% of their jobs will ultimately be sent over-seas while 39% project more than 10% will eventually be off-shored...   more firms are off-shoring high-wage, 'high-skill' jobs once thought to be immune to global competition.   28% reported more 'high-skill' services positions are being sent over-seas to 3rd parties or foreign affiliates [i.e. cross-border body shopped] in need of management, technology and sales and marketing expertise.   69% think 'high-skill' services positions are at equal or more risk of being off-shored than 'low-skill' jobs...   'off-shoring-related displacement currently accounts for a relatively small proportion of annual US employment turn-over, which can be close to 40% per year.'   Cost-savings is the primary motivator for off-shoring, according to 64% of those surveyed.   Looking at IT employers specifically, nearly half (49%) say they save over $20K per head on average by off-shoring.   15% of employers say they are saving more than $50K per yead.   27% of respondents cited availability of skills and 19% pointed to plans for expansion in a particular market as their main reasons for off-shoring."

2008-05-04
_Project USA_
Congress-critters working against US citizen workers are being "outed"
 

2008-05-05

2008-05-05 08:27PDT (11:27EDT) (15:27GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM non-manufacturing index rose from 49.6 in March to 52 in April
 
 

2008-05-06: 26 weeks to federal elections of president and congress-critters

2008-05-06
Andrew Sum, Joseph McLaughlin, Ishwar Khatiwada, Sheila Palma, Robert Taggart, Bill Beardall _Equal Justice Center_/_Northeastern University_/_Remediation & Training Institute_/_US House Committee on Education & Labor_
Do Federal Programs Ensure U.S. Workers are Recruited First Before Employers Hire from Abroad?
The Nation's Temporary Guest Worker Program, the New Immigrant Work-Force, and the Steep Deterioration in the Nation's Youth Labor Markets: The Case for Comprehensive National Policy Reform
"America's teen and young adult labor markets have been devastated over the past 7 years.   Employment levels and rates of employment among all teens and most young adult subgroups (20-24 years old) have declined markedly since 2000, especially males, those with no post-secondary schooling, and youth from low income families.   A variety of demand, supply, and institutional forces have been at work in reducing young employment opportunities.   Unprecedented levels of legal, illegal and temporary immigration have been one of the factors underlying this deterioration in youth labor markets.   Declines in youth employment have been matched almost one for one with increased employment of new arrivals over the past 7 years."
statement of Bill Beardall (pdf)
"In the voice message (Attachment A), the employer, in language that is both explicit and menacing, threatens to turn Gabriel over to both immigration authorities and local enforcement and to use Gabriel's perceived immigration status to 'ruin' him. At the end of the message, the employer makes it clear he will continue to refuse to pay the worker his earnings."

2008-05-06 14:55PDT (17:55EDT) (21:55GMT)
Kevin Bogardus _The Hill_
Executives' lobbyists eye smaller immigration bills

2008-05-06
L. Josh Bivens _Ecnomic Policy Institute_
Trade, jobs, and wages
"A wide gulf exists today in American politics.   On one shore are [economists, lobbyists and] voters increasingly anxious about globalization and its effect on their jobs and communities.   On the other are economists, policy makers, [lobbyists] and pundits who maintain that trade is good for the economy, that the wider public is simply misguided about its benefits, and that politicians who sympathize with those concerned about globalization are pandering to special interests at the expense of the wider economy.   This latter group relies heavily on the suggestion that 'all economists believe' globalization is good for the vast majority of American workers.This reliance is odd given that main-stream economics actually argues that there are plenty of reasons for concern about globalization's effect on the majority of American workers.   This primer highlights 2 issues in particular that should worry American workers about globalization: job losses stemming from growing trade deficits; and downward wage pressure [and subsequent drop in quality of living] for tens of millions of American workers.   These problems are not unexpected consequences of expanded trade; quite the opposite, they are exactly what standard economic reasoning predicts."

2008-05-06
_USCIS_
USCIS announced proposal to extend TN visas to 3 years

2008-05-06 (5768 Iyar 01)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Anti-Zionism at 60

2008-05-06 (5768 Iyar 01)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Random events
"One newspaper story that caught my eye recently was about 2 high-powered schools in South Korea where Korean girls study 15 hours a day, preparing themselves for tests to get into elite colleges in the United States.   Harvard, Yale and Princeton already have 34 students from those schools."
 

2008-05-07

2008-05-07
_Library of Congress_
Bill of Rights, 2nd amendment, regulating congressional pay raises, was ratified 1992-05-07
transcript

2008-05-06 21:15PDT (2008-05-07 00:15EDT) (2008-05-07 04:15GMT)
Janet Moore _Minneapolis Star Tribune_
Medtronic to cut 250 Minnesota jobs, 1,100 worldwide
"Although more than a third of the jobs shed over the course of the fiscal year will come from the company's local operations, which employ about 8K people, the overall effect of the restructuring is fairly small, just 3% of the company's worldwide work-force of 39,500."

2008-05-07
Ryan Kennedy _V Dare_
The Salmon Symptom: On Pay, Inflation, and Immigration
"When I first read about Hillary gutting fish, I thought: 'What on earth was a Wellesley girl doing gutting fish for minimum wage?   No American would ever do that job.'   Then it quickly occurred to me.   This was before mass immigration had displaced Americans from whole industries, as humble as they were.   Back then, cannery work was relatively well-paid.   Canneries would advertise for work at colleges boasting of adventure in Alaska and the like.   Today they do no such thing.   They advertise for foreign workers to depress labor costs.   Today the cannery workforce is almost exclusively foreign and almost none speak English.   Last year Alaska public radio did this story: 'International cannery workers crank through huge pink run in Cordova' 2007 September 19.   In the story, Bill Gilbert was reported to have worked in a cannery in 1967 for the equivalent of $19.55/hr in 2007 dollars.   He was 15 years old at the time.   Today he manages the cannery.   Hillary likely received a similar wage in her summer of 1969 up here.   [Figure arrived at using BLS inflation calculator here.] Today a worker doing the same thing gets minimum wage -- $7.15/hr.   Mr. Gilbert goes on to explain that labor can be obtained from abroad, thereby depressing overall wages.   He may have gotten $19.55/hr at 15 years old, but he'll be damned if his workers see anything above $8/hr.   But not to worry, today's workers got a little something extra last year.   Due to record catches last year the foreign workers had to put in 18 hour days.   So the town and industry got together and gave each worker a handsome bonus: a T-shirt for each and every worker thanking them for their hard work."

2008-05-07 06:15PDT (09:15EDT) (13:15GMT)
_CNN_/_Money_/_AP_
HP Plans to cut as many as 400 more jobs at Corvallis facility
Corvallis Gazette Times
"So, yes, there are a lot of pieces in motion, and not all of them will pay off.   And not all of the news is so promising: We're still in uncertain economic times, even though Oregon might be spared the worst of any down-turn.   Rumors are flying again that HP is considering lay-offs in Corvallis.   Everyone's being squeezed by higher gasoline and food prices.   Undoubtedly, we will suffer economic shocks."
response from a former HP tech worker: "As HP lobbies congress claiming a shortage of workers, they have cut their Corvallis, Oregon head-count from 10K to 2500, and now down to possibly 2100.   It's the same story for HP Roseville, near Sacramento...   In 2000 they had over 6K employees, now it's around 3K.   They are still laying off, and the only ads they run are blatant PERM ads.   In 2004 an HP Roseville employee told me his manager was pleading with him not to resign, because the only recs they were allowed to fill in that department -- even head-count replacement -- were in China."

