15 Articles Worth Reading
15 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 3:08 AM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
March 15, 2006 No. 1437
<<< COMMENTS FROM ROB >>>
#1 Wachovia came up with a very pleasant term for removing employees from
their paycheck as their jobs are being outsourced - they call it
"decoupling".
#2 The LA Times article is one of the best I have seen on outsourcing. It's
a sober reality check. The one flaw in the article is that it doesn't
mention the combined effect of outsourcing and nonimmigrant visa programs
such as H-1B and L-1. The LA Times supports H-1B so they just conveniently
decided not to talk about it. The article is still worth your time because
it does a very good job of showing how bad the situation is for American
workers.
#5 Jonathan Lopez is a junior journalism major, and yet his op-ed on the
Baylor University newspaper is far more insightful than most professionals.
Even more surprising is that the LTE (#6) got past their editorial boards.
Are students starting to wise up?
#7 This idiotorial starts out OK, but it's a stinker in disguise. There are
so many things wrong with this I don't have the time to debunk them, so you
read it and judge for yourself.
Pay particular attention to all articles about Sen. Arlen Specter's bill
(4, 10, 11, 15) that will among other bad things, more than double the
number of H-1B visas. This bill is an impending disaster and it may pass
the Senate unless the American public wakes from its slumber and does
something to stop it. So far I haven't seen an article in the mainstream
media that disputes Specter's contention that H-1B needs to be increased.
<<< END OF COMMENTS >>>
Article 1:
http://techreviews.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177103755
Wachovia Signs BPO Deal With Genpact
Wachovia (Charlotte, N.C.; $493 billion in assets) signed a seven-year
business-process outsourcing deal with Genpact (Luxembourg; New York; and
Gurgaon, India). While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the
consequences certainly will be felt within the bank as Genpact finds ways
to make a bottom line impact.
Article 2:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outsource6mar06,0,4152173.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines
That Good Education Might Not Be Enough
American workers at all levels are vulnerable to outsourcing, experts say,
posing a challenge to the assumption that more schooling is the answer.
When President Bush met with a group of business school students in the
Indian city of Hyderabad last week, he came face to face with the very
people whose first-rate educations, rising aspirations and readiness to
work for a fraction of U.S. wages were tugging jobs overseas, away from
even well-educated Americans. Bush used the occasion to offer some pointed
advice to workers back home: Get more training. "Let's make sure people are
educated so they can fill the jobs of the 21st century," he said. Blinder
offered a rough estimate that suggested that as many as 42 million jobs, or
nearly one-third of the nation's total, were susceptible to offshoring.
These analysts warn that more education alone will do little to stop the
flow of jobs to other countries.
Article 3:
http://washtimes.com/commentary/20060312-101234-9387r.htm
Immigration economics . . .
The law of supply and demand can't be repealed, either by politicians or
supporters of illegal immigration. In Economics 101, we learn an increase
in supply lowers prices. Wages are the price of labor. Higher wages call
forth more labor supply. An analysis of the program by John Miano, chief
engineer of the software company, Colosseum Builders Inc., found it
depressed the earnings of American workers. Despite the program's
comparable wage rule, employers have been paying foreigners significantly
less than required, undercutting the wages of American workers. Here again
we have a program being bent to enable employers to import cheap labor.
Article 4:
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=31261
U.S. Bill seeks to double H-1B visas
A measure to double the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas to
115,000 with an option of raising the cap 20 percent more each year has
been introduced in the Immigration Bill.
Article 5:
http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=39444
Economics could fix shortages
Once again government officials have become privy to information that
concerns the well-being of the citizens of the United States. Ronald
Reagan, Bill Clinton and now George W. Bush has warned that America will go
through a manpower shortage of scientists and engineers. The Bush
administration is looking to spend $50 billion of our money over the next
10 years to fix this problem. Is there a valid reason to divert career
paths, change majors or even spend tax money on this?
Article 6:
http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=39505
LTE: No shortage in tech jobs
Article 7:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/030506.html
The foreigners U.S. should fear don't live here
It's not the Mexicans we should worry about. Or the Guatemalans, Colombians
or Salvadorans. Waves of laborers -- legal and illegal -- from south of the
border don't constitute the grave threat to national security or economic
stability that the anti-immigrant hysteria would suggest. If you want to
worry about the future, look to China. Or to India.
