Trump Gives Displaced IT Workers Attention, and He's Not Alone (computerworld.com) 688
dcblogs writes: The H-1B visa issue is getting more attention than it has ever received before. Donald Trump has invited laid-off Disney workers to speak at his rallies, and has posed in photos with them. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), held a press conference this week to complain that visa workers are being hired instead of U.S. workers. Legislation to reform the visa program has been introduced, and discrimination complaints are being filed with federal agencies and in the courts. But these efforts may have little impact. If visa restrictions arrive, IT services firms may increase reliance on web-based "knowledge transfer" to avoid having visa workers at an employer's site. There have also been reports of U.S. workers traveling overseas to train replacements on foreign soil. [Even with all the political and legal efforts,] there's no certainty any action will derail the forces moving IT jobs overseas.
wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Funny)
This is racist and sexist. I dont know how yet, I'll wait for Huff po. to tell me how, but rest assured it is somehow.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
WHO I AM NOT VOTING FOR:
I'm not voting for Hillary.
I'm not voting for Trump.
I'm not voting for Sanders.
I'm not voting for Cruz.
I'm not voting for ANY Democrat.
I'm not voting for ANY Republican.
WHO I AM VOTING FOR:
Some 3rd-party candidate, likely Libertarian.
Why, you ask?
As a form of protest against how broken ou
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how anonymity and Trump go together so nicely. Sort of like secret ballots... Trump is the first presidential candidate willing to say what the silent majority is thinking. That's why he does so poorly in opinion polls, yet seems to do so well in elections: many more people support what the guy says than are willing to admit. The mainstream media/rabid liberals can wag their fingers, shriek, and demonize him all they want. They may be able to harass us in to the closet: but the more they try to make s
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay tell me what his platform is. Aside from he's going to do something and it's going to be something, he literally takes no firm stance on anything.He is fear mongering based on other, without any real platform of solutions, he can't even build the wall he's talking about.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
Click through - the stances are quite firm and there is quite a lot of detail. On a number of issues I consider him more progressive than Hillary.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
His policies are on his website: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/p... [donaldjtrump.com]
Click through - the stances are quite firm and there is quite a lot of detail. On a number of issues I consider him more progressive than Hillary.
"Progressive"? Maybe. Insane, yes.
Look at his tax plans:
And he claims "Doesn't add to our debt and deficit".
This is madness.
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The scaremongering seems to be coming from the other side. The media seems to want people to believe the world will end if Trump is elected.
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For some reason I find that a more rational belief than the belief that Trump will be somehow better for America than the other candidates.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason I find that a more rational belief than the belief that Trump will be somehow better for America than the other candidates.
When the media, the beltway, and political insiders are all saying "the world will end if Trump is elected..." it more likely means "their world will end." If he does even half of what he's proposing it means bad stuff for the politicians who've been sucking on graft for years, and it means even worse stuff for special interest groups that have paid graft for years.
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he's going to do something and it's going to be something
That's more than what any of his competition has to offer.
Bear in mind that the voters believe with absolute certainty that the other candidates will make everything worse. Trump *intends* to make everything worse but Trump is so unstable that there's a chance he might not be as bad as the others.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
Okay tell me what his platform is.
1. Go here: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/ [donaldjtrump.com]
2. Click on "Positions" and pick something
3. Read
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying here. Let's be real - there are a ton of things wrong with the country and we've seen decades of people lie through their teeth about fixing it. As batshit insane as some of the stuff Trump says, there's a lot of things that he says which are not only plausible, but resonate with a large portion of the population because they've traditionally been taboo topics for politicians at election time. Instead of sidestepping these issues, he's taking them head on even though they make him look like a bad person.
It's sorta like masturbation - everyone does it but NOBODY admits it, and most if asked will actively deny it.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
I will say this. I disagree with Trump and will not be voting for him.
However, this has been wrought by the mistreatment of people by both parties. They've felt that they had a lock on them so long that they were now voting blocs to be moved like chess pieces and controlled using Big Data triangulation of just the right issues. And that's the way it turned out with Obama/Romney.
What is more, on one hand, the Republicans tend to like to obstruct, and get nothing done, they are generally assholes, and many are about as close to Mr. Burns as you can be without being a yellow cartoon character.
