Innovation economy: Eliminate high skill visa caps (union, free market, companies)

[Costaexpress]

Would you support the idea to eliminate high skill visa caps?

american competitiveness is based on talent driven innovation. If we want to grow our economy, we must attract and retain the best and brightest. They are the engine of innovation. We must also grow the population so that we have enough tax payers, customers, and young people.

Discuss.

[pvande55]

No. The program is heavily abused, most recently by SoCal Edison, which laid off its IT department so it could bring in cheaper labor. There are supposed to be safeguards against that but the are usually ignored.

[ncole1]

Originally Posted by Costaexpress

Would you support the idea to eliminate high skill visa caps?

american competitiveness is based on talent driven innovation. If we want to grow our economy, we must attract and retain the best and brightest. They are the engine of innovation. We must also grow the population so that we have enough tax payers, customers, and young people.

Discuss.

Suppose the jobs in question are filled by immigrants. This displaces the workers that would otherwise have those positions. What happens to them? Since we are talking about people with Ph.D.'s or otherwise highly qualified, it's unlikely they will be unemployed. What will happen is that they will take some slightly less skilled jobs. This will in turn displace those that would otherwise work those jobs, forcing them to take lower-skill jobs. This will in turn displace those workers. This will continue "down the ladder", so to speak, until, at the bottom, the last group is left - you guessed it - unemployed.

[beb0p]

This is a slippery slope. It'd be great if the companies indeed bring over highly skilled talent to add to our workforce. However, many companies will instead use this loophole to bring over less-skilled and less costly workers to displace more skilled American workers. In a classic move of cost over quality. Over time it can drastically reduce the quality of American products and in turn make us less competitive and making a real dent in our economy.

Now yes, the free market would say that those companies would eventually pay a price when their products are no longer up to par due to using less skilled foreign workers. And the business would wise up and start hiring more skilled workers. But by then it may be too late in the game. Once you get overtaken, it's very very difficult to reverse that trend. Just look at our auto industry.

Also, some of the displaced American workers may have moved overseas to work for our competitors, contributing to other countries' success. In sporting terms, this policy can lead to bad trades - we trade our good players to other countries for their scrubby players.

So in theory, removing the cap sounds like a solid idea. But in practice, it can come back to bite us.

I think a better way is to focus on our education system - to keep turning out top talent and to keep attracting smart foreigners to our universities. We have been doing a very good job at that imo, and the key is to keep doing it.

.

[usayit]

No its highly abused.

It gives us a reason to de-emphasis the need to focus on producing and developing our own skilled workforce.

[jertheber]

Here's the truth of the foreign worker's supposed superiority in high tech companies, they niche train their workforce for very narrow disciplines, this is the old segmentation of skills thing that Henry Ford was intent on as a way to circumvent the carriage builder tradesmen's demands. Bill Gates and others have created the new playing field then testifies before our senate on the difficulty in finding the "right" help. This is what many in the IT field maintain as the truth of things, others of course will chime in with opposing views. The fact remains, American's are suffering a huge injury of unemployment while foreigners are being brought here to work.

American IT types are often too well rounded in their knowledge base to compete with a lower wage worker who fits in with this new niche paradigm. Foreign workers are also less likely to band together for their common interest instead seeking to compete with each other as is customary in their culture. The end result is lower wage levels for everyone. Specialization of tasks is both harmful AND helpful, whether it comes down on one side or the other depends on the human impact, oh yeah I know we aren't supposed to feel this way, and that the "laws" of economics supposedly trumps the notion of national well being, but in the end I do see a problem with this notion. That would be the fact of allowing the idea of business supremacy as our foundation and not our democracy. We decide...

We're all "foreigners" here in terms of our familial national origins, and in light of that we have to remain the nation that accepts the foreign born as the new blood they represent. With the rise of the machine as the new labor proletariat we barely can support those who are born here let alone an army of newcomers, so that can be readily seen as a big problem, that wasn't the case back in the day, but now..

[Malloric]

Yes.

That we have a failed education system is a separate problem. But since we do, brain draining from countries that are able to provide a better education is even more critical. Like it or not, we are reliant upon it. My mom works in a hospital laboratory and probably 50% of the workforce is new immigrants. They're understaffed. She made more in overtime last year than base salary. Like it or not, there's simply insufficient training programs to meet the demand domestically. Primary and secondary education are so poor there's a small pool of suitable candidates to fill those sits even if they were to exist. The majority of high school graduates need extensive remedial education to even prepare for basic college work. The junior colleges have largely emerged as the mechanism for providing basic adult education but there's no way they can handle the volume of adults coming out of our high schools without a high school education. It's a big problem. Simply because we can turn around and brain drain doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it's also why it's so important that we do brain drain at least until we can fix our own education system which no one seems interested in doing. Mostly we're doing the opposite and lowering standards, eg, NCLB.

[Costaexpress]

Originally Posted by jertheber

Here's the truth of the foreign worker's supposed superiority in high tech companies, they niche train their workforce for very narrow disciplines, this is the old segmentation of skills thing that Henry Ford was intent on as a way to circumvent the carriage builder tradesmen's demands. Bill Gates and others have created the new playing field then testifies before our senate on the difficulty in finding the "right" help. This is what many in the IT field maintain as the truth of things, others of course will chime in with opposing views. The fact remains, American's are suffering a huge injury of unemployment while foreigners are being brought here to work.

