A Paul Krugman Discussion - Do you like the guy and if so why?

Or do you not like him, and if so why?

I wish Obama would listen to him instead of the Wall Street Billionaire Boys Club that's running economic policy in this country.

He's an avid reader of The Krug's op-eds and has read, 'The Great Unraveling.'

Thinks he's got a lot on the ball, was right about housing market bust, and tech market (90's).

LOL!! Yeah that's because it was his policy recomendations to specifically blow the bubble up.

I read his book "The Age of Diminished Expectations" almost 20 years ago, sent a bunch of copies to friends and family. Brilliant guy.

Tells it like it is about how Bewsh/Reagan's disastrous economic "governing" constantly set back any hope of long term middle class prosperity for the demand of short-term wealth hoarding.

Miss - his support of the scam that is Globalization. That rising tide only lifted the yachts, guy. Globalization is partially responsible for 30 years of stagnating to declining wages for 95% of the population and almost fully responsible for the devaluing of career fields, college degrees and livelihoods.

Ethnocentrism is so unbecoming.

:eyes:

or nation places itself at the top of an imagined hierarchy of cultures and nations and subsequently assigns other cultures and nations equivalent or lower value on that scale.

The belief that Nation 'A' is intrinsically “better” than any other is inculcated in the population until it becomes “naturalized”, that is, a commonly held belief that Nation 'A' has always been the best. It has never been any other way, and that all other nations can be judged according to the model Nation “A” represents. Nation “A” is the centre and all other ethnicities must strive to emulate it in order to move up in the imaginary hierarchy. However, it is not unusual for a person to consider that whatever they believe is the most appropriate system of belief or that however they behave is the most appropriate and “natural” behaviour. To be fair, a system of belief in which someone doesn't consider his or her own as the right one is inherently inconsistent, for it is admitting its own falseness. With this in mind, it is important to examine the bases for our beliefs regarding other cultures and nations: Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical “Other”."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism

:eyes: yourself

You'd do well not to go with those who play the xenophobia card from the bottom of the deck. Sorry, but I'm not really one of these people who believes destroying long term economic outlook and middle/working/poor class longevity (as Globalism so clearly does) in one country to lift those of another country is smart planning. All this leads to is a "race to the bottom". The proof for this lies in three elements:

1. Wage stagnation. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living, partially because Globalization has devalued a great deal of blue and white collar skill sets. This leads to a negative household savings rate. The American worker absolutely cannot compete with foreign wages that wouldn't even allow us to live in a cardboard box under a bridge in this country. That's reality; it has nothing at all to do with Ethnocentrism.

2. A ten year record of lousy job creation. Globalization started making headway in the Blue Collar world in the 70s to the mid 90s. It thrusted full throttle when corporate bean counters started looking at the white collar world and said "Hey! Why does cost savings have to be limited to the steelworkers? Let's get more bang for our IT/R&D buck too!" Destroy the middle/working/poor class, leave them with a just-above-poverty 26 unemployment insurance (if they qualify) and toss the cruelly displaced clever buzzphrases like "Retrain!", "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" and "a rising tide lifts ALL boats . .. hee hee hee!" Great plan. Only problem is, we happen to be a consumer economy, and not producer economy. So where is the money going to come from if no one can, you know, afford to buy products?

3. Products that no longer depend on quality, but planned obsolecence. How many horror stories about the longevity (or lack of) plastic, non-durable products made overseas are we going to hear about before we wake up? How many products are going to get recalled or have safety violations because toxic materials are being used to produce this stuff? Repair people are no longer needed, because the product is so cheap and low quality, it would better to toss it and buy a new one than fix it. Watch The Story of Stuff sometime. This explains how a consumerist society, driven by continual purchase of shoddy, low-quality garbage we don't need, damages economies and environments.

I'm not mad at nations. They're just going with the opportunity presented to them. I'm mad at corporations and their bean counters for destroying this one for the purpose of making more money than any one person needs. Learn the difference.

Just get better and learn to live with less. What makes you so damn special? Being an American?

There is something called "Social Justice."

Even ardent right wing conservative economic analysts agree that there is something wrong with a nation that does not highly value the creation of locally held jobs. And a nation that doesn't even consider tariffs.

Our early colonists, who often possessed less than an eight grade education, understood this. Ghandi understood this.

If you value a democracy, you value having a middle class. You can not have one without the other. It has never happened in history - the possession of a democracy while only an upper Elite and ten percent "managerial" class flourish and everyone else lives a hard luck scrabble existence.

This is now an oligarchy, and just because someone may have voted for a Dem in the last Presidential election does not mean that they understand the needs of a Democracy.

You're right. Maybe ALL of us non-special people should learn to live with less and never thrive for anything better, just so someone from another country can go from squalor to just-over-broke while their business leaders get rich and the American working class gets poorer.

Who needs that exorbitant 48K a year anyway? I mean, why not work for only 24 thousand a year? Who needs to drive a 12-year old car that barely runs, feed my family or save money? Hell, while we're at it, why not just drive wages down even further and work for just food and clothing so all the profit-happy wealth hoarding corporatists and the useful jokes they successfully divide and conquer will be satisfied? Why not just have the whole of America's working people compete for skilled jobs at slave wages?

Except there's a few problems with that line of thinking.

Anyone who thinks 40-50k a year is a good enough wage doesn't seem to get that in real dollars, that's actually 10 thousand LESS than what the average American SHOULD be making, had wages kept up with the rising cost of living and productivity for the past 30 years. Since the American middle/working/poor classes make the same wage as we have been in real dollars for thirty years, as I've specifically pointed out above, it kind of blows a hole in the argument that American labor is "too expensive".

I mean, what's not to get? Our Far East counterparts have a total cost of living that couldn't even pay for a U.S. mortgage, let alone many, many other bills U.S. workers are saddled with and expected to pay with the measly wage we've been getting for 30 years straight. This is why they can accept less and we cannot. Not to mention that American workers also don't have the advantage of coming out of college debt-free like the citizens of India do (pssssst . . . their undergrad educations are subsidized. Ours aren't. Do the math). American corporations use this bullshit practice to drive down wages here and force 30k and lower wages on what once paid 60-70k starting.

"Just Get Better", "Retrain" and "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" are lame laissez-failure talking points that miss the boat on so many aspects. It's a deficit of COST, not one of KNOWLEDGE.

Seriously, what part of your sad theories go along with Democratic labor principles in any way, shape or form? Are you even listening to yourself?

A 12. Year. Old. Car. :cry:

Always love to hear the argument that CEOs make more than they "need". American CEOs will make as much as they "can", and it's up to the American policy makers to tax them enough so that undergrad educations CAN be subsidized.

How much does anyone "need"? Well guess what - right now you're making far more than you "need", and once you get a chance to travel outside the US you would realize how silly your ethnocentric (yes, ethnocentric), over-entitled, and privileged argument sounds. My guess is that you're making exactly what you should given that most employers aren't really fond of whiners.

If you want to talk policy and expect anyone to listen, you'll have step outside the whining and come up with some solutions. And if you ever actually read Krugman you would understand why slapping more tariffs on imports is analogous to deficit spending, and why globalization is ultimately good for Americans - not CEOs, not corporations, but American workers.

Ech. Get over yourself.

I can't fucking take it anymore. I ain't reaching you, you're not even fucking addressing anything I'm saying, so in the Red X toilet you goes. I tried to be nice, but fuck off. There it is, yeah. . . fuck off. Totally. For sure. I simply have no goddamned TOLERANCE for Repuke armchair "economists" in love with the same shitty policies that fail us time and time again.

Here's a clue - I can't travel outside the U.S. because I CANNOT AFFORD TO and neither can many other people in this country. What, because I'm not living in a fucking hovel eating bugs and mud, I'm somehow "privileged"? Squalor is squalor. I'm not at that level by any means, but to pretend it doesn't exist in this country, to pretend that the middle class is somehow better off than ever because of this practice and to pretend that it can't somehow happen to any of us is delusional. Globalization is race-to-the-bottom corporatist bullshit which ultimately benefits the wealthy and people like yourself choose to have their hands over their ears and eyes and ignore all of the small towns in America with boarded up factories and small businesses and abandoned homes because enough is never enough for some people.

You talk about travel? You want to fucking travel somewhere? Come to Ohio sometime and tell me what Globalization did to the Rust Belt. Tell me what it did to the weeded up small towns of the south and northwest. Tell me what it's doing to Dayton, Cleveland, Lorain, Youngstown, etc. Tell me what globalization did to my cousins and uncles and relatives' livelihoods.

YOU TELL THESE PEOPLE HOW FUCKING ZIP-SKIPPITY AWESOME THAT THEIR FORMER MIDDLE/WORKING-CLASS LIVING IS NOW GONE AND THEY HAVE NO PLACE TO GO BUT FUCKING TARGET OR HOME DEPOT TO STOCK SHELVES FOR HALF OF WHAT THEY USED TO MAKE!!

You tell me how fucking great that is for America. You say I'm ethnocentric - you're a fucking classist. You think that the heavily degreed and "privileged" are somehow the only ones entitled to make a living in this country? Got news for you - a strong economy is supposed to have the capability of employing EVERYONE of ALL intelligence levels and do it gainfully. Think we have that on our dial?

Shove your Republican talking points straight up your ass. This is Democratic Underground, not right-leaning Trey Fucking South Parker Underground. Bullshit.

"A strong economy is supposed to have the capability of employing everyone of all intelligent levels and do it gainfully." According to whom?

More whining, lots of f-bombs (must have struck a nerve), no solutions. Good riddance. :hi:

since your head is already in the proper position.

Unreal. 27000+ posts and you are still not tombstoned. You have nothing in common with the ideals shared in this forum. You know, there are other forums on the internets for lonely people.

Is that you free traders have some suck-tastic talking points.

"You don't deserve to make good money! You don't work as hard as X (ethnic group)! Racist! Whiner!"

:eyes:

You have nothing. None of you people ever do. You can't address any points or facts, so you make a little high school game of getting someone's goat about it. You think you know something, so you giggle, snicker and make fun of anybody that doesn't fall in line with your all-knowing perception of things.