2008-05-07
Paul Murphy _Ziff Davis_
Why many MCSEs won't learn UNIX
"I think the answer is that there's a great divide between the Windows and Unix camps: a divide one side doesn't recognize and the other doesn't want to cross.   It's the divide between training and education: the difference between rote learning and the application of theory to practice.   Basically, to learn Unix you learn to understand and apply a small set of key ideas and achieve expertise by expanding both the set of ideas and your ability to apply them -- but you learn Windows by working with the functionality available in a specific release...   a fundamental difference in perception -- the difference between a world view in which theory dominates practice versus one in which only practice counts.   In his world there are no enduring principles and so the notion that unifying principles can be expressed in different ways is simply foreign to him."

2008-05-07
John Lantigua _Palm Beach Post_
Birth certificates shipped from Mexico to woman in Florida create stand-off
"relatives in Monterrey, Mexico, shipped her the envelope in late March.   It contains the birth certificates of 2 relatives living in Florida who want to apply for their Mexican passports at the consulate in South Miami, she said...   official identification documents from another country, and she needs to identify herself further before receiving them...   Bustos said she has lived in the United States for 15 years, became a legal resident and received her green card in 2002 [but, before that she was an illegal alien?]...   Bustos refused to budge, and so did UPS officials in Louisville.   The envelope has stayed put.   But an angry Bustos contacted the Mexican Consulate in South Miami and spoke to the consulting attorney there, John DeLeon, who also got angry...   Kristen Petrella, a UPS spokeswoman, said the company is simply following the law.   U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents open and detain certain items, she said, and UPS' role is just to notify the customer how to get it...   Since soon after 2001-09-11, customs agents have been stationed at courier service hubs around the country where packages arrive directly from foreign countries.   They include the UPS facility in Louisville, FedEx in Memphis and DHL in Wilmington, Ohio.   After shipments are X-rayed, some are opened and some are detained.   Agents search for contraband such as illegal prescription drugs, counterfeit checks and other financial instruments, as well as forged documents that might be used to gain citizenship or some other right...   People at U.S. borders can be searched and belongings can be seized without the usual warrants and legal prohibitions.   Because the courier hubs are where international packages enter the country, they qualify for the border exception, the officials say.   Airports also qualify, they contend.   DeLeon, the attorney for the Mexican Consulate, counters that a 'postal convention' that President Abraham Lincoln signed between the U.S. and Mexico in 1861 assures that all printed materials sent between the 2 countries should be allowed to reach their destinations 'without any detention whatever'.   The birth certificates are printed materials...   Bustos would have the birth certificates if she had complied with the request, Ferreira said.   If Bustos does not end up with them, they will be sent to the Mexican Embassy in Washington."

2008-05-07
Jason Perlow _Ziff Davis_
Bare-metal back-up and recovery

2008-05-07 (5768 Iyar 02)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Environmentalists' wild predictions
 

2008-05-08

2008-05-08 05:30PST (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 332,984 in the week ending May 3, a decrease of 5,422 from the previous week.   There were 274,801 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.2% during the week ending April 26, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,944,507, a decrease of 42,895 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.9% and the volume was 2,451,671.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending April 19."
graphs

2008-05-08
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter-
Heritage Foundation analysis of my CIS article
 
The Heritage Foundation is a well-known DC think tank, with a conservative viewpoint.   They might be viewed as the mirror image of the Urban Institute, the well-known liberal think tank in DC that published the recent study debunking several myths about science and math education in the U.S.A.   (See my posting on the UI study.)
 
Yesterday Heritage released an article responding to my recent study published by CIS (in its final version, which is slightly expanded from the original).   As you may recall, my study refuted the industry lobbyists' constant claim that the H-1Bs they hire are "the best and the brightest" from around the world, and the related claim that the H-1Bs are key to the industry's ability to innovate.
 
My analysis took a market-based approach: If the H-1Bs are of extraordinary talent, as the industry asserts, then they would be paid well above average for their levels of experience and education within their profession.   Well, they're not.   The data show that the vast majority of H-1Bs are workers of average talent, making average pay for their occupation and experience.
 
So, what's a self-respecting conservative institution such as Heritage to do in such a predicament?   They want to support Big Business and thus present a favorable analysis of H-1B, but on the other hand, my critical analysis of H-1B is market-based, an approach considered holy by those on the right of the political spectrum.
 
Turns out that support for the captains of industry trumps ideology: The Heritage analysis of my study, enclosed below, basically ignores the market and says in essence, "OK, so the H-1Bs are just average engineers, but they're brighter than your average butcher.   Most butchers don't have a master's degree, y'know."
 
Not only is this a patently silly argument, it is completely at odds with the claims the industry has made concerning the "best and brightest" issue.   For instance, in his 2003 Senate testimony supporting the H-1B program, Intel executive Patrick Duffy said:
 
We are an international leader because we have been able to locate, hire and retain the world’s best engineering talent.
 
In other words, he's saying that the H-1B engineers Intel hires are much more talented than the average engineer -- NOT that his H-1B engineers are more talented than the average butcher.
 
In his testimony to the House Committee on Science and Technology on March 12 this year [2008-03-12], Bill Gates wasn't comparing H-1B engineers to butchers either.   He referred to the H-1Bs as "world class engineers".   So of course he was making a claim about H-1B engineers relative to engineers as a whole, not comparing H-1B engineers to butchers.
 
And the data show, as my study found, that the vast majority of H-1Bs, including those at Intel and Microsoft, are NOT making world-class salaries.   They are making about average for their experience/education groups within their occupations.   If one believes in the marketplace, as Heritage does, one must conclude that these are not world-class engineers.
 
Yes, Intel and M$ do hire SOME foreign workers who are world-class (which I've always supported).   For instance, M$ hires some under the O-1 visa, which by statute is for "workers of extraordinary ability", and the data show that M$ pays its O-1s 40% above average, but this is much higher than what it is paying its other foreign workers.
 
And note that my recent analysis is merely a confirmation through new methodology of previous work that also showed that most of the H-1Bs are not world-class.   The study by David North, for example, found that foreign students in U.S. university tech programs, the source of many H-1Bs, are mainly concentrated in the less-selective, lower-ranked schools, again contrary to the industry's "best and brightest" claim.
 
