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We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. For most, this is far from the truth. Wages have not increased in

We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. For most, this is far from the truth. Wages have not increased in decades, while everything else is more expensive. Corps would rather hire you as a contractor, to pay you less so they make more. There are not enough jobs, because there is no process for teaching about free enterprise in America. Its jobs jobs jobs, but you need people to create those jobs. When H1Bs take your jobs, its hard to compete when they are paid less and willing to take less. So many issues, but we have an inept Congress and elected officials that care for more their power, and their greed that the American people. </rant>

solotronics 7y ago
Many in Congress are not just inept, they are carpetbaggers. They line their pockets by selling out the American people.
madsid 7y ago
As an H1B, I can say that I get equal pay as an American/any person gets for the same job I am doing. I don’t think the issue is with immigration but more of businesses bring greedy to make more money skimping on paying decent pays. (On the side note, I don’t understand the concept of borders, when you have absolutely no control over where you are born. I can say I am intelligent than an average person regardless the ethnicity/country or what ever, which is why I am able to survive in the industry I am working)
jimbob45 7y ago
>When H1Bs take your jobs, its hard to compete when they are paid less and willing to take less. I think you're going to have a bad time arguing that point. H-1Bs constitute an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs. Personally, I might agree with you on the grounds that those H-1Bs cause a domino effect on overall job openings. However, the argument, at face value, that H-1Bs are a significant factor in the difficulty of finding a tech sector jobs is, in my opinion, largely a scapegoat.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  ... “We demonstrate that H-1Bs given to a firm on average do not raise the firm’s patenting and/or other employment, contrary to firms’ frequent claims. Overall our results are more consistent with the second [i.e., the critics’] narrative, in which H-1Bs replace other workers to some extent, are paid less than alternative workers, and increase the firm’s profits (despite little, if any, effect on firm patenting).” In addition, “we robustly find that new H-1Bs cause no significant increase in firm employment. New H-1Bs substantially and statistically significantly crowd out median employment of other workers,” they continue. This result conflicts with the widely repeated claim that foreign workers create American jobs, which is based, as we have previously reported, partly on the work of economist Madeline Zavodny of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Furthermore, “[o]ur results are consistent with the possibility that H-1B and non-H-1B workers are perfect substitutes. This is notable in light of frequent claims that H-1Bs have unique skills that cannot easily be obtained elsewhere.” The authors of this “important” study “have done an exhaustive analysis, given the data available, and they have better data than anyone to date, best I can tell,” says labor force expert Hal Salzman of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by e-mail. “And their findings are consistent with all the other analyses that were done competently—and consistent with what the companies themselves state is the function of H-1B (to lower wage costs and raise profits).”" https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-visas-suppress-wages https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-v... (Economists: H-1B visas suppress wages) https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pdf https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pd... (The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration Policy on Firms: Evidence from Visa Lotteries)
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs Wait, what? Where have you been? I mean, 9/10 is a fraction, so yeah… but I’ve been in software development for 25 years across five different geographic regions (of the United States) and I’m usually the _only_ non-Indian non-H1B software developer there.
  - jimbob45 7y ago
    I'm only seeing a total of < 500,000 according to the below link. That's a pretty small fraction of the total number of workers. I'm very open to anyone disputing that number. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/three-fourths-of-h1b-visa-holders-in-2018-are-indians-us-report/articleshow/66289772.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigratio...
maximente 7y ago
i would say that you can't talk about this completely without mentioning health care. the US health care system will absolutely extort and annihilate your net worth at first opportunity (legions of unnecessary tests/unaffiliated personnel/surprise billing/etc) should something bad happen to you. good luck starting a business like that. yes those words are appropriate: they are criminals that extort and ruin for profit. many in US are tied to jobs solely for health coverage. so you need to divorce those to have any chance at spinning up entrepreneurship, education, and so forth.
- war1025 7y ago
  Health Insurance is the only thing that makes me feel like my employer has "leverage" over me. That is such a back-breaking expense when your employer is not footing most of the bill that basically all of my other expenses are insignificant by comparison. Thankfully, I think we're finally nearing critical mass of people who realize health insurance in the US is completely fucked, that something has to change before long (a decade maybe?).
