[TriLUG] OT: PT One tech issue from tonight's debate

[Steve Litt]

I reassembled this as bottom posted so, to the extent possible, it
would be clear who said what...

On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:56:42 -0400, tj said:
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 11:40 PM, P L Charles Fischer
> <cfischer at modernferrotype.com> wrote:
> >
> >          So did you here Romney say no more H1B visas?
> >
> >          Not in so many words, but in effect he said that there
> > would be no need for H1B visas because he would allow anybody that
> >          had an accredited degree in a technical field to have a
> > green card. Here is the quote:
> >
> >          "people around the world with accredited degrees in --- in
> >          science and math get a green card stapled to their diploma,
> >          come to the US of A."
> >
> >          So what do you think?  Still thinking about wanting or even
> >          letting your kids get a science or other technical degree?
> >
> > If this is too off topic, sorry.
> >
> > -Charles Fischer

> I landed as a foreign student in U.S and had been in a long path to
> get  Permanent Resident(Green Card). it took  almost 6 years to get my
> green card after started my first official job.
> I saw many foreign student took  "technical" major in U.S. Some of my
> friend went back home  and some not.
> 
> as my view now:
> US still needs scientist and technical degree to compete with other
> world especially  coming from the east world.

I waited until four or so posts of this OT thread piled up. Now I'll
give my opinion...

With all due respect, TJ, you, people like you, H1-B's, Wipro and
Accenture are the reasons that, starting when they were 12, I told my
kids not to go into IT. Yeah, there's plenty of IT employment for the
best and brightest Americans under 45 who can work cheap when
necessary and have lots of time to throw at their employment, at least
in the current economy. But things get rocky in IT, and have been
getting rockier since our corporations' increasingly using immigrants,
H1-B's, and offshorers. In the 2002-2003 I knew skilled and experienced
developers flipping burgers, because it was that or foreclosure. And
foreign competition in our job market was a definite factor.

Why should my kids, and American kids like them, study tech, given the
fact that our corporations are doing everything possible to offshore or
H1-B our jobs? And if our kids don't study tech, how will we have a
native tech capability? If we are forced to fight a substantial war, how
will we maintain and advance our technology for the war effort? We won
WWII on our better technology, ability to make more weapons, planes, and
bombs. What if we had offshored all of that earlier?

How do you feel about unemployment compensation? If we continue to pay
it, we taxpayers pay every time a foreign worker displaces an American.
If we decide not to pay it, we'll regularly see displaced workers living
under bridges and dining at dumpsters. It's happened before, back in
the days before unemployment insurance.

I hear a lot of griping that Americans won't/can't fill modern American
jobs. Well yeah, look at the typical job ad today. No truthtelling
person could fill a lot of these jobs. Twenty years of AJAX, etc. You
know, there are law firms specializing in how to advertise your job in
such a way that no American will apply for it, so you can get a
cut-rate H1-B.

Earlier in this thread, Scott Chilcote did a good job of outlining the
various ways that unfettered foreign job competition in America would
favor the foreign workers. He mentions wage disparities between
nations, and he's absolutely right. I'm good, but I'm not ten times
better than someone with a cost of living ten times less than me who
works for 1/10 what I need just to keep a roof over my family's head.

One additional thing is that a lot of these free competition types seem
to advocate the US being the *only* industrialized country to completely
open its borders. Every time I travel to Canada to give a
troubleshooting class, their border guys give me a grilling as to
whether there exists a Canadian who can do what I do. Last time it
ended up with my purchasing a NAFTA work permit, allowing me temporary
but not permanent work, and I got that only because I've been fortunate
enough to acquire a college degree.

Which leads to my next question. The original post said, and I don't
know if this is true, that Romney said: "people around the world with
accredited degrees in --- in science and math get a green card stapled
to their diploma, come to the US of A." Now I ask you: If we're all so
almighty free market, and if our country's technologists believe so
fervently in meritocracy, why the artificial barrier of a college
degree? Especially when American college degrees are now so expensive
that many Americans will live with a college debt ball and chain for
decades? Why not let in a third grade dropout if he can write code? And
while we're at it, why don't we drop this stupid requirement for
college degrees for Americans too. College degrees today function more
as class warfare than anything else -- I've known lots and lots of
outstanding non-degreed developers.

Scott Chilcotte mentioned, but didn't delve into, older technologists.
If you're awake and know technologists over fifty, you know the obscene
age discrimination in the tech sector. You know one of the things that
allows employers to get away with it? A never ending supply of young
people, many of whom are foreign workers, or people working via wire
from Bangalore. Whenever the labor market tightens up, employers are
forced to forgo their sacred principles and hire people with gray hair.
We can't have that now, can we?

If you're a successful technologist, doesn't it feel great to don the
mantle of a self-made man, go Libertarian, and bombastically declare
that we should take in everyone wanting to work. The American work
ethic! Just keep in mind that India graduates what, 250K engineering
students per year? Yeah, by all means, open the floodgates, let em all
in. You and your kids better be pretty darn good to compete with all of
those, especially when, as Scott said earlier, many come for a few
years to live cheap and save lots of money, so they can afford to work
cheap.

They replaced tomato pickers with foreign workers, but I wasn't a
tomato picker, so I didn't speak up. They replaced fast food workers
with foreign workers, but I wasn't fast food, so I didn't speak up.
They replaced factory workers with foreign workers, but I wasn't in
manufacturing, so I didn't speak up. They replaced developers with
foreign workers, but I wasn't a developer, so I didn't speak up. Pretty
soon they'll send all the admin work to Bangalore, leaving one guy here
to push the power switch, and I'm in admin, and nobody is left to speak
up for me.

I hear a lot of technologists loudly proclaim their Libertarianism. Eric
Raymond certainly comes to mind. But you know what? Eric Raymond has no
children to support, at least none that he mentions on his personal
website. You know what? Getting employed, and staying employed, is a
lot less challenging without children. Free schedule. Plenty of time
for learning and late nite coding. Hugely less need for money,
meaning much more flexibility on wages. Very decreased health insurance
worries. Pure, 100% Libertarianism is a luxury many, especially fathers
and mothers of dependent children, can't afford.

Circling back to TJ's last point, which was: "US still needs scientist
and technical degree to compete with other world especially  coming
from the east world."

I couldn't have said it myself. And if we allow the US job market to be
fair to Americans, you know, just like most other industrialized
countries do, we have plenty of Americans who will come running to go
to school to fill those jobs. But Americans aren't fool enough to rack
up $70K of debt to compete for jobs that will increasingly go to
immigrants, H1-B's, and offshorers. And like I said before, wars
happen, and when that time comes, we'd better be a lot more
technologically independent than we are energy independent.

Hey, I didn't start this thread, and I held my peace for a good long
time.

SteveT

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