

Do Immigrant Engineers Depress Engineer Wages? - adg
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/12/immigration_and_wages_the_case_of_software_engineers.html

======
luu
There's a large body of work from economists in this area. My impression is
that the answer seems to be that the effect on high-skill workers is positive,
and the debate is over the magnitude of the positive effect. But, even putting
that aside, it seems to me that it's hard to make either a practical or a
moral case for restricting immigration of engineers more tightly than we do
now.

First, the practical case: when I was in college (2000-2003), none of the
Indian or Chinese people wanted to get a job back home. And, they were some of
the best people in school: the more advanced the class, the smaller the
proportion of native born Americans; graduate level classes were mostly full
of foreign-born students, and most of the top of the class consisted of
foreign-born students. The U.S. didn't let most of them stay in the country,
forcing them to go back home. If you take a bunch of smart people, and force
them to live in their home country, they aren't going to go dig ditches;
they're going to start industries. Those industries have done so well that
many of my classmates (and others) who have spent time working in the U.S.,
and have a legal right to work here, want to go back home. They, naturally,
want to be near their families. A decade ago, there wasn't enough industry to
find a job that was both interesting and well paid. By forcing the people who
wanted to stay here to go back home, we've forced them to create good
companies, and hence, good jobs.

And then there's the moral case. This is less relevant for high-skilled
workers now, due to what's happened above, but it still applies for many
countries and most industries [1]. If we reduce the wages of engineers in the
U.S., we're reducing the wages of a relatively well off group in one of the
richest countries in the world. We're talking about reducing the wages of
someone who is, on a worldwide scale, in the 99th percentile. If we let
someone in from a poor country, we're increasing the income of someone who
might be below the 50th percentile into the 99th percentile. It's awfully hard
to make a case that we should be enriching the richest people in the world at
the cost of the poorest.

[1] Total factor productivity [2] in the U.S. is so high that unskilled
Mexican laborers become three times more productive when they cross the
border, and, globally, Mexico is one of the richer countries in the world.

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_factor_productivity>

~~~
rayiner
> If we let someone in from a poor country, we're increasing the income of
> someone who might be below the 50th percentile into the 99th percentile.
> It's awfully hard to make a case that we should be enriching the richest
> people in the world at the cost of the poorest.

It's not hard to make that case at all. Indians and Chinese prospective
immigrants are not part of the American body politic. The American government
has no duty to benefit them at the expense of Americans, and indeed I'd argue
that it's morally wrong for the American government, instituted to protect
American interests and American prosperity, to make that trade off regardless
of the relative wealth of the people involved.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Using that same logic, it's not hard to make the case for imperialism. If the
sole goal is to benefit Americans at the expense of others, why not steal
everyone's natural resources and use them for our own benefit?

~~~
rayiner
One bit of conventional wisdom that I find interesting is the belief that what
was responsible for American prosperity post-WWII was the fact that Europe was
devastated and the U.S. was the undisputed industrial superpower. To the
extent that theory is true (and I'm not saying it is or not, I don't have
enough of a grounding in economics to say)--doesn't that suggest that the
rational course of American policy should be to bomb India and China instead
of trading with them? People trot out this idea all the time, but nobody
really thinks through the implication...

My point isn't that the U.S. should be imperialist. I don't think it should
be. There are lots of good, practical reasons to not just go around bombing
everyone, namely that it's an expensive game of "king of the hill" in the long
run. But in my mind the idea that we have some greater moral obligation to
humanity is not one of those reasons. The American government is instituted to
secure the prosperity of Americans. That is the beginning and end of the
purpose of its existence. The only moral obligations binding upon it are those
that reflect the will of its constituency. If the U.S. refrains from
imperialism the only reason it should do so is because Americans want to be
peaceful, not out of concern for the well being of non-Americans.

It should be noted that, China doesn't subscribe to any such silly notions. If
they thought they could get away with bombing us to cripple our infrastructure
and that doing so would increase their own prosperity, the Chinese government
would do it in a heartbeat.

~~~
eurleif
So, just to be perfectly clear: you don't believe that people have any moral
obligation not to murder each other. But they _do_ have a moral obligation to
follow contracts (the government's contract to do what the people want).

~~~
rayiner
I don't believe in any super natural bases for morality,[1] so I believe that
morality arises out of the social contract. Given that, it makes sense to talk
about the moral obligations of individuals within a society to each other, but
not to talk about one society's obligation to another.

