Posted on 04/20/2007 7:50:07 PM PDT by BnBlFlag
by Phyllis Schlafly April 18, 2007
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On the first day that H-1B visas became available, the corporations snapped up all that are allowed. Our government received 150,000 applications for the 85,000 slots set aside to bring in foreign skilled workers. The corporations whine that H-1Bs are needed because of a shortage of Americans with skills, but major studies at UC-Davis and Duke universities conclusively prove we have thousands of unemployed or underemployed Americans with all needed technical skills. Nobel economist Milton Friedman accurately labeled H-1Bs a government "subsidy" to enable employers to get workers at a lower wage.
The best way to deal with the demand for a limited number of H-1Bs would be to auction them off, so then we would find out if they are really needed and how much they are worth. An auction would enable the taxpayers to get some return on the H-1B subsidy instead of the current system which allows corporations to influence Congressmen with campaign contributions and pay high-priced lobbyists to get legislation to increase the number.
Contrary to corporate propaganda, H-1Bs are not an alternative to outsourcing skilled jobs but a vehicle to promote outsourcing. H-1Bs enable corporations to bring in foreigners, train them in American ways, and then send them back to guide outsourced plants in Asia.
For years we've been told that it's OK for our manufacturing jobs to be outsourced overseas because the United States will always keep the technology, engineering, innovative, service-industry and white-collar jobs. Even when service-industry jobs began to be outsourced, we were told, those are just low-skill tasks like answering customer inquiries.
It turns out that was all a lie. The high-skill and technical jobs are also rapidly moving overseas, especially to India.
Boeing now employs hundreds of Indians for aircraft engineering, writing software for next-generation cockpits and systems to prevent aircraft collisions. Investment banks like Morgan Stanley are hiring Indians to analyze American stocks and to write reports for institutional investors, jobs formerly done by Americans earning six-figure salaries on Wall Street.
Eli Lilly is doing major pharmaceutical research in India. Cisco Systems, the leading maker of communications equipment, will have 20 percent of its top talent in India within five years, and global-consulting giant Accenture will have more employees in India than in the United States by the end of this year.
I.B.M. reduced its American work force by 31,000 while increasing its Indian staff to 52,000. Citigroup, which already has 22,000 employees in India, plans to eliminate 26,000 jobs in the U.S. and increase its Asian work force by another 10,000 where the pay is lower.
Follow the money, of course, explains this massive shift in jobs. It's cheaper to hire and produce in India than in the United States.
The unhappy results of these policies are now apparent; they richly benefit the corporations but are devastating to the American middle class. Outsourcing reduces good American jobs, our standard of living, our national security, and our world leadership.
This massive change in our economy should be front-page news, but you have to look on the lower half of the inside pages of pro-globalism newspapers like the New York Times to find the facts. It was a real surprise when the Wall Street Journal (always a big supporter of free trade, globalism, and open borders) published a front-page article called "Pain from Free Trade Spurs Second Thoughts."
This article reported that one of the most prominent advocates of free trade, Professor Alan Blinder, now says that free trade can put 30 to 40 million American jobs at risk, mostly from outsourcing.
Blinder is one of America's most influential economists. A professor at Princeton University with a Ph.D. from MIT, he is a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and adviser to several presidents. For years, he has been peddling the notion that free trade enriches the United States.
Professor Blinder just got around to looking at the facts, and the facts changed his views. He ranked 817 occupations to identify how likely each one is to go overseas.
The most vulnerable jobs are bookkeepers, accountants, computer programmers, data entry keyers, medical transcriptionists, graphic designers, and financial analysts. Blinder now says that the millions of American jobs that have already gone to Asia are "only the tip of a very big iceberg."
Dr. Blinder is not the only prestigious economist who is having second thoughts. Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson, who wrote the principal textbook used in university economics classes, is also now criticizing globalization and admitting that rich countries aren't always winners from free trade.
