It is hard to imagine that H-1B Visas is the hill that some conservatives choose to die on. It makes for an interesting debate. I can see both sides of the argument. I agree it would be better if we use the new focus on reshoring and rebuilding American manufacturing by educating our own youth in STEM so it can be so. Yay!! But, unfortunately, that is not the American reality. Our education system is so F'd up by the Woke Left agenda that we are producing few children interested in STEM, or even in reading and writing. Wishing it were so does not make it so. Given that hard truth, the option is to import young people who ARE interested in using their brains and doing something useful with themselves. While that is happening, the righty culture warriors can focus no policy to rebuild American families and our education system that motivates kids to pursue technical learning and STEM degrees. That is a 20 year project, at least. Us pragmatists know that we need a 5 and 10 year plan as well. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
of all the issues right now H1-B is close to the bottom on my list of priorities.
I’m a working class contractor in Texas whose livelihood has been severely disrupted by intentionally flooding my state and entire country with infinity illegal immigrants. I get outbid on jobs all the time because I can’t compete with the cheap labor that illegal immigrants provide.
that and I want to avoid WW3. and economic collapse. and to bring back real science. and bring accountability for the crooks who've been destroying this country and it’s population.
if a Tech-Bro wants to hire an Indian guy because he is awesome at his job I really could care less…
You contradict yourself. You're losing work because of cheap foreign labor but the process used to bring in your competition isn't a priority for you. That doesn't make any sense.
A virtue signaling co-worker corrected me the other day for referring to “illegal immigrants”. You should call them “undocumented,” not “illegal,” she scolded me.
I told her they mean the same thing, call them whatever you like. Either way it’s Biden’s fault. She didn’t care for that answer either. Can’t please everyone.
Illegal aliens have documents from being processed at the border.
Immigrants have permission to be in the US, Illegal aliens don't. The media uses the wrong legal terms in order to train us to not use the correct term - Illegal aliens.
Mayorkas said he was deleting the term "Illegal alien" - he's a good little Communist, forcing his radical changes on Americans.
The people I know who are here on H-1B visas, mostly well-educated East Indians, are paid exactly the same as me and live in the same community with the same costs. They sometimes are married and have families that also have the same costs. They are working towards citizenship. They are not a cheap manual labor alternative to American-born workers. I think that is exactly the correct type of immigrant American should attract.
Exactly. Our education problems and our LOW birthrate and our generally hot economy means that we must have these talented people. This is a win-win for us and them. This is a form of legal immigration -- the opposite of open borders.
I worked as a research engineer at a major university so I know a thing or 2 about this.
The truth is that American kids are not interested in science and technology degrees, if you were to require universities to only enroll US students than virtually all engineering programs will seize to exist because the numbers of domestic students is so low its not worth keeping the lights on !
Of course in the long run this creativity tremendous problems not only in regards to technology and IP theft but also in regards to national security, the average age of a engineer working in defense electronics nowadays is 58 with many working past retirement age because the employer cannot find candidates that are capable of getting a clearance so at the end of the day we have to get our kids back in the game but it’s not going to be easy
Daughter is in grad school at Georgia Tech for a masters in Structural Engineering. Her bf is a civil engineer. Loads of friends are engineers. Americans are becoming engineers. And I am all for the best and the brightest working here in our country if those jobs can’t be filled effectively by Americans.
My son is graduating from University of Georgia in 2025 with a degree in Physics and Math and has joined the Navy in their Nuclear Engineering program in DC. My son’s high school friends all have jobs and many are engineer and business majors. Maybe some of Georgia parents and Georgia schools are doing something right.
Georgia is one of a handful of states (I think it's CA, TX, PA, VA, and GA) with multiple public colleges in the USN&WR Top 25. I did get my MBA from the Bad Place :) #THWg
My husband and I are both Engineers. Our brothers are all engineers or scientists. However, when we were in Grad school in the 1970’s half of the grad students in Chem Engineering were Asians. So sure, there are American born Engineers but even in the 70’s they only made up about half of engineering population. When I was in grad school they were already prioritizing giving women scholarships over men from which I benefited (I was a top student but there were men equally qualified that did not get fellowships). Even so the population of women in engineering has never grown above a small minority. Yet, to do this they turned away qualified males for the scholarship. There are consequences for misled social engineering.
I knew female students in the 80s who had chosen Engineering not because they had the talent (or even the interest), but because it was the fashionable thing to proclaim your feminist credentials in this manner, for both the female students and the schools.
I have wondered along the way how many of them actually entered the field. And if they did, which projects they were involved with -- so that I could avoid these.
Yes and I ran into that preconception for decades. Everyone assumed I wasn’t qualified and just got my job because I was a token. I had many men come up to me after working with me and admitted they had thought I would be terrible and were surprised I was actually really good. Qualified people do not want to work with unqualified people, no matter their sex or race.
I would say that over 90% of the female students I knew who went into Engineering were the sort who would make you afraid to have anything to do with projects they were involved with.
I say this as a female myself. I am not risking my life because my "sisters" did not understand the principles of bridge-building.
Interesting! Our daughter (at GT getting the MS is Structural) is a research assistant creating blast resistant concrete. It’s probably something the PhDs and post docs should be doing as it’s a DOD grant that has not been done before. The stress is high and she’s already said she’d be content building bridges once in her career. I can’t blame her…she does want children and a work life balance.
That is more research as you say, and I can see Chemists or Physicists involved. Yes, it is the PhD or post-doc level. So is the institution at fault here?
I cannot say the building bridges is exactly a lesser endeavour, though.
To plan children and a work-life balance, it may be that neither is the way to go. That's just reality. Many women want something to give, in order to accommodate them....and I would prefer that it is not our safety standards.
I also went to Tech. I recall during my undergraduate graduation them calling for the school of Engineering to stand up. About 95%+ of those graduating then stood up. I had been there for 3 years and even I was amazed. So Tech is not very representative of colleges in general. I had a roomate from China who was going to grad school and he lamented the "talent" he was competing against. I reminded him that he was the absolute cream of the crop in a nation 4 times the size of ours. If everything was equal, there would be 4 of him vs one from the USA. He was at such a high level that the communists in 1990 sent HIM to the USA to study. He was a nice guy, but very elite as a student as demonstrated by his presence at GT from China.
Our daughter was accepted to GT for undergrad as well but chose to stay closer to home and graduated from Marquette U which has a decent sized Engineering student body. My dad attended MIT planning to become an engineer and opted for finance after taking a gander at the engineers! That was in the early 1950s!
Tech family here. Both of us engineers, raised two stem kids. The issue though is they're white males. Anyone telling you there isn't a prejudice against them is lying to you. My honors boys who were raised per the "Vivek" model didn't even bother to apply to the elite schools, they couldn't get in. The eldest is now in a materials science environment PhD program (he applied to seven schools, has a BS in physics graduated with honors, but only got into one). He loves it and I'm so grateful the university chose him. He's the only white male on his research team. My other son just graduated in June summa cum laude in video game design and computer science, has two years co-op experience, and two AAA games on his resume, still no job. He's applied to over 60 entry level jobs and only had three interviews. One was obviously just to check a box, the others they decided after three rounds to fill the position internally. But otherwise, ghosted. So, don't tell those of us who did what any good tech parent should that there's a lack of the kids we raised to fill those roles can't have them.
Firstly, I love and appreciate your photo. We are also strictly practicing Catholics. Our daughter attends Christ the King in Atlanta.
I'm sorry to hear about your sons and the racial bias. We also have a son ---who is working his butt off as a manager at an Amazon warehouse after completing a degree in business. It's not all that it's cracked up to be working 60 hours of mandatory OT which means he makes less than the hourly employees.
Secondly, there is no need to scold me: "So, don't tell those of us who did what any good tech parent should that there's a lack of the kids we raised to fill those roles can't have them." I have NO idea what the gaming world looks like but it certainly is a lot more niche than other engineering domains, like civil.
So let's practice our Catholicism and be kind in our communication. I wish your sons all the best.
Used to be, a few decades ago, that North American universities were over-run with Engineering students. They certainly were not rare. These were very well-attended programs.