H8crilA 7y ago
This is an incorrect statement to make with the red hot jobs market that we have now. Extremely low unemployment, sky high salaries in a typical H1B sector - tech. It has rarely been easier to get a job than it is now.
- whenanother 7y ago
  this has been debunked. some speculate that most of the difference in employment is in how the us counts uber drivers as being employed. considering that it is the tech companies most involved in hiring h1b. it is not surprising that they are the main entities pushing this lie.
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    Why don't you show those studies that prove how the world finance, including the FED, has it backwards so I can pull a 2008-style big short? If you're right it shouldn't be hard to pull off a 5x return on investment through well placed shorts. Also, the hot jobs market is not an American phenomenon. It's worldwide: The Economist | The great jobs boom https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/23/the-rich-world-is-enjoying-an-unprecedented-jobs-boom https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/23/the-rich-world-...
    - whenanother 7y ago
      uber is global. bet there is a direct correlation with uber setting up shop and countries suddenly getting low unemployment.
      - H8crilA 7y ago
        Let's make that bet together! I'm willing to put 50k USD on this. Show me the numbers.
        whenanother 7y ago
        https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-drivers-gig-economy-unemployment-numbers-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-drivers-gig-econom... It's so obvious that this is a gig economy thing where survey data are being manipulated for the benefit of these tech companies. the issue is that these companies can't justify all the h1b requests if so many us citizens are out of work. to fix that it's clear they are fudging the definition of an employee. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-first-rate-cut-in-10-years-what-it-could-mean-for-your-finances/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-first-rate-cut-in-10-years... they've lowered the fed fun rate for the first time in over 10 years. the unemployment numbers are effectively a sham. you can't have recessionary pressures and "full employment".
Havoc 7y ago
>We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. This sentiment seems very US specific (maybe 1st world). My background is ahem classic western 1st world culturally, but grew up in a 3rd world country. And for me that cliched recipe worked exactly like it says on the tin. Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV I'm comfortably competitive globally. So when I read the US guys struggling I'm left a little puzzled. Not arrogant enough to assume I'm better so this smells like a country-structural issue. Which to me suggests the 1st world countries have moved into a post uni-edu era if that makes sense?
- CalRobert 7y ago
  US-specific, rather than 1st world, is enormous student debt.
  - Havoc 7y ago
    So true. I racked up a grand total of 4k USD (fees) debt. 3k legit expense, 1k me fkin up. Parents covered the 3 clean, 1k parental loan. I enter adult life nearly (1k) debt free with a world competitive degree. And that's for an education I'll happily stack 1:1 with against other top unis globally. I look at the US guys with 100k debts and my god...I'm thankful for my roll of life dice...competitive degree with near zero debt must be 0.1%
    - CalRobert 7y ago
      My word... Books cost more than that.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV Actually I think that works to your advantage. There’s a class of hiring managers who figure that if you went to college in America but didn’t go to Harvard, Yale or MIT, you’re not qualified to tie your own shoes. They don’t know anything about foreign universities, though, so they figure one is as good as any other.
balthasar 7y ago
With the 60% majority required in the Senate, entrenched two party system, lifetime appointment of judges, President's power of veto, I could go on forever but all the different aspects of the Constitution discourage any change to happen. It as much if not more of an issue with the American political system as it is the people who are elected. Although they are not without reproach considering the current campaign finance laws are a joke.
eanzenberg 7y ago
For "most", this is close to the truth.
refurb 7y ago
We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. If that's what people believe, then it's a problem. Even when people think back to the 1950's, people still struggled with money. It certainly wasn't "live happily ever after".
thephyber 7y ago
Your complaints are misdirected. > Corps would rather hire you as a contractor, to pay you less so they make more. There are not enough jobs, because there is no process for teaching about free enterprise in America. Corps would rather hire you as a contractor exactly because free enterprise is taught in America. Milton Freeman made a famous speech where he decried that any businessman who doesn't maximize returns to the shareholders is violating the ethics of the "free enterprise" system. That speech was coincidentally timed about the time wages stopped rising for US workers. > We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. I hate this trope for the same reason I hate people saying that the USA is "exceptional": it breeds complacency. It's Disney fairy tale junk that should be left in sunday school where it's taught.
narnianal 7y ago
What a creepy slave attitude. When you go to jail and someone tells you to pick up the soap, do you just do that?

