Is like watching a cage match between the two worst people in the world.
In this corner, the screw the peons billionaires.
In the other corner, the racist anti-immigrant nativists!
Personally I’m cheering for the racist anti-immigrants.
Vivek Ramaswany delightfully opinined that the problem is that American culture doesn’t produce people willing to work hard enough and celebrates prom queens and jocks over math olympiads. (American engineers aren’t keen on 12 hour work days.)
Funny thing, I’m in my 50s so I remember when prom queens and jocks really were worshipped and nerds were beaten up: and back then the US still led the world in engineering. And the 50s, the pinnacle of American power, were not noted for love of nerds. There’s some truth to what Vivek says, but culture isn’t why America has fallen behind. Instead America deliberately offshored its industry to China and China has maintained a cost advantage.
H1-B visas obviously take jobs from Americans. Yes, companies must say they doesn’t, but they do. H1B workers can’t leave their employers unless they have another lined up immediately, so they do what they’re told or go home. As such, they obviously have reduced bargaining power compared to natives or landed immigrants. This drives down wages for natives, “if you won’t do it, we’ll get an immigrant to, and they’ll take the wage we’re offering.”
The left-wing argument against guest workers, and H1B visas are just tech guest workers, is that if we genuinely need workers, then they should be over here either as landed immigrants or on a visa which allows them to quit and have some reasonable time to find another employer. A class of workers with reduced rights will obviously be preferred by management and will reduce the bargaining power of native workers.
Indians, who get most of these tech visas, aren’t culturally superior workers. They’re desperate workers, and desperate workers are good workers, for bosses.
Trump, of course, came down on Musk’s side. Billionaire solidarity is real and Trump has used H1B visa workers often in his own business.
Trump’s in his second term. MAGA got him elected, but the only reason he might care what they want any more is concern for mid-terms. Other than that, they don’t matter.
If they do want to win, the way is to emphasize that Musk and Vivek are in charge, they’re the real Presidents, and that he’s just their “cuck”, to use the modern term.
Trump doesn’t care about anybody but himself, but he has plenty of ego. Use it.
In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the cage match.
Clonal Antibody
You will find this X/Twitter thread interesting.
https://x.com/Anc_Aesthetics/status/1873506359368360177
NR
Actually in most fields, the pay difference between citizens and H1B workers isn’t that great. The issue is that H1B workers are basically indentured servants. Their company can drop their sponsorship at any time and then they either have to find another job right away or go home. Companies take advantage of this to exploit foreign workers.
Also, “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk has been banning leftists and anyone else who makes him angry from Twitter for a long time now, but now that it’s right-wingers he’s banking, of course the right is in an uproar. They thought he was one of them, but like all billionaires, Musk only cares about himself and his own bottom line.
Huntly
Been trying to figure out where on his properties trump would be employing all those h1b workers he mentioned.
Huntly
Where, in what capacity, would trump have employed all the h1b workers he mentioned?
Ian Welsh
“He told the New York Post: “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B.”
“I have used it many times,” he said, referring to his own real estate ventures. “It’s a great programme.””
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/29/why-are-us-republicans-debating-the-future-of-h-1b-high-skill-work-visas
You can find more if you want to use a search engine or AI.
mago
The India tech industry workers carry their cultural baggage with them—the caste system for example, along with its arrogance and contempt, not to mention fear, avarice and insularity.
Your Silicon Valley overlords might have you by the short hairs, but you can always cling to your cultural conditioning to help you get along.
It’s a losing situation all the way around— the way of a world ruled by cosmic monsters like Musk.
It’s the dark age. Got those kaliuga blues. Floating down a toxic river. Whatcha gonna do?
NR
Trump is probably using H2B workers and just doesn’t know the difference.
Carborundum
The employer data hub shows various Trump-affiliated vehicles having used H-1B visas a number of times over the years. Looks like roughly a dozen times involving a few tens of people. Overall, the scale does not seem to be huge, at least not via entities bearing the Trump moniker.
Data hub is here: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employer-data-hub
Feral Finster
TL:DR, much like Team D, Team R does not represent a coherent philosophical worldview, but is a coalition of disparate interest groups that really have little in common other than enemies, and, in fact, do not even like each other all that much.