It's like being cornered by a drunk Frat Boy at a House Party who thinks he's God's Gift to Perception.

I'm not impressed.

I understand that people like you are terminally uninformed, have no wish to be uninformed, and are perfectly comfortable behind your Ignorant Curtain and your false paradigm.

Good For You.

You don't want solutions, you want your perception managed so you don't have to think.

Keep watching CNBC, listening to the Mainstream Propaganda and feeling good. Believe everything you are told, like a good little Free-Trader.

Your mind is too soft and weak for anything else.

Straight to the point, unlike the bullshit artists peddling globalization using gobbledygook and $15 words. I agree with you re Krugman. It's interesting how when he's promoting progressive economic ideas he makes perfect sense and the layperson can follow him. When he's defending globalization he lapses into esoteric econo-speak. I understand that economics can be a complex thing but you should be able to give an easily understandable overview about why a particular economic theory works, or else it doesn't. And the globalists are never able to give a simple explanation. They resort to red herrings or personal insults.

You do realize your beloved globalization depends on people being able to buy stuff don't you? And it's the American consumer, in particular, upon whom the whole scheme has rested. India and China have not created anywhere near the consumer base we have. So when our credit got yanked from us because the housing bubble burst (we were substituting credit for wages) the whole thing came crashing down.

If you want to talk policy and expect anyone to listen, you'll have step outside the whining and come up with some solutions. And if you ever actually read Krugman you would understand why slapping more tariffs on imports is analogous to deficit spending, and why globalization is ultimately good for Americans - not CEOs, not corporations, but American workers.

Oh yeah, it's worked out great. :rofl:

You must be borrowing that computer you're typing on that's mostly made in Asia, as well as the car you drive. Should we talk about your home electronics? Housewares?

What whole thing came crashing down? You still enjoy a standard of living higher than 95% of the world. You don't have any clue how great it's worked out, and I can tell like most you've never read Krugman.

Explain to me, in simple language, how it's worked. Then explain to me, again in layman's terms, why we are in the midst of a massive global recession, after nearly 2 decades of free trade/globalization. And don't get pedantic and condescending on me. If you want to persuade people to your viewpoint, you need to be able to sell it. You don't do it by insulting them.

So sell it to me.

Most every right-leaning moderate Red-X toilet surfer is the same as this one: they stick to one very right-wing economic piece of bad business and call everyone xenophobes who doesn't support it.

History does not favor the worker on this one. It's so painfully evident that it's beyond argument. Look at the stagnant wages. Look at the consumer debt, the trade deficit, the wealth inequality, the shoddy product quality, the consumer-over-producer economic shift, the shift in risk to the worker, the working class wages of the NAFTA participants, etc. Entire towns are practically out of business. When a plant closes, it causes a domino effect for the secondary businesses that depended on those workers spending money.

People who are not in favor of the workers of this country getting a fairer shake and better opportunities need to leave the "Big Tent" at once. People who think American workers "make too much money" when I and others on this board have proven constantly, through graphs and statistics from economists and governmental studies, that it's nothing but a disgusting lie need to get to STEPPIN'. It's Republican bullshit, sliced thick or thin. This is a board for Democrats. Democrats SUPPORT the education and advancement of AMERICAN WORKERS. What is so goddamned hard about this?

that's not condescending, is it? :eyes:

After 2 decades of free trade/globalization, and actually far more than that, a picture is worth a thousand words (UN Human Development Index):



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Human_Development_Index

I've taken way too long to ignore others on this thread whose complete knowledge of Krugman amounts to a few labor-fed talking pillows about him. They can't figure out how a liberal with such impeccable credentials could think such foolish thoughts. So instead of me suggesting America initiate progressive taxation, fund schools, fund social programs, and that anti-globalization is punitive and regressive, I'll let them argue with a Nobel-Prizewinning economist instead (Krugman, NYT, 5/21/00):

"In the 1920's, South Africa's Communist Party campaigned under the slogan: "Workers of the world unite for a white South Africa!"...The U.S. labor movement is not as brutally direct in its slogans. Probably its leaders don't even admit to themseleves that their increasingly vociferous opposition to imports is, in effect, an effort to improve the condition of American workers by denying opportunity to workers in the rest of the world. But when the Teamsters' president, James P. Hoffa, declares, as he did on this page not long ago, that "American workers should not be asked to compete with foreigners who are not paid a living wage," the implications are clear. Given the low productivity of workers in third-world countries, their nations' lack of infrastructure and general lag in development, to insist that such workers be paid what Americans would regard as a living wage is to insist that they price themselves out of their jobs. And that is no accident: any policy that didn't price those workers out of the market would offer no relief to workers here.

There is a sort of tragic inevitability about the way labor has reached this moral impasse. The U.S. labor movement has every right to feel that American workers have gotten a raw deal. By standard measures, the real take-home pay of blue-collar workers is lower than it was a quarter century ago. You can quibble with the statistics, but without question blue-collar workers have been largely left behind by the nation's economic growth. And far from fighting this inequality in rewards, policy has in general reinforced it: taxes have become less rather than more progressive, public schools for those who can't afford to live in the right places have gotten worse, and so on.

A well-meaning economist can give you a list of things that might help America's working class: some form of national health insurance, bigger and better wage supplements along the lines of the earned income tax credit, etc., etc. but if I were a labor leader, I would sneer at my professorial naivete. You know and I know that such proposals are pipe dreams, than in back efforts to tilt the tax-and-benefit system even more toward the interest of the affluent. And the labor movement - whose influence is far less today than it was even 20 years ago - is in no position to reverse the political tide.

So what's a labor leader to do? Choose a fight that he might be able to win: a fight to limit imports that compete with workers he represents. Voters might not see protection as a direct threat to their pocketbooks (though it is). The payoff may be limited - the arithmetic suggests that even a total ban on manufactured imports from third-world countries would raise blue-collar wages no more than 3 or 4 percent - but who's counting? And if the target is unattractive enough - if it is, say, a nasty regime in China - labor's limited but not negligible lobbying power might just pull off a victory.

In other words, it's understandable that labor has decided that it must try to help American workers by denying opportunity to even needier workers abroad - while of course, denying that it is doing any such thing. If I were a labor leader I would probably be a protectionist too. But to understand this political strategy, even to accept its inevitability, is not to approve.

Those who would like easy moral certainties - which means all of us - wish that it were simpler, that corporate greed were the only enemy, that people like Mr. Hoffa were standing up for the rights of workers everywhere. It's hard for liberals to admit that the U.S. labor movement, with its noble tradition, is now working against the interests of most of the world's poor. But it is."

From The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Unraveling-Century-Updated-Expanded/dp/0393326055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251253793&sr=8-1

Don't have time to parse the whole thing but this jumped out right away:

There is a sort of tragic inevitability about the way labor has reached this moral impasse. The U.S. labor movement has every right to feel that American workers have gotten a raw deal. By standard measures, the real take-home pay of blue-collar workers is lower than it was a quarter century ago. You can quibble with the statistics, but without question blue-collar workers have been largely left behind by the nation's economic growth. And far from fighting this inequality in rewards, policy has in general reinforced it: taxes have become less rather than more progressive, public schools for those who can't afford to live in the right places have gotten worse, and so on.

Gee, at whose behest were the domestic policies that hosed the working class implemented? Oh yeah! The same plutocrats who tell us "outsourcing is good for the economy"! Downthread I talked about how Intel CEO Craig Barrett bemoaned the quality of public education in the U.S. while at the same time Intel demanded a $100 million tax break from Arizona, which has arguably the worst schools in the country. Intel has gotten similar breaks from every other state where they have manufacturing plants. So has Boeing. So has General Dynamics. So has Microsoft. And so on and so on. Oh but they need foreign workers because America's schools suck.

Recently I attended a luncheon at a Democratic club in Phoenix. The speaker was the head of the Arizona Science Foundation. He was complaining how the Republicans in the state legislature were cutting millions from the Foundation, which was formed to create a business/government/academic partnership to do important research. As it turns out, he's also a big fan of Tom Friedman's Flat Earth theory. He waxed admiration for globalization and Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" model. He talked quite a bit about George Steinbrenner taking the Yankees to the top by investing big bucks in his team. And of course, he spoke of the need to invest in education because America is woefully inadequate in producing good graduates. Naturally he mentioned how we need more visas for those desperately needed foreign workers. He dropped a lot of names, including Bill Gates and Craig Barrett. The crowd of mostly affluent liberals nodded their heads and seemed to be in awe of the man.

When it was Q and A time I raised my hand and asked why so many lobbyists for corporations (including several who had a stake in the Science Foundation) were at the state Capitol, as we spoke, trying to get more tax breaks. There were gasps in the room when I talked about the tax break that Intel got. Most people had no idea. His demeanor changed instantly. He defensively snapped that this was "no time to be anti-corporation". And then something about George Steinbrenner. He then claimed that Ireland had a much lower corporate tax rate than us and that was a big part of the reason for their success. I called him on that bullshit. I pointed out that Ireland had a higher effective tax rate than we do (easily proven). He got angrier and said I didn't know what I was talking about. This guy is your typical corporate tool who hangs out with economists, bankers, CEOs, and prime ministers and they all go to the same globalization conferences at the same 5 star resorts. Amazingly, they come to the same conclusions! :eyes:

Like I said, you need to start paying attention, and you need to pay particular attention at the local level. Look at who is lobbying your state lege and city councils for tax cuts and subsidies. I'll be back later to take on the rest. But I gotta tell ya, your response wasn't what I asked you to provide. Try answering the actual questions I asked.

but I will immediately point out the clear, unambiguous distinction between the "globalization is killing us" argument and the "corporate megaliths with no accountability are killing us" argument.

You asked me how it's worked. And I showed you a graph that indicates that the human race is unequivocally better off around the world than it was 35 years ago. And as Krugman's piece pointed out, the plight of America's blue-collar workers has less than nothing to do with globalization - we all need, use, and enjoy products of unbelievable value from around the world every minute of the day. Looking around my office right now, I can point to one hundred things which cost more 35 years ago.

