common

From my understanding the H1-B visa scheme was intended originally to address a labor/skills shortage and not to take away American jobs. If American jobs are being taken away then I agree it needs some sort of reform.

At my last job my Indian VP hired interns and sponsored H1-Bs for new grads, all 7 of them were Indian and seemed to already know him on a personal basis

chawkins99

My mom & dad both worked at the same steel company. Dad in the foundry, Mom in the lab.

When the company shut down, they were both made redundant (in their early 50's). My mom get a 'temp' office job that lasted 18 years. She was still working part-time at 70.

My Dad was made redundant 4 times in the next 5 years. Then worked in a job he hated for 10+ years just counting the days to retirement.

Despite all that, he was never out of work for more than 2 weeks.

Giantaxe

Although I agree that the H1B visa program needs reforms, it's unlikely to be a simple equation like that. You are assuming that there were 1/2 million Americans that were qualified to take those jobs. I doubt that's the case, and assuredly if companies can't hire equally-qualified Americans, many of those jobs will simply move to offshore development centers.

mrken30

My last company moved the majority of head office overseas almost 300 people instead of using H1B. So just stopping H1B visas wont necessarily save or create American jobs.

They are still an American listed company but now have more employees overseas than they do in the US.

jeepster

As it should be, we need to quit hiring third world workers and bringing them to the US. They need to stay and help develop their home country.

mrken30

Should American companies just move the jobs overseas? Is that what you are saying?

yellowroom

So why wasn't that tax revenue used to build more roads, schools, water supplies?

It's one of the frustrations I have with the arguments that blame immigrants for the over-crowding and lack of facilities. Governments (of all parties) have been too quick to point the finger and blame the immigrants, the other political parties, Mexico, the EU etc instead of accepting that populations in general are only ever going to increase and part of their job is to ensure appropriate infrastructure and downstream planning (eg not only build hospitals but also medical schools, pharmacy, nurse, technician training colleges and so on)

Pulaski

As an aside, that manifestly cannot be true. The earth, by some measures is already home to t2ice the population that it can comfortably sustain. Other estimates are that it is even more over populated. Because the tax revenue likely isn't sufficient.

A planned city expansion here in NC published figures for the increased costs to the city of serving people living in the added area, and also of the additional tax revenue. The net excesa of taxes over costs was budgeted at less than 3%, and that is assuming that the government services could be provided at budget cost, which seems unlikely in any case. .... The major problem however was that the capital costs of adding infrastructure to provide services that the newly absorbed city residents were entitled to was more than 40 times the gross tax revenue, or more than 1,300 times the budgeted excess of taxes over running expenses of the provision of services.

The only way out of this conundrum would be to raise taxes on the pre-existing residents of the city, so, as a local proxy for the national debate, surely you can see that raising taxes on your existing population to help pay for services for new immigrants isn't going to be popular. An example of this might be "our city sewage treatment plant is no longer adequate, we need to spend $xmillion in expanding it". If the reason is that the city has grown, then why should the cost of the sewage plant expansion be a burden on the existing citizens? The new arrivals caused the need. Ditto schools, roads, police, fire, etc. etc. etc.

yellowroom

"the apocolypse is coming" isn't much of a vote winner for anyone apart from Preppers. Otherwise, yeah, in the Western world governements from local to national should be forward thinking and planning for population increases.

Well, maybe the new arrivals ARE the new police, teachers, firefighters, car mechanics, dentists. Or even the children of the existing residents! It's called being in a society. By the same logic we'd still be relying solely on Victorian drains, railway tracks, telegraph lines, schools, workhouses and libraries in the UK, and have no motorways or internet. Fortunately our ancestors weren't so backward looking.

Pulaski

That's a circular argument when the need for those people is caused by increased population.

yellowroom

What's your solution? One in, one out? Waiting lists for eligibility for pregnancy until an elderly person dies? Chinese style control of fertility and family size?

In the entire history of the Western world, populations have increased, and population decreases are generally due to catastrophe (Black Death, war) and a bad thing! Decline of a city population such as Detroit shows it's the rich that get out of town leaving behind the poor and vulnerable. It's not revolutionary to suggest that governments that fail to plan for population increases are not doing their jobs properly.

scrubbedexpat099

So what is the end game plan?

What happened to global warming, pollution etc etc?

yellowroom

You asking me? Personally, bumbling along the best I can until the Grim Reaper catches up with me. Same as most I imagine.

It is perfectly possible for governments* to plan and act in more than one area - but unless you are going to stop people shagging and having kids the world over, or we have some kind of global disaster, populations are going to continue increase. We need to get our head out of the sand and start dealing with it.

*well, it is for non-US governments anyway. I still haven't worked out what it is about the US that makes their "civil service" so damned inefficient.

scrubbedexpat099

Isn't Immigration part pf planning?

mrken30

It's mainly uneducated populations that breed in excess.