I think it’s specialized engineering. There are loads of mechanical engineers at universities but aeronautical and even civil aren’t nearly as abundant.
Yeh, I work in the manufacturing industry as a roboticist and am degreed. We have a lot of 20 something American kids who went to engineering school or 2 year tech school so they can work in our industry. It is not as bad as you think, but it could be a lot better
Seems to me that a lot could be done with Americans. My husband is a retired EE who worked in propulsion at NASA, and he says that some of the best people on the test stands are electronics technicians, who worked under engineers and often functioned as de facto engineers after a long time in the field. Businesses could hire tech apprentices.
I don't know what to think about the Zoomers. For a while, I was running into IT majors here and there, and most of them aspired to designing video games.
There are some super techs out there. Most of them have very detailed knowledge about certain systems. Where they falter is when you put them in a completely different environment. Super techs are awesome!!
Keep in mind that many major universities recruit foreign students because they pay higher tuition than domestic or in state tuition. Many state universities are denying better qualified in-state students to take out of state and foreign students that pay higher tuition.
No one talks about the equation that generational Americans have a LOW birthrate, but the country generally has a hot economy. We need a variety of immigrants with job skills to keep our economy thriving. If in the recesses of our minds we long for the 'white' workforce of say the 1970s, but still want all the economic strength, that can no longer happen.
In the 70s, as a cauc male I worked in construction with all other babyboomer cauc males. Today construction is near all Hispanic.
One of the problems that Democrats have caused is a large population of young, able-bodied men & women, who are in their 20s & 30s, who are not working. Thanks to Biden and Obama. I'm a physician & I see so much of this. A lot of it is driven by their parents. Their parents are on "disability" so they get the kids on "disability" so they become life-long non-workers. I should mention that they are not actually disabled. Disability for alcohol use, "depression", "anxiety", tobacco use, etc. Nonsense stuff.
What we need to do is stop paying young, able bodied people to do nothing! Put them to work
Appreciate your Doc perspective, SSue. Medical care is very 'people intensive' and face to face. While most people can avoid it day to day, only hearing occasional stories of human decrepitness, the fallout winds up in a doctors office and ER, everyday. Its beyond sickening. If dam Dem politicians had to do your work, they'd come around quick.
Agree! And we can do it too. We just have to bring back conservative, traditional family values & religious values back into the mainstream Culture. US used to have a much higher birth rate, was high until more recently when Leftists took over the culture, bringing their anti-family values into the mainstream culture.
Praying for a great revival NOW, in the US and the world over. The loss of the reverence for God is the difference between US in 1955 and US in 2025. May GOD raise up great men/women communicators to lead this next Great Awakening.
Oh yea and there are also some parents who have sons who live in their basement & do nothing but play video games & smoke pot. It's ridiculous. Young people in their 20s & 30s, living in their parents home, not working but playing video games all day. Many of these parents paid a lot of money to send these bums to college, they got huge loans, then came home to do nothing. They should also go to work!
Maybe there are no students interested in STEM because STEM is a field primarily interesting to boys. And because of the attack on boys by feminists/DEI/CRT in education, boys are choosing not to go to college.
Boys make up 40% of college students. If you want students interested in STEM, make our education institutions welcoming to boys again.
You are right, we need to hire highly intelligent engineers and others to be the teachers of our children starting in kindergarten. People who can motivate and inspire our children to want to learn how to think. There are too many of our students getting liberal arts degrees and going on to become teachers. They don’t have the skills to teach anything except how to become liberal arts majors or activists themselves. But if we don’t make any changes to our education system and just keep allowing the visa’s then ultimately we are doomed. The foreigners get educated and bring back the knowledge to their countries of origin, making America a less secure nation.
You're looking at the college-bound. There are others who aren't taking the college route - and lots of them in Flyover Country. California and NYC aren't the Nation.
I spent most of my career working in flyover country, the Rust Belt. Manufacturing is in the middle of the country. That is who needs the technical skills. They need STEM. Designing and operating robotic and CNC systems are not menial jobs
And there are a lot of kids - here - who do just that, including a lot of DEI grads with useless degrees who do a two year AA in a community college - and they usually have an apprenticeship on the side after the first six months. In some places, unions or employers or both pay for the college. We don't need imports, we need to train our own people. And you'd be surprised at how enthusiastic art school grads with a welding certificate are when they figure this out - and pay off their loans for the worthless degree in two years, then look forward to buying a house. Same case for DEI grads. I tell people to skip college for the most part, and learn a skilled trade... they make a lot more money a lot quicker. The downside is that they lose their "friends" who just don't get it - or haven't wised up yet. They're envious, angry, and loud, and get lots of attention. People doing real work don't have time for all of that.
Did you read what I said? No. Immigrants on H-1B visas become Americans. So, if we immigrate smart, STEM people we are saved. But we are screwed if we don't and rely on kids whose standard test scores are the worst in history due to liberal policy decisions, including closing down schools for 1-2 years due to COVID. If you are one of those contributing to the destruction of our youth, then YOU are the problem and not the solution
Oh I read what you wrote, I just am skeptical that we need to wait as long as you suggest to fix the lack of motivated American workers coming out of our admittedly broken education system. Radical new approaches are needed, and needed now. And you know what? Maybe we can speed that process up by doing so. My suggestion: learn- on- the- job internships for various STEM jobs.
One reason our young people lack motivation (one of them) is their sense that they are not really needed in this job market, that there is no real opportunity for them outside of picking up hours at 7-11. If we can change that perception, count me as someone who believes this generation could achieve great things. And I say that as someone who has been in the teaching profession for a long time.
Flooding the market with huge numbers of H-1B workers is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. End of story.
And "learning on the job" is already happening WITH the Hb1 visas, as I've read more than a few times that Indians and other immigrants are LYING about their credentials and once here, have to be trained by those who they are REPLACING, because they are generally clueless about the job they're hired to do.....
I am all about "apprenticeship" for large companies that can afford it. But America relies heavily on small companies and often they can't (my small company can't). So how is that circle squared?
Nope, two years with an AA from a community college is enough to fix it, I've seen it in real life - and often enough those two years have an apprenticeship included so they can earn while they learn.
We need both. We have a Mt Everest to climb to catch up to China in manufacturing, especially in strategic products. I am in the middle of this. It is my life and career. I know the numbers. And I am not pro-4 year school which are a mind-suck. My own kids did 2-year Tech schools. But to succeed in tech school you need a working knowledge of math and science. Most kids today don't have that
Then it's remedial courses to supply the background, you'd be surprised how quickly people pick up on things when they have incentive - like huge debts and an education which makes them fit for little else but minimum wage manual labor. It's a trap, they know (now) that it's a trap, and if they get shown a way out, they'll take it. No one wants to be a slave. And the other thing is that their view of politics changes, big time... As I said, I've seen this work out - art school isn't exactly big on math and science, but (say) a two-year path to a job paying high five figures or even low six figures, and those deficits can and will be made up quickly. It's a stark choice - and a huge incentive.
People going from useless DEI degrees to HVAC engineers, networking engineers - being flown overseas to do installations in southeast Asia, flying helicopters to do supply runs to oil rigs - all of these I've seen people do. The situation is far from hopeless - and all with two year AA degrees - and these people all had to make up for the deficits given them by half-assed incompetent public schools.
Vivek Ramaswamy hit the nail on the head: American culture doesn't give scholars the respect it gives others. Who gets more acclaim, the high school kid who published a research paper in physics or the kid who put the winning touchdown in last week's game?
That doesn't happen in other cultures where it really is a great honor to have a scholar in the family.
But the US has to put a clear line between bringing in exceptional people and bringing in so-so people willing to work for less.
You have to look at this short term long term. You are correct - ed is ruined. That will take a decade or 2 to rebuild. Meanwhile we have to have talent.
Here is a 2023 report on the status of education in America and the long term trend of test scores. It is ugly and will get worse since kids will never get back 2020-21: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Do not forget the LONG march through the institutions has been intentional. The destruction of the Constitution and the Republic has been the goal. So, you dumb down the public schools and you stop teaching Logic and Rhetoric. You stop teaching HOW to think, just ‘what’ to think. You replace the citizen with the global citizen. Wake the heck up.