Article 8:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701765.html?
New Economy Hurting People in the Middle the Most
It's the new conundrum.
The last several years have been marked by low unemployment, strong
economic growth, robust productivity gains and record corporate profits.
Normally, you'd expect most Americans to be doing pretty well. As it
happens, however, inflation-adjusted income for all but a tiny fraction of
the wealthiest households hasn't increased at all. So what gives?
Article 9:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031406R.shtml
Dubai Firm Accused of Breaking Pledge to Divest Itself of US Port
Operations
The weeks-long saga of Dubai Ports World's purchase of operations in Miami
and five other US seaports took another turn Monday, when the company's
Fort Lauderdale nemesis publicized a private e-mail and charged the note
shows the Arab company has no intention of selling its US assets.
Article 10:
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060313-120147-4562r.htm
Bill seeks to keep U.S. technology lead
Increases skilled-worker visas
Buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill -- hardly noticed amid a
fierce debate over a guest-worker program for unskilled laborers -- are
provisions that would admit more immigrants for science, math, technology
and engineering jobs. The measures include nearly doubling the number of
H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas. The skilled-immigration measures are
part of a 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen
Specter, Pennsylvania Republican.
Article 11:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13988465.htm
Governors endorse guest worker plan
The Western Governors Association called on Congress Tuesday to pass
comprehensive immigration reform, including a temporary guest worker
program. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, ``Ideally we have a
perfect situation where you have people that want to work and you have
companies that need workers, so you have supply and demand, but how do you
make that work is really the big challenge,''
***** You must click link to read the following *****
Article 12:
http://vdare.com/rubenstein/060314_nd.htm
National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Fuzzy Data, Flawed Economics, Underlie H-1b, Outsourcing Enthusiasm
We've heard it all before: arguments for increasing the number of H-1b
visas granted to foreign engineers and scientists. Assurances that, at the
end of the day, offshoring is good for the economy. How valid are the
pro-H-1b, pro-outsourcing, briefs?
Article 13:
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=10562
Free Inside every Guest Worker Plan: A Social Security Time Bomb!
Part I: The 'time bomb' and how it will go off.
By S. J. Miller
We've all heard the cries that the poor illegal alien pays Social Security
taxes for which they will never receive any benefits, and that their
"illegal wages add FICA payroll deductions to what Social Security
Administration (SSA) called the "Earnings Suspense Fund." The total of
employer-reported quarterly Social Security deductions whose SSN doesn't
match the name on SSA files now totals (are you ready for this?) $376
billion!!!
Article 14:
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=10583
Free Inside every 'Guest Worker Plan' A Social Security Time Bomb!
Part II What Congress is and isn't doing. - What you can do: A hard-hitting
solution.
By S. J. Miller
Rob Sanchez, author of the "Job Destruction Newsletter", and expert on the
H-1B visa program knows how "mucked-up," fraudulent and unsupervised is the
database for the current H1-B visa "guest-worker" program. The two
Executive Branch agencies who operate the program (Dept of Labor and DHS
Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services) have abysmally failed and
mismanaged what's in effect a "mini-system" of only 200,000 yearly
applications and 500,000 guest workers in the US. Rob points out there's
been no improvement in the 10 years since the Office of the Inspector
General published it's impolitely titled study "The Department of Labor's
Foreign Labor Certification Programs: The System is Broken and Needs to Be
Fixed.
Article 15:
http://www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/specterproposal.html
Specter's 'Specteracular' Amnesty and Visa Giveaway
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) (shown right) and
his committee have begun consideration of a 300-page draft immigration bill
that provides for the biggest amnesty in the history of this nation, a new
"temporary" worker program and 1.14 million new green cards annually for
employment-based, family-based and student immigrants.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://techreviews.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177103755
Wachovia Signs BPO Deal With Genpact
Jan 31, 2006
URL: http://www.financetech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177103755
Wachovia (Charlotte, N.C.; $493 billion in assets) signed a seven-year
business-process outsourcing deal with Genpact (Luxembourg; New York; and
Gurgaon, India). While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the
consequences certainly will be felt within the bank as Genpact finds ways
to make a bottom line impact. "We have a group of Six Sigma black belts and
process black belts 'in the stream' with Wachovia, working with their teams
and identifying the right processes to decouple -- which ones to move
first, which to move second, what kind of sequencing would make sense --
and really getting prepared for alignment of processes," says Tiger
Tyagarajan, executive vice president, Genpact.
