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America, Wake The Hell Up
The Market-Ticker ^ | May 5, 2015 | Karl Denninger

Posted on 05/04/2015 4:49:59 AM PDT by SatinDoll

Folks, there is exactly one way you're going to put a stop to this sort of nonsense:

At the end of October, IT employees at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts were called, one-by-one, into conference rooms to receive notice of their layoffs. Multiple conference rooms had been set aside for this purpose, and in each room an executive read from a script informing the worker that their last day would be Jan. 30, 2015.

Some workers left the rooms crying; others appeared shocked. This went on all day. As each employee received a call to go to a conference room, others in the office looked up sometimes with pained expressions. One IT worker recalls a co-worker mouthing "no" as he walked by on the way to a conference room.

Disney, like so many other firms, apparently has been moving many of their high-paying IT jobs effectively offshore -- in many cases demanding that current employees train replacements that then come in and take over. Those replacements are H1b immigrants, frequently from India, where they obtain subsidized schooling and, of course, come from a land where the cost of living is a tiny fraction of what it is here.

These moves are often disguised as "outsourcing" to consultant outfits and similar that do the actual hiring, or as is often the case with call centers and similar the entire operation is moved offshore. In either event the result is the same: Good paying American jobs are lost to foreigners.

This has been going on now for well over a decade; I saw the start of it back before I stood up MCSNet, but the trend has accelerated greatly. Effectively, if it can be offshored it will be in some fashion, exploiting the wage disparity between nations.

You can argue all you want about lifting the living conditions in these other lands but doing so comes at our expense. Even so-called "American" companies like General Motors and Ford have effectively offshored huge percentages of their car manufacturing through their supply chains and where the pieces that go into the cars come from.

We, the people, have permitted this. We in fact fund it every time we buy products and services made by companies that do this. While today there are no alternatives left in many industries that do none of it we can stop buying goods and services from the worst offenders and by doing so pressure firms to bring home their manufacturing -- and jobs.

As an example Apple both sources virtually everything that goes into its iPhone and iPad products from Asia and assembles there too. If you care about American jobs you cannot buy Apple products -- period. Likewise, Disney is not a "need", it's a want, and if you care about high-paying American IT jobs don't go to Disney parks.

There is only one way to stop this crap and that's when you, the American consumer, refuse to buy from the worst of these firms and press the advantage when someone pops up to assemble products and employ workers here in America. As soon as that pressure is applied someone will step up and seize market share.

It starts with you folks; you either care about the future of this country and both your job and the job that your kids will (or won't!) have, or you don't. You either put a stop to this through the pressure of the market or you not only ratify you accelerate this trend by buying an iPhone, iWatch or iPad and going to a Disney park.

Economic suicide is a choice.

Choose wisely.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: corporatewelfare; employment; h1b; h1bvisas; offshore; outsourcing
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Defeat TPP in Congress, and stop buying the lousy stuff manufactured in China. The solution is real simple.
1 posted on 05/04/2015 4:49:59 AM PDT by SatinDoll
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To: SatinDoll

I have made a good living FIXING software that had been previously outsourced to India


2 posted on 05/04/2015 4:53:31 AM PDT by Mr. K (Palin/Cruz - to defeat HilLIARy/Warren)
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To: SatinDoll

The transformation will be complete when the ChiComs buy Disney - using our $$.


3 posted on 05/04/2015 4:53:52 AM PDT by tgusa (gun control: hitting your target.)
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To: SatinDoll
What is the cap for H1B visas for 2015? Any idea? since that's what this article is about.

/johnny

4 posted on 05/04/2015 4:54:38 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (gone Galt)
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To: Mr. K

I believe you.

One of the comments at the site was from a man who had been sent to Mexico to train some of his replacements. The stuff made by the Mexicans tended not to work, and the company (in Wisconsin) had to employ people to fix the non-working stuff from Mexico!


5 posted on 05/04/2015 4:57:12 AM PDT by SatinDoll (A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN IS BORN IN THE US OF US CITIZEN PARENTS.)
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To: JRandomFreeper

That is a good point: I do no know. Anybody reading this, please supply the H1B visas for this year if you know the number.


6 posted on 05/04/2015 4:59:31 AM PDT by SatinDoll (A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN IS BORN IN THE US OF US CITIZEN PARENTS.)
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To: Mr. K

I made a living editing reports that had previously been sent to India.