[1] Not just religion, but things like "natural rights" are really
supernatural conceptually.

~~~
davidw
This is a repeat of the other day's conversation (and about 1343243243232
other similar conversations on the internet, which is why we ought to get rid
of political articles), but like hell will I "not talk about my obligations"
to other human beings that happen to be born with some other passport.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5533155>

Edit: looks like someone is sinking these articles off the front page. Good
call!

~~~
rayiner
What do you think is the basis for your obligations to humans that you don't
share a government with?

~~~
davidw
I'm not much for philosophy, so something simple along the lines of believing
that I should leave the world a better place than I found it, and there's no
reason that should be limited by borders, ethnicity or much else. Also, the
idea that I have _no_ obligations to people who are just like me but don't
have the same passport is chilling and disturbing in its implications.

Borders are pretty arbitrary things in a lot of cases. There are probably
still a few very elderly people alive in the Sud Tirol region of Italy who, as
infants, found themselves to be Italian citizens despite not having moved a
mile, because Italy managed to beat Austria in WWI. Linguistically, and
culturally, they are Austrians in that region (or, in some of the high
valleys, Ladin speakers, if we want to start getting into details), and many
of them don't really identify with Italy to this day.

------
trustfundbaby
This really is a no brainer, if you have the best and brightest coming here to
work, then its only going to make everybody in the industry better as
everybody has to raise their game to compete, as long as these workers don't
flood the market (which the h1-b quota does a good job of keeping in check)

The problem is with some of the foibles of the h1-b visa. H1-b workers cannot
compete in the job market the way an American worker can, because to get the
h1-b the hiring company has to fork over almost $5k to the govt, to transfer
to a new job, the hiring company has to pay $3k (I think), every 3 years the
hiring company has to pay another $1k to renew the visa, and at the end of 6
years the hiring company has to start a green card application which costs a
lot of time, money and resources IN ADDITION to the renewal fee (again).

Because of that, the hiring company wields extra-ordinary power over the h1-b
worker which means that h1-b workers _can_ be used to artificially depress
wages.

The fix for this isn't all that complex. keep the h1-b as it is (complete with
the yearly quota, which should be adjusted according to demand), and give a
green card to the worker AUTOMATICALLY after 2 years, so that they're free do
as they please in the market and see what happens.

Engineers know what they should be making and if anyone tries to underpay
their workers, they'll have to contend with the fact that they'll be gone in 2
years, at which point they have to seriously ponder if it wouldn't be cheaper
to actually train/hire an American to do the job. This would stem the problem
of bodyshops bringing in immigrants and underpaying them for donkey years
while profitting richly off their labor, and companies who'd apply for h1-b
workers would actually need them and pay them fairly.

~~~
pbiggar
> The problem is with some of the foibles of the h1-b visa.

H1B worker here. I think what you describe is actually completely offset by
the strong demand for engineers. The cost of a H1B, which is as you say $5K or
so (though its the same to transfer), is tiny in comparison to salaries, and
also relative to recruiter fees (which can often be $30K). The only common
reason companies don't do H1Bs is the hassle, and even then it's not that big
a deal for any funded or profitable company.

There is really no power over the H1B at the moment. There was during the bust
following the dot com boom, and you'll always find unscrupulous employers, but
I have literally zero worries about this. One employer did try to change the
deal for me, but it took me literally 5 days to find a new job. In an economy
like this, there is no danger.

However, that's not to say your fix wouldn't be welcome (esp if a bust comes
around again). I don't see it happening though, given both the aims of the H1B
and the green card programs.

A final correction: you're not allowed contract out H1B workers. That's not to
say it doesn't happen, and there is one big company with a reputation for this
(infosys? I dont remember), but your final line is hyperbole.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> The only common reason companies don't do H1Bs is the hassle, and even then
> it's not that big a deal for any funded or profitable company

That was not my point though ... I was trying to say that while all this is
being done for the worker, that worker is beholden to the company doing all
this on their behalf. Which allows the company take liberties with their wages
that they could never even dream off with an American.

> There is really no power over the H1B at the moment

I agree, up to a point. At your 6 year mark, where the green card has to be
filed for you to stay in the country. You are vulnerable, as it essentially
makes it impossible for you to move for almost a year, getting canned at that
point can also cause you untold grief. I also base this sentiment on some of
the horror stories I've heard from h1-b workers at some of the body shops
around the country.

