mrken30

Who cares if we can compete, that was never mentioned. This is about American jobs. If we have to pay $12 a lettuce head, so be it.

scrubbedexpat099

What has a lettuce to do with mainly IT jobs?

petitefrancaise

really?

What is 'Wage-Price Spiral'
The wage-price spiral is a macroeconomic theory used to explain the cause-and-effect relationship between rising wages and rising prices, or inflation. The wage-price spiral suggests that rising wages increases disposable income, thus raising the demand for goods and causing prices to rise. Rising prices cause demand for higher wages, which leads to higher production costs and further upward pressure on prices, creating a conceptual spiral.

Pulaski

Inflation seems to be part of the history syllabus these days.

mrken30

You don't think lettuce suppliers, delivery companies, retailers, banks, seed producers and everyone else involved in the lettuce industry uses IT.

The world has evolved where 99% of industries use IT in one form or another.

mrken30

Inflation was back in the days when people used floppy disks

petitefrancaise

I'm surprising myself on the H1-B proposed changes. Admittedly, I'm not all that informed on that visa but a quick perusal of the BBC and the comments made by the Indian IT person ...
raising the minimum salary from $60k to $130K for an IT job doesn't seem unreasonable based on what I know my sophomore daughter is being paid for working at FB next summer and what her newly graduated boyfriend earns for his first job. Not going to do much for the above mentioned wage inflation though is it?

It seems to me that preventing companies from applying en masse for H1-B's is also not a bad idea.

Surely though, the tech companies will just employ more IT workers in other countries if H1-B becomes more difficult to get?

Pulaski

If you knew anything about IT you would know that although it impacts everything, the per unit overhead cost of IT is miniscule for most products.

Furthermore IT became omnipresent because it helped reduce costs e.g. manage the watering and provision of nutrients to the lettuce, manage harvesting and delivery to ensure delivery of fresh lettuce on the optimum day, etc.

mrken30

that's very true, but the H1-B system is used by more than just IT workers. Again each individual does not constitute a big price component of a product.

Engineers to develop new machinery and control systems.
Chemists to produce fertilizer and new seed strains.
There are probably more that I am unaware of.

With a 45% import tariff on chinese goods, IT systems and other equipment will become more expensive, who pays for this?

Also stopping migrant workers from picking crops will require more innovation in technology which may need H1-Bs

mrken30

IT jobs are easily off-shored and then they pay zero income tax, and the jobs are not based in the US

Pulaski

I have long thought that it would be better for the global economy, and for developing countries especially, if people were employed locally, where they live. America vacuuming up hundreds of thousands of poorer countries brightest young people isn't good for anyone - and especially not the countries they come from, because America is stealing their "brightest and their best", most likely their highest earners, their most creative, and contributers to society through taxes, thoughts and innovation. Not least, they are also likely the people most likely to push for reform, a more equitable society, and greater democracy.

mrken30

I agree with this is part. I also think that if people from overseas can learn on the job as if to say and take the skills back. That helps everyone to innovate new ideas. Necessity is sometimes the mother of invention and that varies from place to place.

scrubbedexpat099

That is often what H1b's are used for, come in learn the job so it can be offshored.

And obviously these sort of positions will net be high waged.

ian-mstm

It's an H-1B. Please use the correct term in future. No charge.

Ian

mrken30

Thanks, it's not something I spell very often or have been a user of.