solotronics 7y ago

Many in Congress are not just inept, they are carpetbaggers. They line their pockets by selling out the American people.

madsid 7y ago

As an H1B, I can say that I get equal pay as an American/any person gets for the same job I am doing. I don’t think the issue is with immigration but more of businesses bring greedy to make more money skimping on paying decent pays. (On the side note, I don’t understand the concept of borders, when you have absolutely no control over where you are born. I can say I am intelligent than an average person regardless the ethnicity/country or what ever, which is why I am able to survive in the industry I am working)

jimbob45 7y ago

>When H1Bs take your jobs, its hard to compete when they are paid less and willing to take less. I think you're going to have a bad time arguing that point. H-1Bs constitute an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs. Personally, I might agree with you on the grounds that those H-1Bs cause a domino effect on overall job openings. However, the argument, at face value, that H-1Bs are a significant factor in the difficulty of finding a tech sector jobs is, in my opinion, largely a scapegoat.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
... “We demonstrate that H-1Bs given to a firm on average do not raise the firm’s patenting and/or other employment, contrary to firms’ frequent claims. Overall our results are more consistent with the second [i.e., the critics’] narrative, in which H-1Bs replace other workers to some extent, are paid less than alternative workers, and increase the firm’s profits (despite little, if any, effect on firm patenting).” In addition, “we robustly find that new H-1Bs cause no significant increase in firm employment. New H-1Bs substantially and statistically significantly crowd out median employment of other workers,” they continue. This result conflicts with the widely repeated claim that foreign workers create American jobs, which is based, as we have previously reported, partly on the work of economist Madeline Zavodny of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Furthermore, “[o]ur results are consistent with the possibility that H-1B and non-H-1B workers are perfect substitutes. This is notable in light of frequent claims that H-1Bs have unique skills that cannot easily be obtained elsewhere.” The authors of this “important” study “have done an exhaustive analysis, given the data available, and they have better data than anyone to date, best I can tell,” says labor force expert Hal Salzman of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by e-mail. “And their findings are consistent with all the other analyses that were done competently—and consistent with what the companies themselves state is the function of H-1B (to lower wage costs and raise profits).”" https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-visas-suppress-wages https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-v... (Economists: H-1B visas suppress wages) https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pdf https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pd... (The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration Policy on Firms: Evidence from Visa Lotteries)
commandlinefan 7y ago
> an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs Wait, what? Where have you been? I mean, 9/10 is a fraction, so yeah… but I’ve been in software development for 25 years across five different geographic regions (of the United States) and I’m usually the _only_ non-Indian non-H1B software developer there.
- jimbob45 7y ago
  I'm only seeing a total of < 500,000 according to the below link. That's a pretty small fraction of the total number of workers. I'm very open to anyone disputing that number. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/three-fourths-of-h1b-visa-holders-in-2018-are-indians-us-report/articleshow/66289772.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigratio...

maximente 7y ago

i would say that you can't talk about this completely without mentioning health care. the US health care system will absolutely extort and annihilate your net worth at first opportunity (legions of unnecessary tests/unaffiliated personnel/surprise billing/etc) should something bad happen to you. good luck starting a business like that. yes those words are appropriate: they are criminals that extort and ruin for profit. many in US are tied to jobs solely for health coverage. so you need to divorce those to have any chance at spinning up entrepreneurship, education, and so forth.

war1025 7y ago
Health Insurance is the only thing that makes me feel like my employer has "leverage" over me. That is such a back-breaking expense when your employer is not footing most of the bill that basically all of my other expenses are insignificant by comparison. Thankfully, I think we're finally nearing critical mass of people who realize health insurance in the US is completely fucked, that something has to change before long (a decade maybe?).