Correct, LDT...America's institutions have been intentionally corrupted (for decades) and no longer serve We the People. It's going to take a while to turn this ship around, so let's try to be patient together and re-educate ourselves to think like Americans again (not socialists, which is leading us to a globalist one-world gov't). Employees MUST be hired based on merit again or the U.S. will be in trouble, and the gov't needs to scale back regulations. Thankfully, my son went to technical school for a year and got a full-time job where he'll make enough to pay off his loans. I agree with the Hodge Twins statement on X that this divisiveness is perfectly timed.
I am a Christian first. Everybody has a place of purpose and value in a well organized society… people are not ‘useless eaters’. I agree that much of this is orchestrated… but by which players?
As a christian, how many people (let's not bullshit) how many illegal immigrants have you welcomed into your home? How many times have you paid for their welfare? How many have you PERSONALLY paid to educate? Now, how many homeless vets have you walked past?
It is not my duty, nor is it wise, to welcome a lawbreaker into my home nor to pay for their upkeep. My government’s refusal to maintain borders and vet people who want to come here, at the cost of its citizens, is not a responsible or moral decision. I have helped, where I am able, with food and occasionally money those who were in need whether homeless or underemployed… and in these cases I don’t ask them what their legal status is.
So you're guilty of hiding your head in the sand as children were murdered by the administration you voted for. It was your duty to educate yourself on the destructive obama border policy and make sure that law breakers dont come into the country to fuxx with your home.
No you don't ask them their status you just waved the bastards in and looked the other way. It's a good job the black, hispanic, latino, jewish, muslim asian and native AMERICANS had more moral fibre than you have.
Bring the Western manufacturing base back from China. It was a terribly destructive and insane choice to move it there to begin with. Not to mention risking our own North American access to necessary supplies and trade routes.
Bring back the manufacturing and the jobs that went with it.
We sent one of the pillars of our society -- manufacturing and organized movement of those goods -- off to a known Communist country. To enrich the Communists and give them massive control.
What could possibly go wrong?
Ever think they might use those profits to beef-up their military and to buy our real estate?
And they said (and lied) that we'd be just fine as a "service" economy. Bill Clinton and Democrats (and some greedy Republicans) were wrong.... and I knew they were wrong at the time.
Well, I talked about it with everyone. Probably lost a friend or two, but that's okay. After getting online in the early aughts (I love saying "aughts" for some reason....I first heard it said in the movie "Music Man"), I posted my comments about it there too.
Yeah, but we were told by the experts that a rising middle class would be the end of communism in China... you don't think all of those "experts" were wrong/lied to us, do you? ; )
Politicians on both sides sold out to Communist countries intentionally, especially China. Any time the gov't says "free trade" agreement, it's just the opposite. We need to get rid of the USMCA so that the US isn't handicapped with gov't regulation and interference.
I have been shouting this for years, and don't understand why it isn't more commonly recognized: When American employers hire immigrant (legal or illegal) labor because "Americans won't do those jobs" they are saying that they can't survive without slave labor. That excuse didn't fly for southern plantation owners in the Civil War era, and it won't fly now.
If our economy can't thrive without slave labor, we are going to have to bite the bullet and endure whatever it takes to fix it -- and pray it can be done without Civil War and Reconstruction horrors.
If we have to employ immigrant labor because Americans won't do those jobs ("can't" is a different issue), then those jobs aren't paying enough. Period. And as long as employers have an ever-increasing pool of cheap labor to draw from wages aren't going to rise.
On a related note, if higher wages force higher prices, maybe we should learn to prioritize quality over quantity -- which isn't going to happen as long as we keep flooding our markets with cheap goods from China.
And back in the day, the CEO of a large corporation didn't make billions a year. The greed is in all classes and demographics.....greed is the problem. Is one yacht and jet enough? How about 3 vacation homes instead of 5 or 6? John Adams said "Avarice will break this Constitution like a whale breaks through a net" and "This Constitution is for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other". And the Christian religion teaches "Love God with all you heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself" and "It's more of a blessing to give than to receive+" and "Give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall others give unto your being" (the way of measuring grain is what's described here).
Isn't it up to the person who earns the money to decide how to spend it? Do you ever factor in the amount the ultra wealthy donate to charities when you criticize them?
We need to remind ourselves that the MAGA movement is in its toddler years and, like any young political movement, will need a lot of debate and discussion to figure out its major vs minor issues and wisest step forward to MAGA. There are now (vs 2016) lots of voices in MAGA and they will need to learn how to listen and how to disagree agreeably. Could the Democrats have a Twitter battle over anything? No, there is a hymnal dictated by the elites and their megaphones that define biblically what’s acceptable speech and opinions and not. I’ll always stick with the team who can have open, transparent debates and disagreements. The Democrats lack of this, except on the edges during primaries, is exactly why they are in the wilderness and why they are destined to remain there until they can have these honest conversations.
We do need change. But American culture did not shift in the 90s. Far earlier.
As a child, I was mocked and ostracized as a "brain." Repeatedly starting in third grade. Being smart became something to hide and deny. This was the late 70s.
I would talk to my Mom about it, and she could not understand. She told me at her school, in the 50s, the top students were popular. Not mocked. Unless you literally wore a pocket protector and taped horn rim glasses. I used to wish I had been born earlier. LOL.
We really need to self examine. There is nothing wrong with NOT beating our children for not getting As which is not uncommon in some of the countries being mentioned for comparison, but we should not despise intellect societally either. Which we often do.
Now, we reward mediocrity. We embrace dumbing down. The last forty years of education show a dive to the bottom. That does have to change. We can't feel better by trying to make everybody as dumb as everybody else. What a stupid concept.
I was considered a nerd in school as well because I read books all the time. My grades didn't reflect what I was capable of, due to many other circumstances in my life. I just didn't care at that time.
But, I also get why my kids and the next generation want work-life balance and more PTO. Us Gen X-ers bought into the with hard and you will do well. Haha. Companies got rid of pensions, expected more work without raises, had no loyalty to their employees but we were expected to work our assess off and got nothing. Especially if you were white.
So our kids saw this and said f you. Why should I bust my ass if there's nothing in it for me. Around the world, people have better pto and work life balance. I say we fight for it. But.. when you come in to work, you give it your all and your best and the company takes care of you. That's how it should work.
Beating? Absolutely no, but discipline that includes consequences for action? Yes. A parent isn't supposed to be a "friend". And FYI, I did give a little swat on the backside of my children once in a while when absolutely necessary.
And a lot of the guilt goes to leftists in the education industry and the Dept of Ed!! Common Core alone had been devastating. We tried to do what we could. I can't say that we handled it perfectly but we tried. We downsized into a small home (that was very stressful to live in with 3 energetic boys and no real backyard), so one of us could cut work hours (or not work outside the home at all) and be there for our kids and make sure homework was done, no violent video games, etc.. But living in an increasingly crazy blue state, that whole-heartedly embraced Common Core and looked the other way when there was "reverse bullying" (which the left denies even happens), we had problems. One kiddo is out of college but just not thrilled with his prospects and/or career choice (had to apologize for being white in front of the class, at his left-leaning university). If I had to do it over again, I'd move my kids out of this state into a conservative state when they were young.
Whoever is getting "offended" by a reality check is deluded, just like the communists currently running our country & the media.
Should the H-1B program be evaluated and probably limited in scope? Of course it should.
But until young people come to terms with the fact that in America, they shouldn't expect a starting salary of $250,000 a year, then we will have to continue this program just to keep pace with China.
And God knows the left has been busting their collective asses for a way to divide us. Apparently, they've hit gold.
After all the work we put into get out of the socialist springing us into the downwards path to becoming EU Lite, letting some bullshit non-issue divide us now is stupid.
Please don't forget that this is only the beginning of our fight.