> but your final line is hyperbole Again, we disagree. If I can hire a guy for
> $60k on the h1-b when the going rate is $90k, guess who's winning? Yes I
> know there is a concept of a prevailing wage, used in the filing, but those
> rates are ridiculously low.

~~~
pbiggar
> I was trying to say that while all this is being done for the worker, that
> worker is beholden to the company doing all this on their behalf.

Not at all, because there are thousands of other companies will to do this
too. Its a sellers market, and engineers can literally get a job with a week's
notice (plus maybe 2 weeks to get the visa sorted out).

> At your 6 year mark, where the green card has to be filed for you to stay in
> the country.

Green cards take time and should be planned years in advance. Don't work a H1B
job without negotiating Green Cards.

I agree there is a time where you are unable to move during this time. I don't
believe that good companies are going to mistreat their employees during this
time. Similarly with your last point, the prevailing wage is irrelevant
because there is high competition.

> horror stories I've heard from h1-b workers at some of the body shops

I think we disagree because we're coming from different perspectives. I think
you're looking at the body shops (which account for half of the H1Bs) and
where everyone has heard horror stories. Those H1B employees might believe
they are beholden and stuck, but the truth is they are not. Move out of New
Jersey, come to SF and you'll find the streets paved with great working
conditions and employers who pay and treat you right.

~~~
rdouble
Most "body shop" employees are doing stuff that is irrelevant to employment at
innovative Silicon Valley companies.

~~~
ktsmith
I'd really like to see it changed so that consultancies are not eligible for
H-1B visa application. This would eliminate the body shops pretty quickly.

------
pbiggar
Immigrant engineer here. Do immigrant engineers depress wages? Of course.
Trivial supply and demand (and I'm surprised to see a supposed economics blog
make unintuitive assertions without providing any evidence). You can already
see wages rising rapidly as a result of the already low supply of engineers.
Kids coming out of Stanford are getting 6-figure offers at Google. If there
were less engineers, lots of companies wouldn't be able to hire at all,
leading to no option but to increase their offers to attract talent.

But the thing this article got wrong (which is the same mistake made by
anti-H1B articles) is asking the wrong question (though it touched on it at
the end). Is it better overall with immigrant engineers? Is the economy
better? Are companies able to do better (therefore providing more taxes) as a
result, or able to build better things (such as the google car or glasses)?

Finally, I'll note that moving to the Bay Area does not necessarily result in
5x salary, but even when it does, it doesn't result in 5x standard of living.
If I had stayed in Dublin, I'd be on a similar salary (maybe 20% lower), but
I'd be earning over 3x the average salary and so be able to have a much higher
relative standard of living. The downside of living in SF with a good salary
is that everybody has a good salary.

~~~
patio11
_The downside of living in SF with a good salary is that everybody has a good
salary._

n.b. While this is true about many people in our social circles, this is not
broadly true of San Franciscans. About 15% or so of households are below the
poverty line. Another 35% or so have household incomes which are meaningfully
less than what AmaGooBookSoft pay for college interns.

~~~
rtpg
[http://www.zdnet.com/in-the-shadow-of-silicon-valley-
poverty...](http://www.zdnet.com/in-the-shadow-of-silicon-valley-
poverty-7000013619/) recent article on poverty in Silicon Valley

------
patio11
If foreign-produced flaxseed oil costs 20% of US-produced flaxseed oil, and is
imported in quantity, "What happens to the market clearing price of US-
produced flaxseed oil?" is not a very difficult question. We do not need to
adopt the counterfactual "Consider what would happen to flaxseed oil prices in
an American city which banned foreign flaxseed oil. Why, they'd be a
laughingstock! Flaxseed oil consumers would flee to other jurisdictions!"

That's an interesting speculative conclusion to a hypothetical policy that is
not on the table nor will ever be considered in the United States. Back to the
question: what happens when you import cheap flaxseed oil? Market prices go
down, with very high confidence. Claims to the contrary would generally
require fairly persuasive proof since they invert our understanding of how the
world works.

(n.b. I don't particularly think my political opinions are relevant, in much
the same way a physicist doesn't feel the need to mumble "Sorry to be a
gravitationist" prior to suggesting that a banana pushed off a table will tend
to accelerate towards the ground rather than hovering in midair, but to the
extent I have them they're "Let the flaxseed oil flow" and to the extent I
have economic interests in US-produced flaxseed oil I'd prefer it to be as
cheap as possible since I'm a buyer more than I'm a seller.)