If you want to get deeper into the corporate accountability stew read Krugman on antitrust. But that's another thread.

You said in another post that globalization would benefit American workers (leaving aside whether or not that's a good or bad goal) and now you're changing it to never mind American workers, others are better off.

BTW having more and better gadgets is not a substitute for wealth and economic security. That's like when Republicans claim that the poor are much better off today because most of them have TVs.

And once again:

but I will immediately point out the clear, unambiguous distinction between the "globalization is killing us" argument and the "corporate megaliths with no accountability are killing us" argument.

There IS NO distinction. None. This notion that we can have "free trade" that isn't designed to enrich the .01% at the top and enslave most of everyone else is a pipe dream. It's the whole point of it. The corporations who run this country don't give a rat's ass about our schools or infrastructure. Why should they? They have the rest of the world to plunder and exploit. That they grossly miscalculated how long they could milk our housing bubble isn't going to deter them from carrying on their plans in the least.

Sure, maybe Krugman's vision of globalization could work, provided there are the appropriate regulations and a solid safety net. But it seems to me that those things should be implemented BEFORE you start outsourcing jobs and manufacturing, wouldn't you agree? Of course, there's no way in hell the megacorporatacracy was ever going to let that happen, at any time. Which is why Krugman's position on globalization has always seemed shockingly naive to me.

"This notion that we can have "free trade" that isn't designed to enrich the .01% at the top and enslave most of everyone else is a pipe dream."

"Sure, maybe Krugman's vision of globalization could work, provided there are the appropriate regulations and a solid safety net."

:silly:

The globalization we have now is not Krugman's conception. It is the creation of the bloodsucking parasitic wealth class, and it's working exactly the way it's supposed to.

He merely points out (correctly) that it's not to blame for the predicament the American ex-middle, now-lower-class finds itself in.

It may very well be a creation of the bloodsucking parasitic wealth class - but it's an effect, not a cause.

Need to stop believing that the predators are going to play nice if they are given free reign to trawl the globe for labor and resources. They're not and that's why some of that bad ol' meanie 'protectionism' is necessary.

but do you really think American consumers would tolerate *no* foreign imports for a 3-4% increase in blue-collar wages?

What about a 50% cut in imports for a 1.5-2% increase in blue-collar wages?

If you feel Krugman's off in his estimate, why?

How about all oil exporting countries protecting their energy capital from the greedy US consumers (and their invading pirate armies... ;)). Saving it for their children and grandchildren and not selling anything for funny munny Eye of the Pyramid dollars any more (and putting brakes on climate change on the side)?

Bad ol' meanie enough protectionism for you? :)

The whole "the middle class is better off thanks to globalization because they kin buy DVDs and TVs for a fraction of a cost compared to 30 years ago" thing???? Holeeeee shit. SOMEone's failboat has arrived.

It's a massive fail because that's not at ALL why the middle/working/poor classes have fallen behind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

The areas we’re getting hit on are housing, education, transportation, health care, groceries, etc. In other words, necessities are priced or getting priced well out of reach of even the American middle class, much less the working class and poor.

Krugman and others should acknowledge and give credit where credit is due for once.

Stagnant wages vs. vaulting costs is the problem. Risk shifting from the rich to the middle/working/poor classes over the past 30 years is the problem.

WE are not the lion's share of the problem. It’s the wealthy that need to start playing ball. We’ve sacrificed ENOUGH.

You've got to be shitting me... :rofl:

Study: There Is No Shortage of U.S. Engineers

A new study argues that the offshoring of U.S. jobs is caused by cost savings and not a shortage of U.S. engineers or better education in China. However, the study warns that the United States is losing its global edge.


A commonly heard defense in the arguments that surround U.S. companies that offshore high-tech and engineering jobs is that the U.S. math and science education system is not producing a sufficient number of engineers to fill a corporations needs.

However, a new study from Duke University calls this argument bunk, stating that there is no shortage of engineers in the United States, and that offshoring is all about cost savings.

This report, entitled "Issues in Science and Technology" and published in the latest National Academy of Sciences magazine further explores the topic of engineering graduation rates of India, China and the United States, the subject of a 2005 Duke study.

In the report, concerns are raised that China is racing ahead of both the United States and India in its ability to perform basic research. It also asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education. Meanwhile, it considers China well-positioned for the future.

Dukes 2005 study corrected a long-heard myth about India and China graduating 12 times as many engineers as the United States, finding instead that the United States graduates a comparable number.

More: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Study-There-Is-N ... /

As for the H-1B's coming to the U.S.....

Study Says H-1Bs Aren't the Best or Brightest

One of the main arguments touted by groups interested in seeing an increase in the cap on H-1B temporary worker visas is that those who wish to work here on these visas are some of the world's best recruits, and their addition to the work force would foster U.S. innovation and global competitiveness.

Opponents to the program argue that H-1B visas do none of the above, but are instead used by large, greedy tech companies to undercut the wages of U.S. workers, effectively pushing them out of jobs. Opponents cite fines levied against system abusers as evidence.

In an article published this month by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank favoring fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted, Norman Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who has been a longtime critic of the H-1B program, took a look at the median salaries of H-1B visa workers in the U.S. and found that although these workers weren't being underpaid, the median salary for a tech worker on an H-1B is simply the prevailing wage for their job and no more.

From there, Matloff drew the conclusion that if these workers were truly the best and brightest and would be able to foster U.S. innovation, they'd be able to command salaries higher than the prevailing wage.

"Most foreign tech workers, particularly those from Asia, are in fact of only average talent. Moreover, they are hired for low-level jobs of limited responsibility, not positions that generate innovation. This is true both overall and in the key tech occupations, and most importantly, in the firms most stridently demanding that Congress admit more foreign workers," Matloff writes.

More: http://blogs.eweek.com/careers/content001/h1b_foreign_w ...


The Science Education Myth

Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support

Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China.

Yet a new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, tells a different story. The report disproves many confident pronouncements about the alleged weaknesses and failures of the U.S. education system. This data will certainly be examined by both sides in the debate over highly skilled workers and immigration (BusinessWeek.com, 10/10/07). The argument by Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), and others is that there are not enough tech workers in the U.S.

The authors of the report, the Urban Institute's Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

More: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2007/sb ...

More: http://www.jobdestruction.com/shameh1b /

http://www.eng-i.com/E-Newsletters.htm

http://www.programmersguild.org /

H-1Bs And the Triumph of Buypartisanship
To really see the sheer corruption of our political process, you have to look at the lies that simply refuse to go away in the face of overwhelming facts - the myths that are utterly and completely untrue, yet which are regarded as unchallenged truth in Washington because they serve to rationalize Big Money's agenda.

Regular readers of this my writing know that two of those lies are the Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie. The first says that if only Americans obtained more skills and education, they would be able to obtain high-paying jobs. The second says that America faces a shortage of workers, which requires companies to import workers from abroad. Both of these fables have been thoroughly debunked by economic data and economic analysis from across the political spectrum.

The Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie converge in the debate over H-1B visas - the visas that the American government gives to corporations allowing them to import high-skilled workers from abroad. Lobbyists and the Members of Congress they have bought push for more H-1B visas by claiming that because Americans are not properly educated, they don't have the skills needed for high-tech jobs, and thus, there is a shortage of domestic high-tech workers to fill such jobs.

Again, this rationale has been exposed as a fraud. Duke University researchers this year definitively proved that there is, in fact, no shortage of engineers in the United States. Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira has published a study proving that the H-1B program accelerates job outsourcing. His study was verified by data showing that the companies that most use the H-1B program are those whose whole business is outsourcing. Meanwhile, top corporate lawfirms - hired by the very companies lobbying for more H-1B visas under the guise of the Great Labor Shortage Lie - have been caught on tape running seminars on how to abuse the H-1B system as a tool to lower American workers' wages, which the data again shows is exactly what the program does.

Yet, despite all of the facts and despite the 2006 election that saw Democrats promise to defend the economic interests of America's middle class, we get this story from Roll Call today:

"A key bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for enacting a short-term boost in immigration visas by the end of the year...A letter from the New Democrats signed by 16 Members to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday urged a significant boost to the numbers of visas allowed for tech workers, nurses, agricultural workers and seasonal workers to alleviate a crush of demand from employers. The technology industry in particular has been vocal about its desire to expand the H-1B visa program for highly skilled immigrants...The push to add visas for high-tech workers has support even among some House Republicans...House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) was among the 30 Republicans who signed a letter to Pelosi earlier this month calling for cutting red tape so that high-tech companies can get the workers they need. The Republican letter...said lawmakers should 'find a way to ensure that America continues to attract the best and brightest minds from around the world' and allow companies to do so 'without unnecessary delays and waiting periods.'...The New Democrats, meanwhile, have already had meetings with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) in which they've made it clear that expanding visas is a top priority."

More: http://www.credoaction.com/sirota/2007/10/h1bs_and_the_ ...

Research finds US H1B visa holders paid less

A recent report suggests that US employers are using the H-1B visa program to pay lower wages than the national average for programming jobs.

According to "The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers — F.Y. 2004," a report by Programmers Guild board member John Miano, non-U.S. citizens working in the United States on an H-1B visa are paid "significantly less than their American counterparts."

How much less? "On average, applications for H-1B workers in computer occupations were for wages $13,000 less than Americans in the same occupation and state."

Miano based his report on OES (Occupational Employment Statistics) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which estimates wages for the entire country by state and metropolitan area. The report's H-1B wage data came from the U.S. Department of Labor's H-1B disclosure Web site.

Miano, in his report, whenever possible gave the benefit of the doubt to the employer. For example, he used OES data from 2003 because this is the wage information that would have been available to the employers when filing an LCA (labor condition application).

Miano had some difficulty matching OES job codes with LCA job titles, which employers typically create. Where both the OES and the LCA listed a job as "programmer/analyst," Miano took the conservative approach of assuming that the LCA was describing a programmer, a job title that typically earns a lower wage than a systems analyst.