My son graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering and recently an MBA from Carnegie Mellon (high honors). He was born and schooled in the US. He struggled for 9 months to even be called for an interview (after graduating with the MBA). So many positions were being filled with students with H-1B visas. I agree that STEM needs to be a higher priority in the US but excellent students from the USA are at a disadvantage as they are not even being considered for an interview. This needs to change.
This has happened to people in my family too all the way. Stretching back to the early '90s. I found out personally that graduating summa cum laude actually got you in trouble when it came to finding a position. HR immediately thought of you as too expensive. Couldn't get an interview to save my life. All that work... Wow. I finally got someone to tell me in an informational interview that I should never put my GPA on my resume and to take off all the awards and honors because it looks like I'm overqualified for anything entry level. Thank God he told me. But to this day I wonder why I thought I should work so hard and try so hard to get all of those good grades and honors. It did me zero good.
Well, it's complicated, Sasha. Yes, our culture has been going down the drain in so many ways over the past 40 years, educationally being just one of them. And yes, smart, ambitious people from around the world immigrating to the US have been a key to our success as a nation.
But the abuse of the H-1B program seems clear, at least by the responses many have posted on X and elsewhere, and prob here real soon. It does seem to be a form of indentured servitude for people desperate to come here... And that ain't good. For them or us.
The larger issue is that the American people are well fed up with there jobs being exported under "free trade" policies, or with cheaper, replacement workers being imported because Americans allegedly are culturally deficient... skilled or unskilled. So you are poking a mighty angry bear with this issue.
This is good to bring up... Should be a fascinating and productive debate. That's what real democracy is about, right?
I can’t speak for everyone, but this 31 year labor Democrat joined the MAGA movement because the left wholly adopted the stance of the old school Republicans. Trump saw that we had been abandoned and took up that fight for us.
I grew up in one of the wealthiest per capita counties in the country. By the late eighties that was ended and things looked bleak for me.
I went to the University of Michigan, graduated, floated around in jobs I couldn’t stand, working with people I couldn’t stand, being miserable and never making any money.
I came in the door of each job as a goal-oriented doer, got kudos, got the first promotion, then got shut out because I am not corporate or urban.
After twenty years I went into the trades and I sm much happier and wealthier.
But the thing is, young people see no path forward, just like me. The rug was pulled out from under them.
We have to restore the foundation to give them hope. That means we have to stop importing slave laborers and reindustrialize.
There is zero difference between a slaveholder in 1850 and these tech bro clowns, except the slaveholder didn’t know we could have the kind of economy we had between the Second War and 1990s. The tech CEOs know better. They just want the easy path while telling us we need to work harder. I’ve saw the same thing over forty years ago when I was a pre-teen.
Don’t fall for these clowns. When a kid graduates high school, he or she should be able to find decent employment and security. When a kid graduates college, they should be able to get paid for their training and their work. Those things don’t happen for most people because we have a glut of labor
they also choose majors like "Climate Justice' and "International Relations" I swear most of my friends who hav kids who recently graduated had majors like the above! If they are not back living at home working part-time in totally un-related fields, the parents are paying their rent and they're working for pennies at some not-for-profit (also unrelated to their major!) They opt for rainbows and unicorns and not math/science/engineering or even economics/finance/business! I don't want my tax money going to pay for their jobs!
On the other hand, my best friend in high school and I both went into engineering. I got out twenty years ago, but he held out until a few years ago. He had been stuck for years while quota hires were advanced ahead of him.
We can’t have success when that is how things work. We just end up with demoralized people who can’t see a path forward.
There is no frontier where people can make their own opportunities anymore. We have to preserve our opportunities for our people.
Yes. My BIL got a degree in engineering and is brilliant but struggled to find employment at any salary when he graduated first with a BS and later with an MS. He isnt terribly aocially aavvy, but he should have still found it easier to get work. But the companies can be as picky as they want. And he could rarely even get an interview which tells me that his super high grades from a great engineering school likely branded him as expensive. AND They have a global pool of applicants. Back when our parents were coming up in the 50s and 60s, anyone with an emgineering degree had a good job. .unless the oerson was completely batsh*t crazy.
Good stuff... yeah, the tech bros do have a bit of the slaveowner in them, complete with the noblesse oblige... remember, slaveowner thought they were doing their slaves a favor by teaching them good work habits... the H-1B is the new slave trade, or maybe better, the indentured servant trade.
The whole thing has been so stupid. (Vivek did step in it a bit but good heavens above…). Our schools, even in red states, are terrible. We homeschooled our three kids (way before it was cool - our kids are 28, 32, and 37) and our (red) state has one of the highest per capita of homeschooled kids in the country thanks to very homeschool friendly laws. We taught them how to learn, traveled (not necessarily long distances - to Jamestown and Yorktown and DC and Williamsburg), let them go to work as soon as they were old enough, required chores, let them play and be creative, and held them accountable. Go figure, they’re all wonderful, smart, funny, successful (in what they want to do, including one homemaker who is, by natural inclination, the most scholarly of the bunch). One of my sons in law was homeschooled, too. They’re homeschooling my grandsons. They’ve been very prized employees, know how to work hard. I told them all their lives that “we are not the Cosbys and you’re not moving back in” and that they would eat ramen noodles and peanut butter for awhile after they were done with school and that was normal.
We need immigrants - legal ones who assimilate. But people want the illegals out first, and want the H-1B program modified so it’s not another “Americans last” program. (El gato malo has a great substack today on this whole “controversy.”) We also need to be able to disagree and not tear each other apart. I don’t want to have every opinion be the same as someone else’s and I don’t think people are bad/wrong/traitors who have different ideas from mine.
And I also know the MSM and libs on X will sow discord at every available opportunity so don’t worry too much (yet).
She did not say it was not. She correctly said that the Left will certainly fan the flames (and help create them) given a chance. And that is for sure true. Both sides take every opportunity to tear down the other side. Your side controls quite a bit more media, tho.
Used to? NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN and MSNBC and all but 2 big city newspapers all actively tried to help Harris get elected and STILL report anything bad about Trump all day long. Just because more people now watch our ONE tv network, Fox, than any one of the others. More people total watch the others. No used to.
After reading many comments to this post, I believe this has actually become a healthy, forward looking debate. Had Kamala won we wouldn't even be discussing this. Ultimately, the buck stops with Trump. But all signs point to America entering a new phase in our existence. We are rethinking who we are as a people. I love it!!
It is hard to imagine that H-1B Visas is the hill that some conservatives choose to die on. It makes for an interesting debate. I can see both sides of the argument. I agree it would be better if we use the new focus on reshoring and rebuilding American manufacturing by educating our own youth in STEM so it can be so. Yay!! But, unfortunately, that is not the American reality. Our education system is so F'd up by the Woke Left agenda that we are producing few children interested in STEM, or even in reading and writing. Wishing it were so does not make it so. Given that hard truth, the option is to import young people who ARE interested in using their brains and doing something useful with themselves. While that is happening, the righty culture warriors can focus no policy to rebuild American families and our education system that motivates kids to pursue technical learning and STEM degrees. That is a 20 year project, at least. Us pragmatists know that we need a 5 and 10 year plan as well. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
of all the issues right now H1-B is close to the bottom on my list of priorities.
I’m a working class contractor in Texas whose livelihood has been severely disrupted by intentionally flooding my state and entire country with infinity illegal immigrants. I get outbid on jobs all the time because I can’t compete with the cheap labor that illegal immigrants provide.
that and I want to avoid WW3. and economic collapse. and to bring back real science. and bring accountability for the crooks who've been destroying this country and it’s population.
if a Tech-Bro wants to hire an Indian guy because he is awesome at his job I really could care less…
I agree with all of your comments EXCEPT that I really COULDN'T care less.
Immigrants aren't illegal.
Illegal aliens aren't Immigrants.
You contradict yourself. You're losing work because of cheap foreign labor but the process used to bring in your competition isn't a priority for you. That doesn't make any sense.
so yer hang up on my post is the semantics?
regardless, I’m pretty positive you know exactly what I’m trying to convey. so how would you write it? please correct me.
whatever the correct term for the million plus folks that are flooding the industry would be appreciated.