Once he finishes pointing out that H-1B engineers make more money than American butchers, the Heritage author, James Sherk, then puts forth another argument that ignores the market economics.   He says that U.S. productivity would fall without H-1Bs, as these jobs would go unfilled for lack of qualified workers.   But if a tech labor shortage did exist as he says, market economics would mean that wages would be zooming up -- which they're not.   On the contrary, salaries have been flat or falling.   For instance, the starting salary for new computer science grads with bachelor's degrees was $52,473 in 2001 and $53,051 in 2007.   Inflation for this time period has been about 16% but yet the starting salary for computer science grads only increased by 1%.   The same stagnant trend holds for fresh master's grads.
 
I never thought I'd see the day when the Heritage Foundation, of all organizations, would ignore the realities of the market-place.
 
Norm
-30-
 

2008-05-08
Ken McLaughlin _San Jose Mercury News_/_McClatchy_
Those without Socialist Insecurity Numbers (SINs) won't be getting stimulus rebate, and that's how it should be
Wenatchee World
"If a married couple files jointly and one spouse doesn't have a [Socialist Insecurity number, or SIN], the couple won't get the $1,200 checks that other couples will receive.   They're also ineligible for the $300 rebate per child...   More than 288K troops are stationed over-seas, according to the Pentagon -- not counting those in Iraq and Afghanistan.   Many live in places -- Korea, Japan and Germany -- where extended stays often result in marriages to locals...   According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there are now between 600K and 800K H-1B visa holders in the United States."

2008-05-08 09:01PDT (12:01EDT) (16:01GMT)
Peter Coy _Business Week_
The employment slump is hitting men harder than women
"From last November through this April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300K jobs, according to the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).   At the same time, American men lost nearly 700K jobs.   You might even say American men are in recession, and American women are not...   The share of all men aged 20 and over with jobs has fallen since last November, when private-sector employment peaked, going from 72.9% to 72.2% in April.   For women the ratio rose, from 58.1% to 58.3%.   The adult male unemployment rate has risen twice as much as the female jobless rate since November.   Those figures from the BLS' household survey are echoed in its separate survey of employers.   To see why, go sector by sector.   Manufacturing is over 70% male and construction is about 88% male.   Meanwhile the growing education and health services sector is 77% female.   The government sector, which has remained strong, is 57% female.   The securities business, which is filled with high-paying jobs, is likely to be the next sector to get whacked—and more than 60% of its workers are men.   Men are having a harder time than women getting back on track after losing a job."

2008-05-08
Mark Schoeff _Work-Force Management_
DoL Training Grants Wasted, Misdirected

2008-05-08
Devvy Kidd _News with Views_
Do you have a plan for freedom?

2008-05-08 (5768 Iyar 03)
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo _Jewish World Review_
Israel at 3,500+

2008-05-08 (5768 Iyar 03)
Steven Plaut _Jewish World Review_
How "nakba" proves the fiction of a Palestinian Nation

2008-05-08 (5768 Iyar 03)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Still Fighting the Same War

2008-05-08 (5768 Iyar 03)
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg _Jewish World Review_
Israel is irrelevant to the Israel-Palestinian conflict
 

2008-05-09

2008-05-09
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Legal Immigration Is a Bigger Problem than Illegal Immigration
"over the last decade more than 5M non-immigrant visas have been issued to people who adjust their status after arriving in America and remain in the country indefinitely -- probably for the rest of their lives...   No one in his right mind could support the blatant rip-off of American generosity that Congress misguidedly continues to offer to the world...   We need to mount an equally vigorous defense against mass legal immigration.   We need to achieve the same success that we have in our opposition to illegal immigration."

2008-05-09 (5768 Iyar 04)
Mona Charen _Jewish World Review_
Did Israel drive out the Arabs 60 years ago?

2008-05-09

DJIA	12,745.88
S&P 500	1,388.28
NASDAQ	2,445.52
10-year US T-Bond	3.77%
crude oil	$125.96/barrel
gold	$885.80/ounce
silver	$16.91/ounce
platinum	$2,101.80/ounce
palladium	$443.85/ounce
copper	$0.2325/ounce
natgas	$11.54/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$3.30/gal
heatingoil	$3.64/gal
dollarindex	73.03
yenperdollar	101.95
dollarspereuro	1.5473
dollarsperpound	1.9505

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Futures Movers" and "Metals Stocks" columns (and BigCharts and FT Interactive).
 
 

2008-05-10
 

2008-05-11

2008-05-11
Peter James for Congress -- Maryland district 4

2008-05-11
Phil Manger _Baltimore Sun_
Guest-workers are easy to abuse

2008-05-11
Rama Lakshmi _Washington Post_
Off-Shoring of Lawyering to India Grew by 60% over the Last 3 Years
"litigation research and drafting legal contracts...   to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers...   According to a report by research firm ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24K people and earn revenue of $640M by 2010...   The explosion of opportunity here was triggered by what are known as 'e-discovery laws', a set of U.S. regulations established in 2006 to govern the storage and management of electronic data for federal court actions.   Over-night, the volume of information to be stored, archived, filtered and reviewed for litigation swelled...   legal work related to [US] bankruptcies has increased."
 

2008-05-12

2008-05-12
Marsha Sanford, Edgar Towers, Michael Capozziello, Jeff Schwilk _North San Diego County Times_
Globalization has been a boon to the rich, Advancing an open-border agenda, Bush selling Colombia trade with terrorism bell
"Companies build factories over-seas to take advantage of cheap labor.   It's all about profit and the flow of capital for cheap labor.   Mexico lost jobs to [Red China], and [Red China] can lose jobs to cheaper labor somewhere else.   David Brooks argues it's a different kind of manufacturing requiring more brains and fewer people ('The cognitive age dawns' 2008 May 5).   Pick a statistic that claims manufacturing jobs are up, but the jobs that left with the factories that closed haven't been replaced.   Tell us that it's really a skill revolution, and the solution is the Republican mantra of more education.   If the job can travel 15K miles for cheaper labor, every job that can be digitized can leave the country.   Every year, Bill Gates begs for more H-1B visas, but an organization representing electrical and computer engineers said U.S. companies don't recruit Americans because foreigners work longer hours for less pay.   American workers have been devastated by down-sizing, out-sourcing or [being stuck with] temporary jobs with [lower pay and benefits]...   In her letter on 2008 May 7, 'Focus on issue when opposing view-points', Joan Horn uses a misleading report by the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center and forms assumptions from FBI statistics to support her argument alleging immigrant hatred.   To give her argument any modicum of credibility, one also has to 'assume' a lot and accept a very liberal definition of 'immigrant'...   she's an educator and she's attempting to advance a larger agenda.   I hope she's not advancing it in her class-room...   Bush again sounds the terror bell in order to sell the Colombia trade deal.   The fact is, it increases Colombia terrorism by forcing the workers to accept what is now rejected by a majority of Colombians, and thus strengthens the leftist FARC argument.   I recently spent one month there and learned firsthand.   Although U.S. domestic exports to its NAFTA (Mexico/Canada) partners increased dramatically -- with real growth of 95.2% to Mexico and 41% to Canada -- growth in imports of 195.3% from Mexico and 61.1% from Canada -- overwhelmingly reject [claims that NAFTA is a net benefit].   NAFTA has led to the displacement of more than 1M U.S. jobs from traded to non-traded goods industries and reduced wage payments to U.S. workers by more than $7.6G.   Job losses for the remainder of the decade are likely to grow at a similar rate.   But U.S. lobbying interests in financial sectors need only to buy 28 private Colombian companies and take over Colombia's economy and control the nation.   The deal opens this up.   Some Colombian Workers General Confederation union leaders rejecting the trade deal have been assassinated...   I have seen Ron Hinton's videos from that event and all the racial insults and attacks were directed at him by some Hispanics at the event!   Where is the proof of [Tina Garcia Jilling's] outrageous accusations?   His disturbing videos show Jillings... confronting him... as he tried to document the radical, militant Brown Beret speeches on the main stage in a public park.   He was still able to capture most of their speech...   No wonder Jillings didn't want him there filming.   Every American needs to wake up to these fake 'Latino activists' and their real agenda to keep our borders open to illegal aliens from Mexico.   See the truth about Jillings and other illegal alien activists at www.SanDiegoMinutemen.com.   Thank God brave Americans are willing to go to these events and record the truth about the Mexican reconquista movement in America."