Most of the Democrats who won in November 2006 talked a lot about the issue of jobs, while the Republicans who lost kept mouthing the tired old mantra that globalism is both good and inevitable. Republicans can't win the White House in 2008 without Pennsylvania, Ohio or Wisconsin, all of which have lost thousands of jobs to outsourcing.
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Indeed, I just posted elsewhere that a U.S. official over in Beijing actually admitted that their tuitions only cover about a quarter of the costs of those schools...and BILLIONS of dollars further were being extended in grants and scholarships to foreigners by them...
All for the sake of "diversity".
The connection to a communist plot behind the PC/Diversity gimmick...designed to undermine American nationalism, unity, cohesion, power, patriotism, etc... seems pretty apparent.
ping
“U.S. Multinationals” are simply “International” corporations with allegiance to whatever government enables them to reap the highest profits.
I see them as simply whores who “love” the patron with pockets that are bulging with money. They only “like” the patron who is on a budget.
The “research offices and labratory’ are placed where the best brains are located. The “International” corporate headquarters are in the nation with the lowest corporate taxation levels. The assembly plants are located where the cheapest labor is available. Advertising and sales headquarters are in the country with the highest sales. All of these offices and assembly plants are designed to be quite mobile. Patriotism is designated to profits levels.
All of that makes good financial sense to me. What bothers me is that our politicians are thinking the same way and are doing everything they can to be seen as worthy of political contributions from these whores.
Very interesting. Thanks.
They can easily go off shore and gain tax breaks.
Fine. They can pack up and leave and get the People's Liberation Army to defend their property and profits. Or maybe the cute little Blue Berets of the UN.
And since Mr. Leskar of Halliburton now prefers the scenic deserts of Dubai to the piney woods of Houston, let him make a deal with his Islamic brothers to have the Green Headbanded Ones defend his assets in Allah-Land. As far as those assets here, we'll just take them back and give them to someone who gives a crap about our nation.
>Our country is disintegrating before our eyes both economically, and socially.<
Where are the entrepreneurs to start new companies which do not go global? I think this is essential for saving the middle classes, thus our great nation.
Patriotis is for individuals, not global corporations. We can certainly do things to ensure that they don’t sell military technology to hostile countries but if we are going to tax them for employing US citizens then take their profits all the while adding regulations that hurt their prospects just to pander to special interest groups then why do they owe the country?
Fair to say that they gave at the office.
>Republicans can’t win the White House in 2008 without Pennsylvania, Ohio or Wisconsin, all of which have lost thousands of jobs to outsourcing.<
Then Duncan Hunter had better address those concerns in person in each of those states, post-haste. He is the candidate who understands this problem, and has the vision to correct it, with God’s help. It is time new companies are formed to compete with those who have gone global. Jobs will be created, Americans will again be able to buy American!
>As Duncan Hunter has said of the “U.S. Multinationals”, they are now simply Chinese firms.<
Right, greedy former American corporations have built China into a world power. And CHINA IS NOT OUR FRIEND.
>I would like to admit skilled workers to the US, particularly if they wish to become citizens.<
If we cleaned up our schools, and taught like we used to teach, discarding all the dumbing down, and indoctrinational methods, we would not have to import skilled workers. There was a time when we had the best skilled workers at every level in the world. The problem lies with the schools!
Tell me again where it is written that companies based in the US are mandated to hire US workers? Oh, I know, it’s right there with the mandate that says that you have to buy goods produced here in the US.
Tell the rest of us out there how many items in your house are 100% US built or use 100% US labor.
I think you should be willing to show us your Union card so we can see which outfit you belong to. UAW perhaps?
Oh wait...you live in Virginia, no?
Methinks I smell a Tax Consumer.
Where do you get the idea that it's cheap to hire an H1B?
My point was that Michigan has lost thousands of jobs to other states, not just foreign countries. What's the answer to that, "buy Michigan?"
Okay. I reread your post #15. Could it be that the greedy companies moved to Southern states because they liked paying illegal aliens less? Or is it because Southern states are easier on companies in other ways? And what ways would those be that the Northern states could not compete with?
Right, no illegals in Michigan. LOL!
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