American IT types are often too well rounded in their knowledge base to compete with a lower wage worker who fits in with this new niche paradigm. Foreign workers are also less likely to band together for their common interest instead seeking to compete with each other as is customary in their culture. The end result is lower wage levels for everyone. Specialization of tasks is both harmful AND helpful, whether it comes down on one side or the other depends on the human impact, oh yeah I know we aren't supposed to feel this way, and that the "laws" of economics supposedly trumps the notion of national well being, but in the end I do see a problem with this notion. That would be the fact of allowing the idea of business supremacy as our foundation and not our democracy. We decide...

We're all "foreigners" here in terms of our familial national origins, and in light of that we have to remain the nation that accepts the foreign born as the new blood they represent. With the rise of the machine as the new labor proletariat we barely can support those who are born here let alone an army of newcomers, so that can be readily seen as a big problem, that wasn't the case back in the day, but now..

I can agree with some of what you said.

Your "anti immigrant" Republican Party want more skilled immigrants.

So your "pro Union" Democratic Party wants to take the pro immigrant stance.

You are not a typical modern day progressive. But Modern day liberalism is one of the most conflicted ideologies and this is why I don't respect it. If progressives want to advocate for unions, show people that they are truly trying, right or wrong, at least consistently trying. But no, they don't.

When they talk about "religion of peace", they avoid the fate of gays and lesbians in the Middle East.
When they talk about admitting more immigrants, why bother pretending to be pro Union ?
When they think the low class white men are just a bunch of gun worship, porn watching low lives, why put up this poor people rhetoric?
When they talk about wanting more people, why talk about saving land for environmental reasons?

Admit it. Modern day progressives are cultural elitists. Deep down, they worship affluence and wealth. They want a society where they make decisions on behalf of others. They decide how much goodies they give the poor (while discriminating them), and how much more they feed the rich (while sleeping with them). Charity, diversity, all good, as long as---and this is critical---it is done on progressives terms. As long as they are the center star of it all.

There come the "bitter" working class voters, who "vote against their interests". "So stupid." They don't appreciate the generosity and sophistication of modern day progressives. You know what, these bitter voters know progressives very well. And you have criticized the Democratic Party enough too. If I were poor, I wouldn't necessarily prefer the progressives personally, and their policies are separate. Spend sometime in mainstream affluent intelligentsia progressive circles, if you are a poor white man, you are always seen "trailer trash" and it shows whether or not you come to a disagreement. God forbid Im not a poor white man, heck, I'm not even white. But let's be honest. If you are white and poor, you have no little scholarships and special opportunities. In fact your poverty is the source of ridicule for your assumed trashy lifestyles and food choices. And how much have eat pray love progressives done for African Americans? Ah, adding labor competition at their level! Helpful!

Let me tell you this---and I'm typing this because I think you are one of the more thinking and respectable posters here--- as a person of color, I don't find mainstream modern liberalism heart warming. Individuals notwithstanding, overall this community's conflicted ideologues are a result of them wanting to have the cake and eat it too. They want as broad of a voting base, then screw over each segment separately. They want all the beautiful rhetoric, and never bother to articulate the logical inconsistencies. I believe managerial progressive circles actually knowingly do this. The poor middle class, well educated men and women have to sing to choir hoping that dreams and change are meant to be sincere.

Much of what far left progressives advocate for here is little more than cruel dictatorship based entirely on self righteousness. If you don't like such dictatroshp., you are just somehow stupid and ungrateful. Anybody who has some knowledge in human communication knows that this type of vibe invites nothing but disgust, distrust, and resentment. And progressives ask "why they hate us." Why not? Why wouldn't they?

I have not been an idealist. I am a pragmatist. I look at progressive voters, and I think: be careful what you wish for. If you really want all the things progressives want, then fine don't complain about the consequences. but keep in mind that most of these progressive opinion leaders are themselves professionalu and financially safe. Immigration will never threaten their own interests and job security. It gives them cheap nannies their kids scream "don't deport." It is easy for them to talk about living in the expensive city and being environmentally friendly. It is easy for them to want a diverse workforce as a token postcard. But everyone below the upper middle class, you are mistaken that rich democrats reserved a seat for you at their dinner table. That table is reserved for rich whites, rich blacks, rich Indians, and perhaps a rich disabled chinese lesbian small local business owner. But not you.

Don't get me wrong. The republicans aren't trying to help people. But I'm always puzzled by progressives assumption that somehow we should just automatically embrace the conflicted, elitist, unrealistic, and ultimately discriminatory mind sets of the other side.

[jertheber]

"There come the "bitter" working class voters, who "vote against their interests". "So stupid." They don't appreciate the generosity and sophistication of modern day progressives. You know what, these bitter voters know progressives very well. And you have criticized the Democratic Party enough too. If I were poor, I wouldn't necessarily prefer the progressives personally, and their policies are separate. Spend sometime in mainstream affluent intelligentsia progressive circles, if you are a poor white man, you are always seen "trailer trash" and it shows whether or not you come to a disagreement. God forbid Im not a poor white man, heck, I'm not even white. But let's be honest. If you are white and poor, you have no little scholarships and special opportunities. In fact your poverty is the source of ridicule for your assumed trashy lifestyles and food choices. And how much have eat pray love progressives done for African Americans? Ah, adding labor competition at their level! Helpful!"

I agree with this statement as I think it comes the closest to what has happened in our political realm, and that is the real shame in America today..I don't subscribe to either party as I know they only represent the interests of of those who pay their way.

[Glenn Miller]

Why do we need more "high skill visa workers"? We already have a glut of highly skilled graduates who flip burgers.