2008-05-12
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
insider's assessment of probability of H-1B cap increase
 
To most of you, the main import of the enclosed article is in the following excerpt:
 
That's because the Democratic leadership, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has given the Congressional Hispanic Caucus "veto power" over any immigration-related bill that comes to the House floor, regardless of its popularity, Fishman said at a panel discussion here hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that supports an increase in the H-1B cap.
 
"The Hispanic Caucus sees it as a bargaining chip to get what they want, which is comprehensive immigration reform, amnesty for illegal immigrants, whatever you want to call it.", Fishman said.   "Until the Democratic leadership allows legislation (related to H-1Bs) to go to the floor on its own merits, that's the situation we have here."
 
It's less interesting to me because:
 
(a) Over the years I've heard such statements, "prospects for an H-1B increase look dim", many times, yet often an increase follows a few months later.   I don't mean the speakers of such comments were insincere when they made them, but the fact is that the industry's clout is huge, and things do change -- especially in election years.   Expansion of the program was enacted in the presidential election years of 2000 and 2004, and in the congressional election year of 1998.   You might think that election years are when the voters hold the most power, but it is in those years that the politicians are in most need of the industry's campaign money.
 
(b) I had already heard this rumor about Pelosi, and find much more significance in the following excerpt (sorry for the length, but it's very important):
 
...a representative from a group called the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports more restrictive immigration policies, asked why the panel had been stacked with pro-H-1B advocates and suggested every employer applying for the visas should be subject to a full, on-site investigation to verify its authenticity.
 
...abuse of the system has displaced American workers and depressed their wages.
 
There's truth to both perspectives, Fishman said, adding that the Department of Labor isn't as well-equipped to fight suspected fraud in the H-1B program as it could be.   Part of the reason, he said, is that the system is based on "attestations" from employers that they're hiring employees with the proper qualifications and at the requisite wage levels [instead of requirements to provide proof], and the Labor Department "has to wait around for some to complain" before it opens an investigation, Fishman said.
 
The theme here is "Yes, there is some fraud in H-1B, and we need better enforcement."   Careful readers of this e-news-letter know that this makes my blood boil, because it's the industry party line.   The industry lobbyists love to steer the H-1B conversation in Congress to fraud, because they know [that the whole H-1B visa program is loaded with fraud and abuse, that somehow doesn't count, to them or the feral federal government]; most employers are using the H-1B program for cheap labor, but they are doing so in full compliance with the law, due to huge loop-holes in the law.   That's why the industry is thrilled when the debate focuses on enforcement, as it distracts attention from the real issue, which is the loop-holes.   Indeed, when Computech was fined a couple of years ago for violating H-1B law, I predicted that the industry lobbyists would actually consider the incident to be helpful to them, rather than hurting their cause, because they could say, "See, we need better enforcement."; well, sure enough, that's what they did.
 
The fact that George Fishman is making these statements an indication of just where the politics of the situation are heading.   To me, his comments on fraud have even more portent than his report of Pelosi's edict, with the message being that if expansion of the H-1B and green card programs is enacted, it will include "concessions" to American programmers and engineers that are only cosmetic -- beefing up enforcement in various ways.
 
I've known George for years, and he's a very decent guy.   But I can't blame him, as one should not "shoot the messenger".   He, after all, can only speak for his boss, representative Lamar Smith, who in turn must answer to his Republican party bosses if he wants to keep this committee chairmanship.   I'm very disappointed in FAIR, of course, but they have their own people to keep happy in various ways...
 
The U.S. does benefit by bringing in "the best and the brightest" from around the world, but the vast majority of H-1Bs are not in that league.   As shown in my recent CIS article, THIS INCLUDES THE BIG-NAME U.S. FIRMS THAT ARE PUSHING HARD FOR AN H-1B INCREASE -- most of their H-1Bs are NOT "the best and the brightest".
 
Note that James Sherk, one of the panelists mentioned in the article below, is the one who wrote a critique of my CIS article.   I posted my comments on his analysis to my e-news-letter.
 
Odd that he didn't seem to make a "best and brightest" claim during the panel discussion; maybe it just didn't make its way into the article.
 
Norm
Anne Broache: CNET: Dim outlook for H-1B changes in this Congress?
 

2008-05-12 (5768 Iyar 07)
Mark Steyn _Jewish World Review_
Israel's doom could also be Europe's
 

2008-05-14
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
more on the Heritage Foundation panel discussion
 
Yesterday I posted an article reporting on a Heritage Foundation panel discussion on H-1B.   I noted that, according to the press report, the discussion focused on enforcement issues, which are, as I've explained many times, basically NON-issues.   The factions supporting H-1B, e.g. the industry, the immigration lawyers and the general anything-business-wants-it-should-get crowd, love to use the enforcement (non-)issue to steer the conversation away from the real issue, which is the huge loop-holes that allow employers to legally use H-1Bs as cheap labor.
 
Accordingly, I expressed disappointment that a panelist who understands the H-1B issues quite well, George Fishman, chose to emphasize the enforcement issue, though I absolved him of blame under the "don't shoot the messenger" doctrine.   (Fishman works for Rep. Smith, who in turn must answer to the Republican leadership in order to keep his committee chairmanship.)
 
I also expressed disappointment and some bewilderment that even a representative of FAIR took the same route.
 
After I posted my comments to this e-news-letter, I heard from Fishman and an analyst at FAIR whom I know.   Both of them felt that the press report, and thus my analysis of it, did not tell the whole story.
 
First of all, the "representative from FAIR" mentioned in the article turned out not to be a staffer with the organization, but rather someone from their advisory board.
 
Second, it turns out that Fishman's presentation was indeed more diverse and nuanced than what was reported.   He has kindly shared a copy of his remarks with me, and allowed me to quote it here.   Here are his main points, with my comments:
 
* "H-1B visas are both critical to the health of our economy and may be subject to abuses that can harm American workers."...   [The H-1B program has damaged the health of our economy and is an abuse in and of itself, in as much as it rests on fraudulent shortage claims.]
 