7 posted on 05/04/2015 4:59:41 AM PDT by gattaca (Republicans believe every day is July 4, democrats believe every day is April 15. Ronald Reagan)
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To: SatinDoll
The government is why you can't compete.

Wealth-producers in the US face the highest corporate tax rates, the most byzantine and arbitrary regulatory burden and the most pernicious legal vulnerabilities found in any country on earth.

See for instance: Burger King, Gibsons Guitars, the water industry in California or coal mining anywhere.

American wealth-producers also have to compete with Government arbitrarily interfering in the market, picking winners and losers. I'm thinking here of General Motors and Solyndra.

The solution is less government and less regulatory overburden.

8 posted on 05/04/2015 5:07:29 AM PDT by agere_contra (Hamas has dug miles of tunnels - but no bomb-shelters.)
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To: gattaca

>>I made a living editing reports that had previously been sent to India.<<

That is a cottage industry. I work with a combination of H1B and Indians (call center, not casino) who have become American citizens who can’t put together a sentence, much less a paragraph.

Management just overlooks it since they still get paid a lot less than people born here in the USA who went to college here.


9 posted on 05/04/2015 5:10:47 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (As long as there is inequality of ambition, there will be inequality of wealth /dfgator 4/29/15)
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To: SatinDoll

The cap is 85,000. 20,000 is reserved for Master degrees or above.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/13/technology/h1b-cap-visa/


10 posted on 05/04/2015 5:15:49 AM PDT by Joe Miner
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To: freedumb2003

It’s depressing, isn’t it?


11 posted on 05/04/2015 5:21:39 AM PDT by gattaca (Republicans believe every day is July 4, democrats believe every day is April 15. Ronald Reagan)
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To: SatinDoll

The Republicans have no interest in fixing this.


12 posted on 05/04/2015 5:22:19 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country.)
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To: Joe Miner

Thank you very much.


13 posted on 05/04/2015 5:27:03 AM PDT by SatinDoll (A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN IS BORN IN THE US OF US CITIZEN PARENTS.)
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To: SatinDoll
Denninger makes a common mistake here by looking at this issue simply in the context of trade and jobs between the U.S. and our foreign trading partners.

The reality here is that the U.S. has slowly been diminishing on the world stage as an economic power. Our own internal decline is only a small part of the problem. The bigger issue is that there are a lot more people living outside the U.S. than inside the U.S. (96% of the world's consumers are not Americans), and as time goes on these other countries pay less and less attention to the U.S. as a market anyway.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I don't think there's a way out of this that anyone in the U.S. is going to like.

14 posted on 05/04/2015 5:28:44 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("It doesn't work for me. I gotta have more cowbell!")
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To: SatinDoll
Easier said than done. Everything today is Made In China. It is almost impossible to find any product Made In America.

Last week we had a freak microburst storm that tore my flag pole out of the ground and bent it up. So I went to Lowe's to buy a new one. On the box in big letters it read Flag Made In America. I should have known better. When I got home and assembled the pole and installed it in the ground, I noticed, in fine print on the back of the box, Made In China.

At least our nation's flag was manufactured in the right country.

15 posted on 05/04/2015 5:35:03 AM PDT by HotHunt
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To: SatinDoll
I was replaced by younger foreigner software engineers who were willing to work for less.

It took over a year and a half but I found a job that paid 1/3 as much and that I liked 3 times as much.

16 posted on 05/04/2015 5:36:05 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (God is very intollerant, why shouldn't I be?)
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To: SatinDoll
The http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-reaches-fy-2015-h-1b-cap-0

government report seems to say only 65K general cap.

I was wondering about a breakdown to see how many are actually affected. Real numbers help me make good decisions.

/johnny

17 posted on 05/04/2015 5:43:41 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (gone Galt)
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To: Joe Miner

1 million legal immigrants, plus 700,000 green cards per year.

Stop ALL immigration now!


18 posted on 05/04/2015 5:44:49 AM PDT by subterfuge (Minneseeota: the laughingstock of the nation - for lots of reasons!)
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To: agere_contra; dragnet2

Over-regulation and taxation have nothing to do with allowing H1-B workers to come in to this country and take jobs away from Americans. Nothing, zero, nada, zip.


19 posted on 05/04/2015 5:47:31 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: SatinDoll
Alan Grayson: No to Fast Track, No to Trade Treachery
20 posted on 05/04/2015 5:50:04 AM PDT by Wolfie
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