~~~
pigou
Whenever I hear stupid questions like "Do immigrant engineers depress engineer
wages?", I'm tempted to say that it's as simple as supply and demand. But
supply and demand are not simple things.

On the one hand, an increased supply of engineers (or flaxseed) in the form of
immigrants (or imports) will obviously decrease the market clearing price, and
anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant of economics or engaging in
sophistry.

But to the extent that engineers spur technological or industrial advances
which benefit the entire ecosystem, the presence of additional engineers in
the form of immigrants could actually increase the _demand_ for engineers. A
concrete example is the marginal increase in engineering demand caused by an
immigrant engineer founding a company.

(You could argue, given the example provided, that another company would have
been founded in its absence, or that the company displaced an existing
company. However, my intuition is that it's a positive-sum game, and that a
successful company would created some marginal demand for engineers.)

------
hippich
While I was hired under H-1b visa I was definitely underpaid, but the moment I
got greencard my options exploded. Now I work at startup for 1.5x of
prevailing wage in here. And in a year or so I plan to get next bump in salary
or finally do a successful launch of my own project.

So... Do not want to slump domestic engineer wages? Remove stupid restrictions
and procedures to do transfers once employee got a job in USA so these foreign
employees could pick for whom they want to work as easy as this could do
domestic employees.

------
Amadou
The column does not directly mention H1B, but it is clear that H1B is the
subtext.

Here are a couple of points not mentioned.

The top 10 H1B employers account for about half of the visas issued in recent
years. All 10 are contract houses that specialize in out-sourcing. They bring
people in, train them up and then send them back to work on the same programs
remotely at local rates. These actions are totally against the stated
principles of increasing the number of technically skilled workers in the US.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134694/Whos-
Hiring-H1-B-Visa-Workers-Its-Not-Who-You-Might-Think)

H1B people are supposed to be paid a prevailing wage. There are two big
problems with that - there is absolutely no money at all allocated for
enforcing that requirement, and due to technicalities (or loopholes) in the
legislation, companies are legally able to pay rates for the lowest skilled
categories rather than ones commensurate with their skills and jobs.

[http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-
know-...](http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-
about-h-1b-visas-could-hurt-us-all/)

FWIW, I am totally willing to go with the concept of a network effect, that
skilled engineering job market is not a zero-sum game. But the H1B program is
practically the worst possible implementation to take advantage of any network
effect in the labor market. To me, it looks like it is designed to wreck it.

I'd rather H1B be treated like a fast-track immigration visa - if you qualify
for an H1B visa you are guaranteed a green card in 2 years or less. I think
that would remove much of the ability for H1B employers to use them in ways
contrary to the rhetoric that sells H1B to the uninformed.

~~~
altcognito
> All 10 are contract houses that specialize in out-sourcing. They bring
> people in, train them up and then send them back to work on the same
> programs remotely at local rates. These actions are totally against the
> stated principles of increasing the number of technically skilled workers in
> the US.

I've seen this a number of times at the company I work at.

------
pekk
Very basic economics says that a greater supply of people willing to work at a
lower wage (as many H1Bs) will reduce the market wage.

"Somewhere along the line, the H-1B program got side-tracked. The program was
never meant to replace qualified American workers, but it was instead intended
as a means to fill gaps in highly specialized areas of employment. When times
are tough, like they are now, it's especially important that Americans get
every consideration before an employer looks to hire from abroad" - Sen. Chuck
Grassley

~~~
edderly
It's a rather naïve conclusion. If the job is relocatable the supply of
workers who remain abroad will also reduce wages too.

~~~
altcognito
> If the job is relocatable

I've seen many, many, many corporations come to the conclusion that they are
simply not able to manage resources abroad. They can barely handle them
locally, let alone when there is many thousands of miles and a language
barrier between them.

~~~
edderly
Of course. I think a lot of companies don't want to offshore some engineering
jobs, however, if push comes to shove they'll do it. I'm not sure a government
mandated limit helps this not occur.

------
Spooky23
I think there are two worlds here. For folks in the Valley, in NYC, or in
companies working at the bleeding edge, you want to fund the best, most
qualified people, period. That makes sense, and in the best interests of the
country.