StewartM
The real reason that racist/nativist billionaires want to ban immigrants of all stripes is that they want to starve SS and Medicare of funding, which these same immigrants will help rescue. You’re leaving out that consideration, Ian. Immigrants are calculated to add some 1 TRILLION to US government revenues over the next decade, and if you want to pretend “there’s just no money” for SS and Medicare, they are an inconvenience.
As for Indians, from my perspective they don’t make great cheap worker-bees, the ones who do get in are very often of the Brahman caste and expect to bolt at first opportunity to leave technical work and to take the managerial tract. So they’re not cheap workers, but expensive ones. The Chinese do make excellent worker bees, however (though they too aren’t always meek and mild, at least they are willing to learn and don’t have the arrogance of US graduates who think that they know everything already). Our domestic tech graduates, like their Indian counterparts, often want to bolt the technical track too for the managerial track.
So save for the Chinese, everything thinks that they’ll be great leaders and doesn’t want to be bothered actually knowing anything technical about the science or engineering itself. Thus US tech companies becoming Boeings should be of no surprise.
Failed Scholar
NR,
the pay difference isn’t great on the face of it because the whole point of the H1B scam is to suppress wages of American workers, and surprise surprise that is exactly what the H1B scam does in aggregate. See this from 2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-opinion-optional-practical-training-problems-stem-graduates-deserve-better-jobs-opportunities/
———
“Because foreign STEM graduates are concentrated in certain occupations, their impact on wages is stark even if absolute numbers aren’t huge. In 2018, some 53,000 foreign students earned degrees in computer science or related engineering fields, two-thirds of which were master’s degrees, according to calculations by Hal Salzman, a professor at Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, and Khudodod Khudododov, a research analyst, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics. That year, the U.S. had between 96,000 and 143,000 openings in IT occupations that typically went to candidates with a bachelor’s degree or higher in computer science or engineering, they found. So, OPT participants accounted for anywhere from one-third to one-half of new hires. If you add H-1B candidates, up to two-thirds of openings went to guest workers, according to Salzman.”
“If the U.S. truly faced a talent shortage, paychecks would be rising much faster. Thanks to OPT’s loose provisions, these new hires can legally work for less than market wages. That helps explain why the median annual wage in IT occupations rose just 3% between 2014 and 2019, while employment jumped 18.7%, according to Salzman and Khudododov. This trend may be consistent with stagnant wages in the rest of the economy — but it also flies in the face of employers like Microsoft and their insistence that OPT and H-1B are critical to filling a shortage of qualified U.S. workers. Ample evidence suggests these industry claims are overblown, if not false: For one thing, more than 90% of STEM bachelor’s degrees are earned by American citizens and permanent residents. And if the U.S. really lacked skilled workers, wages would be rising sharply. Instead, we see mild wage growth and tens of thousands of candidates beyond the available supply of jobs.”
———-
Beyond the wage and labor impact, it is clear from everything that has been uncovered over the past few days that the H1B system is almost entirely a scam. The scammy tech-bro and ceo cries of “We CAN’t FiNd aMeRiCaNs tO dO tHe wORk!!!11!!!” is a disingenuous lie because it is by design that way, engineered by them with help from scammy Indian tech recruiting firms. See the video here on how they do it: https://xcancel.com/USTechWorkers/status/1873847105737117732#m and here for the whole thing: https://xcancel.com/IKchmt6jSYhp5I8/status/1873508131852132774#m
No country that was even half sane would ever allow this.
“Guest workers” and immigration policy generally, at this point, is almost entirely a scam to kill your wages/benefits and make you poor and desperate and willing to take their 80hrs/week “job”. This is basically the same thing as all the factory outsourcing that has happened over the past 40 years, except that the scam this time is if you don’t accept lower living standards they won’t move your factory overseas, they will instead literally replace you with a desperate Indian indentured servant.
elkern
I still expect Trump to throw Musk & Ramaswamy under the bus at some point, to please the Magats who give him the only thing he wants more than money: “love”.
OTOH, I see two holes in my prediction.
One, Musk might keep Trump’s support with bribery; it would cost a few $B, but Musk is playing with House Money, so he’d be fine with that.