More: http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_10_26/us/us_h1b_vis ...

Are tech firms faking job ads to avoid hiring U.S. workers?

Companies like Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and others are being accused of skirting federal laws to hire foreign workers while laying off American geeks. Cringely labors to uncover the truth.

TAGS: Come Hell or HP


Ask the Programmers Guild that question, and their answer would be an emphatic "yes!" The New Jersey-based organization has accused Hewlett Packard of advertising for jobs it has no intention of filling -- at least with US citizens -- on the Idaho Department of Labor Web site.

Federal regulations require U.S. corporations that wish to request a green card for a foreign worker to demonstrate that no qualified U.S. workers are available to fill the job. So, the argument goes, HP is allegedly posting fake jobs online and in newspapers to fulfill the requirements of Uncle Sam's Program Electronic Review Management process. Resumes come in, Americans get winnowed out, and the PERM job goes to Enrique or Sanjay or Vladimir.

The key bit of evidence: Job applications are directed not to HP's normal human resources department but to one of its immigration specialists.

A Hewlett Packard spokesperson responded thusly:

The programmer's guild website and press release on HP is inaccurate and misleading. The job notices that were on the Idaho state job bank last week appeared in error. We are working with the Idaho Department of Labor to assure such errors do not occur in the future. HP has no plans to substitute American workers with foreign nationals for these roles.
HP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any workers, but always seeks to hire the best and the brightest and that includes a small percentage (2-3%) of foreign nationals.


Blogger (and recently downsized HP engineer) Clayton Cramer notes that HP said those Idaho job postings were a mistake and would be taken down. Curiously, he adds, very similar ads for job at HP appeared on the site a few days later.

Programmers Guild president Kim Berry says companies prefer H-1B workers because foreign workers' options are limited: They aren't allowed to change jobs for several years, they may be forced to work overtime without pay, and they're less likely to question management decisions. "It's a form of indentured servitude," he says.

The Guild isn't the only group squawking about this. Blogger James Fulford has accused HP of laying off older Americans and then posting ads for jobs that are pretty much identical to the ones they just "eliminated." The motive: to replace older, better paid employees with younger, cheaper PERM employees.

Meanwhile, HP recently announced it's slashing 24,600 employees as a result of its merger with EDS, half of them employed in the States. According to SiliconValley.com, "HP said it plans to replace about half those jobs with new positions performing other functions."

It will be interesting to see how they define "other functions."

Of course, HP is hardly the only company suspected of doing this. Cisco has been accused of running similarly bogus ads. Last year, the Guild posted a YouTube video showing Pittsburgh law firm Cohen & Grisgsby giving a tutorial on how to skirt the legal requirements to hire H-1B workers that created a small firestorm on the Net and even woke up two members of Congress. (They resumed their nap shortly thereafter.)

Is this illegal? Technically not, says Berry. "But the companies are supposed to make a good faith effort to hire Americans. It's not good faith if they're getting resumes from highly qualified candidates and looking for reasons not to hire them."

Finally, frequent Cringe contributor J. H. shares this viral video, titled "Developers Are in Pain." It doesn't have anything to do with immigration or H-1B visas, but it's pretty damned funny -- and very true.


More: http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/20 ...

H-1B foes try to prove student-visa extension hurts U.S. tech workers

Lawsuit against DHS hinges on convincing judge that plaintiffs have legal standing in case


September 23, 2008 (Computerworld) A federal lawsuit pitting H-1B opponents against the Bush administration is hinging on one question: Do tech workers have a right to challenge the federal government in court over its visa policies?

Critics of the H-1B program have long argued that it has created unfair competition for jobs, depressed wages, fostered discrimination and provided a lubricant for offshore outsourcing. Proving that in court is the focus of a lawsuit filed in May by the Programmers Guild, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and other groups over the Bush administration's extension of the time that foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges with science or technology degrees can work on their student visas from one year to 29 months.

The lawsuit claims that the extension will exacerbate the harm caused by the H-1B program, and that the administration exceeded its legal authority by stretching the student-visa rules. But U.S. District Judge Faith Hochberg, who is hearing the case in New Jersey, is pushing back. In August, she rejected a request for a temporary injunction against the extension, citing arguments raised by the U.S. government that question whether the plaintiffs had legal standing to file the lawsuit in the first place.

Both sides recently filed court papers on that issue, in advance of an expected ruling by Hochberg later this year. The arguments over legal standing can be boiled down to the question of whether tech workers have been injured by the Bush administration's decision to extend the length of time that foreign graduates can stay in the U.S. without obtaining work visas.

The government contended in its latest filing that the injuries cited by the plaintiffs are "speculative" in nature. But in their legal brief, the plaintiffs said that prior case law is clear in showing that "economic competition is an injury-in-fact." They added that the student-visa extension "specifically targets the fields in which plaintiffs work." As a result, they claimed, "the injury is not speculative — it is intended."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command= ...

NJ company fined for violating H1-B visa program

September 18, 2008
TRENTON, N.J. - An Iselin computer consulting firm has been fined more than $80,000 for allegedly violating federal immigration rules that allow companies to hire foreign workers under a special visa program.

The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered the Iselin-based Data Group Inc. to pay the money to 11 foreign-born workers after an investigation found the company violated the program.

The Immigration and Nationality Act's H-1B visa program allows companies to temporarily hire foreign-born workers with special skills when they can't locally recruit to fill a position.

Federal labor officials say the company failed to pay required wages for one year to computer experts hired under the program.

More: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc -...

HP lays off 25000 and runs phony job ads

IS HEWLETT-PACKARD VIOLATING IMMIGRATION LAW?
There is reason to suspect that Hewlett-Packard may be violating the immigration laws of the United States and putting Treasure Valley breadwinners out of work at the same time.

This is particularly disturbing in light of HP?s announced intention to lay off an additional 24,600 workers, half in the U.S., over the next three years. Given the soft housing market, the effect will be brutal on local HP employees who get the ax.

A number of software engineers who had worked for HP were recently given pink slips. Astonishingly, however, HP, as of yesterday, was still advertising for software engineers to work at the Boise facility and was doing so, it turns out, through the Idaho Department of Labor. The positions, however, are not listed on HP?s internal job list.

According to one recent victim of local HP engineering layoffs, one has to log in to the Department of Labor website and actually apply for a job before he finds out that the prospective employer is Hewlett-Packard.

Applicants are instructed to send their resumes to a Petra Ramirez at petra.remirez@hp.com, who works out of HP?s Cupertino, Calif. office. (Ms. Ramirez did not respond either to the IVA?s emails or phone messages asking for clarification.)

The signature block for Ms. Ramirez ? and remember, all resumes for Boise jobs flow through her rather than through normal channels ? identifies her as ?HP Americas Immigration Consultant.?

Thus it looks suspiciously like Hewlett-Packard is laying off American engineers in order to replace them with lower-priced talent from overseas, likely intending to bring them into the U.S. on H-1B visas.

But according to an August memo from the U.S. Department of Labor, this is flatly illegal, since H-1B visas are only to be granted when qualified American citizens and legal residents can?t be found. Says the memo:

?The Department of Labor has a statutory responsibility to ensure that no foreign worker (or ?alien?) is admitted for permanent residence based upon an offer of employment absent a finding that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available for the work to be undertaken and that the admission of such worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers similarly employed. 8 U.S.C. ? 1182(a)(5)(A)(i).?

According to the United States General Accounting Office, employers making application for H-1B visas must certify that ?the employment of H-1B workers will not adversely affect the working conditions of other workers similarly employed in the area.?

HP, I?ve always said, is one of the most effective anti-poverty organizations in Idaho, since the antidote to poverty is jobs. But certainly part of making Idaho the friendliest place in the world to raise a family involves ensuring that HP honors our nation?s immigration laws and protects local jobs in the process.

Perhaps there is a simple and honest explanation for all this. If there is, HP owes it to us all to provide that explanation immediately.

More: http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/news.asp?id=895

Johnston: U.S. has outsourced its self-respect (Good Read)

In his 2001 biography of Theodore Roosevelt, "Theodore Rex," Edmund Morris wrote, "Indeed (the United States) could consume only a fraction of what it produced. The rest went overseas at a price that other exporters found hard to match. As Andrew Carnegie said, "The nation that makes the cheapest steel has the other nations at its feet." "More than half the world's cotton, corn, copper, and oil flowed from the American Cornucopia, and at least one third of all steel, iron, silver, and gold."

This was the United States in 1901. Roosevelt had just become president because of William McKinley's assassination, and he recognized that America was a country of hard workers that needed a break and a share of the wealth that they were producing. Morris goes on to write, "Even if the United States was not blessed with raw materials, the excellence of her manufactured products guaranteed her dominance of world markets.

Advertisements in British magazines gave the impression that the typical Englishman woke to the ring of an Ingersoll alarm (clock), shaved with a Gillette razor, combed his hair with Vaseline tonic, buttoned his Arrow shirt, hurried downstairs for Quaker Oats, California Figs, and Maxwell House Coffee, commuted in a Westinghouse tram (body by Fisher), rose to his office in an Otis elevator, and worked all day with his Waterman pen under the efficient glare of Edison light bulbs.

"It only remains," One Fleet Street wag (in Standard American English, that's a reporter folks) suggested, "for us to take American coal to Newcastle."

Morris then goes on to write, "Behind the joke lay a real concern: The United States was already supplying beer to Germany, pottery to Bohemia, and oranges to Valencia."

Morris then proceeds to tell the reader that the United States was the richest nation on earth with an economy that was growing by leaps and bounds, and that London was about to be replaced as the financial capital of the world. It was a very rosy outlook for what would be called "The American Century." That was in 1901. In 2008, after the eight year reign of George Bush, things don't look as well for us as they did in 1901 or 2001 either. Just why is that?

Just ask anyone who has been on the point of termination in their job and asked to stay on for a few weeks to train their replacement in India what they think about the outsourcing of jobs. The man whose job was outsourced to India's sister was visiting me and telling me about his thoughts on the subject. They were a bit more colorful than I can relate here.