On the other hand, you have people in the so-called progressive side working to silence what is not politically correct and deriding a significant portion of the population as a bunch of fly-over state hicks who burn crosses in their front yard and hate everyone. Whether or not that is true, you've now got them mad enough so they're now just going with it. I can't get behind their frothing at the mouth at the Trump rallies, but I can see how it must be cathartic for them.
Make no mistake, the Republicans are looking at a serious upheaval and possible dissolution, but the Democrats are oddly enough not too far behind, if Bernie Sanders is any indication. I actually think that the Black vote that keeps electing Clintons is going to realize that they are getting very little but lip service and affirmative action for their loyalty. Neither one of those things is ending racism or inner city problem, and I'd argue that affirmative action makes it worse in some cases. Four or eight years of Clinton after eight years of Obama had better change their fortunes, or you could see a real problem for the Democrats too.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Interesting)
You need to dig deeper into the politically correct thing as many of the stories are later retracted or turn out to be fabrications.
Good example: Student win of track race retracted after he makes a gesture thanking god... reality... later the parents and the student both retracted their statements and admitted that he had made taunting gestures to the other team.
Don't get me wrong-- I think the left does suppress free speach and does do the political correctness thing.
But the right has played into that and used it to their advantage to make it seem much more outrageous than it really is.
The teacher who was fired for giving her personal bible to a student... turns out she gave lots of personal bibles to lots of students.
And so on.
One of the main reasons I left the republican party was because they passed the normal level of lying by politicians. They turned strongly to "the ends justify the means"
They abandoned the political tradition required to make this country function: Argue in chambers and then go to dinner together afterwards. Negotiate and compromise. They just don't do that any more since GW Bush Jr's 1st term. And they became the party of "NO" in 2009. At that point, I stopped voting for them entirely. Even local offices.
It's not good behavior for the country.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Interesting)
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Really you need to fix the toxic culture of the poor black community. We used to talk about these things but don't anymore because any criticism of black people is "racist." There is a culture that glorifies drugs, crime, and violence, and no amount of white people "checking their privilege" is going to solve that.
Blacks need to fix their culture. The government needs to fix or end the war on drugs, stop importing cheap labor immigrants who take jobs from blacks, and revamp entitlement programs to end welfa
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the last President or potential President to tell the people the unpolished truth was Jimmy Carter, and after what happened to him nobody running is going to dare to suggest that time, hard work and a shitload of tax money is going to be needed to fix some things.
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I'm voting for him primarily because he makes them so angry.
Trolling is its own reward, eh?
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the sort of irrational behavior that makes me want to support Trump. How can I be in agreement with such irrationality? If it were just the occasional whack job it could be dismissed, but the abundance of unbridled crazy in Trump's naysayers makes me think that Trump must be on the right track.
Re: wonder why (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the sort of irrational behavior that makes me want to support Trump. How can I be in agreement with such irrationality? If it were just the occasional whack job it could be dismissed, but the abundance of unbridled crazy in Trump's naysayers makes me think that Trump must be on the right track.
So you're saying that you want to get back at these people by tanking the country. Brilliant.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
> Trump won't tank the country.]
How do you know? He's on all sides of practically every position - he hates outsourcing, but he outsources the manufacture of his branded clothing to mexico, china, honduras and bangladesh. [washingtonpost.com]
He says he's against H1B visas,then he's for them, then he's "changing," then he's against them again. [washingtonpost.com]
No one has a clue what Trump will do, what we do know is that he's skilled at innuendo and insults. Beyond that, no clue. And if you are one of those people who thinks that's a great qualification to be president, then you're just drinking kool-aid.
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Don't bother them with facts.
It's a scary strong man fascist charisma thing.
He lies 93% of the time when checked-- when questioned about a lie, he doubles down with an even bigger lie.
His supporters don't care if he is caught in a lie.
I'm really looking forward to Trump being the republican candidate.
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He has addressed the issue of having his clothes made overseas. He says the decision is to either make the clothes overseas or not at all. People won't buy clothes made in the US because you would have to charge much more. That's the point of protectionism and protective tariffs, they let Americans become more cost competitive.
