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

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:54:24 -0400, tj said:
> Steve Litt..
> 
> I did not get the first job from the company that you
> mention(outsourcing company).

I know. You also have a green card, not an H1-B. What I said was that
the whole constellation of foreign competition for American jobs:
Greencard, H1-B, and offshoring, made me tell my kids to stay away from
IT. I've seen too many Americans less than 25 who couldn't get into the
game, too many Americans over 45 exiled from the business, with intense
foreign competition.

> I finished my degree  with my  dedication, got to work at campus as
> researcher/assistant,did homework, and did something for extra cash ,
> since I had to stand on my feet without/less support from my parents
> during my study.

I applaud that. I think your hard work and responsibility is mirrored
by a great many American students today.

> lucky... I did not have to pay tuition fee for my study.

You ARE lucky. Your lack of debt also put you at a tremendous
competitive advantage when you started out -- you could lower your
salary expectations, when advantageous, without defaulting on a loan
that cannot be erased even with bankruptcy.

> I saw many scholarships and assistantship in education world. where
> not many "American" try to embrace..

I'm sure you did. If you look around your environment, you'll see that
today's parents are a little too busy to pursue each and every
scholorship possibility, especially the remote ones. Today's parent
typically has multiple children, two parents working more than 40 hours
a week, a house with an underwater mortgage. They must regularly be on
the phone dealing with healthcare providers and insurance, their
mortgage company, the government, as well as various buffoons who make
a mistake that the parent must correct. They need to shepherd their
kids through school, many in bad neighborhoods where physically
resisting a physical attack can put the kid into the criminal justice
system, and that REALLY takes a lot of parental time. The idea that
American parents just don't bother to take advantage of scholarships is
just anti-American FUD. And oh yeah, people with the same stated
mindset as those wanting to open the floodgates to all competition are
also slashing funds from scholarship programs.

> 
> I need to mention, not many "americans" are interested in Sciences...
> moslty stay on business major....

That was exactly my point. Word is out about offshoring and H1-B's in
computer programming and engineering, and that in every recession,
Americans, especially Americans who can't temporarily lowball their
salary because they have dependents, get laid off for a long time. To a
greater or lesser extent this is true all throughout STEM, so why
should a kid choose STEM? He shouldn't. It makes no sense economically,
unless that kid is a STEM whiz kid.

If the playing field for American jobs is made more level, you'll see
American kids flood back to STEM.
> 
> I know those outsourcing companies abuse H1B... and other visa to
> bring "cheap" labor. Big companies do that too...

Yes.

> 
> I would say. when someone earn advanced degree in US, he/she should
> has priority to get PR  with his/her dedication.

I agree that such a person should get priority for permanent
residence, always assuming he paid full boat at the American school.

> and disagree to bring as many foreign labors from outside US without
> qualifications.

I disagree with it both with qualifications and without. As long as we
have unemployment compensation in America, displacing Americans costs
us all money. And if we eliminate unemployment compensation, we're
headed down a mighty scary road.

The other thing is, and I know I'm repeating what I said in my last
post, one man's qualifications are another man's "malarky". Personally,
I think college degrees are little more than class warfare, to eliminate
competition from smart people in poor families.

++++++++

I want to say one other thing. My ethnicity is not Native American. I
understand that I'm the product of immigrants, and have no right to
shut down access now that I'm here. I'm not saying we should completely
shut the floodgates, any more than we should completely open them. We
need sane immigration and work policies in order to incentivize American
kids to go back into STEM, with a realistic career at the other end of
their education.

My response in this thread is as much a response to the "Liberty
Fanboys" shouting damn the torpedoes, open borders for all tech workers,
as it is to H1-B and offshoring. I was a full time software developer
1984-1998, and it causes me no end of aggravation that my fellow
technologists, who deal with complex algorithms every day, can support
politics based on the oversimplified algorithm of "let the world
compete, let the winners rise to the top".

One final thing. Screw educational degrees. Employers' insistence on
degrees as an entry point saw in half the ladder of upward social
mobility, which, last I looked, was the spirit of the law for the
American Dream. I bless people like KhanAcademy and the makers of Anki
software. These people offer an alternative to the mandatory $100K
entry ticket to a career. And yes, I know Salman Khan is the son of
immigrants. Immigration works well if done in the right amounts.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
                          *  http://twitter.com/stevelitt
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