Don't think for a moment that a college degree or two will save you from having your job outsourced. It won't. These outsourcing horror stories are really close to home. Many people have been educated for what were supposed to be safe jobs, and would be yet, if the greedy corporations were not outsourcing their jobs or stealing their pension funds just to squeeze out a few more dollars of profit.

There should be huge fines, taxes, and other fiscal punishments imposed on companies who outsource Americans' jobs to other countries. Such fines should also be imposed on business and factories relocated to other countries. Each year we make less and less in terms of manufactured goods and lose hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of jobs that pay a living wage.

Last week I was making the argument at the home of a friend that Americans are too willing to buy cheaper foreign goods or cannot find American-made goods in the market. Just to really make the point, I took my friend and his bride on a tour of their home. Their bureau drawers revealed clothes made all over the Asian continent, South America, and Mexico (which is part of North America).

Their toaster, microwave, telephone, radios and other appliances were made in China. Their shoes were made in India, and much of the food in their kitchen came from foreign nations. One of their cars was made in Japan and the other was made in Germany. OK, I confess that I drive a BMW, but my van is a Ford which was not made in Mexico, and it's also older than half the people who live in the country.

So what does this state of affairs portend for the nation?

Morris wrote in his book about the year 1901, "As a result of this billowing surge in productivity, Wall Street was awash in foreign capital. Carnegie calculated that America could afford to buy the entire United Kingdom (That's England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) and settle Britain's national debt in the bargain.

"For the first time in history, translantic money currents were thrusting more powerfully westward than east (toward Europe). Even the Bank of England has begun to borrow money on Wall Street. New York City seemed destined to replace London as the world's financial center."

Today we are up to our eyebrows in debt to China. Thank you so much George Bush and your Republican Party too. Do you remember the nice big Clinton cash surplus we had seven and a half years ago?

So that is this week's look at then and now. It's not too pretty, is it? With this election year, I say it's time to give the other team a try. Never in our history have working people been so looked down on and shown less respect. Never has the working citizen been so stripped of a way to make a decent living. Never have workers had so many jobs taken away from them and sent to distant parts of the planet. Never in our history of the last 70 years have unions had such a low membership. Never before have working class Americans been so brutally treated in every area.

Too many people are forced by circumstances to become service workers and wage slaves. As Labor Day draws near, reflect on these things as we outsource our self respect along with the jobs of American laborers that we have betrayed as a nation. And it's really too bad that we don't make anything anymore to sell at home or abroad.

More: http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion_columnists/x594 ...

Government Study Finds 21% Of H-1B Applications Violate Rules

The government estimates that fraud, including below-market wages and filings by fake businesses, is present in 13,000 of the yearly H-1B petitions filed.


October 20, 2008 04:40 PM


The United States government estimates that 21% of H-1B visa petitions are in violation of H-1B program rules -- ranging from technical violations to fraud -- based on the investigation of a representative sample.

A newly available report on the study, drafted by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security, cites one of the most common violations as businesses that did not pay a "prevailing wage" to the H-1B beneficiary, meaning the going salary rate for a job in a specific market.

The report's estimates are based on a sample study of 246 cases, out of a total of 95,827 H-1B petitions, filed between October 2005 and March 2006. The sample cases included only those in which a business was looking to extend an existing H-1B visa for someone already in the United States, or hire someone under the H-1B program who came to the United States on a different visa. (The study excluded situations in which the visa beneficiary was still living abroad due to the complication of interviewing that person.)

Out of the 246 cases investigated, the government office determined that 51 cases, or 21%, were in violation of H-1B program rules. "When applying the overall violation rate of <21%> to the overall H-1B population, a total of approximately 20,000 petitions may have some type of fraud or technical violation," according to the report. Further extrapolation finds that 13,000 of those cases would represent acts of fraud, with the remaining 7,000 being less-severe technical violations, says the report.

More: http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/h1b/show ...

Immigration racket run by Indian busted in US

Washington, June 16: With the arrest of seven Indians, US authorities have claimed to have busted an immigration racket run by an IT company owner who charged tens of thousands of dollars from expatriates by fraudulently sponsoring their H-1B work visas.

The alleged kingpin, Nilesh Dasondi, 41, was arrested last week on multiple counts of visa fraud involving his company Cygate Software and Consulting Inc. that runs offices in India and Canada.

A naturalised US citizen, Dasondi, who is also member of the Edison township board in New Jersey, was released after posting a USD800,000 bail but must remain under home confinement with electronic monitoring.

According to court papers cited in Newsday daily, Dasondi is accused of filing federal work visa and immigration documents for six people who did not work for his company between 2003 and 2007, authorities said. All the six have been arrested.

More: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Immigration-rac ...

AFL-CIO says student visa extension hurts tech wages

June 13, 2008 (Computerworld) WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's decision to allow foreign students to work in the U.S. for up to 29 months before getting an H-1B visa faces opposition from the AFL-CIO. The largest labor organization in the U.S. labeled the move a backdoor H-1B cap increase that could lower wages for U.S. tech workers, according to comments about the rule change made available this week by the government.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made the "emergency" rule change earlier this year to deal with the limits imposed by the 85,000 slot H-1B cap. The government received 163,000 applications this year for those visas. What the DHS did was extend the Optional Practical Training (OPT) provision that previously allowed students to work after graduation for one year on their student visa. Although the change is a done deal under the agency's "emergency" rule-making provisions, the federal government still had to seek comments.

Ana Avendano, director of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker program, wrote, in comments posted Thursday on Regulations.gov, that "by extending the OPT period and work authorization period, the interim final rule turns a student visa program into a labor market program, and essentially lifts the cap that Congress has placed on the H-1B program."

Moreover, Avendano said the rule change "allows employers to completely bypass" any of the protections in the H-1B program that prevent employers, for instance, from using foreign workers to break a strike. Moreover, students working on OPT won't have to be paid the prevailing wage as required under the H-1B program. An OPT employee could, theoretically, work for minimum wage, she wrote.

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command= ...

DOJ settles H-1B job ad case for $45,000

Complaint filed by Programmers Guild over H-1B-only job ad

May 2, 2008 (Computerworld) A Pittsburgh-based computer consulting company that advertised for H-1B visa holders only is paying $45,000 in civil penalties to settle allegations that it discriminated against U.S. citizens, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Thursday.

The company, iGate Mastech Inc., placed 30 job announcements between May and June of 2006 "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," the DOJ said in a statement.

A complaint against iGate Mastech was filed by the Programmers Guild in 2006. It was one of dozens of complaints lodged by the Summit, N.J.-based organization against various companies.

John Miano, who founded the guild, said in a statement that the DOJ's announcement was "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."

One job advertisement by iGate Mastech for a Java developer on Dice Holdings Inc.'s job board said "Only H-1s apply, and should be willing to transfer H-1B."

"The problem of companies only looking for H-1B workers is a serious one," said Miano. "We are only scratching the surface right now with the companies that are brazen enough to put out ads like these."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command= ...

US senators question 9 IT firms over H1-B visas

Despite an over 50 per cent drop in the number of H1-B visas issued to some Indian IT firms in 2007 against 2006, US Democrat senators Richard J Durbin and Charles E Grassley have written to nine Indian companies that figure among the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007 seeking detailed information on how they use the visa programme.

The letters, which come ahead of the US elections in November, are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B programme is being used for its intended purpose to fill a temporary worker shortage.

The senators had written a letter on similar lines last May too.

The Indian IT firms are Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Satyam Computer Services, Cognizant Tech Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Patni Computer Systems, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, i-Flex Solutions and Mphasis.

More: http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?au ...

Tech companies get creative to hire foreign workers in the U.S.

On Tuesday, the federal government begins accepting visa applications for 65,000 skilled foreign workers. But much as it could use some extra help, Progress Software Corp. won't be applying for any of these coveted H-1B visas.

Instead, the Massachusetts company is embracing a different visa program, called L-1, that lets businesses import workers who've already been hired at their overseas offices.

...

Despite the slowing economy, companies say it's hard to find enough highly skilled workers. The H-1B program was designed to help businesses hire capable foreign workers, but demand for the 65,000 visas far exceeded supply in 2007, and the same is expected this year.

...

But critics of U.S. immigration policy say some companies are misusing the L-1 program. "We have found and heard lots of stories recently of companies that are really kind of abusing it," said Bob Meltzer, chief executive of Visanow.com, a Chicago company that processes visa applications online.

More: http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stor ...

U.S. Sen. Grassley: Questions immigration agency about fraud

U.S. Sen. Grassley: Questions immigration agency about fraud
10/9/2008

Grassley Questions Immigration Agency About Fraud in H-1B Program

fraud takes opportunities away from American workers and law-abiding employers

WASHINGTON – Following release of an internal report by Citizenship and Immigration Services that outlines serious fraud in the H-1B visa program, Senator Chuck Grassley today sent a letter to the agency asking for additional details about how the government is enforcing the H-1B visa laws.

“The results of this report validate exactly what I’ve been fearful of-some employers are bringing H-1B visa holders into our country with complete disregard for the law. More needs to be done to ensure the American worker is our first priority,” Grassley said. “The system is obviously broken when an H-1B visa holder is working at a laundromat rather than in high-skilled industries. The fraud and abuse outlined in this report shows that it’s time to put some needed reform in place.”

Grassley has led the effort to reform the H-1B visa program. He introduced a comprehensive H-1B and L visa reform bill last year with Senator Dick Durbin that would give priority to American workers and crack down on unscrupulous employers who deprive qualified Americans of high-skill jobs. He has also asked questions of both American and foreign based companies about their use of the H-1B visa program.

Grassley said the report should serve as a wake-up call to the agency. He urged them to better detect serious violations by employers who abuse the system.

Here is a copy of the letter Grassley sent to Jonathan Scharfen, the Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A copy of the report can be found on Grassley’s website, http://grassley.senate.gov .