With free trade if your skill set is such that a person living in a hut can do the same job as you then you are going to have to live similar to them to compete or have a welfare stat
Re: wonder why (Score:4, Informative)
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When the other choices are a Dominionist Christian nut-case who even other Republicans hate because he won't work with anyone, and an evil liar in the pocket of Wall Street and the prison-industrial complex who personally profits from arms sales, both of them being giant warmongers, then Trump is the only sensible choice. (Except for Sanders, of course, but the Dems are doing all they can to make sure Hillary gets the nomination.)
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the sort of unaccountable nobility that George Washington fought against for a bit of a closer idea than fascism but that isn't the full story either.
If this was a movie there would be shadowy sinister figures in a smoky room pondering who they could possibly run against Hillary if they wanted to make her look like the best choice - and then in a moment of inspiration one of them says "Trump".
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I could have sworn you were talking about Bill Clinton just then. Let's see... polarizing, charismatic, entertaining, slightly smarmy, any able to shrug off or even gain traction from any minor controversy, to the delight of his supporters and constant irritation of his opponents. I disagree that they don't have an ideology, as Bill Clinton definitely views the world from the left just as Trump comes from a right-leaning position, but they're much more centrist / pragmatic than people (on either side) ten
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Why, exactly, is that a good thing? Please go into detail.
Re:Here's why (Score:5, Informative)
Can anyone tell me why temporarily banning Muslim immigration from conflict areas is a bad idea? Seems like a common-sense approach to me.
A couple of points.
Most (all?) the recent terrorist acts in the west have been homegrown, not imports. For example the recent Belgium and French instigators were just common small time hoods who felt very alienated in their home countries and banning their kindred makes them feel even more alienated. Shit they weren't even particularly religious, which is why they went to ISIS rather the Al Quada. (ISIS don't care if recruits are very religious with many recruits just joining for money, important when there is no work)
It plays into the narrative that ISIS is trying to paint, namely that the west hates Muslims so lets go to war. Along with the west bombing them, starving them and screwing with their affairs, a ban just expands the hatred.
It is also leverage that the local authoritarian types can use to gain power. You just have to look at this election, which seems to consist of mostly extreme authoritarian types playing on fear.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can anyone tell me why temporarily banning Muslim immigration from conflict areas is a bad idea? Seems like a common-sense approach to me.
Three reasons:
1. It punishes many innocents over a fears of a very tiny minority over a frivolous distinction. The funny thing is, that's not the way we want to act when this sort of thing happens on US soil. In fact, one of the big arguments against reacting to attacks like these is that we should just play the odds because you're heaps less likely to die from terrorism than you are in your car on the way to work. Paying into this sort of fear is leaving LOTs people in need out in the cold.
2. Human bei
Re:Here's why (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the reasons others have already posted, plus:
You could, at least ostensibly, ban all immigration from those parts of the world, without regard to religious beliefs, but you cannot reasonably ban just Muslims. Beyond being pretty much impossible, it just isn't the right thing to do.
Re:Here's why (Score:4, Informative)
They may have been 'homegrown', but always children of recent islamic immigrants. One of the Belgian guys was not a 'common small time hood', he was a known terrorist nicknamed "the bomb maker", who was recently deported from Turkey, and had a warning issued about his terrorist activities by Turkey at that time (one wonders why he was out and about).
Whether or not they felt alienated is not known at this time, as is whether they were religious or not. They felt sufficiently religious, however, that blowing themselves up (and receiving the islamic reward of 72 virgins) was considered worthwhile by them. Finally, ISIS pays between $200 and $600 per month. Belgium social security is 834 euro/month ('leefloon alleenstaande'), so it is doubtful that financial concerns played into this.
So much for your 'facts', then...
Re:Here's why (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you are saying is that Muslims are so irrational and dangerous that if we don't let them into our country they will hate us and try to kill us? That doesn't help your case. If I'm not allowed in someones house or country I don't hate them I just find somewhere else to go.
Re:Here's why (Score:4, Informative)
>It violates our constitutional prohibition on establishment of a religion
You, like most people, are misunderstanding several parts of that line.
There's a Federal Constitutional ban on the establishment of religion.
1) Federal. Back when the US was first founded, the states & regions had official religions. That was a good thing. Didn't like the religion of your current state? Move to one do you like. It was a marketplace of faiths & ideas, and the federal ban was so that one flavor wouldn't be mandated on the whole country - like in good old mother England.