A virtue signaling co-worker corrected me the other day for referring to “illegal immigrants”. You should call them “undocumented,” not “illegal,” she scolded me.
I told her they mean the same thing, call them whatever you like. Either way it’s Biden’s fault. She didn’t care for that answer either. Can’t please everyone.
Illegal aliens have documents from being processed at the border.
Immigrants have permission to be in the US, Illegal aliens don't. The media uses the wrong legal terms in order to train us to not use the correct term - Illegal aliens.
Mayorkas said he was deleting the term "Illegal alien" - he's a good little Communist, forcing his radical changes on Americans.
Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know about Mayorkas’ manipulating language to hide reality. But I’m not surprised. Amazing.
My point is that cheap foreign labor is hurting your business but you stated that the process they use (H1B Visas) is not a priority for you.
The people I know who are here on H-1B visas, mostly well-educated East Indians, are paid exactly the same as me and live in the same community with the same costs. They sometimes are married and have families that also have the same costs. They are working towards citizenship. They are not a cheap manual labor alternative to American-born workers. I think that is exactly the correct type of immigrant American should attract.
Exactly. Our education problems and our LOW birthrate and our generally hot economy means that we must have these talented people. This is a win-win for us and them. This is a form of legal immigration -- the opposite of open borders.
I worked as a research engineer at a major university so I know a thing or 2 about this.
The truth is that American kids are not interested in science and technology degrees, if you were to require universities to only enroll US students than virtually all engineering programs will seize to exist because the numbers of domestic students is so low its not worth keeping the lights on !
Of course in the long run this creativity tremendous problems not only in regards to technology and IP theft but also in regards to national security, the average age of a engineer working in defense electronics nowadays is 58 with many working past retirement age because the employer cannot find candidates that are capable of getting a clearance so at the end of the day we have to get our kids back in the game but it’s not going to be easy
Daughter is in grad school at Georgia Tech for a masters in Structural Engineering. Her bf is a civil engineer. Loads of friends are engineers. Americans are becoming engineers. And I am all for the best and the brightest working here in our country if those jobs can’t be filled effectively by Americans.
My son is graduating from University of Georgia in 2025 with a degree in Physics and Math and has joined the Navy in their Nuclear Engineering program in DC. My son’s high school friends all have jobs and many are engineer and business majors. Maybe some of Georgia parents and Georgia schools are doing something right.
Georgia is one of a handful of states (I think it's CA, TX, PA, VA, and GA) with multiple public colleges in the USN&WR Top 25. I did get my MBA from the Bad Place :) #THWg
My husband and I are both Engineers. Our brothers are all engineers or scientists. However, when we were in Grad school in the 1970’s half of the grad students in Chem Engineering were Asians. So sure, there are American born Engineers but even in the 70’s they only made up about half of engineering population. When I was in grad school they were already prioritizing giving women scholarships over men from which I benefited (I was a top student but there were men equally qualified that did not get fellowships). Even so the population of women in engineering has never grown above a small minority. Yet, to do this they turned away qualified males for the scholarship. There are consequences for misled social engineering.
I knew female students in the 80s who had chosen Engineering not because they had the talent (or even the interest), but because it was the fashionable thing to proclaim your feminist credentials in this manner, for both the female students and the schools.
I have wondered along the way how many of them actually entered the field. And if they did, which projects they were involved with -- so that I could avoid these.
Yes and I ran into that preconception for decades. Everyone assumed I wasn’t qualified and just got my job because I was a token. I had many men come up to me after working with me and admitted they had thought I would be terrible and were surprised I was actually really good. Qualified people do not want to work with unqualified people, no matter their sex or race.
Congratulations for being the exception, then.
I would say that over 90% of the female students I knew who went into Engineering were the sort who would make you afraid to have anything to do with projects they were involved with.
I say this as a female myself. I am not risking my life because my "sisters" did not understand the principles of bridge-building.
Interesting! Our daughter (at GT getting the MS is Structural) is a research assistant creating blast resistant concrete. It’s probably something the PhDs and post docs should be doing as it’s a DOD grant that has not been done before. The stress is high and she’s already said she’d be content building bridges once in her career. I can’t blame her…she does want children and a work life balance.
That is more research as you say, and I can see Chemists or Physicists involved. Yes, it is the PhD or post-doc level. So is the institution at fault here?
I cannot say the building bridges is exactly a lesser endeavour, though.
To plan children and a work-life balance, it may be that neither is the way to go. That's just reality. Many women want something to give, in order to accommodate them....and I would prefer that it is not our safety standards.
I also went to Tech. I recall during my undergraduate graduation them calling for the school of Engineering to stand up. About 95%+ of those graduating then stood up. I had been there for 3 years and even I was amazed. So Tech is not very representative of colleges in general. I had a roomate from China who was going to grad school and he lamented the "talent" he was competing against. I reminded him that he was the absolute cream of the crop in a nation 4 times the size of ours. If everything was equal, there would be 4 of him vs one from the USA. He was at such a high level that the communists in 1990 sent HIM to the USA to study. He was a nice guy, but very elite as a student as demonstrated by his presence at GT from China.
Our daughter was accepted to GT for undergrad as well but chose to stay closer to home and graduated from Marquette U which has a decent sized Engineering student body. My dad attended MIT planning to become an engineer and opted for finance after taking a gander at the engineers! That was in the early 1950s!
GO JACKETS! What's the good word?
THWg!
Tech family here. Both of us engineers, raised two stem kids. The issue though is they're white males. Anyone telling you there isn't a prejudice against them is lying to you. My honors boys who were raised per the "Vivek" model didn't even bother to apply to the elite schools, they couldn't get in. The eldest is now in a materials science environment PhD program (he applied to seven schools, has a BS in physics graduated with honors, but only got into one). He loves it and I'm so grateful the university chose him. He's the only white male on his research team. My other son just graduated in June summa cum laude in video game design and computer science, has two years co-op experience, and two AAA games on his resume, still no job. He's applied to over 60 entry level jobs and only had three interviews. One was obviously just to check a box, the others they decided after three rounds to fill the position internally. But otherwise, ghosted. So, don't tell those of us who did what any good tech parent should that there's a lack of the kids we raised to fill those roles can't have them.
Firstly, I love and appreciate your photo. We are also strictly practicing Catholics. Our daughter attends Christ the King in Atlanta.
I'm sorry to hear about your sons and the racial bias. We also have a son ---who is working his butt off as a manager at an Amazon warehouse after completing a degree in business. It's not all that it's cracked up to be working 60 hours of mandatory OT which means he makes less than the hourly employees.
Secondly, there is no need to scold me: "So, don't tell those of us who did what any good tech parent should that there's a lack of the kids we raised to fill those roles can't have them." I have NO idea what the gaming world looks like but it certainly is a lot more niche than other engineering domains, like civil.
So let's practice our Catholicism and be kind in our communication. I wish your sons all the best.
Used to be, a few decades ago, that North American universities were over-run with Engineering students. They certainly were not rare. These were very well-attended programs.
I don't understand this supposed shortage.
I think it’s specialized engineering. There are loads of mechanical engineers at universities but aeronautical and even civil aren’t nearly as abundant.
Yeh, I work in the manufacturing industry as a roboticist and am degreed. We have a lot of 20 something American kids who went to engineering school or 2 year tech school so they can work in our industry. It is not as bad as you think, but it could be a lot better
Seems to me that a lot could be done with Americans. My husband is a retired EE who worked in propulsion at NASA, and he says that some of the best people on the test stands are electronics technicians, who worked under engineers and often functioned as de facto engineers after a long time in the field. Businesses could hire tech apprentices.
I don't know what to think about the Zoomers. For a while, I was running into IT majors here and there, and most of them aspired to designing video games.
There are some super techs out there. Most of them have very detailed knowledge about certain systems. Where they falter is when you put them in a completely different environment. Super techs are awesome!!
Keep in mind that many major universities recruit foreign students because they pay higher tuition than domestic or in state tuition. Many state universities are denying better qualified in-state students to take out of state and foreign students that pay higher tuition.
this is certainly a big factor in the disparity between domestic and foreign STEM students
This is also true for medical doctors and highly skilled nurses, like cardiac surgical nurses.