October 9, 2008

The Honorable Jonathan Scharfen
Acting Director
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Department of Homeland Security
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D. C. 20529

Dear Director Scharfen:

As a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees, I have taken a keen interest in the H-1B visa program over the years and how it benefits the United States. However, I have found serious problems with this program, including loopholes that are disadvantageous to American workers and U.S. businesses. My concerns are further intensified after reading your agency’s Benefit Fraud and Compliance Assessment that points to direct fraud and abuse by a number of employers and petitioners.

Before I begin to discuss the report, I want to express my immense frustration about the length of time it took for USCIS to provide the results to Congress. I first inquired about FDNS doing a benefit fraud assessment just after it finished the religious worker report in August 2005. Since then, I have asked for briefings and updates, only to be put off and told to wait. In response, I asked the appropriations committee to include language in the FY2008 Homeland Security spending bill to provide funding and require the agency to finish the assessment. In April 2008, you responded to me in writing by stating, “I anticipate that I will be able to share the report with you within the next few weeks.” The H-1B benefit fraud assessment was completed several months ago, yet the results were apparently hidden from Congress at a time when legislation could have been enacted. The constant delay has been unacceptable, and likely problematic for USCIS adjudicators who may have continued to rubber stamp fraudulent applications for H-1B visas.

The H-1B benefit fraud and compliance assessment highlights the rampant fraud and abuse that is taking place in the program. Experts have acknowledged that many employers disregard the spirit of the law, and find ways to circumvent worker protections to hire cheaper foreign labor. With a violation rate of more than 20%, this assessment should serve as a wake-up call to your agency that the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended.

It alarms me that USCIS had already approved 217 of the 246 cases in the sample. This means that 19% of the approved cases were associated with fraud or involved employers who broke the law. Only 2% of the sampled cases were denied, which suggest that not enough fraud prevention and detection efforts were incorporated in the adjudication process.

I also find it concerning that FDNS uses the phrase “technical violation” when it relates to employers or alien beneficiaries who failed to comply with the law. When an employer requires its workers to pay for the visa and application fees, or does not pay them the required prevailing wage, it is against the law. This blatant disregard for the law is not a “technical” violation.

While the H-1B benefit fraud and compliance assessment proves that wrongdoing truly does exist, it also brings up many unanswered questions that USCIS must address. Therefore, I would appreciate a response to the following questions:

1. What actions, if any, has USCIS taken since the assessment was completed earlier this Spring?

2. Since the assessment was finalized, has USCIS taken steps to review, evaluate and/or revoke petitions or applications approved, denied, or pending after March 31, 2006 (the date of the sample)?

3. More than 80% of the violations were detected because of site visits. It’s evident that false job locations, shell business scams and inconsistent job duties could easily be prevented if more site visits were conducted by USCIS. What efforts will your agency take to increase the number of site visits to increase fraud detection in the program?

4. Given that Congress allows USCIS to collect a $500 fraud prevention and detection fee, please describe how you will use these funds to more effectively root out fraud and abuse in the H-1B visa program.

5. The assessment states that FDNS refers cases of fraud to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for consideration of formal criminal investigation and prosecution. “ICE then has 60 days to accept the case for investigation or decline it and return it to FDNS. If ICE declines to open a criminal investigation, FDNS forwards the case with its administrative findings to a USCIS adjudications component for denial or revocation of the petition or application, as appropriate.”

* How many times has FDNS referred a case to ICE for investigation? * Of those cases referred to ICE, how many, to your agency’s knowledge, were investigated? How many were declined by ICE and returned to FDNS? * Of those cases referred and then investigated by ICE, how many petitions or applications were denied or revoked? How many cases were approved, despite FDNS’ findings that fraud was committed or a violation of law occurred?

6. Given that the assessment examined all levels of fraud, including the filing of the labor certification with the Department of Labor, did USCIS inform the Department of Labor as it worked to complete the assessment? What recommendations, if any, has USCIS relayed to the Department of Labor to improve the labor certification process? What response, as far as you know, did the Department of Labor have to the assessment and to your recommendations?

7. What steps does USCIS plan to take to improve communication and coordination with the Department of Labor with regard to the H-1B visa program?

8. Please describe in more detail the abuse by employers to put a beneficiary in a non-productive status (or “on the bench”). What steps has USCIS taken to ensure that visa holders are not imported only to be benched, unpaid, or inactive?

9. The assessment points out which occupational categories are more susceptible to fraud and abuse. Does USCIS plan to train adjudicators and institute detection strategies to more effectively determine when an employer misrepresents, underpays, or forges documents in order to obtain an H-1B visa holder in these (and all) categories?

10. What actions did USCIS take against companies that were found to violate the program? Will the employers (and their employees) be held accountable or referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution? Will the guilty employers be considered for debarment or suspension from being eligible for federal contracts, and will these employers be referred to the General Services Administration so that other agencies can be made aware of their misconduct? Will USCIS deny these employers further participation in the H-1B visa program?

I hope you share my frustration with the results of this benefit fraud and compliance assessment. I strongly urge you to do everything within your authority to make sure that the program is used as Congress intended, and that employers are held accountable for any wrongdoing. Fraud and abuse cannot be tolerated, especially as many legitimate businesses in the United States are willing to play by the rules to bring in needed temporary workers in high-skilled industries.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible so that we can move forward and enact legislation that will reform the H-1B visa program. Changes must be made to put integrity back into our visa programs, and your input will help us tackle that endeavor.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

United States Senator
(Dick Durbin is working on this with Charles Grassley)

http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=138527

Durbin and Grassley Zero in on H-1B Visa Data


Tuesday, April 1, 2008


– United States Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter today to the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007, seeking detailed information on how each firm uses the visa program. These firms were responsible for nearly 20,000 of the available H-1B visas last year.

“By the end of the day today, all of the H-1B visas for the year will likely be spoken for,” Durbin said. “The H-1B program can’t be allowed to become a job-killer in America. We need to ensure that firms are not misusing these visas, causing American workers to be unfairly deprived of good high-skill jobs here at home.”

Durbin and Grassley have repeatedly raised concerns that the loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 visa programs are allowing for the outsourcing of American jobs. Last year, they introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which would require H-1B applicants to make a good faith effort to hire American workers first and would give the Department of Labor greater oversight authority in investigating possible fraud and abuse.

"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 loopholes that have allowed this to happen and enact real reform."

The letters are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B program is being used for its intended purpose - to fill a worker shortage for a temporary time period. Durbin and Grassley said they expect the companies to cooperate and answer their questions to ensure that accurate information is being used to address future reforms of the program.

The H-1B visa program allows American companies to employ temporary foreign workers in “specialty occupations,” often in the high tech industry, while the L visa program is for intracompany transfers of managers, executives and specialists.

The letter was sent to the following companies: Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Limited, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Cognizant Tech Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems Inc., US Technology Resources LLC, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Intel Corporation, Accenture LLP, Cisco Systems Inc., Ernst & Young LLP, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Deloitte & Touche LLP, Google Inc., Mphasis Corporation, University of Illinois at Chicago, American Unit Inc., Jsmn International Inc., Objectwin Technology Inc., Deloitte Consulting, Prince Georges County Public Schools, JPMorgan Chase and Co., and Motorola Inc.

A copy of the letter appears below:


April 1, 2008

Dear Sir/Madam:

We write to inquire about your company’s use of H-1B and L-1 visas. Congress intended these visa programs to benefit the American economy by allowing U.S. employers to import high-skilled or highly-specialized workers when needed to complement the domestic workforce. However, we are concerned that these programs, as currently structured, are facilitating the outsourcing of American jobs.

As you know, today is the deadline for filing H-1B visa petitions. If past years are any guide, enough applications will be filed today to exhaust the annual allotment of H-1B visas. We understand that many employers would like Congress to make more H-1B visas available. However, we must be mindful of the impact importing more foreign workers will have on American workers, especially in light of the recent economic downturn.

We believe that before increasing the H-1B cap, Congress must close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 programs that harm American workers. For example, under current law only employers that employ H-1B visa holders as a large percentage of their U.S. workforce are required to attempt to recruit American workers before hiring a H-1B visa holder. Most companies can explicitly discriminate against American workers by recruiting and hiring only H-1B visa holders. As the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has said: “H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of a foreign worker.”

Additionally, we are concerned that some companies may be circumventing the requirements of the H-1B visa program by using other visa programs, such as the L-1, to bring in cheaper foreign labor. While the L-1 visa program allows intercompany transfers to enter the United States, experts have concluded that some companies use the L-1 visa to bypass even the minimal protections for American workers that are in the H-1B program.

We have introduced S.1035, the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007. This bipartisan legislation would reform the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to prevent abuses and protect American companies and workers. For example, S.1035 would require all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder to first make a good-faith effort to hire an American worker.

According to statistics recently released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, your company was one of the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B petitions in 2007. Understanding your company’s use of high-skilled visas would help to inform further our views of the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. Accordingly, we would appreciate your responses to the following questions:

1.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years and fiscal year 2009, how many H-1B visa petitions have you submitted to USCIS and how many of these petitions have been approved?
b. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many people have you employed in the U.S. and outside the U.S.?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many U.S. citizens, H-1B visa holders, L-1A, and L-1B visa holders, and other foreign nationals have you employed in the U.S. and outside the U.S.? If you have employed other foreign nationals in the U.S., please specify the type of visas held by such nationals.

2.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, have you been a H-1B dependent employer?
b. Would you support legislation prohibiting a company from hiring additional H-1B visa holders if the company employs more than 50 people and more than 50% of the company’s employees are H-1B and L-1 visa holders? Please explain.

3.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many Labor Condition Applications (LCA) have you submitted to DOL and how many of these LCAs have been approved? How many H-1B visa holders were covered by these LCAs?
b. If DOL denied any LCAs you submitted, what reasons did DOL give for the denial?
c. If you are a H-1B dependent employer, for how many LCAs have you claimed an exemption from the requirements to make a good-faith effort to recruit American workers and not to displace American workers (i.e. Alternative C in section F-1 of the LCA)? How many H-1B visa holders were covered by these exempt LCAs?