2) Establishment. This means the Federal Government advocating, promoting and enforcing a single official religion. It says nothing about banning particular religions, though that is against the spirit of freedom the country was founded. It also says nothing about the neo-atheist notion of "protecting" people from religion, which is a very recent idea and bears no foundation in any of this nation's documents and ideals. Nuts, the first 2 sentences of the Declaration of Independence cite God as the basis and authority for the document & founding of a new country.
All that to say that the establishment clause has no bearing on immigration. I believe that there is no constitutional basis for or against immigration or it's limitations, short of Congress having the authority to pass laws on how to regulate it.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
... And he'll give everyone a free pony! Trump is no puppet of the 1%. He IS the 1%, bringing you the lies you want to hear direct!
Operators are standing by, call now!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
THIS is why we should all be scared. Somewhere along the line, Americans stopped fearing the devastation that the LEFT is historically responsible for.
Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and the list goes on. Given enough leeway, the radical LEFT kills millions.
You're afraid of Trump? Don't be. Be afraid of the LEFT.
Who is silencing free speech on campus? Who is rioting and demanding rallies be canceled? Who is getting professors fired from their jobs? Who's calling for "muscle" to get pesky journalists removed?
I don't ca
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS is why we should all be scared. Somewhere along the line, Americans stopped fearing the devastation that the LEFT is historically responsible for.
Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and the list goes on. Given enough leeway, the radical LEFT kills millions.
You're afraid of Trump? Don't be. Be afraid of the LEFT.
Who is silencing free speech on campus? Who is rioting and demanding rallies be canceled? Who is getting professors fired from their jobs? Who's calling for "muscle" to get pesky journalists removed?
I don't care if you're a Democrat. Democrats are fine. But the rise of the radical LEFT is 100% not fine. Be afraid. This shit is not something we want to mess with, and it's rising fast. And the Democrats aren't doing nearly enough to silence the rabble in their ranks.
Historically speaking, this ends with lots of bloodshed. And historically speaking the LEFT will be to blame.
And the radical right had Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. Beware of extremists of either wing they won't tolerate opposing views and will attack their groups rivals.
The problem is the two party system coupled with a primary system pushes a polarizing on the politics. The primaries cause each party to push the most extreme candidate to get nominated for the election instead of a person that the majority of the country will actually like.
Re: wonder why (Score:4, Informative)
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Funny)
It makes just as much sense as women saying they are going to vote for Hillary because she has a vagina.
That makes those women sexiest, but they will never admit it.
Personally I find women with vaginas to be the sexiest, that's true.
Re: wonder why (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be clear: I voted for Ron Paul in 2008, and Barrack Obama in 2012.
I'm voting for Trump in 2016 because:
A) I think he is hilarious and don't want the comedy to stop
&
B) because I want to watch the Republican party burn to the ground after the way they treated Ron Paul in 2012.
If it were up to me: Hillary Clinton would nominate Ted Cruz as her VP and Donald Trump would Nominate Bernie Sanders and we could rebrand the Republican Party the "Antiestablishment Party" and the Republicrats would have a unity ticket called the "Establishment Party".
When liberals misconstrue my intentions as being "passions that have been inflamed by casual racism": they disarm themselves of their ability to counter my influence by fundamentally misunderstanding my motivations.
I don't support Trump because I hate muslims or black people... I'm on the #trumptrain because I want to see the world burn and I think Trump is crazy enough to light the match. Once you stop confusing my fatalist intent for ignorance, you'll be better equipped to dissuade me. I'm letting you in on the joke because it makes the inevitable punchline that much funnier if you saw the ground rushing up at you and were unable to stop it.
Until then, your trite assumption that my political preferences are born from ignorance or bigotry just further fans the flames of my conviction. It's a shame that Bernie is wasting his time on the Democrats. He would make a powerful ally.
So many people miss the obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Because I didn't say something about Trump being a saint I'm sure some loser will irrelevantly bring up Hillary. Personally I think Trump is about the only choice from the last fifty years of Republican history that would make Hillary look good in comparison (even Nixon and Ford look better, and I'm still pissed off with Ford taking a bribe from Indonesia in 1975).
Re: (Score:3)
He leads because:
1) For some bizarre reason, people think he cares about them.
2) For some bizarre reason, people think he isn't lying out his ass just to win a game.
3) For some bizarre reason, people think the office of the President is somehow enabled to achieve Trump's lies.