Two, Trump might bet that his Magats don’t care that much about H1-B’s, because those are mainly taking salaried, coastal, urban tech jobs. The anti-immigrant hate in fly-over country is rooted largely in the loss of decent hourly jobs (small city Mfg lost to China, Meat-Packing Unions broken with immigrant labor, Construction work, etc). That “anti-immigrant” feeling mostly targets Hispanics/Latinos, and Linguistic Identitarianism is a part of that toxic brew which migrants from India can side-step.
different clue
I have recently read that President Musk is an illegal alien his own self. I read that he overstayed his student visa many years ago, and was never caught up with or hunted down.
Is there a Statute of Limitations on the law against overstaying a student visa? If there is, then oh well and too late now.
If no one ever thought to right such a Statute of Limitations into the Immigration Laws, then that would mean that he is still an Illegal Alien and every second of his presence here remains a violation of Immigration Law.
If that all turns out to be true, then I see an opportunity for attacking President Musk with a new and hopefully viralizable meme.
President Musk is an Illegal Alien!
Deport President Musk!
Illegal Alien President Musk is eating the dogs! He’s eating the cats!
Deport Musk before he eats all the pets!
Mark Level
I appreciate what Scholar has to say, & yes, the Bipartisan Kakistocracy is definitely united in keeping wages LOW. This may be the one most compelling reason Harris/ Bidet were rejected yuugely by the electorate, the failure to do the Dem. Infrastructure plan (only the Chamber of Commerce graft one went thru), the failure to put the brakes on student debt– except for a very few who’d been paying for decades & overpaid the base amount by massive factors, no repeal of the Trump tax cuts for the Billionaire class, the shameful lies to the public by millionaire MSM toadies that they only “imagined” the massive monopolistic inflation seen early in the Bidet interregnum, etc. . . . well, ‘Muricans may be tribal & stupid but they’re not THAT stupid when hunger is just outside (or inside) the door.
Elkern anticipated my thoughts, however, given his overwhelming Narcissism & insecurity, when a large # of the CHUDs turn on him, he may swing wildly as Gemini Twins are known to do. (My Moon is in Gemini, my interests tend to veer rapidly as the environment around me changes.) It’ll be too late, likely, but is very likely, I’d bet on it.
The additional aspect of this was illustrated by Steve Bannon during term 1. Don’t hog Trump’s spotlight, that is the Cardinal Sin– Bannon was thrown to the dogs (actually jailed) for being too out-front, President Musk will likely get there relatively soon. Not RuinASwami however, he has all the charisma of a coiled viper, spitting insults at the booboisie ‘Muricans. The CHUDs will NOT take kindly to this.
As to Mago’s point regarding the Caste system this is right as well. And don’t forget about the overwhelming misogyny. (Many years ago The Nation did a lengthy piece on this, and how women in India have a lower mortality rate than in ANY country in the world due to the brutality. In my old home state, last year the “liberal” (lol) Governor Newsom vetoed a law limiting Caste traditional behavior (enslavement and beating, starving etc. of servants) so as not to cross the Tech Lords. We must honor “cultural diversity” of course, unless it stinks of “Woke” or Leftism.
The public will get the worst of Trump’s clueless vacillations, whatever happens. That’s baked into the system. I have to wonder, when his popularity tumbles to Bush Jr. level lows, if it will kill the old man? Of course he may continue to delude himself that the Serfs loved him, as the final Czar did. (Assuming the deep state doesn’t go for “3rd time’s a charm,” & succeed.) The Grotesquerie is at least entertaining, & like his political TV star cohorts Zelensky & Berlusconi, the Spectacle keeps many engaged. Since the Rulers can only ramp up the beatings until morale improves, that is the one piece they count on to keep the public distracted. It’s worked thus far, it’ll work until it no longer does.
America certainly is Extraordinary, the Land of Cocaigne personified!! Stay tuned.
different clue
Another thought occurred to me . . .
Remember those Pink Pussy Hat protests against President Trump at his first election victory? Millions of people chanting ” Not My President!”
What if they were to do it again? In their millions? Only this time, all holding millions of signs with a picture of President Musk on each sign with the universal ” Circle-Slash” symbol drawn over the face of President Musk. And they could all be chanting in their millions . . . ” Not My President!” . . . to see who chokes on the irony.