4.
a. Please provide a detailed description of your recruitment process for open positions, including any relevant company policies and where you advertise.
b. Do you give priority to U.S. citizens when filling open positions? Do you make a good-faith effort to recruit U.S. citizens for open positions before recruiting foreign nationals? If yes, please provide a detailed description of these efforts.
c. Would you support legislation requiring all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder first to make a good-faith effort to hire an American worker? Please explain.
d. Would you support legislation requiring all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder first to advertise the job opening for a reasonable period of time on a website operated by DOL? Please explain.

5.
a. Are there any positions for which you only recruit or give priority to foreign nationals?
b. Are there any positions for which you advertise that you will only hire foreign nationals and/or H-1B visa holders?
c. Would you support legislation requiring that employers may not advertise a job as available only for H-1B visa holders or recruit only H-1B visa holders for a job? Please explain.

6.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many foreign workers, H-1B visa holders, L-1A, and L-1B visa holders have you sponsored for employment-based legal permanent residency?
b. How many such applications are pending?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many of your H-1B, L-1A, and L-1B employees have received employment-based green cards?

7.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated outside the U.S.?
b. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated in the U.S.?
c. How many of these employees were U.S. citizens?
d. Did H-1B visa holders replace or take over the job responsibilities of any of these terminated employees?
e. Would you support legislation prohibiting all employers from displacing an American worker with a H-1B visa holder? Please explain.

8.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many of your H-1B and L-1 employees have you contracted to other companies?
b. How many such employees have you contracted on a full-time basis?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, please provide a list of the companies to whom you have contracted your H-1B or L-1 employees and how many H-1B and L-1 employees you have contracted to each of these companies.
d. Have any employees of companies to whom you have contracted your H-1B or L-1 employees been displaced by these employees?
e. How do you determine whether you are involved in secondary displacement, i.e. your H-1B or L-1 employees are displacing employees of a contractor company?
f. Would you support legislation prohibiting all employers from engaging in secondary displacement?

9.
a. What positions do your current H-1B employees fill?
b. How many of your current H-1B employees received higher education degrees in the U.S.?
c. How many of your current H-1B employees entered the U.S. for the purpose of working for your company?
d. What is the average age of your current H-1B employees?
e. What is the average level of experience of your current H-1B employees?
f. What is the average length of stay in the U.S. of your current H-1B employees?
g. How many of your current H-1B employees are skill level one, two, three, and four?
h. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your current H-1B employees?
i. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your company’s U.S. citizen employees who are situated similarly to your H-1B employees?

10.
a. What positions do your current L-1A and L-1B employees fill?
b. What is the average age of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
c. What is the average level of experience of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
d. What is the average length of stay in the U.S. of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
e. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
f. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your company’s U.S. citizen employees who are situated similarly to your L-1A and L-1B employees?

11.
a. Have you received any complaints from your H-1B and/or L-1 employees about unfair hiring practices, wages, or work conditions? If so, please provide details.
b. Have you received any complaints from your American employees about your company’s use of the H-1B or L-1 visa programs? If so, please provide details.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
U.S. Senator

Charles E. Grassley
U.S. Senator

More: http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=2953 ...

Look Into Their Eyes
By: Fast Company
These people lost high-tech jobs to low-wage countries. Try telling them that offshoring is a good thing in the long run.

Kyle Bonds
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

Bonds, 44, was a contractor at IBM when he heard rumors of work moving abroad. Figuring his job could be next, he took a lower-paying but more secure post elsewhere.

"If I had stayed, you would be talking to a truck driver with a waitress wife."

Myra Bronstein
Mercer Island, Washington

Bronstein, a software engineer, says she had to train her offshore replacements herself or risk losing her severance package and unemployment eligibility.

"My industry just crashed and burned. I think it's shortsighted to try and get another job in this field."

Charles Buhrmann
Greenville, Texas

Before his position went to Canada, Buhrmann was a contractor for an insurance company's policy management system. Now he designs Web sites part-time for $8.50 an hour.

"If they're going to offer a job overseas for half the pay, why not offer it to the person here?"

Melissa Charters
Los Angeles, California

Charters had 15 years of experience in IT when her job as a system security administrator was outsourced, then offshored to India. She's becoming a home-economics teacher.

"How can our country's information stay secure when it's all being done over there?"

Lidia Estes
Bedford, Texas

Estes, 55, learned her job managing programmers with Computer Horizons was going to be offshored in late 2002. Now, the woman who has worked in IT since she was 19 sells Mary Kay Cosmetics.

"I don't know what to do. This has been my whole life."

Linda Evans
Matthews, North Carolina

In 2002, Evans's programmer husband was laid off and forced to train his Indian replacements. A new employer threatened to fire him after he was interviewed by a local paper.

"We never feel safe. When he gets called in for review, he thinks, 'This is it--it's all over today.' "

James Fusco
East Brunswick, New Jersey

Since IBM sent his work to Canada, Fusco has a new job as a systems analyst--at less pay. He has joined a lawsuit seeking retraining for software workers.

"The most important thing I've lost is an intangible. It's the loss of a secure feeling, because I really lost a career."

Michael Gist
Fort Worth, Texas

For Gist, 41, a software engineer who was replaced by a temporary worker who later went back to India, losing his job meant more than losing income. Although he now runs a home-furnishings store, he's lost his passion.

"I just love writing code. I'm a computer geek inside and out."

Corey Goode
Dallas, Texas

Goode, 34, had a contract job with Microsoft to support its call centers. It included secretly setting up user accounts for workers in Bangalore who'd replace domestic employees. Just before his first child was born, he says his own job moved to India.

"Globalization is here to stay, but we need to ease the growing pains."

Read over the pages and pages of people who have lost their jobs.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/81/offshore_profile ...

This exchange put me in a bad mood for the rest of the evening. Unbelievable and sickening. "Race-to-the-Bottom"-ers on a Democratic site. This is a case where "Teh Big Tent" accommodates some seriously bad apples.

Any idea why? The ucual "copy shortcut" doesn't seem to be functioning.

You just said in another post downthread that free trade is good for American workers. Are you contradicting yourself or do mean "good" as in teaching us to me more parsimonious with our lower wages?

Which is it, wtmusic?

The only winners are the parasite class.

environmental regulations and OSHA laws that your esteemed multi-national corporations don't have to put up with in Asia. Yes it will be a fantastic bargain for them until we come to our senses and burn them down. But my guess is that will come soon enough after the next crash and everyone's old 401K now a 201K moves to a 001K.

Said it before and I'll say it again: Supporting globalization and free trade doesn't make you hip and multi-cultural. It makes you a patsy.

Wake up. It's not about race. It's about protecting workers - ALL workers - from exploitation and poverty.

between globalization and post/neocolonialist imperialism?

I see no big difference, just natural environments turned into commodities and "resources" for the top layers of the Pyramid hierarchy (aka pyramid scam) at increasing pace.

By liberals, that is.

of globalization: "Rethuligan" military imperialism and mildly "softer" economic imperialism by the "liberals".

Nationalism and national rivalry just fuddles the picture - divide and rule strategy.

As articulate as anyone making a living saying and writing sensible things,

explain his understanding so that I can understand it.

He's smart and fearless. He's not always right, but who is.

he brings up. Plus he explains his position very simply and clearly. He makes economics accessable to all and in doing so builds up support for the reality based view of the world. He undoes myths and GOP bullshit. And he isn't afraid to go against the grain. We wouldn't be where we are today without him.

(hyperconsumerism)

...but I generally respect his views.

4 yeart ago he said that the problem was our country had become a nation whose economy was based on people selling houses to each other and using their homes as ATMs.
Sounds like he got that one right.

There's really not a lot of resources for new Keynesian ideas, let alone an economist who can explain it simply, so Krugman really fits those two areas nicely. So far, I've read one of his books, Peddling Prosperity, and he really hits conservative economics where it hurts. Some may say that he's too pro-globalist, but if you read his analysis on the strategic traders, you'll understand why.

One day he'll be completely right and the next day he will be completely wrong.

Half thee people I know that are unemployed or under employed have master's degrees.

IF Geithner had just pledged 20 Billion to California, this state would be on the rise and not the decline (That amount would be less than half of one per cent of the monies Treasury and Fed has spent to date to "ffix" the economy.)

I know that isn't Krugman's fault, but I don't see where he is addressing it. I sure wish he would.

Computer specialists with master's degrees in computer science or something similar.

Several I know have degrees in psychology or social work. Public health.

Program managers with master's degrees in things like transportation, and public planning.

And although I don't know anyone personally, from literature I read, many researchers with master's degrees in chemistry are unemployed as the research labs are so often in Singapore or Far East nations.

Note to Obama - restore NEA funding and primary/secondary school aid for arts programs.

Psychology, social work, public health, transportation, public planning are not particularly outsourceable, so as the economy improves so should corresponding opportunities.

I'm a computer programmer, and though it's definitely gotten tougher I sense a rebound from the "outsourcing is cheaper" meme, especially when projects go bad and there's no one to turn to. I've had to lower my rate, but I'm very busy. A big chunk of my income goes to paying for my family's health insurance.

To venture a guess on research, American degrees have lost much of their prestige overall because of the poor quality of American public education. Another element might be lax environmental controls have made other countries attractive locations for the chemical industry. We can and should be pushing harder for an enforceable global environmental contract and a level playing field. But tipping the field in our favor is ultimately destructive to our own interests.

Quote: "American degrees have lost much of their prestige overall because of the poor quality of American public education."

India sends maximum students to the US to study

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/17india-send-maximum-students-to-us-to-study.htm

Flush with money, eager Chinese students flock to U.S.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4480230

Someone's been drinking the Kool-aid :eyes:

not American universities.

