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"Give with a free hand, but give only your own."
 -- J.R.R. Tolkien The Children of Hurin
- H-1B Visa and the Demise of American Technical Prowess -

Why people pursue the careers they pursue: Money‏
OK, so I hear that you DO understand that people pursue the careers they do because they want to earn a living, and they want to earn as much as they can.  But when it come to encouraging young people pursue careers in science and engineering, you throw your good economic sense down the John Crapper.  You say, "Oh, employers can't find people to do these technical jobs, so we have to let every Indian or Pakistani with a degree come into the country and take that job."  No, what needs to happen is to let the wages for American scientists and engineers rise until more young people decide that the sacrifices required to take the hard road will pay off in he end.  Money motivates.  Suppressing wages discourages.  I guess you want us all to be shoe shiners and wedding planners.

The H-1B visa is killing young American's interest in science and engineering
They go around and around with this... "can't find Americans to fill the jobs, so we'll bring in a bunch of Indians and Chinese."  This lowers the wages, drives American kids to other professions, making it even harder to find Americans.

The unlimited use of the H-1B visa to import foreigners with technical degrees is suppressing wages in the science and engineering fields, making other professions much more attractive to young Americans.  Why spend years of hard study just to make a wage that is slightly above average when you can go into some other profession that does not face the competition of imported labor and make more money?

The whole science and engineering profession in the US is suffering from this lopsided assault waged by the government and short-sighted industry.

If you want to lure more young Americans into science and engineering careers, you will have cut off the importation of foreign workers and let wages for US citizens rise.

"Arrrgggh... we just can't find young Americans to fill these positions, so we'll just have to increase the H-1B quota again this year.  I know, I know, it's already up to 120,000 per year, that's three times the total number of electrical and mechanical engineering graduates in the US this year, but we need more foreigners because Americans will demand too much money."

At some point this will become a major national defense crisis when the US finds that all of it's industrial trade secrets are in the hands of foreign nationals.

The fix?  Simple.  Limit the H-1B visa to 10% of U.S. citizens graduating into any profession per year.

And remember, the "best and brightest" stay in their home countries where they can live well.  It's the mediocre and incompetent that leave.

Spend 3% of GDP on science? Only H-1B visa holders (foreigners) to benefit‏
Here's Obama's handout to all of the 'science and technology' workers US industry has imported to keep US salaries for science and technolgy professonals down.  The boffins keep saying that "we need to attract the best and the brightest",  but what actually comes our way is the dim-witted and desperate.  The "best and brightest" stay in their home country where they get paid well.  The dim-witted and desperate emmigrate to the U.S. where industry uses them to suppress what would be a hot market for people with science and technology education.
 
So now Obama is going to spend 3% of the GDP on science and technology.  They all scratch their heads trying to figure out why young US citizens aren't attracted to science and technology professions.  Well, where's the money?  What's the incentive?  Making slick posters or TV commercials isn't going to create an incentive.  There is nothing like letting market forces prevail, letting wages rise until demand is met.  Importing foreigners with this H-1B visa is the worse national security threat ever to the United States.  And so few see it.

The only way to encourage young people to enter any field as a career is to show them that there is a pot of gold at the end of college gauntlet. Young people smart enough and tenacious enough to endure the rigors of an engineering curriculum are also capable of pursuing careers that are more financially rewarding.  Or, judging that the preparation to enter a science or engineering career requires too great of an investment of time, effort and money, and does not result in a significantly higher income than pursuing some other occupation that doesn't involve so many years of difficult college education; a young person will opt for the easier road.  Wages for scientists and engineers are significantly lower than what a fair and free market would set them at.  This is the result of the government's policy that allows hundreds of thousands of people with science and engineering backgrounds to enter the United States' work force under the
 
H-1B visa program.  The number of foreigners with science and engineering degrees entering the country's workforce each year equals or surpasses the number of U.S. citizens graduating with science and engineering bachelor
 
degrees.  As long as this policy continues, wages will be artificially suppressed, and all efforts by government, industry, educational institutions, or philanthropic organizations to encourage young American
 
citizens to enter science or engineering careers will fail. Our media, business, political, and military leaders choose not to see this lack of U.S. citizens entering science and engineering careers as the threat to our economic and national security that it is.

Fox news say there's a shortage of nurses
Again, the politicians balk at the power of a free market, and do all they can to mess it up.  So, there's a "shortage" of nurses.  What does this mean?  In the strict economic sense, it mean that the price hasn't risen high enough to lure more people into the profession.  So, what do the politicians want to do?  Import nurses?  Subsidize nursing schools?  Why not make sure the pay for nurses isn't held artificially low, so people switch from one job to another that pays more?