StewartM
Failed Scholar:
the pay difference isn’t great on the face of it because the whole point of the H1B scam is to suppress wages of American workers, and surprise surprise that is exactly what the H1B scam does in aggregate. See this from 2021:
No, they don’t ‘suppress American wages. Not by this site:
https://inclusion.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/h1b-visa-program-fact-sheet
I’m reading here the same fallacious arguments that were common about, say, the raising the minimum wage or immigrants in general. We don’t have falling real wages because of immigrants, we have falling real wages because all these ‘fixes’ like are suggested here still leave Daddy Warbucks in charge of the economy. When they are forced to raise wages, like during the Covid aftermath, they simply hike prices as much or more to compensate for the loss of profit, and working class people don’t gain or fall further behind.
Most companies in the US already run understaffed; we don’t have a lack of actual jobs to be done, we have people in control of the economy that insist that companies be run into the ground due to understaffing because it generates short-term paper profits. (This chronic understaffing is why we generate illusory productivity numbers). The number of immigrant workers added to the economy pales to the number of workers added to the economy when women joined the workforce, yet real wages did not start their relentless downward trend until St. Ronnie was elected.
As I have written many times, we do need these workers, and we can accommodate them and still have real wages rise. But you’ll only have a good economy once you (at the very least) bring back the tax and regulatory policies that were created under FDR, or better them. Better yet, why have Daddy Warbucks directing anything? He’s incompetent at doing anything but stealing, after all.
Failed Scholar
StewartM,
The pay angle is addressed in the Bloomberg piece I linked to. It’s a systemic thing, the system is set up to supply indentured labor which suppresses wages and working conditions in aggregate, which is what gets you a 3% pay raise in an industry despite all the tech bro screaming about crippling shortages and not being able to find enough workers. It’s a fantasy and a lie. Even logically, the most basic economic principles of supply and demand will tell you that if you flood a market with supply, the price will fall. This is why legendary labor leaders like Caesar Chavez were uber hawks on illegal immigration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH1c0cgORA0 . The people advocating for the H1B system or other guest worker programs are literally advocating for foreign scab labor – why the hell should American workers accept that? Madness.
Anyway looking over your link, the “Center for Inclusion and Belonging” (LOL), paid for by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Yeah, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take Saul Goodman’s takes on this seriously. I’m sure what they are saying is not outright *lies*, but like all lawyers a lot of it is probably distortions, especially since in this case they have a material interest in continuing the system as it is.
If you want a working example par excellance of how the H1B system is actually used by American MegaCorps, look no further than Disney, who uses the usual scammy Indian tech outsourcers: https://thatparkplace.com/disney-h-1b/ “Questions Surround Disney’s Past Use of H-1B Visas in Replacing Domestic Workforce”:
—–
—–
And there we go. Note that these employees (amongst others) have attempted to sue Disney and other scumfuck corps for these practices, but our good friends the Lawyers™ have earned their 30 pieces of silver from Disney and the likes:
—–
—–
Tadaaa! Neat trick, that. And now the Saul Goodmans of the world will go around singing the praises of importing scab labor to fuck American workers in the ass, all neatly Court approved™.
If you don’t like the Disney example, this article lists lots more examples of the same phenomenon, I encourage you to take a look: https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/
—–
This neat little trick of legerdemain, BTW, lets the proponents of the H1B scam claim with a straight face that “no salaries were harmed”, and when the statisticians take a look at their list of “similarly employed U.S. workers” they will magically see that indeed, it is true, as the Department of Labor has defined it away.
I haven’t even gotten around to all the fraud the twitterrati have picked up over the recent online shitstorm (importing 7-11 cashiers? Really?), but from what I’ve seen the H1B system is almost completely a scam and is emblematic of most modern US government programs, structured to be vehicles to screw the public with a straight face.
somecomputerguy
H1-Bs were not invented to remedy worker shortages. The underlying justification for H1-B visas is that the expertise you need is so esoteric, so rare, that even in a nation of 300+ million, no one has it. This was always a fraud. Once upon a time, employers were responsible for training.
Once you can pretend that every slot you have requires unique expertise, every IT job is a unicorn job. During the last Trump administration, some restaurant owner in Minnesota was trying to hire an Italian chef on an H1-B.
Supplying H1-Bs, now, is a massive business.