Genpact originally was established in 1997 as GE Capital International
Services, a captive subsidiary of GE Capital, to handle tasks such as
credit card application processing, collections and accounting for GE's
financial services businesses. At the end of 2004, GE divested 60 percent
of the firm to private equity investors to put the former captive company
in a better position to pursue new business from outside firms. According
to Tyagarajan, the Wachovia deal is Genpact's 17th since branching out from
GE, and it is the company's fourth deal in financial services, which
comprises about 40 percent of Genpact's book of business, including the
work that it still does for GE's financial services divisions.
Sixth Sense
As a GE creation, Genpact was an early beneficiary of Jack Welch's famous
embrace of Six Sigma process methodology. "We had the real advantage of
hiring our first individuals into the company and turning them into Six
Sigma nerds," quips Tyagarajan. "Every employee is Six Sigma-trained."
Building such a shop from the ground up has its advantages relative to
entrenched operations, Tyagarajan adds. "If you have 40,000 employees and
you have to convert them into Six Sigma, that takes a long time," he says.
Now, Genpact's 16,000 employees in India, China, Hungary, Romania and
Mexico will begin to drive Six Sigma through Wachovia's operations. "We
will work together over a seven-year period, identify a range of processes
and move them from Wachovia to a dedicated facility that we will run for
them in India," says Tyagarajan.
Though Wachovia is pursuing cost cutting, including head-count reduction,
the deal wasn't about "moving work," claims Tyagarajan. The goal of the
venture, he says, is "to drive process improvement in processes that are
actually pretty well-run, and to try to take them to the next level."
--Ivan Schneider
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outsource6mar06,0,4152173.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines
That Good Education Might Not Be Enough
American workers at all levels are vulnerable to outsourcing, experts say,
posing a challenge to the assumption that more schooling is the answer.
By Peter G. Gosselin
Times Staff Writer
March 6, 2006
WASHINGTON - When President Bush met with a group of business school
students in the Indian city of Hyderabad last week, he came face to face
with the very people whose first-rate educations, rising aspirations and
readiness to work for a fraction of U.S. wages were tugging jobs overseas,
away from even well-educated Americans.
Bush used the occasion to offer some pointed advice to workers back home:
Get more training. "Let's make sure people are educated so they can fill
the jobs of the 21st century," he said.
But the president's assertion that the answer to foreign outsourcing is
education, a mantra embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans, is being
challenged by a growing body of research and analysis from economists and
other scholars. Education - at least as delivered by most of the nation's
colleges, universities and technical schools - is no longer quite the
economic cure-all it once was, nor the guarantee of financial security
Americans have come to expect from college and graduate degrees.
"More education has been the right answer for the past few decades," said
Princeton University economist and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman
Alan S. Blinder, "but I'm not so convinced that it's the right course" for
coping with the upheavals of globalization.
Not that Blinder or other experts think workers would be better off not
going to school. Rather, they point to emerging evidence that education may
not offer as much protection against the effects of globalization as Bush
and others claim.
"One could be educationally competitive and easily lose out in the global
economic marketplace because of significantly lower wages being paid
elsewhere," said Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel of the American
Council on Education, an umbrella group that represents most of the
nation's major colleges and universities.
Some analysts think that something like what Steinbach described is already
underway.
Starting in 1975, the earnings difference between high school- and
college-educated workers steadily widened for 25 years. But since 2000, the
trend appears to have stalled. Census figures show that average,
after-inflation earnings of college graduates fell by more than 5% between
2000 and 2004, whereas the earnings of those with only high school degrees
rose slightly.
Most studies suggest that beyond the manufacturing sector, the "offshoring"
of jobs has been comparatively modest. But some analysts say the ground has
been laid for a substantial pickup. In a recent paper, Blinder offered a
rough estimate that suggested that as many as 42 million jobs, or nearly
one-third of the nation's total, were susceptible to offshoring.