4) To paraphrase Einstein, "People are Fucking Stupid."
Re:wonder why (Score:5, Funny)
FIFY
Re: (Score:2)
OK, lets assume that Trump is in it purely for his own benefit. What agenda do you think he is going to push that is going to benefit him? He doesn't need money - he could pull out of the race right now and pay the bills with the change he lost in his couch. So what exactly do you think he's trying to do to benefit himself that he isn't already capable of acquiring on his own?
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What connections? What connections does a man who commands a net worth of 4 billion dollars actually need that he can't get on his own?
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What Trump excels at is being a business LEADER.
That's kind of what Bush was, too: a leader. He couldn't do it himself, so he tried to hire really good people to get the job done. When he was able to find good people (Petraeus), he did well. When he wasn't able to find good people (Rumsfeld), his presidency went poorly. He was at the mercy of his underlings.
And that is exactly the kind of president Trump will be. Except he'll build a beautiful wall.
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he'll build a beautiful wall.
Just like Obama did all the things he promised to do.
I think Trump will actually build the wall for the same reason Cesar built the Pantheon in Rome: he wants a monument to be remembered by. If he could, he would build it out of marble or travertine, but that might be a little out of budget for Mexico (also, I predict he won't have Mexico pay all of it, he'll have most of it paid out of our taxes, with a small contribution from Mexico, and then he'll brag about what a generous negotiator he is).
The wall is literally the central piece of his campaign: not
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he has the mind of a child and he's spoiled rotton. he gets his own way in spite of himself.
just what we do NOT need as president of the US.
Re:wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
...and that's why he's 100,000x richer than you will ever be, right?
Yes, yes, actually it is why. He inherited his money.
Re:wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
Not only did he inherit 40 million (in 1970s dollars) from his dad, he got to use his father's total fortune of 200 million as a guarantee for credit for his own businesses. Plus he had all the social and business connections that come with being born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
Those factors put his estimated net worth at 100 million in 1978. If he'd dumped that into a SP500 index fund he'd have 6 billion in cash today. The highest estimate of his holdings today is $4.1B (by Forbes), Bloomberg thinks his net worth is only $2.9B.
So, yeah, he pretty much inherited everything he needed to get where he is today.
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Trump is not a business leader. He's a brand spokesman, and in fairness he is quite talented at being that.
The thing is, his competition are all so empty that Trump looks like a statesman in comparison.
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If Trump somehow gets elected President I think he'll be very frustrated. A corporation is essentially a dictatorship and as the head of one you can make decisions and make them stick. The President, while having plenty of power can't force Congress to do anything. He can't force the Supreme Court to agree with him.
Re:wonder why (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of the things he wants to do, however, are things the president has the power to do. Deport illegals? Right now Obama is telling INS/ICE to not do their jobs. He can do that just by lighting a fire under their asses. Banning muslims? The law is already written that allows the president to ban any group of people he deems necessary from coming here. Renegotiating trade deals? That's a power of the executive branch of government. Joining with Putin to destroy ISIS? He'll be commander-in-chief.
Your point is much more valid for someone like Bernie, whose entire platform is a legislative agenda. All the stuff Bernie wants to do requires Congress to make deep, structural changes to our government and economic system. Half the stuff Trump wants to do can be done on day 1 in office.
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Oh great, so the sales people are becoming terrorists?
Globalization (Score:5, Insightful)
It turns out that lowering barriers to commerce increases competition.
This helps the guy who is buying the goods and services. Which mostly means whoever owns the company that uses or re-sells those services. It helps the 1% because they own the companies which profit by, for example, employing IT workers. It occasionally helps normal people, if the companies that are reselling or using the services are in tight competition, but mostly it helps the 1%--or in this case, the owners of Disney stock.
It hurts the guy who is selling the goods and services, at least in the markets with strong demand. That's why American Industry and the remaining small farms mostly disappeared--you could buy the stuff cheaper elsewhere, so people did. On the other hand, you can probably buy cheaper random-thing-X, so long as there is still competition among foreigners after the American producer went out of business.
Re:Globalization (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the free trade agreements were supposed to let us get our toys cheap. Instead, the prices kept going up, the quality went to shit, jobs are gone, and wages are stagnant. The only people to benefit are the middle-men who buy cheap, sell dear, and pocket the difference.