* The main bad guys are the Indian body shops.   This is another issue that I believe is not very relevant to the H-1B debate, as I've said often.   First, the abuse -- use of loop-holes to avoid paying market wage, not recruiting American workers, etc. -- is across the board, not just in the body shops.   Second, you could eliminate all the body shops tomorrow and yet accomplish nothing; the current clients of the body shops would just hire more H-1Bs directly.
 
* Representative Lamar Smith, Fishman's boss, should get credit for the 1998 enactment of the H-1B-dependent rule, but it [is weak and] has not been enforced well.   He added, "I should note that in the Senate, senators Grassley and Durbin propose to completely prohibit firms more than half of whose employees are H-1B aliens from using the H-1B program."   Unfortunately, no mention of the fact that Durbin/Grassley would extend the H-1B-dependent restrictions to ALL employers, a provision which would be much more useful than the "greater than 50%" rule.
 
* The prevailing wage requirement in H-1B law is full of loop-holes.   Yes!
 
* How can the H-1Bs be "the best and the brightest", as claimed by the industry, if they are just making average pay for their occupations?   Good.   (Sherk continued to answer that the H-1Bs are "the best and the brightest" because they make more than butchers do...   See my recent posting.)
 
* M$ is having to move work to Canada due to lack of H-1Bs.   I've rebutted this point elsewhere.   [It's about cheap, pliant labor.]
 
* "And much fewer than half of all H-1B workers have graduated from U.S. universities with master's and doctorate degrees.   These are the workers most highly sought after by American high-tech firms.   These are the workers with the strongest claims on H-1B visas.   As our technology firms rightly argue, why would we want to give foreign students graduate educations in high-tech fields in our premier universities and then send them back to work for our competitors abroad?   Thus, might it make sense to limit any new supply of H-1B visas to just such workers?"
 
   This point of view is popular among a couple of influential analysts who have been critical of H-1B, but I completely disagree.   First of all, I strongly dispute the notion that having a graduate degree makes an H-1B or for that matter a U.S. worker "better"; it's simply not true.   Second, if we are so worried that they will carry their U.S. education back to our foreign competitors, why are we allowing them to come here for that education in the first place?
 
* Enforcement by the DoL is poor because it is only complaint driven.   My point, of course, is that there really is not much for [anyone] to enforce, given the loop-holes.
 
* H-1B fraud in [Red China], with fictitious addresses etc.   Again, enforcement.
 
The FAIR advisory board member also emphasized enforcement, as I reported yesterday.
 
Given all of this, it is no wonder that the author of the second article on the panel discussion [], came to the conclusion that everyone present agreed that H-1B is basically an enforcement issue.   Hence the title of the article, "Congress Should Increase H-1B Visa Cap, Enhance Enforcement Efforts, Speakers Say'.
 
Through some elaboration given to me by the FAIR staffer, I now see where FAIR's board member "is coming from" on this issue.   This makes his remarks stressing enforcement understandable -- but he's still wrong.   Enforcement is NOT the issue.   This is absolutely basic.   I've explained this in detail elsewhere, but again you can quite quickly see it by noting that the industry lobbyists love to steer the conversation to enforcement.
 
So, I greatly appreciate the supplementary information by the FAIR staffer and George Fishman, both of whom I know and highly respect, but I do have to say I'm still disappointed.
 
On the plus side, I wish to point out that FAIR, along with Programmers Guild founder John Miano, is mounting a legal challenge to the foreign student Optional Practical Training extension that was declared recently by executive branch fiat.   This was an outrageous act, with significant adverse impact on U.S. citizens and permanent residents (see the Rob Sanchez op-ed I posted yesterday), so I say more power to FAIR and Miano.   I look forward to seeing the outcome.
 
Norm
-30-
 

2008-05-14
Jason D. O'Grady _Ziff Davis_
Psystar out-performs some Macs on some Xbench tests

2008-05-14
Nich Heath _Ziff Davis_
Red Chinese, Indian software driving out low end of UK SW defelopment industry

2008-05-14
_CIOL_/_Cyber Media News_
Satyam sued for fraud, forgery and breach of contract, lost appeal

2008-05-14 (5768 Iyar 09)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Congressional Problem Creation
"Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.   Politicians and a large percentage of the public lose sight of the unavoidable fact that for every created benefit, there's also a created cost or, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman put it, 'There's no free lunch.'   While the person who receives the benefit might not pay or even be aware of the cost, but as sure as night follows day, there is a cost borne by someone...   Community Reinvestment Act of 1977...   Congress, doing the bidding of environmental extremists, created our energy supply problem...   A Purdue University study found that the ethanol program has cost consumers $15G in higher food costs in 2007 and it will be considerably higher in 2008...   Americans are rightfully angry about higher energy and food prices but their anger should be directed toward the true villains -- the Congress and the White House."

2008-05-14 (5768 Iyar 09)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Too "Complex"? part 2
"Let's face it.   Supply and demand will never replace 'need' and 'greed' in political discussions of economic issues...   Moral melodrama is where it's at, politically.   Least of all do voters want to hear about the most fundamental reality of economics -- that what everybody wants has always added up to more than there is.   That is called scarcity -- and if there were no scarcity, there would be no economics.   What would be the point, if we could all have everything we want, in whatever amount we want?...   So long as the voters buy it, the politicians will keep selling it."
 

2008-05-15

2008-05-15 05:30PST (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 322,942 in the week ending May 10, a decrease of 10,087 from the previous week.   There were 258,516 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1% during the week ending May 3, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,833,473, a decrease of 123,173 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,290,364.   Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending April 26."
graphs

2008-05-15
Jason D. O'Grady _Ziff Davis_
Psystar out-performed some Macintoshes on Geekbench 2, but 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T83000 MacBook Pro came out on top

2008-05-15
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
and on the green card front...
 
Often lost in the conversation on H-1B is the equally important issue of employer-sponsored green cards.   Last year's [Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion] bill, and various related pieces of legislation, not only would increase the yearly H-1B cap, but would also expand the green card program.
 
The industry's claimed reason for liberalizing green card policy is summed up by the Lofgren quote in [Patrick Thibodeau's] article:
 
Because of this [per-country] cap, a Chinese or Indian post-graduate at the top of his/her class at MIT may have to wait half a decade or more for a green card, much longer than a student from a less-populated country.
 
Sounds unfair, and even counter to U.S. interests, right?   Wrong.   Though it is true that the waiting time varies with the country, the fact is that Lofgren's hypothetical genius would NOT have to "wait half a decade or more for a green card."   He in fact would have ZERO wait time for the visa (not including labor certification time).   See my previous posting for details, but the summary is this:
 
The employer-sponsored green card system has three tiers.   The one for the top talents is EB-1, described as "foreign nationals of "extraordinary ability" (and for "outstanding professors") is "Current" for all nationalities, including the Chinese and Indians.   "Current" is the State Dept. term for "no back-log, no waiting".
 