The US still has tons of lawyers, though, so there's that.
No one talks about the equation that generational Americans have a LOW birthrate, but the country generally has a hot economy. We need a variety of immigrants with job skills to keep our economy thriving. If in the recesses of our minds we long for the 'white' workforce of say the 1970s, but still want all the economic strength, that can no longer happen.
In the 70s, as a cauc male I worked in construction with all other babyboomer cauc males. Today construction is near all Hispanic.
One of the problems that Democrats have caused is a large population of young, able-bodied men & women, who are in their 20s & 30s, who are not working. Thanks to Biden and Obama. I'm a physician & I see so much of this. A lot of it is driven by their parents. Their parents are on "disability" so they get the kids on "disability" so they become life-long non-workers. I should mention that they are not actually disabled. Disability for alcohol use, "depression", "anxiety", tobacco use, etc. Nonsense stuff.
What we need to do is stop paying young, able bodied people to do nothing! Put them to work
Appreciate your Doc perspective, SSue. Medical care is very 'people intensive' and face to face. While most people can avoid it day to day, only hearing occasional stories of human decrepitness, the fallout winds up in a doctors office and ER, everyday. Its beyond sickening. If dam Dem politicians had to do your work, they'd come around quick.
My son is PCP and wife is BSN.
Maybe the US just needs a higher birthrate. 😮
Agree! And we can do it too. We just have to bring back conservative, traditional family values & religious values back into the mainstream Culture. US used to have a much higher birth rate, was high until more recently when Leftists took over the culture, bringing their anti-family values into the mainstream culture.
Praying for a great revival NOW, in the US and the world over. The loss of the reverence for God is the difference between US in 1955 and US in 2025. May GOD raise up great men/women communicators to lead this next Great Awakening.
Oh yea and there are also some parents who have sons who live in their basement & do nothing but play video games & smoke pot. It's ridiculous. Young people in their 20s & 30s, living in their parents home, not working but playing video games all day. Many of these parents paid a lot of money to send these bums to college, they got huge loans, then came home to do nothing. They should also go to work!
Bad typo:
"virtually all engineering programs will seize to exist" => "virtually all engineering programs will cease to exist"
Yes. It's hard to take someone very seriously on a technical and an intellectual level when they can't see simple word differences in their comments.
But don't dissect mine because I'm not trying to teach anyone about these issues.
Well there is no edit feature on these posts.
Click on the 3 little dots to the right of your comment. Then click "edit".
(Not too very super highly technical) 🙃😉
Thanks!
Thank you for the correction. I noticed but thought it would be petty to comment.
Maybe there are no students interested in STEM because STEM is a field primarily interesting to boys. And because of the attack on boys by feminists/DEI/CRT in education, boys are choosing not to go to college.
Boys make up 40% of college students. If you want students interested in STEM, make our education institutions welcoming to boys again.
You are right, we need to hire highly intelligent engineers and others to be the teachers of our children starting in kindergarten. People who can motivate and inspire our children to want to learn how to think. There are too many of our students getting liberal arts degrees and going on to become teachers. They don’t have the skills to teach anything except how to become liberal arts majors or activists themselves. But if we don’t make any changes to our education system and just keep allowing the visa’s then ultimately we are doomed. The foreigners get educated and bring back the knowledge to their countries of origin, making America a less secure nation.
You're looking at the college-bound. There are others who aren't taking the college route - and lots of them in Flyover Country. California and NYC aren't the Nation.
I spent most of my career working in flyover country, the Rust Belt. Manufacturing is in the middle of the country. That is who needs the technical skills. They need STEM. Designing and operating robotic and CNC systems are not menial jobs
And there are a lot of kids - here - who do just that, including a lot of DEI grads with useless degrees who do a two year AA in a community college - and they usually have an apprenticeship on the side after the first six months. In some places, unions or employers or both pay for the college. We don't need imports, we need to train our own people. And you'd be surprised at how enthusiastic art school grads with a welding certificate are when they figure this out - and pay off their loans for the worthless degree in two years, then look forward to buying a house. Same case for DEI grads. I tell people to skip college for the most part, and learn a skilled trade... they make a lot more money a lot quicker. The downside is that they lose their "friends" who just don't get it - or haven't wised up yet. They're envious, angry, and loud, and get lots of attention. People doing real work don't have time for all of that.
So, Brian, Americans are fucked for another generation? Good to know...
Not much of a "solution." Keep trying.
Did you read what I said? No. Immigrants on H-1B visas become Americans. So, if we immigrate smart, STEM people we are saved. But we are screwed if we don't and rely on kids whose standard test scores are the worst in history due to liberal policy decisions, including closing down schools for 1-2 years due to COVID. If you are one of those contributing to the destruction of our youth, then YOU are the problem and not the solution
Oh I read what you wrote, I just am skeptical that we need to wait as long as you suggest to fix the lack of motivated American workers coming out of our admittedly broken education system. Radical new approaches are needed, and needed now. And you know what? Maybe we can speed that process up by doing so. My suggestion: learn- on- the- job internships for various STEM jobs.
One reason our young people lack motivation (one of them) is their sense that they are not really needed in this job market, that there is no real opportunity for them outside of picking up hours at 7-11. If we can change that perception, count me as someone who believes this generation could achieve great things. And I say that as someone who has been in the teaching profession for a long time.
Flooding the market with huge numbers of H-1B workers is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. End of story.
And "learning on the job" is already happening WITH the Hb1 visas, as I've read more than a few times that Indians and other immigrants are LYING about their credentials and once here, have to be trained by those who they are REPLACING, because they are generally clueless about the job they're hired to do.....
I am all about "apprenticeship" for large companies that can afford it. But America relies heavily on small companies and often they can't (my small company can't). So how is that circle squared?
Nope, two years with an AA from a community college is enough to fix it, I've seen it in real life - and often enough those two years have an apprenticeship included so they can earn while they learn.
We need both. We have a Mt Everest to climb to catch up to China in manufacturing, especially in strategic products. I am in the middle of this. It is my life and career. I know the numbers. And I am not pro-4 year school which are a mind-suck. My own kids did 2-year Tech schools. But to succeed in tech school you need a working knowledge of math and science. Most kids today don't have that
Then it's remedial courses to supply the background, you'd be surprised how quickly people pick up on things when they have incentive - like huge debts and an education which makes them fit for little else but minimum wage manual labor. It's a trap, they know (now) that it's a trap, and if they get shown a way out, they'll take it. No one wants to be a slave. And the other thing is that their view of politics changes, big time... As I said, I've seen this work out - art school isn't exactly big on math and science, but (say) a two-year path to a job paying high five figures or even low six figures, and those deficits can and will be made up quickly. It's a stark choice - and a huge incentive.
People going from useless DEI degrees to HVAC engineers, networking engineers - being flown overseas to do installations in southeast Asia, flying helicopters to do supply runs to oil rigs - all of these I've seen people do. The situation is far from hopeless - and all with two year AA degrees - and these people all had to make up for the deficits given them by half-assed incompetent public schools.
Vivek Ramaswamy hit the nail on the head: American culture doesn't give scholars the respect it gives others. Who gets more acclaim, the high school kid who published a research paper in physics or the kid who put the winning touchdown in last week's game?
That doesn't happen in other cultures where it really is a great honor to have a scholar in the family.
But the US has to put a clear line between bringing in exceptional people and bringing in so-so people willing to work for less.
You have to look at this short term long term. You are correct - ed is ruined. That will take a decade or 2 to rebuild. Meanwhile we have to have talent.
Maybe start a STEM corps. Like the Peace Corps.
Here is a 2023 report on the status of education in America and the long term trend of test scores. It is ugly and will get worse since kids will never get back 2020-21: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Do not forget the LONG march through the institutions has been intentional. The destruction of the Constitution and the Republic has been the goal. So, you dumb down the public schools and you stop teaching Logic and Rhetoric. You stop teaching HOW to think, just ‘what’ to think. You replace the citizen with the global citizen. Wake the heck up.