And it's naive to think the politicos will balk at destroying the domestic IT sector, after destroying everything else.
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The easy solution to fix many problems. All government spending must be localised, no tax payer dollars, not one cent to be spent on imported products or services, directly or indirectly. This maintains and protects a production base to build on. This is a fair and reasonable demand by tax payers, you take the money from tax payers, than it is only fair that the money you take is spent on tax payers. To many international corporations are cheating all over the place.
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So how would government buy their computer systems? Are there computer systems make 100% in the US - meaning every chip and component comes from the United States and is assembled here?
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It helps the 1% because they own the companies which profit by, for example, employing IT workers. It occasionally helps normal people, if the companies that are reselling or using the services are in tight competition, but mostly it helps the 1%--or in this case, the owners of Disney stock.
For people in the US it's been uneven, but for these people it's been a huge success [static-economist.com]. I'm ok with that.
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Don't you see? The curve just starts leveling off after Trump becomes president. We're doomed I tell ya! DOOMED!
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From America's leaders' perspectives:
Motivation to keep IT work in the USA:
1) Keep the US a competitive world power by retaining talent that is valuable in the current and future world market.
2) Keep local voters happy by giving them jobs.
Neither motivation is very strong. IT technicians represent a small voting demographic, so no political career benefits from pandering to them. USA's position in the world market is better maintained by forcing draconian copyright law on all other countries, so that Amer
The Future of Desktop Support... (Score:5, Funny)
If visa restrictions arrive, IT services firms may increase reliance on web-based "knowledge transfer" to avoid having visa workers at an employer's site.
If a computer need to be re-image, the user will have to FedEx the computer to India, wait three months for the computer to return, and find their PST file missing from Outlook. That should save a lot of money.
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No, your computer will already be in India and you will access it through the cloud.
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You could easily have one single tech (paid bottom dollar since their job is mostly inventory control) armed with 20+ network ports and 5 USB sticks reimaging hundreds of machines a day.
I did that for a PC refresh project at a hospital. Forty brand new Dells on a rack, a 48-port switch and five USB sticks to image over the network. I did 1,500 PCs and 3,000 monitors by myself for nine months. I was also paid bottom dollar as well, making $20 per hour when it should have been $25 per hour.
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The whole project could have netted you $35,000 for a day's work.
The contracting agency made a lot more than that for nine months of work.
Those Workers Exist (just not at wage slave prices (Score:3)
There are plenty of knowledge workers available. They're just not available at the wage slave mirage prices that corporate bean counters think they're getting.
If you cut off the supply of low cost imported labor, the market will adjust. Sure, some firms will just move offshore. That's cool. Some firms will pay more to fill spots from the legally available pool. That's cool too. And other firms will look for loopholes to fit somewhere in between. Those loopholes will vary in size between a needle and the Lincoln Tunnel depending on how aggressive the graft money flows into Congress.
Cut off the supply and let the chips fall where they may. The end result may be a boom in tech businesses that choose to do business where these cheap labor pools are available. Who knows....
Re:Those Workers Exist (just not at wage slave pri (Score:4, Interesting)
The end result may be a boom in tech businesses that choose to do business where these cheap labor pools are available.
Like manufacturing jobs returning the US because China is getting too expensive?
But despite what the rhetoric would have us believe, global manufacturing is trending in a positive direction for the U.S. Factory jobs are on the rise here, and many of these new jobs are coming back to North America from China, which is struggling to maintain its manufacturing capacity. Since March, 2010, when manufacturing employment in the U.S. hit a trough of 11.45 million jobs, nearly a million new factory positions have been created, most of them in the Southern states, particularly North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Better still, the jobs are typically good ones: across that same five-year period, average hourly manufacturing wages have increased over ten per cent, to more than twenty dollars. On the whole, U.S. manufacturing, as measured by the Purchasing Managers' Index, has steadily expanded.
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-donald-trump-is-wrong-about-manufacturing-jobs-and-china [newyorker.com]
Manufacturing requires a chain (Score:2)
So once you lose the manufacturing capability that has built up over decades it is very hard to get it back. Extra expense ove
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It's mostly new automated factories with few workers.
Obviously, workers are needed to fix the machines.
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Well...yes manufacturing is slowly coming back...but the jobs really aren't. It's mostly new automated factories with few workers. I wish that weren't the case though. It's not nothing, but it sure isn't everything.