The category that does have a long wait is EB-3, which is for ordinary workers, no special talent.   So, LOFGREN'S STATEMENT IS EGREGRIOUSLY MISLEADING.   And as a former immigration lawyer and immigration law professor, Lofgren presumably knows full well that her statement is misleading.
 
You might think that employers would not want to expedite the green card process, as they lose their power over a worker once she gets her green card.   That is a consideration -- see my University of Michigan law reform journal article for examples of immigration lawyers who admit that employers do like the de facto indentured servant status of their H-1Bs -- but what is just as important is having available a pool of YOUNG workers, because younger workers are cheaper.   Most of the H-1Bs are young, and of course they are still young once they get their green cards.   [In spite of the industry's claim that they wait so long. :-) ]
 
Regular readers of this e-newsletter know that the core of H-1B is ENABLING EMPLOYERS TO AVOID HIRING OLDER AMERICAN WORKERS, of age 40 or even 35.   It's no coincidence, for example, that the "automatic green cards" that were proposed in the [Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion] bill were for NEW GRADUATES, because they are YOUNG.
 
The point, then, is that the industry is afraid that the foreign workers -- again, I'm talking about the ordinary ones, the EB-3s, not the top talents -- will be put off by the long wait in EB-3, and won't come to the U.S.A. in the first place.   The industry then loses a major part of its young labor pool.
 
Many readers of this e-news-letter are researchers, policy-makers, journalists and the like.   I hope they are beginning to understand the following simple principle: Sadly, almost anything the industry PR people say is completely (and knowingly) wrong.
 
When I read the piece enclosed below, I found a link to an interesting analysis by the same author of my recent CIS article, with a surprising take on it, or I should say, on something I said long ago.   I'll try to post that one tomorrow if I have time.
 
Norm
-30-
 

2008-05-15
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1865
Beware of H-1B Increases during Election Season
alternate link
"According to [several recent articles] there is no chance for an H-1B increase this year.   As the theory goes, the Hispanic Caucus said that unless they get [Thoroughly Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion] (i.e. amnesty) they won't support an H-1B increase...   History shows that almost every time the press declares that an H-1B increase won't happen, it happens.   IOW, this is probably the time to be vigilant.   As an example, in 1998 the press said that an H-1B increase won't happen because President Clinton said he would veto any H-1B increase.   What few newspapers reported on H-1B back then declared an increase as DOA, and the few techies who knew what H-1B was celebrated prematurely.   In early 1999 Congress slipped the increase into the omnibus spending bill and Clinton immediately signed it.   Don't assume that H-1B increases won't happen in election years because that's exactly what happened in 1998, 2000, and 2004.   During election years politicians are hungry for campaign money and the H-1B pushers are willing to give them a fix.   The allure of cash far out-weighs the minor cries of anger from the unorganized and scattered opponents of H-1B."

2008-05-15
Rachel Alexander _Mens News Daily_
Striking changes in Arizona as illegal aliens flee
"[Traffic is down.   Costs for special English classes in schools are down.]   Fewer illegal immigrants are using hospital emergency rooms, so waiting times have decreased.   Although the rest of the country is in an economic slump, unemployment is going down in Arizona, from 4.5% in January to 4.1% in March.   Day laborers loitering outside of Home Depot and other stores have mostly disappeared, ending months of confrontation between illegal immigrant sympathizers and protesters.   Desert lands near the border are returning to their pristine condition and the wildlife is coming back.   Identity theft and car thefts are decreasing."
Illegal Immigration Journal

2008-05-15
Larry Dignan _Ziff Davis_
Yahoo! chair Roy Bostock responded to Icahn take-over attempt announcement

2008-05-15 13:07PDT (16:07EDT) (20:07GMT)
Rex Crum _MarketWatch_
Icahn wants to take over Yahoo!, CBS wants to take over CNET

2008-05-15 (5768 Iyar 10)
Jonathan S. Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Finding a Reason to Do Nothing
"On April 30, a group of 185 rabbis and other leaders issued a statement calling on individual Jews to refrain from attending the Beijing Olympics to protest '[Red China's] policies regarding Tibet and Darfur, and its assistance to Iran, Syria and Hamas'.   The statement made specific reference to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which were used by the Nazi regime to polish their image...   Beijing's belief that the Olympics was going to help its image was a serious mistake.   The attention given to the games and the Olympic Torch run (a bit of baloney that was actually invented by the Nazis in 1936) has, in fact, afforded its critics the opportunity to highlight issues that the Communist regime wanted to sweep under the rug...   Indeed, there are some, including those that we don't normally think of as being motivated by international trade, that see [Red China] as a vast market rather than as the world's largest human-rights violator...   since when have Jews [or anyone else] regarded human rights as merely a matter of expediency?...   It is no accident that the Wyman Institute was a driving force behind the boycott.   It has specialized in preserving the memory of those who had the chutzpah to speak out for rescue during the Holocaust when most of the Jewish establishment thought such a protest was pointless or imprudent."

2008-05-15 (5768 Iyar 19)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Too "Complex"? part 3
"Taking advantage of economies of scale that lower their costs of doing business, chain stores are able to charge lower prices than smaller independent stores, and therefore attract customers away from their higher-cost competitors.   The economics of this is certainly not too 'complex' to understand.   However, politics is not economics, so politicians tend to respond to people's emotional reactions -- and if economic realities stand in the way, then so much the worse for economics.   All sorts of laws and court decisions, going back as far as the 1930s, have tried to prevent the economies of scale that lower costs from being reflected in lower prices that drive high-cost competitors out of business...   There was a time when courts would have stopped politicians from interfering with people's property rights by banning chain stores...   Neither economics nor property rights are too 'complex' to understand.   But both get in the way of willful people who seek to deny other people the right to make their own decisions.   Anyone who doesn't like chain stores is free not to shop there.   But that is wholly different from saying that they have a right to stop other people from exercising their own freedom of choice.   That's not too 'complex' to understand."
 

2008-05-16

2008-05-16 08:00PDT (11:00EDT) (15:00GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index from 62.6 in April to 59.5 in May -- lowest since 1980

2008-05-16
"Dancho Danchev" _Ziff Davis_
Redmond Magazine infected by Red Chinese malware that exploits SQL

2008-05-16
Thomas D. Segel _View from 1776_
Next time, think before you vote

2008-05-16
Ira Mehlman _Town Hall_
What does granting amnesty to illegal aliens have to do with funding our troops in Iraq?

2008-05-16
Jacob G. Hornberger _Future of Freedom Foundation_
Ron Paul & Justin Raimondo

2008-05-16 (5768 Iyar 11)
Diana West _Jewish World Review_
Israel is not a freedom franchise, Mr. President
"I think Bush's presidency, at its base, has been an emotional presidency, more gut-driven and temporal than attuned to anything like that sweep of history you hear about...   what happened in Israel happened to a people whose monotheism and ethics, as Martin Gilbert writes in _Churchill and the Jews_, was, in Churchill's view, 'a central factor in the evolution and maintenance of modern civilization' -- a central factor in liberty and democracy as the West still knows it...   what happened in Israel -- the modern incarnation of the ancient Jewish nation that today enshrines freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, rule of law, women's rights, etc. -- is also anathema (anti-Islamic) to the Islamic Middle East, which to this day seeks or plots Israel's annihilation, not in a what has become a sham territorial dispute, but rather to deny infidels (former dhimmis, to boot) a foothold in what Muslims regard as once-Muslim land."