But, in terms of numbers, the real money is the more banal "staff
augmentation" programmers that you see in "compliance advertisements" in
industry trade rags. There is a shortage of qualified COBOL programmers, but
you don't hear about training programs for COBOL (back in the 70's clerical
staff were trained to do write that stuff, not compsci types). But you do see
government contracts paying $30/hour to "body shop" vendors, who in turn are
paying Indians $12-17/hr. similar story for people doing business rules in
some J2EE thing.

That's a problem, because many of the few million un- or under-employed
workers in the US could be trained to do this type of work quickly.

~~~
rdouble
Except that legacy system maintenance is like agricultural work. You can't get
Americans to do the work.

~~~
ahamilton
There are no jobs "Americans won't do." Depressed wages and the de facto
Spanish language requirement reduce American interest in agricultural work.

------
jokoon
Well there are two answers here.

First, coming from a less developed country doesn't mean you'll be less
skilled. On the contrary, it's a strong incentive. Being raised and schooled
in a developed country is only a luxury, it won't make you a better engineer.

Secondly, those engineers will "depress" wages for several reasons. First,
it's supply and demand. They have much stronger wishes to work in a developed
country compared to native engineers. Secondly, companies might also hire
native engineers because of various reasons, like language barriers,
relationships between personel, the culture of the company, etc.

If it depress wages, it might be because there might be a lack skill and
innovation somewhere. Lower wages isn't always a bad thing actually.

------
mistercow
>Suppose the city of San Francisco deported 10 percent of its computer
programmers tomorrow and adopted a law saying that in the future no engineers
born in other counties were allowed to move here. Would that lead to
skyrocketing earnings for the remaining engineers? I seriously doubt it. I
think it would destroy the San Francisco tech industry with some unfortunate
knock-on effects a bit south in Silicon Valley.

I wonder if there is a name for this fallacy, because I see it all the time. A
common example is "Well imagine what would happen to the economy if everyone
became a vegan tomorrow!"

As a malicious device for derailing a discussion, it's pretty clever. It
pivots the argument from "how would the world be different if Y instead of X?"
to "how would the world be different if we instantly tried to switch from X to
Y?"

Suppose you propose going to the grocery store. I say, no that's a terrible
idea. Imagine if, in the next second, you were suddenly whisked away to the
grocery store — the acceleration forces would liquify you! Obviously that
would be a dumb thing to say, but you still see these "what if X overnight‽"
arguments all over the place.

~~~
unholyalliance
This is the fallacy of division.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division>

------
unholyalliance
First off you have supply and demand, which is enough to say that new workers
would depress wages. You can go deeper into the micro-economics view point and
look at the utility curves of the American Engineer vs. an Immigrant Engineer,
and see that they are very different. A immigrant engineer, is facing possible
deportation to a country with lower wages, whereas an American Engineer is
more willing to hold out for a higher wage, knowing the state of the labor
market and that they do not have as pressing of a need for a job immediately.
To an immigrant worker, turning down the job could lead to a much worse
outcome, so their logical choice is to take the initial pay offered.

Furthermore, the business is aware of both their cost of the H1NB and of the
immigrants situation, which gives them a negotiating advantage. They can use
the H1NB cost as a negotiation tactic, and pay the worker a lower wage,
without fear of being turned down.

------
davidw
So if someone wants some actual data on this, here's one thing that we could
look at:

Openness to immigration (admittedly not the easiest statistic, but we should
be able to find something that works) compared to local wages, corrected for
GDP.

That should give us a way to compare relatively open countries with relatively
closed countries, and see which ones have higher wages.

------
jellicle
Who should we believe, the "columnist who doesn't think it's obvious" that
pulling in piles of low-paid immigrants depress local wages, or the
capitalists who do think it's obvious? What possible reason would there be for
hiring foreign workers if they WEREN'T depressing local wages?

And indeed, the studies confirm our intuition:

[http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-
Program...](http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-Programmer-
Pay/)

~~~
trustfundbaby
That article is from 2009, the study they link to doesn't actually have what
it says its supposed to have in the abstract and the article that claims that

"Most foreign tech workers, particularly those from Asia, are in fact of only
average talent. Moreover, they are hired for low-level jobs of limited
responsibility, not positions that generate innovation. This is true both
overall and in the key tech occupations, and most importantly, in the firms
most stridently demanding that Congress admit more foreign workers."