Because the era of production lines with lots of factory workers is ending all over the world. Smarter, cheaper, more flexible robots are taking over just like the huge, simple industrial robots did some decades ago. Nobody's going to turn the clock back on that one, besides that's progress - making much more with fewer people. And to all that think we're running short of jobs, remember that most of the first world is struggling with a rapidly aging population, we need to support a larger population with a
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OK, I'll bite. If there are plenty of knowledge workers available, what are they doing instead? Twiddling their thumbs?
A lot of us are just working random contracts.
If they are working on the same field, either for themselves or a different employer, they are not really available.
Nah, I'm readily available for the right job.
Supply is still less than demand. Now, if programming paid like flipping burgers, and people somehow preferred to flip burgers to code, then sure, you could say that a call for H1Bs makes no sense.
But it does! And in order to pay like flipping burgers, they get H1Bs and then underpay them, and the H1Bs don't complain because they just go back on the boat if they do.
Increasingly Nervous Man (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder what all those currently hysterical people screaming about Trump being a Nazi and how all of tech is a sexist, bigoted, cesspit of male nerd privilege will do if Trump is actually elected on the back of the massive surge of US voter discontentment?
My guess is that the Hipsters will have their beards shaved off within 8 months and the 3 piece suit (and Trumplocked hair) will make a comeback likes it's nineteen-eighty-yuppie all over again. A word to the wise gentlement, the geeks, techies, and especially the gamers to have been on the receiving end of your bullshit all have memories like fucking elephants, so don't expect a medal for a change of heart.
If Hillary becomes president, I think our next election will end up being between Hilter and Mao.
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When did Slashdot become a haven for retarded Republican faggots?
When Slashdot got a corporate owner or two.
Re:Increasingly Nervous Man (Score:4)
Indeed, you should just dismiss anyone who uses the phrase "SJW" as a fuckwit.
Citation: AmiMojo's sig.
But HE bring in H1B Workers... (Score:2)
... through his modeling agency (Trump Model Management). From CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/10/news/trump-model-visas/)-
"Government data analyzed by Howard University professor Ron Hira shows that since 2008, Trump's agency has successfully brought over around 30 foreign models -- from countries like Brazil, Latvia and China -- using the H-1B program."
Seems a bit disingenuous to be courting the disgruntled in one industry while creating them in another.
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You're describing Hillary Clinton, the Democrat lock. It's hardly a criterion for distinction between the two candidates in the general election.
Let them leave (Score:2)
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Just go to Mexico and walk across the border.
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I am not a business owner or a blue collar worker. I like that I am able to buy a nice tv for a good price.
If the American public hated free trade so much, they could just choose to buy American, and refuse to buy foreign products. Nobody actually does that, because if given free choice people want better products for a better price. The role of government isn't to take away that option and force people to waste their money supporting/subsidizing Zenith.
Re:I've said this over and over again (Score:5, Insightful)
The role of government isn't to take away that option and force people to waste their money supporting/subsidizing Zenith.
No, but if our government is truly opposed to e.g. slavery, then it ought not to encourage trade with nations which use slave labor.
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Re:Big Picture (Score:2, Informative)
Sanders: Corporations are sending your jobs to China and Mexico!
Trump: China and Mexico took away your jobs!
Competition hurts good. The back bench of the whites-only-basketball-team shit their pants when the NBA integrated. Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals probably "disemployed" some back up pitcher.
The theory is that 300M Americans who buy $18 jeans are better off than 300M Americans buying $65 blue jeans. Because if unemployment now is 5% despite losing the USA 65$-jeans-making-jobs loss, that i
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The theory is that 300M Americans who buy $18 jeans are better off than 300M Americans buying $65 blue jeans. Because if unemployment now is 5% despite losing the USA 65$-jeans-making-jobs loss, that if the jeans jobs were STILL here we'd be screwed.
Yeah, the way I look at it, we're either going to have them making the things in Mexico, or importing the workers to America to work here. Better to let them stay home with their families.
Re:I've said this over and over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Sanders and Trump are the only ones actually listening to the American public.
Trump isn't listening to the public, he's pandering to the public.
I don't agree with Sanders' policies but at least he's self consistent.