2008-05-16

DJIA	12,986.80
S&P 500	1,425.35
NASDAQ	2,528.85
10-year US T-Bond	3.85%
crude oil	$126.29/barrel
gold	$900.00/ounce
silver	$16.96/ounce
platinum	$2,132.00/ounce
palladium	$453.30/ounce
copper	$0.239375/ounce
natgas	$11.09/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$3.22/gal
heatingoil	$3.70/gal
dollarindex	72.783
yenperdollar	103.89
dollarspereuro	1.5578
dollarsperpound	1.9571

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Futures Movers" and "Metals Stocks" columns (and BigCharts and FT Interactive).
 
 

2008-05-17

2008-05-17
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
SF Chronicle: Feinstein, Lofgren push for immigrant workers
 
In the enclosed article, Lofgren actually announces she's giving up on H-1B for now.   I'm not sure it's actually true, but it's still interesting.
 
However, Lofgren is pushing her green-card bills, as it states here and as I discussed the other day.
 
Expansion of the employer-sponsored green card program is not justified.   The industry lobbyists claim we are on the verge of losing outstanding talents due to delays in the green card process, hence the need for expanding the program.   But this claim is groundless.
 
I have always strongly supported bringing in "the best and the brightest", but as I showed at the above URL, the H-1Bs in that category are NOT waiting long periods for their green cards.   It's only those of average talents, who are literally third tier, in the EB-3 category, who are experiencing a big backlog.   People in the first tier, EB-1, who are in the words of the statute "foreign nationals of extraordinary ability" are receiving their green cards IMMEDIATELY after their labor certification is completed, NO back-log.
 
But what about the example Lofgren is citing?
 
Among the people I've met is a guy who spent 4 years at Harvard, 7 at Stanford's engineering school, then did practical training [OPT] and has been here 6 years on an H-1B...
 
Lofgren is making it sound like this person is "the best and the brightest".   If so, he should have gotten his green card long ago, as I explained above, so something is very fishy here.   Where is the disconnect?
 
The first clue here is that he used OPT time.   This would have been in 2001, when the H-1B cap was NOT hit (there were about 60K unused visas), so he would have been able to get an H-1B visa right away, without using OPT.   The likelihood here is that he simply couldn't get a job, or got temp jobs or the like.   Granted, 2001 was not a time of plentiful jobs, but an outstanding person from Stanford would have had a number of good offers.   So he would appear not to be outstanding after all.
 
Yet he was at Stanford.   That in itself would make him brilliant, right?   Well, no.   Stanford is actually my favorite university, but the administrators are shrewd business people.   Like many private universities, they "sell" Master's degrees, meaning that
(a) you must pay your own way, pay full tuition and receive no graduate stipends, and
(b) Stanford is not fussy at all about who gets admitted to their Master's programs.   I've seen them take B and C students.   This all goes to subsidize their PhD program.   I obviously don't know the details in the case Lofgren is citing, but it's certainly possible to be a hanger-on in various ways for years at Stanford.   And if OTOH he spent 7 years in a single PhD program, that would raise a red flag too; Stanford wants a PhD student to get into research very early on, get the exams out of the way and graduate in a reasonable time, typically 4 or 5 years, so taking 7 years to finish would once again indicate that the guy is not top-tier.   I know less about Harvard, but it's likely that he was not in engineering and other things were going on.
 
As to his having been an H-1B for 6 years, first note that that doesn't mean that he's been waiting in the green card queue for 6 years.   It is common to bounce around two or more employers before finding one who will sponsor the worker for a green card.   As the DoL audit stated, many employers use H-1B as a kind of try-out period, to gauge the ability of this worker for a couple of years before deciding if they're good enough to sponsor for a green card.   If that is what happened in this case, it would again indicate that this guy is not a first-rate talent.
 
Lots of other scenarios are possible in which this person would be much less stellar than Lofgren's flowery portrayal implies.   All of the above is speculation on my part, but my point is that this guy would have gotten his green card long ago if he were of extraordinary talent.
 
I very strongly disagree with Lofgren's statement that anyone with a PhD in engineering should get a free ride, immigration-wise.   There is nothing magical about a PhD.   And remember, only about 2% of the computer-related H-1Bs have a PhD (1.6% in 2000, by INS data).
 
That statement includes many of the big-name companies.   I have data on this on Intel -- and FROM Intel -- that I've been saving, but it's too late at night as I type this, and I'll save it for another posting.
 
Norm
Carolyn Lochhead: SF Chronicle: Feinstein, Lofgren push for immigrant workers

2008-05-17
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
TechnewsWorld: The H-1B Visa Dilemma, Part 1: A Broken System
 
The best comment in the enclosed article is:
 
"I have no doubt that we'll hear arguments all day as to why the cap on H-1B visas should be raised, but nobody should be fooled.   The bottom line is that there are highly skilled American workers being left behind, searching for jobs that are being filled by H-1B visa holders.", Grassley said. "It's time to close the loop-holes that have allowed this to happen and enact real reform."
 
That says it all -- "nobody should be fooled".   Great line by senator Grassley, which I hope he uses with his Senate colleagues as well, because they HAVE been fooled.
 
Take the statements here by Keith Wolfe, Google's global mobility manager.   (His job title speaks volumes too.)   He claims that Google is hiring "the best and the brightest".   Yet my recent CIS analysis showed that it is generally not paying genius-level salaries to its H-1Bs. Wolfe says that Google needs H-1Bs for innovation.   Yet my analysis should that Google hires most of its H-1Bs for jobs that, according to the Dept. of Labor, "require limited judgment".   Referring to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, he characterizes Google as being immigrant-founded.   Yet Brin wasn't an H-1B; he IMMIGRATED AT AGE SIX, with his parents.
 
Norm
Andrew K. Burger: TechNewsWorld: The H-1B Visa Dilemma, Part 1: A Broken System
 

2008-05-18

2008-05-18
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Computerworld blog: Let's end the H-1B best-and-brightest nonsense
 
Interesting blog posting by Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau, enclosed below.
 
He begins by referring to my recent article showing that most H-1Bs are not "the best and the brightest" as claimed by the industry lobbyists, and asks why one would even investigate such a question.   Thibodeau says:
 
H-1B visa holders aren't "the best and brightest".   It's inside-the-beltway rhetoric that evaporates in 2 seconds of debate.
 
Yes, inside-the-beltway rhetoric indeed.   Thibodeau's remark fits well with the recent statement by senator Grassley that I liked so much: "Nobody should be fooled [by the industry lobbyists]."
 