Correct, LDT...America's institutions have been intentionally corrupted (for decades) and no longer serve We the People. It's going to take a while to turn this ship around, so let's try to be patient together and re-educate ourselves to think like Americans again (not socialists, which is leading us to a globalist one-world gov't). Employees MUST be hired based on merit again or the U.S. will be in trouble, and the gov't needs to scale back regulations. Thankfully, my son went to technical school for a year and got a full-time job where he'll make enough to pay off his loans. I agree with the Hodge Twins statement on X that this divisiveness is perfectly timed.
I am a Christian first. Everybody has a place of purpose and value in a well organized society… people are not ‘useless eaters’. I agree that much of this is orchestrated… but by which players?
by the globalist, Marxist and socialist elites.
The UN? Nation states? NGOs? The EU? The US? The WEF? So many players to choose from.
As a christian, how many people (let's not bullshit) how many illegal immigrants have you welcomed into your home? How many times have you paid for their welfare? How many have you PERSONALLY paid to educate? Now, how many homeless vets have you walked past?
It is not my duty, nor is it wise, to welcome a lawbreaker into my home nor to pay for their upkeep. My government’s refusal to maintain borders and vet people who want to come here, at the cost of its citizens, is not a responsible or moral decision. I have helped, where I am able, with food and occasionally money those who were in need whether homeless or underemployed… and in these cases I don’t ask them what their legal status is.
So you're guilty of hiding your head in the sand as children were murdered by the administration you voted for. It was your duty to educate yourself on the destructive obama border policy and make sure that law breakers dont come into the country to fuxx with your home.
No you don't ask them their status you just waved the bastards in and looked the other way. It's a good job the black, hispanic, latino, jewish, muslim asian and native AMERICANS had more moral fibre than you have.
Your self-righteousness is astounding.
Thanks for reminding us of this, LDT.
Its The Latest Bright Shiny Thing! The Left is (desperately) looking for something to divide MAGA.
Bring the Western manufacturing base back from China. It was a terribly destructive and insane choice to move it there to begin with. Not to mention risking our own North American access to necessary supplies and trade routes.
Bring back the manufacturing and the jobs that went with it.
We sent one of the pillars of our society -- manufacturing and organized movement of those goods -- off to a known Communist country. To enrich the Communists and give them massive control.
What could possibly go wrong?
Ever think they might use those profits to beef-up their military and to buy our real estate?
And they said (and lied) that we'd be just fine as a "service" economy. Bill Clinton and Democrats (and some greedy Republicans) were wrong.... and I knew they were wrong at the time.
There must have been some of us out here who knew even then, Cat. But what could we have done?
Well, I talked about it with everyone. Probably lost a friend or two, but that's okay. After getting online in the early aughts (I love saying "aughts" for some reason....I first heard it said in the movie "Music Man"), I posted my comments about it there too.
THEY knew exactly what they were doing at the time.
The Clinton Cabal was either dumb or extremely evil and nefarious. I’m going with Not Dumb.
Yeah, but we were told by the experts that a rising middle class would be the end of communism in China... you don't think all of those "experts" were wrong/lied to us, do you? ; )
You probably know by now, Pacificus, that I call a spade a spade...😁.
Besides which, I was never fooled by the promise of "rising middle class beats Communism". There is more to it than that.
Politicians on both sides sold out to Communist countries intentionally, especially China. Any time the gov't says "free trade" agreement, it's just the opposite. We need to get rid of the USMCA so that the US isn't handicapped with gov't regulation and interference.
Things are being re-thought, apparently.
At the very least bring back anything that is critical for national security and single-sourced from the PRC.
I have been shouting this for years, and don't understand why it isn't more commonly recognized: When American employers hire immigrant (legal or illegal) labor because "Americans won't do those jobs" they are saying that they can't survive without slave labor. That excuse didn't fly for southern plantation owners in the Civil War era, and it won't fly now.
If our economy can't thrive without slave labor, we are going to have to bite the bullet and endure whatever it takes to fix it -- and pray it can be done without Civil War and Reconstruction horrors.
If we have to employ immigrant labor because Americans won't do those jobs ("can't" is a different issue), then those jobs aren't paying enough. Period. And as long as employers have an ever-increasing pool of cheap labor to draw from wages aren't going to rise.
On a related note, if higher wages force higher prices, maybe we should learn to prioritize quality over quantity -- which isn't going to happen as long as we keep flooding our markets with cheap goods from China.
And back in the day, the CEO of a large corporation didn't make billions a year. The greed is in all classes and demographics.....greed is the problem. Is one yacht and jet enough? How about 3 vacation homes instead of 5 or 6? John Adams said "Avarice will break this Constitution like a whale breaks through a net" and "This Constitution is for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other". And the Christian religion teaches "Love God with all you heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself" and "It's more of a blessing to give than to receive+" and "Give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall others give unto your being" (the way of measuring grain is what's described here).
Isn't it up to the person who earns the money to decide how to spend it? Do you ever factor in the amount the ultra wealthy donate to charities when you criticize them?
Hear, hear!
We need to remind ourselves that the MAGA movement is in its toddler years and, like any young political movement, will need a lot of debate and discussion to figure out its major vs minor issues and wisest step forward to MAGA. There are now (vs 2016) lots of voices in MAGA and they will need to learn how to listen and how to disagree agreeably. Could the Democrats have a Twitter battle over anything? No, there is a hymnal dictated by the elites and their megaphones that define biblically what’s acceptable speech and opinions and not. I’ll always stick with the team who can have open, transparent debates and disagreements. The Democrats lack of this, except on the edges during primaries, is exactly why they are in the wilderness and why they are destined to remain there until they can have these honest conversations.
We do need change. But American culture did not shift in the 90s. Far earlier.
As a child, I was mocked and ostracized as a "brain." Repeatedly starting in third grade. Being smart became something to hide and deny. This was the late 70s.
I would talk to my Mom about it, and she could not understand. She told me at her school, in the 50s, the top students were popular. Not mocked. Unless you literally wore a pocket protector and taped horn rim glasses. I used to wish I had been born earlier. LOL.
We really need to self examine. There is nothing wrong with NOT beating our children for not getting As which is not uncommon in some of the countries being mentioned for comparison, but we should not despise intellect societally either. Which we often do.
Now, we reward mediocrity. We embrace dumbing down. The last forty years of education show a dive to the bottom. That does have to change. We can't feel better by trying to make everybody as dumb as everybody else. What a stupid concept.
I was considered a nerd in school as well because I read books all the time. My grades didn't reflect what I was capable of, due to many other circumstances in my life. I just didn't care at that time.
But, I also get why my kids and the next generation want work-life balance and more PTO. Us Gen X-ers bought into the with hard and you will do well. Haha. Companies got rid of pensions, expected more work without raises, had no loyalty to their employees but we were expected to work our assess off and got nothing. Especially if you were white.
So our kids saw this and said f you. Why should I bust my ass if there's nothing in it for me. Around the world, people have better pto and work life balance. I say we fight for it. But.. when you come in to work, you give it your all and your best and the company takes care of you. That's how it should work.
So true, Brenda, our kids do see that busting your ass doesn't necessarily guarantee you anything, except maybe a busted ass. Sigh.
Good points, Linda. Don't think a Civil War is needed to fix this, just a little common sense and honesty. Keep on.
Beating? Absolutely no, but discipline that includes consequences for action? Yes. A parent isn't supposed to be a "friend". And FYI, I did give a little swat on the backside of my children once in a while when absolutely necessary.
What was the actual problem with Vivek tweet?
Simple- it hit them all in the guilts…
They know he’s right. They know they all do it, did it, raise their kids like that. They just don’t like the reveal.
Would you please stop shaming us with the truth? :)
And a lot of the guilt goes to leftists in the education industry and the Dept of Ed!! Common Core alone had been devastating. We tried to do what we could. I can't say that we handled it perfectly but we tried. We downsized into a small home (that was very stressful to live in with 3 energetic boys and no real backyard), so one of us could cut work hours (or not work outside the home at all) and be there for our kids and make sure homework was done, no violent video games, etc.. But living in an increasingly crazy blue state, that whole-heartedly embraced Common Core and looked the other way when there was "reverse bullying" (which the left denies even happens), we had problems. One kiddo is out of college but just not thrilled with his prospects and/or career choice (had to apologize for being white in front of the class, at his left-leaning university). If I had to do it over again, I'd move my kids out of this state into a conservative state when they were young.
