

America doesn't want your High Tech jobs - pentae
http://www.anybeat.com/public_square/4eb1cf5903605d76af0000fe/Politics/4f4a179adda88043e9001bd0

======
mirsadm
I am from Australia and currently in Canada on a work visa. It was so easy to
get (a 2 year visa) and have been enjoying living outside of Australia. Every
time I have looked into working in the US it is so difficult that I don't even
bother applying.

The funny thing is we also got a 2 year tourist visa for the US so we can
could travel around. It was such a painful process. You have to get there as
early as possible or you will wait for hours. My appointment was at 9am but I
got my visa at 11am. I arrived there at 7am. Once you go through security you
cannot leave otherwise you lose your spot. They don't have toilets there so
you're screwed if you have to go. I had to bring a gazillion documents proving
I could support myself and it was all so unwelcoming.

I have always felt uneasy travelling through the US. It is almost as if they
assume everybody is trying to smuggle themselves into the country to stay
permanently.

The US government needs to chill.

~~~
darxius
Sorry for not adding anything of intellect, but I couldn't agree more.

------
ChuckMcM
This is anti-obama / pro-republican propaganda. (Your first clue is the
mention of 'Obamacare' as a reason for not working in the US, the second is
'high corporate taxes' meme).

~~~
foobarbazetc
I upvoted you because this sort of thing shouldn't be anywhere near News.YC.

"owing to Obamacare"? Really? You mean employers weren't paying employee
health care before Obama?

You have to LOL at the reasoning in this article, and the poorly
reasoned/thought out tirade against "liberals".

Wait, you mean, Singapore created all these incentives ... because of Obama,
right?

The funniest thing about the "Obamacare" thing in this post is that the author
is actually arguing _for_ universal health care (guess what Singapore has? :).
You're essentially offloading your corporate health care costs onto the
government. Hehe.

~~~
simplefish
The point being made is that the health care costs in the US are very high.
The author editorializes that this is "due to Obamacare". Costs were high
before Obamacare, and they're higher now, and non-partisan projections (CBO,
etc.) indicate they're going higher still. How you want to apportion blame is
up to you - the _fact_ that costs are high is inarguable. So is the _fact_
that it costs jobs.

Also, you apparently don't know much about Singapore. Their (quite excellent)
health care system works by forced savings - it's not, in any way, "socialized
medicine" as the term is used in the US.

In fact, government spending on health care in Singapore is around 3-4% of
GDP. Government spending on health care in the US is approximately twice that,
as a share of GDP. So yeah, moving from the US system to the Singapore system
would be "offloading your corporate health care costs onto the government" if
by that you mean "transferring health care costs _from_ the government _to_
the private sector".

But please, don't let me get in the way of a good partisan food fight.

(And as for the "meme" that high taxes in the US aren't really killing jobs...
Let's see, unemployment in Singapore these days is around 2%. What's _your_
explanation?)

~~~
ChuckMcM
You make my point nicely.

You are correct that I don't know anything about Singapore other than what I
read in the press like the Economist and the CIA Factbook.

However I do know quite a bit about analyzing high tech enterprises, and the
creation of said enterprises. And that analysis is a bit more nuanced than
'health care is more expensive.'

The Singapore Statistics Office disagrees with some of your numbers [1] they
claim 4% unemployment. But it doesn't say what they spend on health care.

But lets say your ideal employee in Singapore cost your $70,000 USD / year. In
California you can get health care on an individual basis for $500/month for
most people, $1000 a month for older people (60+), and a lot less for young
healthy people. But lets say you spend $1000 a month. So that means a $12,000
per employee per year health cost penalty. Now 25 employees at 70K each is a
salary pool of $1,750,000. If you hire Californians at $70,000 and give them
each $12,000 for health care ($82,000 effective salary) then you can only hire
$1,750,000/$82,000 or 21 of them (and $28,000 left over in your pool)

So here is a different, but an important question. Can you achieve with 21
engineers in California what you can achieve with 25 engineers in Singapore?
(this happens to be an interesting number because for those of us who have
lived in the Bay Area for a few decades there is a saying that goes "With 20
people and a good idea I can change the world!")

I'm not trying to take anything away from Singapore, I'm sure its a great
place and everything I read says it has great infrastructure and a very
business friendly climate. What I'm saying is that using health care costs in
this way is not an effective reasoning tool with regards to a high tech
endeavor. Twenty technical employees who have already done a start-up or two
each are going to be hugely more productive getting a new endeavor off the
ground.

[1] [http://www.mom.gov.sg/statistics-publications/national-
labou...](http://www.mom.gov.sg/statistics-publications/national-labour-
market-information/publications/pages/report-labour-force-2010.aspx)

~~~
simplefish
Okay, first, a minor point: Unemployment has continued to fall in Singapore;
your link is for 2010, but it's lower now[1].

Next, let's assume you're correct about health care costs. There are still two
logical errors in your argument:

1) There are a _lot_ of differences between the US and Singapore. Health care
is only one of them; the original article listed several more. Even if you're
right that health care costs _alone_ only lead to a 16% advantage (which is
probably off by a factor of 3-4, given overall health care spending in each
country), don't forget all the other areas.

2) Not everywhere is the Bay Area. Perhaps the Bay Area can compete with
Singapore, but the Bay Area has a lot of unique advantages. Are we writing off
everyone not in the Bay Area? And don't say "oh, they can just move here"; the
infrastructure won't support it.

The original author wants to talk about Singapore and high tech jobs; you
picked only one of several differences which made Singapore attractive, and
then compared it to the most attractive region in the US. And even on that
basis, it looks a bit like a toss up.

Let's close by turning back to Singapore. As you admit, Singapore is much more
business friendly. And it has very enviable economic statistics. I already
mentioned the 2% unemployment, so let's look at GDP per capita. Using PPP,
Singapore comes in 3rd worldwide in 2011 according to the IMF[2], with a per
capita GDP of $60k - 24% higher than the US.

Remember that per capita GDP is a measure of the value added in an economy. In
concrete terms, those numbers mean that the average person in Singapore is so
productive that they can afford a lifestyle 24% nicer than the average person
in America. Your example tried to argue that Americans are so much more
productive than Singaporeans that you can cover the health care costs and
still come out ahead. The statistics say that on average, it actually the
Singaporeans who are more productive.

(Mind you: Singapore is small, and in many ways unique. I'm not suggesting
that it's possible or desirable to copy their model on the scale of the US.
Also, they have high inequality, and poor protection of civil liberties. I
suspect many Americans value their relatively low inequality and strong civil
liberties. And yet...repealing Obamacare and _properly_ reforming American
health care to be along more Singaporean lines would not obviously lead to
higher inequality or weaker civil liberties, and it is clear that it could
lead to a wealthier society and higher job growth. Something to keep in
mind...)

[1]:
[http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STI...](http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_761247.html)
[2]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

------
joejohnson
There's too issues here:

1) It is too difficult to gain citizenship in the USA. We should make this
process easier and attract people with high-tech degrees.

2) Our corporate tax rate is not too high. Think of all of the protections and
benefits that this tax rate can afford businesses and citizens in the US.
There are numerous examples, but we have a lot of public infrastructure that
Singapore does not because of our high tax rate.