Trump is just a snake oil salesman, depending on the good will of the American people. The same nice folks who voted for Bush Jr because he seemed like one of them, only to turn into one of the worst presidents in recent memory, blowing a trillion dollars in an unnecessary war (from the "fiscally responsible" party no less). Ditto with Trump, he's the likeable fellow who sells you a lemon at the used car lot.
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Sanders and Trump are the only ones actually listening to the American public. That's why these two are the only candidates getting huge crowds and generating big enthusiasm.
Unlimited free trade and open borders helps some Americans (stockholders and business owners) while hurting others (blue collar workers and offshorable white collar workers). As you can guess, the latter category is much larger than the former. Unfortunately those in power (doesn't matter which party) work exclusively for the benefit of the former and does not give a rat's ass about the latter.
I am praying, pleading with everyone. PLEASE vote for Bernie (if you're a Dem) or Trump (if you're an R).
Look closely at H1Bs. In the name of protecting American workers, it exploits foreign workers. There is a ridiculous mountain of legal work that needs to be done before a worker can come here and then stay here, all in the name of protecting the US worker. But, what does it do? It traps the foreign worker in a multi-year and even multi-decade long legal maze and temporary visa chained to the employer, the opposite of protecting the American worker.
If the foreign worker could come here and be free to work
Re:I've said this over and over again (Score:5, Interesting)
US foreign aid to Mexico, currently $560 million a year.
Wall cost, from $4 billion to $20 billion (John Oliver's inflated number). so between 8 and 40 years foreign aid to Mexico cut and you pay for wall. Reduce welfare given to illegals from Mexico and wall is paid for sooner. That is not raising taxes on US citizens a single cent, and making Mexico "pay for it". Typically budgeting at Federal level is done over 10 year period, so that gives Trump about $5.6 billion for a wall using GAO numbers, and a bit more if he can estimate welfare costs for them as well.
Mexico can go fuck themselves if they think the US protecting its own border is a bad thing. Their presidents talking that way on US television just makes the majority agree with the wall more.
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Spitefully cutting off aid we choose to give to help poor people is not the same as getting their government to pay for something it doesn't want to pay for. If you think we should be less charitable with our foreign aid, then just say so, but it's completely disingenuous to try to use the poor as a political pawn to coerce a foreign government into doing what you want it to do. Besides, if there's anything we've learned from the 20th century, it's that trying to coerce other countries into doing things the
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Because he posed for a picture with displaced workers?
You might want to know that Trump has posed for a lot of pictures with a lot of different people. If you're gonna base your support on that, you might want to take a look:
http://a.abcnews.go.com/images... [go.com]
Hillary and Bill also, so what's the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's go with the assumption posited so frequently by the press that Donald Trump called women Bimbos and Pigs. He never said 'All women are bimbos and pigs'. He said 'Rosie O'Donnel is a pig' and 'Megyn Kelly is a bimbo'. By this same logic, it could be said that Bill Clinton thinks all women want a cigar up their coochie, which explains a lot really.
Same thing with illegal immigrants. Trump never said 'All illegal immigrants are murderers, rapists and drug dealers'. Maybe that is what you heard, but in reality that is what he said Mexico is sending us. Along with some good people. There were good Nazis and good Communists and good Anarchists, Chumbawamba and Noam Chomsky I guess, but none of that matters. Being a nation of immigrants doesn't mean we have no system of immigration. We have had varying levels of control through out our history. Until now, where there is a system that is being completely ignored and subverted by Presidential decree.
The H1B stuff is more of the same. There is direct evidence of companies violating key provisions and except for social media and the press, not much is being done.
If nothing else, Trump running means the Democrats and about 1/2 the Republicans will never again be able to offer amnesty for a promise to build the wall. That ship has sailed.
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Before he said any of those things, there was already a long list of ugly things he'd said about women.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
People who speak in women this way have low character. They are nothing more than accessories to him. Hell, his wife gets her minks the same way minks
Re:no easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem for me isn't the H1-B workforce itself, but the terms of the H1-B visa that make it impossible for the employee (who is not the visa holder) to participate in the workforce. Since the visa is held by the employer and the terms don't give anywhere near enough time between the candidate accepting an offer and his would-be new employer being able to obtain their own H1-B visa for him, he's going to be forced to leave the country and won't be eligible to return to go to work. That essentially locks