Smasharoo wrote:
Secondly, the worst case scenario is that we educate far more people than would have otherwise chosen a given field and end up with giant labor gluts, which is in no way what is occurring at the moment, at all.
Um... That is exactly where we are right now Smash.
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In point of fact, most people still get vague generic degrees and find vague generic jobs.
Yeah. Like "ancient Asian historian" and "Middle Eastern Art". Want to know why those "vague" degrees don't result in jobs directly aligned with them? Because... wait for it..
there are like 10 time more people with those degrees than there are actual jobs that require them. That is exactly the definition of a "labor glut". Every time some idiot student decides to pursue a degree in underwater basket weaving, the problem isn't that underwater basket weaving is "vague", but that the demand for laborers with underwater basket weaving skill is low.
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And yet, you used that exact figure as an example salary that companies would pay to cheap labor they imported from India so they could avoid paying the much much higher wages that US workers are all earning. Seriously out of touch dude.
No, no. Not the WAGE. I never said WAGE. I said "loaded labor rate".
You did say that phrase (so what?), but you also said this:
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So what happened, moron, is that colleges trained people for the jobs needed by the market, those people gained experience in exactly the fields most in demand, and then "the market" said "@#%^ that, Rajiv will work for $50k a year, fly him in".
It was abundantly clear that you were saying that $50k/year is low pay ("will work for $50k a year"), with the strong suggestion that it's so low that only someone from a poverty stricken nation with an abundance of cheap labor would be willing to work for that little. If that's not what you meant, by all means try to backpedal away with some nutty explanation. That should be funny as hell.
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I'll point out again that there are a hell of a lot of US workers making $25-30k/year who would jump at the opportunity to earn that much.
Who gives a fuck?
The people who would love to earn that much? You know, the people you're saying would not benefit at all from an education system which better aligned their education to those $50k/year jobs instead of the ones they're working because their degree didn't actually qualify them to do more than push buttons on an assembly line for 8 hours a day.
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Having more electrical engineers doesn't mean more six figure jobs, it's means you can now pay electrical engineers closer to the median wage.
That would be a valid point if we
weren't importing electrical engineers from other nations. Having more US citizens trained in electrical engineering would mean that more US citizens would work those $50k/year jobs instead of the folks we're importing from India. The cost to import labor is in addition to the wage Smash. Paying a US citizen $50k/year to do the same job we're paying Rajiv to do now would be a net savings to the employer. The two groups are not competing evenly. The US citizen has a massive cost advantage. Thus, increasing the amount of domestically available labor supply would result in the same wages (perhaps even higher wages given the savings versus imported labor), and a direct corresponding decrease in the number of imported laborers.
Your argument is completely absurd.
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Because that's how that works in capitalism.
No, it's not. It's hard for me to even form a counter to what you're saying because it's just that ridiculously stupid.
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The H1B program doesn't exist because of a lack of qualified domestic laborers, it exists because it's cheaper bring people in from overseas.
That statement alone invalidates anything you could possibly say on the subject. I get that you're trying to pretend that you know anything at all about this, but I literally work with hundreds of people with H1B visas. I have lunch conversations with the managers and executives who hire those people. And every single one of them laments the fact that we're forced to go through such a ridiculously expensive process to obtain sufficient labor to do the work we need done because there are not enough people with the right skills to do those jobs in the US. They scour job fairs at universities across the US. They practically beg kids to pursue science and engineering degrees so they can fill the labor needs. They'll hire practically any random person off the street with a degree or training even remotely close and are willing to train them as they go if needed. And it's not remotely close to enough.
You are exactly 100% wrong on this. I'm not sure how much more clearly I can state this. You are wrong. Dead dead dead wrong. What I don't get is why you feel you have to lie about this so blatantly. WTF? There are millions of people in the US who would love to earn the same exact dollar wages that we're paying people from India, China, Indonesia, etc, to do. And we'd hire them for those wages in a hot second. But there
literally are not enough qualified people in the US.
How the hell more clearly can I say this? If there were enough people, we'd be hiring them. Again, your entire argument rests on the assumption that no US worker with an appropriate education would be willing to take the work we're importing labor to do at the wages we're paying that labor. And I know for a fact that this is simply not true. We don't get anyone turning these jobs down Smash. No kid out of college with a degree in engineering says "Nah. I'll pass on that starting $50k/year salary". Ever. Doesn't happen. WTF? You're honestly that out of touch with working people?
Edited, May 22nd 2014 6:58pm by gbaji 