You are absolutely correct, Sasha!
And so is Vivek.
Whoever is getting "offended" by a reality check is deluded, just like the communists currently running our country & the media.
Should the H-1B program be evaluated and probably limited in scope? Of course it should.
But until young people come to terms with the fact that in America, they shouldn't expect a starting salary of $250,000 a year, then we will have to continue this program just to keep pace with China.
And God knows the left has been busting their collective asses for a way to divide us. Apparently, they've hit gold.
After all the work we put into get out of the socialist springing us into the downwards path to becoming EU Lite, letting some bullshit non-issue divide us now is stupid.
Please don't forget that this is only the beginning of our fight.
My son graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering and recently an MBA from Carnegie Mellon (high honors). He was born and schooled in the US. He struggled for 9 months to even be called for an interview (after graduating with the MBA). So many positions were being filled with students with H-1B visas. I agree that STEM needs to be a higher priority in the US but excellent students from the USA are at a disadvantage as they are not even being considered for an interview. This needs to change.
This has happened to people in my family too all the way. Stretching back to the early '90s. I found out personally that graduating summa cum laude actually got you in trouble when it came to finding a position. HR immediately thought of you as too expensive. Couldn't get an interview to save my life. All that work... Wow. I finally got someone to tell me in an informational interview that I should never put my GPA on my resume and to take off all the awards and honors because it looks like I'm overqualified for anything entry level. Thank God he told me. But to this day I wonder why I thought I should work so hard and try so hard to get all of those good grades and honors. It did me zero good.
Yep, its all about the cheap labor... yesterday, today, forever...
Well, it's complicated, Sasha. Yes, our culture has been going down the drain in so many ways over the past 40 years, educationally being just one of them. And yes, smart, ambitious people from around the world immigrating to the US have been a key to our success as a nation.
But the abuse of the H-1B program seems clear, at least by the responses many have posted on X and elsewhere, and prob here real soon. It does seem to be a form of indentured servitude for people desperate to come here... And that ain't good. For them or us.
The larger issue is that the American people are well fed up with there jobs being exported under "free trade" policies, or with cheaper, replacement workers being imported because Americans allegedly are culturally deficient... skilled or unskilled. So you are poking a mighty angry bear with this issue.
This is good to bring up... Should be a fascinating and productive debate. That's what real democracy is about, right?
It’s an op. Brought to you by the same people who rammed safe and effective down your throat.
For nearly a decade the deep state has tried to find an issue to divide MAGA. They have failed.
Now they think they have found one. Don’t fall for it.
It’s the same op.
Could be.
"Divide and Conquer" is one of their favourite tactics.
Don't underestimate how much of this is flamethrowing to jumpstart the algorithm. These people make a living on engagement
I can’t speak for everyone, but this 31 year labor Democrat joined the MAGA movement because the left wholly adopted the stance of the old school Republicans. Trump saw that we had been abandoned and took up that fight for us.
I grew up in one of the wealthiest per capita counties in the country. By the late eighties that was ended and things looked bleak for me.
I went to the University of Michigan, graduated, floated around in jobs I couldn’t stand, working with people I couldn’t stand, being miserable and never making any money.
I came in the door of each job as a goal-oriented doer, got kudos, got the first promotion, then got shut out because I am not corporate or urban.
After twenty years I went into the trades and I sm much happier and wealthier.
But the thing is, young people see no path forward, just like me. The rug was pulled out from under them.
We have to restore the foundation to give them hope. That means we have to stop importing slave laborers and reindustrialize.
There is zero difference between a slaveholder in 1850 and these tech bro clowns, except the slaveholder didn’t know we could have the kind of economy we had between the Second War and 1990s. The tech CEOs know better. They just want the easy path while telling us we need to work harder. I’ve saw the same thing over forty years ago when I was a pre-teen.
Don’t fall for these clowns. When a kid graduates high school, he or she should be able to find decent employment and security. When a kid graduates college, they should be able to get paid for their training and their work. Those things don’t happen for most people because we have a glut of labor
they also choose majors like "Climate Justice' and "International Relations" I swear most of my friends who hav kids who recently graduated had majors like the above! If they are not back living at home working part-time in totally un-related fields, the parents are paying their rent and they're working for pennies at some not-for-profit (also unrelated to their major!) They opt for rainbows and unicorns and not math/science/engineering or even economics/finance/business! I don't want my tax money going to pay for their jobs!
Yep. I agree 100% about the degrees.
On the other hand, my best friend in high school and I both went into engineering. I got out twenty years ago, but he held out until a few years ago. He had been stuck for years while quota hires were advanced ahead of him.
We can’t have success when that is how things work. We just end up with demoralized people who can’t see a path forward.
There is no frontier where people can make their own opportunities anymore. We have to preserve our opportunities for our people.
Yes. My BIL got a degree in engineering and is brilliant but struggled to find employment at any salary when he graduated first with a BS and later with an MS. He isnt terribly aocially aavvy, but he should have still found it easier to get work. But the companies can be as picky as they want. And he could rarely even get an interview which tells me that his super high grades from a great engineering school likely branded him as expensive. AND They have a global pool of applicants. Back when our parents were coming up in the 50s and 60s, anyone with an emgineering degree had a good job. .unless the oerson was completely batsh*t crazy.
Good stuff... yeah, the tech bros do have a bit of the slaveowner in them, complete with the noblesse oblige... remember, slaveowner thought they were doing their slaves a favor by teaching them good work habits... the H-1B is the new slave trade, or maybe better, the indentured servant trade.
The whole thing has been so stupid. (Vivek did step in it a bit but good heavens above…). Our schools, even in red states, are terrible. We homeschooled our three kids (way before it was cool - our kids are 28, 32, and 37) and our (red) state has one of the highest per capita of homeschooled kids in the country thanks to very homeschool friendly laws. We taught them how to learn, traveled (not necessarily long distances - to Jamestown and Yorktown and DC and Williamsburg), let them go to work as soon as they were old enough, required chores, let them play and be creative, and held them accountable. Go figure, they’re all wonderful, smart, funny, successful (in what they want to do, including one homemaker who is, by natural inclination, the most scholarly of the bunch). One of my sons in law was homeschooled, too. They’re homeschooling my grandsons. They’ve been very prized employees, know how to work hard. I told them all their lives that “we are not the Cosbys and you’re not moving back in” and that they would eat ramen noodles and peanut butter for awhile after they were done with school and that was normal.
We need immigrants - legal ones who assimilate. But people want the illegals out first, and want the H-1B program modified so it’s not another “Americans last” program. (El gato malo has a great substack today on this whole “controversy.”) We also need to be able to disagree and not tear each other apart. I don’t want to have every opinion be the same as someone else’s and I don’t think people are bad/wrong/traitors who have different ideas from mine.
And I also know the MSM and libs on X will sow discord at every available opportunity so don’t worry too much (yet).
This discord is coming within not from Democrats stop trying to find new ways to blame them.
She did not say it was not. She correctly said that the Left will certainly fan the flames (and help create them) given a chance. And that is for sure true. Both sides take every opportunity to tear down the other side. Your side controls quite a bit more media, tho.
Used to
Used to? NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN and MSNBC and all but 2 big city newspapers all actively tried to help Harris get elected and STILL report anything bad about Trump all day long. Just because more people now watch our ONE tv network, Fox, than any one of the others. More people total watch the others. No used to.
Newspapers are gone and liberal cable is dead try again
Okay. So what news sites are social media quoting? Where do all the journalists work? Just curious.
After reading many comments to this post, I believe this has actually become a healthy, forward looking debate. Had Kamala won we wouldn't even be discussing this. Ultimately, the buck stops with Trump. But all signs point to America entering a new phase in our existence. We are rethinking who we are as a people. I love it!!