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The objective of the visa is to enable business. It is beneficial to America that business flourishes in America. If a pharma business is viable only if it pays

by arjie 10y ago

The objective of the visa is to enable business. It is beneficial to America that business flourishes in America. If a pharma business is viable only if it pays $100k to its researchers and if it is being hamstrung by lack of researchers in America it doesn't matter that a software engineer can charge $200k for his services. The pharma researchers may argue that this should present an upward price pressure on their salaries but their industry isn't solely driven by salaries alone. At the higher salary that gets a company enough researchers, the company may become unviable. In addition, if there are only 100 researchers and there are 1000 jobs, rising salaries will still leave 900 jobs unfulfilled. These are things one doesn't care about if one is a researcher because systemic economic slowdown will take a while to catch up to you because there are more jobs than researchers. But thinking above that in the long term, it is advantageous to have more researchers since more jobs filled leads to more successful companies which leads to growth. In truth it's more complicated. There are a large number of unqualified people who carry the credentials claiming they're qualified. For the same title, skill levels vary substantially. This is why people believe good lawyers are far better than average lawyers, that good doctors exist, and that the concept of a good software engineer exists. This means that while there is apparent supply, there is no real supply. This makes the problem less apparent but no less real. The government distorts markets for its own reasons and one of them is the long term economic health of the country. The most efficient distribution may be that most companies should be in Africa. The government doesn't want that. It wants companies in the US. It organizes in the long term to allow this.

kaveh_h 10y ago
If that's the long term goal, then the US government is going to have a problem things such as the internet, bitcoin and more technologies open up even more possibilities for foreign workers and freelancers to work from abroad and avoid US taxes all together.
Chris2048 10y ago
> If a pharma business is viable only if it pays $100k to its researchers and if it is being hamstrung by lack of researchers in America it doesn't matter that a software engineer can charge $200k for his services. True, but in another sense, more people will train to be software engineers than pharma researchers? educated people are the common resource? Why should anyone train to go into pharma, when they could earn more as sw devs? > their industry isn't solely driven by salaries alone what does this mean? > if there are only 100 researchers and there are 1000 jobs Are jobs are not equal. Ultimately, there are only 100 jobs willing to pay a higher salary. Consider an auction, there are not really millions of buyers willing to buy an iphone (at $1), there is just one, the rest lost interest once the price point had been hit. I understand, an industry can still be hamstrung by lack of employees, but a) Would this be different in the US compared to other countries? If not, all similar industries will be equally slow to progress; No problem for the rare employees living in good times. b) If the industry is desirable, people will begin to train for it, or be encouraged to train; high salaries will be just one incentive. In the meanwhile, the growth of the fledgling industry can be helped via investment: this investment could help provide aforementioned training, and also help pay for foreign labour at higher cost than than native, so as not to undercut native labour - hence the nonviable industry is subsidised until labour supply catches up. > it is advantageous to have more researchers since more jobs filled leads to more successful companies which leads to growth "job creation" theories are dangerous, much like trickle-down economics. It's easy for the wealthy to act in their own interest by promoting flawed justifications of this nature. I agree, certain high-skilled jobs actually fuel certain struggling industries than actually bootstraps industry in a way that makes existing workers more valuable, especially locally (vs nationally); but I can see how this line or argument, which applies to rare cases, can be abused to argue similar effect where it is not the case; Is is also the case that there would be an point where the visas must stop (when the benefit ends), which again it would be easy to manipulate - you'd need strict criteria to make it fair.

by arjie 10y ago

kaveh_h 10y ago

If that's the long term goal, then the US government is going to have a problem things such as the internet, bitcoin and more technologies open up even more possibilities for foreign workers and freelancers to work from abroad and avoid US taxes all together.

Chris2048 10y ago

> If a pharma business is viable only if it pays $100k to its researchers and if it is being hamstrung by lack of researchers in America it doesn't matter that a software engineer can charge $200k for his services. True, but in another sense, more people will train to be software engineers than pharma researchers? educated people are the common resource? Why should anyone train to go into pharma, when they could earn more as sw devs? > their industry isn't solely driven by salaries alone what does this mean? > if there are only 100 researchers and there are 1000 jobs Are jobs are not equal. Ultimately, there are only 100 jobs willing to pay a higher salary. Consider an auction, there are not really millions of buyers willing to buy an iphone (at $1), there is just one, the rest lost interest once the price point had been hit. I understand, an industry can still be hamstrung by lack of employees, but a) Would this be different in the US compared to other countries? If not, all similar industries will be equally slow to progress; No problem for the rare employees living in good times. b) If the industry is desirable, people will begin to train for it, or be encouraged to train; high salaries will be just one incentive. In the meanwhile, the growth of the fledgling industry can be helped via investment: this investment could help provide aforementioned training, and also help pay for foreign labour at higher cost than than native, so as not to undercut native labour - hence the nonviable industry is subsidised until labour supply catches up. > it is advantageous to have more researchers since more jobs filled leads to more successful companies which leads to growth "job creation" theories are dangerous, much like trickle-down economics. It's easy for the wealthy to act in their own interest by promoting flawed justifications of this nature. I agree, certain high-skilled jobs actually fuel certain struggling industries than actually bootstraps industry in a way that makes existing workers more valuable, especially locally (vs nationally); but I can see how this line or argument, which applies to rare cases, can be abused to argue similar effect where it is not the case; Is is also the case that there would be an point where the visas must stop (when the benefit ends), which again it would be easy to manipulate - you'd need strict criteria to make it fair.