These analysts warn that more education alone will do little to stop the
flow of jobs to other countries.
"What's missing here from both parties is a global economic strategy and a
worker adjustment strategy," said Anthony P. Carnevale, a scholar at the
National Center on Education and the Economy who was appointed to major
commissions by Presidents Reagan and Clinton.
"When they don't know what else to do," he remarked, "there's a tendency
among politicians to stand up and say 'education.' "
In Bush's case, arguing for more schooling draws particular fire from some
educators, because the administration's record of providing money to
support the kind of training he advocates has been weak.
Bush previously has defended the offshoring of jobs as an economic reality
and a trend that ultimately would work in America's favor. But he was
exceptionally candid about its downside during his exchange with the Indian
students.
"People do lose their jobs as a result of globalization, and it's painful
for those who lose their jobs," he said.
Even so, Bush continued, the only way forward for Americans is through
improved education and pro-growth economic policies, not protectionism.
"The United States of America will reject protectionism," he said. "We
won't fear competition. We welcome competition."
In coming down foursquare against erecting trade barriers, Bush extended a
string of policy positions he has taken in recent weeks that favor
unfettered interaction between countries and corporations over other
concerns. These positions have fueled intense controversy, even among
fellow Republicans.
The president came out strongly, for example, in favor of a plan by an Arab
company to take over operations at ports on the East and Gulf coasts,
though White House aides subsequently said the administration backed a
45-day review. The proposal by Dubai Ports World provoked bipartisan
criticism that Bush was shortchanging national security.
Bush also has offered a guest-worker program that's faced criticism in
Congress, especially from conservative Republicans who have argued that the
president's plan would encourage more migrants to enter the country
illegally.
Bush's latest plug for the economic importance of education, especially
college and graduate education, may contain the seeds for another
controversy. Although the president has endorsed education rhetorically,
many analysts say that he has not put federal money where his mouth is.
"The president's record for supporting college and post-secondary jobs
training is anemic," Carnevale said.
Total spending on Pell grants, Washington's chief means of providing
financial aid to poor college-bound students, rose from $10 billion in the
2001-2002 school year to $13.1 billion last year, but that was almost
entirely because more students qualified. The average amount of aid per
student barely budged in after-inflation terms.
The maximum school loan under Pell grants has steadily declined since 2002.
At $4,050 per year, it covers about one-third of tuition, room and board at
a public four-year college, down from 42% when the president took office,
according to the College Board, the nonpartisan assessment organization.
The president's 2007 budget plan calls for cutting Education Department
spending by, among other things, eliminating a major loan program to help
needy students attend community college. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees
education, labeled the proposal "scandalous" and "insufficient."
But Bush may face a bigger challenge than defending the dollar amounts his
administration directs to higher education. He could soon find himself
having to defend what until recently has been almost universally accepted
as fact - that going to college or graduate school is a nearly certain
route to higher pay, and a sure protection against the dislocation spawned
by global competition.
What's undermining these comfortable assumptions, some analysts say, is a
basic change in the kinds of jobs that are vulnerable to offshoring.
Declines in transportation costs and improvements in communications
technology - including computers and the Internet - are vastly expanding
the range of things that can be bought and sold across international
borders, and also the range of American workers who are exposed to
international competition.
Until the last decade or so, most of what could be traded were manufactured
goods that could be boxed up and sent abroad or bought overseas. Therefore,
it was mostly American manufacturing workers who faced the brunt of
competition. Services workers appeared immune and that seemed especially
true of highly educated doctors, lawyers, computer programmers and
financial experts.
But with the growth of the Internet, analysts say, many - although not all
- sorts of service work can be performed almost anywhere in the world. Now
many kinds of service workers are finding themselves exposed to the same
global competition as their manufacturing counterparts.
"Many people blithely assume that the critical labor-market distinction is,
and will remain, between highly educated (or highly-skilled) people and
less-educated (or less-skilled) people, doctors versus call-center
operators, for example," Blinder wrote in a recent article in the magazine
Foreign Affairs.
The assumption is that those with higher education are either better
shielded from global competition or better able to adapt to it, he said.