is 404. I'd like to see some better data if you have it though.

~~~
jellicle
EPI has a study - includes discussion of salary, among other things:

[http://www.epi.org/publication/bp356-foreign-students-
best-b...](http://www.epi.org/publication/bp356-foreign-students-best-
brightest-immigration-policy/)

But in all of these cases, studies are of interest only to determine the
magnitude of the effect. We have observed thousands if not millions of times
throughout history that in a wide variety of occupations, a labor shortage
drives up wages and conversely, a labor oversupply eliminates wage increases
(though it tends not to actively decrease wages by much, since wages are
sticky upward). Increasing labor supply to minimize wage growth is an
extraordinarily uncontroversial thing, and only nincompoop contrarian
columnists or paid shills would argue differently.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> Increasing labor supply to minimize wage growth is an extraordinarily
> uncontroversial thing

Probably not as uncontroversial as increasing labor supply to meet demand ;)

------
unholyalliance
What I don't get is that the law allows hiring foreign workers only if a
qualified American worker could not be found, but I have never seen any
evidence of this. Has anyone heard of a company being forced to prove this, or
experienced an interview process where they prioritize American workers?

------
mdgrech23
One word economics! It can provide real answers to the questions poised by the
author. The author treats this subject like a black science creating
hypothetical scenarios. What a joke.

------
aspensmonster
A piece on immigration as it relates to skilled labour with no mention of
H-1B? If you aren't investigating the primary manner by which skilled foreign
labour finds itself in the states, then you're never going to get a good
answer to the question: "Do immigrant engineers depress [native] engineer
wages?"

Of course, an H-1B visa is technically a non-immigrant visa, which goes a long
way in investigating the question by itself. It's somewhat misleading to even
call them "immigrant engineers" if most them are on a temporary visa that ties
them to a sponsoring company and requires them to leave once time is up. This
clouds the issue of supply and demand, as the labour pools are really quite
different: foreign nationals who are tied to a specific company and are only
permitted to reside for X years, versus natives who are free to work for any
company and can live here indefinitely. It _is_ obvious that the native is
going to be able to command a far higher salary than an H-1B that is stuck
with his "sponsor."

Now, whether companies are pushing for more H1-B's because of this wage
suppressing factor, or because there is an unresolvable shortage of native
talent, is the million dollar question. And it's a question that, in my mind,
is readily answered. Convert the H1-B into a full-on green card, wherein the
skilled foreign labour is granted all of the rights and privileges of a
native. If the shortage really is unresolvable --for whatever reason-- then
companies still have all the skilled foreign labour they would need; the
companies' staffing concerns are still addressed. And since the foreign
national is permitted to live and work wherever he pleases (he is essentially
identical to a native applicant at this point), the argument of wage
suppression is significantly weakened, since the main argument is that there
really _are_ natives willing and able to do the jobs but they're getting
priced out of the market because they can't compete with locked-in H-1B
holders.

The skilled immigrants win. The companies still get their skilled labour and
win. If there really are natives ready and willing to do the jobs, then they
too will win.

------
CleanedStar
I won't even say that they do, as it is obvious on the face of it.

There's really no debate about this issue, like scientists debating some
aspect of quantum mechanics seeking to get to the truth. This is a fight over
how the pie gets divided up, and the billionaires and their commissars like
Yglesias are trying to grab more of the pie. We're still at a historic
unemployment high from the 2008 crash, current unemployment was not at its
high current level from 1984 to 2008 other than a two month period in 1992.

As I said, this is not a debate like physicists arguing to get to the truth.
This is a struggle of people trying to get their pockets filled, and lies and
nonsense are par for the course. Every statement in a thread like this boils
down to either "I am on the side of the IT workers who create the wealth in
the US" or "I am on the side of the heirs and billionaires who extract profit
from the labor of those who work".

So glad Yglesias is looking out for us common programmers...Yglesias's bio
says he went to Dalton. Do you know how much first grade costs at Dalton? Over
$40,000. The heirs, the billionaires and their agents got together to push for
more H1-B slaves in the midst of this historic unemployment, and now the
propaganda push happens. Arguing with their agents does nothing - get together
with other engineers organizing against this type of nonsense and get going.
There is no type of honest debate possible as they are just greedy people who
will tell any lie to pile some more money on their billions. Your alternatives
are join with those organizing against these types of things or do nothing.
Yglesias and those who agree with them are liars who will say anything to rip
you off, so talking to them is pointless.

