By the way, you do realize your high salary increases income inequality, right? (In both the US and the world.)
[1] Choosing India to personify this example simply because I lived there.
In the same way that being fit makes obese people feel singled out?
Nobody would dream of criticizing the fit person for making the obese seem fatter in comparison though, because it is plainly clear that when a person gets fitter other people don't become fatter. Despite how the variance of the population changes depending on how fit or fat individuals get, the fit person is not to blame for the obese. Dieting does not make others fatter, and having a high salary does not make others poorer.
True, which is why I don't care about inequality.
I'm just pointing out that jquery's point is mathematically wrong - his high salary increases inequality. Immigration would reduce it.
It also makes the jobs of the Americans already working there less stable (as terrified Raj isn't going to leave).
I am a startup visa supporter but I have no delusions that in many cases it will be giving the privileged more privilege. It's goal is to spurn innovation in the US and make us richer - it's NOT a force in global equalization.
My last job was in India, so I know a bit about it. The living conditions of the "middle class" in India are generally well below that of the poor in the US. Upper class lawyers and executives in Bandra and Colaba (richer areas of Mumbai) were little better off than people in housing projects in the US.
The very richest people were able to afford luxuries like 23/7 (undrinkable) water, electricity, or maybe even a car. In contrast, about 70% of the US poor have a car and nearly all have water+power. But you are right that those who could afford a car could also afford a driver.
The bulk of immigrant software engineers might have been rich by Indian standards. But they were very likely poor by US standards.
This graph makes the point well: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...
The top 5'th percentile in India is poorer than the bottom 5'th percentile in the US.
Income inequality is not the problem, but it sure sounds nice to the voters. Livability of lower income folks is the problem. Doesn't matter if there is only $100 difference between the lowest and highest wage earners if everyone is starving. I wish we spent less time being envious of the rich and lucky and spent a lot more time looking at ways we can use technology to make lower wages more livable.
I'm not opposed to H1-B immigration as a principle (my father was an H1-B), but the only consideration should be how that immigration serves American interests.
We don't need more visas with these level of unemployment.
Wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
This article is pretty political though. I think I would have flagged it.
I admit that this won't make much sense if you haven't taken some economics classes, it's counter-intuitive.
Or people who come for a few years and send it all home. Or live here for years, sending vast percentages of it home.
>paid for them to be educated or nursed through childhood
We have already paid anything there we had to, so they're sunk costs for non-immigrants. The cost of aid programs, retraining and the like are pain points for non-immigrants and the government.
Economics in one of those subject matters where vast swaths of it are only taken as real by some people in the field. Without knowing exactly what you're talking about (this labor lump policy doesn't seem to be settled economics from the cites), the fact there was a class on it doesn't necessarily mean it's something we should be making decisions on.
We have already paid anything there we had to, so they're sunk costs for non-immigrants.
...apart from the interest on the debt accrued in doing so.
Economics in one of those subject matters where vast swaths of it are only taken as real by some people in the field.
OK...and it's a lump of labor fallacy, not a lump of labor policy, and it is about as settled as anything gets in economics, having been called out as a fallacy in 1891 by DF Schloss. I defy you to find me any economic theoretician who believes int he notion of a 'lump of labor'. Even labor unions, traditionally the holdouts on this issue, have abandoned this position in recent years and accepted the importance of consumption as a factor of demand.
H1Bs still seem bad.
I was born on the inside of the city walls so I am richer than the serfs. God bless the Baron who keeps us rich and them poor
Why don't you go ask skilled textile workers or industrial workers like machinists or welders what they think about the issue? You can find them at McDonalds.
What gives you the right to live the good life just because you were born within some semi-arbitrary boundary? Why do they have to live the life of poverty when they have nearly the same skill set as you?
It is inevitable. The only reason that the overseas programmers havent taken all our jobs already is that there is still too big a communication gap (language, culture, remote enviroments, etc). Once that barrier is reduced, web/mobile programming will go overseas.
The circumstances of my birth meant that my parents, my children and I live a wonderful, comfortable life. Why shouldn't I want to protect that? I want my son's children to have better opportunity than I have.
And, why should I want to enable some corporation to make a fortune by chipping my neighbor's prosperity away? At the end of the day, the savings associated with labor arbitrage mostly beef up the party line. Shoes cost just as much as they did before production was shipped off to China. So does software.
Call me a decadent, unethical and plain awful person, but I align myself with my family's best interests.
BTW I am completely pro-immigration, so don't take this as a slam against immigration. My ideal world would be where geography is irrelevant as far as jobs go, which should naturally normalize wages across the world -- no more need to migrate for economic reasons. Since that is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, the question is do we choose jobs or wages.
Regardless of which side of the fence one falls on, three things need to be fixed:
1. Do not tie the H-1B to the employer 2. Allow spouses of H-1B holders to seek employment 3. The H-1B has no country quota, so remove the country quota for employment based green cards