It's the same thing for science, technical and engineering jobs.  Companies wail and moan that they can't find enough qualified people.  But, they get with the pols and do everything they can to drive American citizens into pursuing other careers.  How?  By messing with the market.  They allow hundreds of thousands of foreigners to come into the country to compete with American technical workers, and keep the wages for the Americans artificially low.  So, what do the Americans do?  They drift toward careers the foreigners can't do.

The excuse given is that "we want to attract the best and brightest to our shores".  The reality is, the "best and brightest" stay in their home country, and the mediocre and average leave their home countries because they can't find jobs there.

This creates a military security problem of massive proportions.  When this country is attacked and enters a war, the United States will not have technically experienced citizens to create and produce the arms that this country will need to support the war effort.

Not only is there a scarcity of technically experienced people to make weapons, we no longer have the manufacturing capacity nor the technical sophistication to produce the large quantities and high quality of the parts and sub assemblies that are needed to make modern weapons.  For example, we can not produce the mass quantities of electronic components such as capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits, and discrete semiconductors needed to make modern electronics.  All of these things are now produced in foreign countries who would have no reason to supply us with them.

So, we're screwed.

The solution to these problems are really quite simple:  eliminate illegal immigration by prosecuting employers who pay them; reduce legal immigration to 1% of current levels; eliminate trans-corporate labor monopolies, guilds, societies, associations, and organizations that determine the supply and wages of workers.

The rise in standard of living in the early 20th century was due to the rise in mechanization, not to the rise in labor unions.  Labor unions only help those in them when only a small portion of the population belongs.  Otherwise, why don't the existing labor unions try to organize ALL industries?  Well, you can't if you want your people to live off all the others.  The artificially increased standard of living for labor union members can only be maintained at the expense of a lower standard of living for all other people.  Machinery increased productivity, eliminated the need for slavery, and allowed women to leave the home.  The automobile allowed people to seek better employment than what they could get from local employers withing walking distance.  In summary, labor unions, guilds, associations (e.g. the American Medical Association) are not needed, and diminish us all.

The looming national security threat of the H-1B visa
While thousands of highly educated American citizens get temporary jobs at Penny's to make ends meet, the government is happily printing up thousands and thousands of H-1B visas to import technical professionals who will compete with American citizens for jobs.  This is putting our country at a severe disadvantage and will eventually lead to a national security threat.  Suppressing wages with massive immigration is the prime cause of discouraging young Americans from pursuing science and engineering careers.

Money leads kids to math and science, not NASA
It is the prospect of a good income that leads kids to pursue careers in math, science and engineering, not NASA.  Yet math, science and engineering careers are under assault from massive immigration from third-world countries.  The country-club types say that such policies lure the "best and the brightest" to our shores.  But the best and brightest stay in their own countries with their families and the culture they grew up in.  What we get here is the mediocre and malcontent.  And as a added bonus to those who are trying to destroy our country, our national defense is severely compromised because our industry is saturated with foreign nationals who are undoubtedly transferring any of the few industrial secrets our companies still have to China, India, Pakistan and Russia.

Why does everyone attack the engineering profession?
Why is it that when a country "doesn't have enough engineers" the first answer out of the mouths of elitists is to open up the boarders and flood the market?  What ever happened to free market economics where if there is a shortage of engineers, the wages will rise attracting more young people to drop their pursuit of a careers in journalism or law and switch to science and engineering?  The reason young people avoid science and engineering careers (except for becoming a physician) is because the money isn't there at the end of the educational road.  And the money isn't there because the government keeps messing with the free market.

The "best and the brightest" stay in their home country where they can live well and be with their families.  What we get here is the mediocre and the disenchanted.

Microsoft and all the other companies that "can't find skilled employees" would be overrun with them if the government stopped messing with the free market and artificially lowering wages of the science and engineering professions by skewing the immigration numbers.  Why don't we have open season on importing teachers or radio talk show hosts or lawyers.  No, instead you elitists import hundreds of thousands of people with science and engineering degrees instead of admitting an equal percentage of ALL skills.

You elitists make a big fuss about the free market until it is YOU that has to pay a higher wage to people with scarce and in-demand skills. Then you want to revert to government intervention and government picking the winners and the losers.

Money leads kids to math and science, not government initiatives
It is the prospect of a good income that leads kids to pursue careers in math, science and engineering, not government initiatives.  Yet math, science and engineering careers are under assault from the government tinkering with the free market.  Massive immigration of people from third-world countries under the H-1B visa program suppresses wages.  The country-club types say that such policies lure the "best and the brightest" to our shores.  But the best and brightest stay in their own countries with their families and the culture they grew up in.  What we get here is the mediocre and malcontent.  And as a added bonus to those who are trying to destroy our country, our national defense is severely compromised because our industry and universities are saturated with foreign nationals who are undoubtedly transferring any of the few industrial secrets our companies still have to China, India, Pakistan and Russia.

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