"The national results (for the US) in international comparisons have often been far below the average of developed countries. In OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment 2003, 15 year olds ranked 24th of 38 in mathematics, 19th of 38 in science, 12th of 38 in reading, and 26th of 38 in problem solving.<82> In the 2006 assessment, the U.S. ranked 35th out of 57 in mathematics and 29th out of 57 in science. Reading scores could not be reported due to printing errors in the instructions of the U.S. test booklets. U.S. scores were far behind those of most other developed nations.<83> . Bill Gates believes that the American high school is "obsolete".<84>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States

Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett, like Bill Gates, is a big proponent of increasing visas for students and workers. He claims we "need" them because U.S. schools are doing such a woefully inadequate job of training future scientists and engineers.

Arizona spends the least per K-12 student in the union. Unsurprisingly, we rank bottom in a host of measures and 1/3 of our students drop out of high school. Currently, we are in a massive budget deficit (per capita highest in the nation) and our already underfunded schools are facing further cuts. Back in 2005 when Barrett (who owns a beautiful mansion in Scottsdale) was still CEO, Intel demanded, and got, a tax break that amounted to a 95% reduction in the taxes Intel owes Arizona. The estimated cost to the state is $100 million. We could sure use that money right about now.

And Craig Barrett still says we need more foreign workers.

Susie and Johnny study based on what they see happening in the Real World to their mom and dad.

If both parents have Master's degrees or even PHD's yet struggle with unemployment because of outsourcing, then why the heck should the kid study? How do you tell kids that their lives will be different - that America will rebound and that just because no one cared enough to hire mom or dad doesn't mean that no one will hire them?

I can imagine for anyone laid off due to outsourcing, it is a real tough sell to try and get the kids to hit the books.

How often is he wrong? Could you elaborate when he was "completely wrong"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/opinion/02krugman.html

Blames the problem on a "global savings glut", when the real problem is a debt glut, not savings.

and here advocating for nationalization of Citi/BoA (when they should be shut down - nationalization is just another flavor of bailout):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/opinion/23krugman.html

My basic beef with Krugman is that he buys into the idea that more debt can cure a glut of debt. It can't. That's like trying to cure a drunk with a bottle of whiskey. He also has been making a pattern of supporting bailouts while decrying them - he needs to make up his mind and stop trying to straddle the fence.

Dollar debt comes from the weird financial instruments -- instruments which were little more than "Bets" placed on certain segments of the economy.

These 'Bets" were considered insurance, and then for whatever reason, not regulated as insurance would be, and they are what what toppled the sytem.

In fact the mortgage structure in the USA could be already paid off using the first eleven trillion that Bernanke and Geithenr have fiddled around with. That is right - we could have paid off every single mortgage, whether held by sub prime mortgage holders or people who would never foreclose, and we'd probably have money left over.

That first eleven trillion bucks in no way affects the remaining outstanding debts.

Every bank that the FDIC has taken over has been nationalized. Nationalization is putting the banks into bankruptcy, liquidating the shareholders and bond holders and finding new private capitol to take over. It is very different that the current bailouts and would have been much better. I am with him on that one.

That's receivership, which is the step right before the end of a bank's existence. Nationalization is when the government itself owns and operates - with the intent to continue to operate.

He was calling for exactly what I wrote. And if a Noble Prize winning economist calls that nationalization, I will accept him at his word.

From the editorial you link:
"Lately the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been seizing banks it deems insolvent at the rate of about two a week. When the F.D.I.C. seizes a bank, it takes over the bank’s bad assets, pays off some of its debt, and resells the cleaned-up institution to private investors. And that’s exactly what advocates of temporary nationalization want to see happen, not just to the small banks the F.D.I.C. has been seizing, but to major banks that are similarly insolvent."

So you can continue to play semantics or argue against what he was really saying. I don't think he was wrong on this one.

Would you take either of them at their word?

When a "Nobel Prize winning economist" uses a term, it's not by accident. Since he's not the only winner ever, other winners of that prize disagree with him, and claims to authority are a poor substitute for reason, I'm not taking anybody at their word for it. There is no chance - none - that Krugman doesn't know the word receivership and wouldn't use it if he meant it.

That wasn't the only time Krugman talked nationalization, and other times he didn't qualify with 'temporary'.

Believe it or not, even a prize winner will sometimes talk their book and that is what I suspect is the case here.

gotcha game, or talk about what he actually said. He always talked about receivership and not a government run banking system. You could say you disagree with that idea. I think it was the right thing at the time.
I don't think this is an area where he was wrong.
Why do you think he was wrong about temporary nationalization?

He didn't talk about receivership. And again, as an academic, there is no way he does not know the term or would not use it if that is what he meant. As to why nationalization is wrong, that part is simple - do you really want ownership of a vast hole of debt, that was created by private interests for private profit? I sure don't. Let the people who failed to do their due diligence, who hoped to take private profit from the irresponsible actions of those they invested in, be the ones to eat the losses thus created.

It's not just a good idea, it also happens to be the law!

... but I do not always agree with him. Especially lately.

I don't always agree with him, but I like him, in general, and respect him a helluva lot.

re Krugman: "you fatuous wanker." ;)
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/08/financial-crisis-called-off.html#more

"all the bales of deliquescing, toxic "assets" hidden in the vaults of Citibank, JP Morgan, Bank of America, et al, (not to mention on the books of every pension fund in the USA, and not a few elsewhere) will magically turn into Little Debbie Snack Cakes on Labor Day weekend?"

Because it is a much cheerier notion than reality.

I have been on a raw foods diet for two weeks, and although it has been great for the waist line, Little Debbie Snack cakes sound good right about now.

Of course, the descriptive term "wanker" goes pretty much hand-in-hand with any "mainstream" economist.

His body of work is excellent...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

"That is part of the reason we are now experiencing the Great Recession as the economy struggles to make enough economic profit from imported oil to pay for importing more of the stuff. It is a vicious circle especially with the other drains on the economic profits of imported oil like fiscal and trade deficits, wars for oil security and bailouts of banks, auto companies and such."



So has anyone found any discussions by economists or better yet...economists and those in the energy field about this subject?

In other words...the point being that peak oil (or a bottom in oil prices relative to economic activity) is a main causative factor of the current Great Recession. No more free energy ride?

quote) "the point being that peak oil (or a bottom in oil prices relative to economic activity) is a main causative factor of the current Great Recession. No more free energy ride?"

These money hoarding jerks have made oil and other necessary sources that run our great nation into a speculative market which influences what we pay, aNd some think regulation is a government conspiracy to socialize natural resources.

It's time to deReaganize and move on, lets re-regulate the market place with manageable rules that make sense...

...some is fundamental? So we have a growing "middle class" in India and China...and I suppose eventually Americans will start to spend a little. So as the new ECONOMIC NORMAL takes hold....where are all the oil and other resources going to come from? And how much will they cost?

Several recessions have been triggered by high oil prices...so what happens when the world tries to come out of a major recession and faces higher oil prices? Bernanke's slow growth?

Based on Krugmans' opinion, whatever is left of middle America; we don't have much to spend because flat line wages can't keep up with horrid inflation (don't let them tell you it's at 11 0r 12 percent, maybe closer to 24% based upon real world living.

Bernanke's slow growth menu is outdated with optimism pills, never liked him...

Green technology is the only answer when dealing with hillbilly palins' oil...

World energy consumption per capita peaked in 1979. Not surprisingly, purchasing power of consumers has been stagnant since 1979.

As growth based social model (capitalism as we know it) need growth to stay alive, the "growth" since 1979 has been mostly inflating this humongous financial debt bubble. Plus inflating numbers through creative accounting. And of course, exploiting the weak and other exploitables ever more "efficiently" (Greedily, cruelly).

So the social response to energy crisis, growth hitting the energy ceiling during the energy crisis of late 70' and early 80' was denial and deception (thatcherism, reaganomics etc. aka neoliberalism).

So now that the bubble that they inflated for a quarter century has bursted, the denial and deception are more forcefull than ever.

And that's why also Krugman, Obama etc. are wankers.

because when writing that question you know that if I reply, I reply reading centritgrandpa's question.

Wankerism, indeed! :)

When you refer to "wanker", how would you define the word?

I must agree with you about "wankerism".

your reply has implanted humor which is quite delightful mate...

I just borrowed that description of Mr. Krugman from Mr. Kunstler. And English is not my native tongue.

But I have understood that the Greek translation of the word is 'malaka', which I heard quite a lot when I lived in Greece. Etymologically 'malaka' comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning 'soft', so perhaps Kunstler sees Krugman as soft and himself as hard.

But then again, perhaps I'm spilling the whole meaning here...

"Shakespeare" is an understatement…I must agree with you…kudos to a brilliant reply...

Discovered a significant oil reserve off its coast.

So yes, having a surplus of oil of our own would sure help.

But to recover as a nation, It was quite necessary to guarantee that the money we spend on the "Recovery" efforts would affect the job market in a big way. Only Geithner and Bernanke don't particularly care about things like that.

The last time that we as a nation offered up more than 100% of our GNP was back in the forties. And we offered up 140% of our GNP. However, as we did so, we were opening armament plants, and every one in the USA who wanted a job got one. Women and blacks and any white men that were not on the front lines were making decent money in the factories.

Paulson and Geithner/Bernanke have offered up 100% of our GNP and it has only gone into the coffers of the banksters. Who immediately swallow it for their own purposes rather than loan it out. Few jobs have been created and certainly not on the scale that we saw in the forties.

You have to wonder if the Eleven trillion bucks so far offered mostly to Wall Street couldn't have instead become the implementation of solar panel construction etc.

So that we don't need to worry about importing oil any more.

So yes, having a surplus of oil of our own would sure help.

Ummm, we used to have plenty of oil reserves. Hell, the first oil boom happened about an hour from where I grew up in Western PA. The biggies that we had were West Texas and Alaska.

The problem is that we've already burned through those big oil fields. It's what fueled our ascendancy as a world power.

I also don't care how many solar panels we produce, it will never result in our not having to import any more oil. It's the lifeblood of our economy. We'll only stop importing oil when it becomes too expensive to do so, accompanied by a severe downgrade in our industrial capacity and standard of living.

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This week, he's a "progressive", I guess. :shrug:

"Krugman is a free trade shill...."

Yes. That's my biggest complaint about Krugman.

I like Max Keiser Myself. :)