I've often wondered how many people on the Hill actually are fooled on the H-1B issue.   I'm pretty sure that representative Lofgren, the House's biggest supporter of the H-1B program, has a good understanding of the fact that most if not all of claims made by the industry lobbyists are false.   She's been given lots of information by the Programmers Guild, including in a meeting in which she heard from them personally, and I know she's heard from many people personally.   She even admitted once to the press that her neighbor, an engineer, couldn't get a job.   But there is no way she would vote for, let alone propose, genuine reform of the program.
 
I'm told that the YouTube video, in which the prominent Pittsburgh immigration law firm showed its clients how to legally circumvent the green card law requiring employers to give hiring priority to Americans, really did have an impact on the Hill.
 
(Too bad they only saw half of the bad stuff.   Another video in the series also explained some of the loop-holes in the prevailing wage law for both H-1B and green cards.   And too bad most of them haven't seen the earlier statements by the law firm in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette, assuring the public that employers hire H-1Bs only as a last resort after making an exhaustive search for American workers, that H-1Bs are paid well, etc. -- in egregious contrast to what they were telling their clients in the video.   See my comments last year.)
 
So, many of them do know that there are real problems with H-1B.   But they don't WANT to know.   I've mentioned before that my own congressperson, Elaine Tauscher, refuses to meet with me.   And when another constituent suggested holding a town meeting on the H-1B issue, Tauscher's aide went through the motions of discussing it, but of course in the end Tauscher simply wouldn't do it.   And she wouldn't do it, because she COULDN'T do it; both major parties are just too beholden financially to the industry for campaign contributions.
 
If any of you out there think that senator Obama or senator McCain will do the right thing about H-1B, think again; they've already said they support the program, that the U.S. "needs" H-1Bs.   (Recall the public comments by senator Bennett and representative Davis, quite explicit, to the effect that they know the public doesn't want H-1B but the industry does, and as Davis -- then chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Finance Committee -- put it, "The industry is the ones who give us the money.")
 
Back to Thibodeau: For whatever reason, he apparently decided to take a look at my 1998 House testimony, in which I predicted that if the good jobs, e.g. software development instead of software marketing, were to go largely to foreign workers, American students would vote with their feet and major in something other than computer science.   As we all know, that's exactly what is now occurring.   And, AGAIN senator Grassley's line applies -- "nobody should be fooled".   Don't be fooled by computer science departments that tell you, "Enrollment is slightly up this year" -- when they are hiding from you the fact that they lowered the bar for admission, that they relaxed the major requirements in order to attract more students, etc.
 
Kids are savvy.   They saw their older siblings decide to major in CS as freshmen in 1998, in response to constant articles in the press saying employers are desperate to hire -- only to find there were no jobs when they graduated in 2002.   The ACM etc. are making such statements again.   Yet the kids know that earlier history, and moreover they see that salaries in the field are flat (which of course again is a consequence of the move to foreign labor, both as H-1Bs and off-shore workers).   So why major in CS, even if the new liberalized major requirements allow one to take touchy-feely courses in human computer interaction instead of operating systems and parallel processing hardware?
 
Maybe H-1B is not the gravest problem the nation faces today, but it certainly is symptomatic of the general trouble -- government of, by and for Big Business; disinformation routinely dispensed by politicians; members of Congress feeling that money politics forces them to take actions that they know are wrong and are harmful to working Americans.
 
A few years ago, when a representative or senator whose name I can't recall now announced that she was quitting Congress to become a broadcast journalist, TV comic Bill Maher joked that she was leaving politics in order to "make a difference".   Turns out that it's not a joke.   I don't know how much impact this person subsequently had as a journalist, but it couldn't have been less than she had in Congress.
 
Norm
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld: Let's End the H-1B Best and Brightest Nonsense

2008-05-18
"Craig" _Project USA_
ICE detained 390 illegal aliens from Red China after raid on Agriprocessors, Inc. in Postville, IA
 

2008-05-19

2008-05-19
John R. Bolton _Wall Street Journal_
Bring On the Foreign Policy Debate

2008-05-19
William Anthony Hay _Wall Street Journal_
The Living Was Not Easy

2008-05-19
Marcus Epstein _V Dare_
Bob Barr -- born-again libertarian
"But Barr could be the most high-profile right wing candidate since Pat Buchanan, and the most serious Libertarian Party nominee at least since Ron Paul in 1988.   This, of course, is why the GOP mouth-pieces at National Review have already begun attacking him...   A patriotic immigration reform stance would provide a great way to win over Republican (and other) dissidents.   But it is becoming increasingly clear that Barr will not take it.   Which is surprising.   In Congress, Barr had an excellent record on immigration.   A look at his Numbers USA grades, shows only a few weak spots in supporting guest-worker programs for nurses and agricultural workers.   Even in this area, he cosponsored legislation to halve H-1B visas.   In every other area, he took the lead in promoting sensible immigration policies.   Barr co-sponsored legislation to end birthright citizenship, eliminate chain migration, and cut legal immigration to 300K people a year.   On enforcement, Barr voted repeatedly to put troops on the border, signed a letter opposing Bush's amnesty when it was first proposed in 2001 and fought against 245(i) and other mini-amnesties...   Since [the terrorist attacks of 2001-09-11], he has been a leading advocate for privacy rights and civil liberties [which is a good thing]...   The question for VDARE.COM readers, of course, is whether Barr will begin to toe a new line on immigration too.   As recently as 2006, Barr maintained his tough stand on immigration...   [Past Libertarian Party platforms have come down on each side of the wide-open versus restricted borders debate.   Revisions to the platform for 2008 have been proposed and will be further debated and voted on at the national convention in Denver over Memorial Day week-end, 2008-05-23 through 26.]   During the 2007 amnesty battle, Barr chastised 'GOP hot-heads' in Georgia who went after Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson for selling out on immigration.   Despite edging towards a federalist position on all social issues, he attacked Hazleton, PA and other state and local governments that have tried to do anything constructive about illegal immigration...   Barr's web site makes a number of ominously vague statements on immigration.   He says we must 'aggressively' secure our borders, while fighting 'the nanny state that seeks to coddle even those capable of providing for their own personal prosperity'...   Why the shift?   He has complained that 'If such heretofore conservative stalwarts as Tom Tancredo and John Doolittle now champion increased government power to mold private businesses into their preferred image, is there really any hope left for the dwindling camp of Reagan Republicans who sincerely and consistently dislike government power?'   I've said before that civil libertarians have completely legitimate reasons to be opposed to some of enforcement tools that desperate immigration reform patriots have turned to, such as the RICO statutes and National ID cards.   However, most of the commonsense measures that Barr advocated in Congress such as lowering legal immigration, beefing up border security, and ending birth-right citizenship, do nothing to increase state power.   In fact, many of the smarter civil libertarians I know recognize that cracking down on illegal immigration is an alternative to Big Brother surveillance.   See, for example National ID: Another step to totalitarianism [2008 January 15] by Tom DeWeese in WorldNetDaily."

2008-05-19
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Radicals United