H8crilA 7y ago

This is an incorrect statement to make with the red hot jobs market that we have now. Extremely low unemployment, sky high salaries in a typical H1B sector - tech. It has rarely been easier to get a job than it is now.

whenanother 7y ago
this has been debunked. some speculate that most of the difference in employment is in how the us counts uber drivers as being employed. considering that it is the tech companies most involved in hiring h1b. it is not surprising that they are the main entities pushing this lie.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  Why don't you show those studies that prove how the world finance, including the FED, has it backwards so I can pull a 2008-style big short? If you're right it shouldn't be hard to pull off a 5x return on investment through well placed shorts. Also, the hot jobs market is not an American phenomenon. It's worldwide: The Economist | The great jobs boom https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/23/the-rich-world-is-enjoying-an-unprecedented-jobs-boom https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/23/the-rich-world-...
  - whenanother 7y ago
    uber is global. bet there is a direct correlation with uber setting up shop and countries suddenly getting low unemployment.
    - H8crilA 7y ago
      Let's make that bet together! I'm willing to put 50k USD on this. Show me the numbers.
      - whenanother 7y ago
        https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-drivers-gig-economy-unemployment-numbers-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-drivers-gig-econom... It's so obvious that this is a gig economy thing where survey data are being manipulated for the benefit of these tech companies. the issue is that these companies can't justify all the h1b requests if so many us citizens are out of work. to fix that it's clear they are fudging the definition of an employee. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-first-rate-cut-in-10-years-what-it-could-mean-for-your-finances/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-first-rate-cut-in-10-years... they've lowered the fed fun rate for the first time in over 10 years. the unemployment numbers are effectively a sham. you can't have recessionary pressures and "full employment".

Havoc 7y ago

>We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. This sentiment seems very US specific (maybe 1st world). My background is ahem classic western 1st world culturally, but grew up in a 3rd world country. And for me that cliched recipe worked exactly like it says on the tin. Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV I'm comfortably competitive globally. So when I read the US guys struggling I'm left a little puzzled. Not arrogant enough to assume I'm better so this smells like a country-structural issue. Which to me suggests the 1st world countries have moved into a post uni-edu era if that makes sense?

CalRobert 7y ago
US-specific, rather than 1st world, is enormous student debt.
- Havoc 7y ago
  So true. I racked up a grand total of 4k USD (fees) debt. 3k legit expense, 1k me fkin up. Parents covered the 3 clean, 1k parental loan. I enter adult life nearly (1k) debt free with a world competitive degree. And that's for an education I'll happily stack 1:1 with against other top unis globally. I look at the US guys with 100k debts and my god...I'm thankful for my roll of life dice...competitive degree with near zero debt must be 0.1%
  - CalRobert 7y ago
    My word... Books cost more than that.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV Actually I think that works to your advantage. There’s a class of hiring managers who figure that if you went to college in America but didn’t go to Harvard, Yale or MIT, you’re not qualified to tie your own shoes. They don’t know anything about foreign universities, though, so they figure one is as good as any other.

balthasar 7y ago

With the 60% majority required in the Senate, entrenched two party system, lifetime appointment of judges, President's power of veto, I could go on forever but all the different aspects of the Constitution discourage any change to happen. It as much if not more of an issue with the American political system as it is the people who are elected. Although they are not without reproach considering the current campaign finance laws are a joke.

eanzenberg 7y ago

For "most", this is close to the truth.

refurb 7y ago

We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. If that's what people believe, then it's a problem. Even when people think back to the 1950's, people still struggled with money. It certainly wasn't "live happily ever after".

thephyber 7y ago

Your complaints are misdirected. > Corps would rather hire you as a contractor, to pay you less so they make more. There are not enough jobs, because there is no process for teaching about free enterprise in America. Corps would rather hire you as a contractor exactly because free enterprise is taught in America. Milton Freeman made a famous speech where he decried that any businessman who doesn't maximize returns to the shareholders is violating the ethics of the "free enterprise" system. That speech was coincidentally timed about the time wages stopped rising for US workers. > We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. I hate this trope for the same reason I hate people saying that the USA is "exceptional": it breeds complacency. It's Disney fairy tale junk that should be left in sunday school where it's taught.

narnianal 7y ago

What a creepy slave attitude. When you go to jail and someone tells you to pick up the soap, do you just do that?