And this leads many policymakers to call for "more education and a general
'upskilling' of the workforce."
But, Blinder wrote, the crucial distinction in the future may not be
between the more-educated and less-educated, but between "those types of
work that are easily deliverable through a wire - and those that are not."
Some education-heavy jobs such as computer programming are proving easily
deliverable by wire and many programming jobs have been shifted overseas,
an irony in an era when many had thought that tech-savvy workers would be
among the economy's big winners.
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://washtimes.com/commentary/20060312-101234-9387r.htm
Immigration economics . . .
By Alfred Tella
Published March 13, 2006
The law of supply and demand can't be repealed, either by politicians or
supporters of illegal immigration. In Economics 101, we learn an increase
in supply lowers prices. Wages are the price of labor. Higher wages call
forth more labor supply.
To say the continuing influx of low-skilled immigrants willing to work
cheaply doesn't depress the wages of workers already here is to deny the
basic laws of economics. To say a reduction or slowup in the numbers of
illegals competing with legal residents, i.e., a smaller labor supply,
wouldn't improve wages and re-employ many who have lost their jobs to
illegals also doesn't square with the law of supply and demand.
The re-employment of legal workers at better wages would mean some
marginal employers would go under. Also, some of the higher labor costs
could be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, although such
price increases would probably be small and thinly spread.
With higher labor costs, employers would have a greater incentive to
invest in technology, which would lower prices and lead to higher standards
of living.
The illegal immigrant population continues to rise unabated and now
stands at 11.5 million to 12 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
The debate on illegal immigration in the Congress is heating up. The
economic ammunition in the arsenal of those who oppose a guest worker
program or amnesty for illegals is also piling up. Here are a few
significant findings.
A recent study by Harvard economist George J. Borjas, probably the
nation's leading authority on the economics of immigration, concluded that
from 1980 to 2000 immigration reduced the average annual earnings of
native-born men by $1,700, or nearly 4 percent. For the poorest tenth of
the work force the reduction was much larger, 7.4 percent, traceable to
Mexican immigration. Native-born African-Americans and Hispanics were also
hard-hit, being in direct competition with immigrant workers. Mr. Borjas
found even college graduates had their earnings lowered by an estimated 3.6
percent.
Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration
Studies (CIS), looked at native workers in occupations performed by people
with a high-school education or less, about 25 million workers. He
estimated immigration reduces the wages of these workers more than 10
percent, with minorities suffering most. A study done by economists for the
National Research Council also found immigration significantly lowered the
wages of high-school dropouts.
President Bush favors a guest worker program that would legalize and
hence encourage the continued flow of low-wage immigration. Yet his own
Council of Economic Advisers, in its 2005 annual report, conceded
immigration negatively affects the wages of those already here,
particularly less skilled workers. The depressing effect that the illegal
labor supply has on the wages of legal workers won't be mitigated by
turning illegals into legal residents.
Under the government's H-1B temporary visa program, employers can hire
technical and professional foreign workers, provided they are paid wages
comparable to American workers with similar skills in the same occupation
and location.
An analysis of the program by John Miano, chief engineer of the
software company, Colosseum Builders Inc., found it depressed the earnings
of American workers. Despite the program's comparable wage rule, employers
have been paying foreigners significantly less than required, undercutting
the wages of American workers. Here again we have a program being bent to
enable employers to import cheap labor.
Economist Ethan Lewis of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
recently analyzed the effect of immigrant labor on technology and found
manufacturing plants drawing on low-skilled low-paid immigrant workers
slowed their adoption of technology. Less investment in technology means
lower productivity growth, and in the long run lower wages and standards of
living.
Illegal immigrants use more government services than they pay in taxes,
which is not surprising since they are predominately unskilled and
low-paid.
Mr. Camerota of the CIS estimated the one-year net fiscal cost of
illegal immigrant households to American taxpayers at about $10 billion at
the federal level alone. Illegals were estimated to pay about $16 billion
in taxes and cost the government $26 billion. (About half of illegals are
estimated to be paid wages off-the-books.) The largest costs were for
Medicaid, food benefits, aid to schools, and use of federal prisons and
courts.
Mr. Camerota estimated the cost of illegal immigrant households if a
law were passed to make them legal. They would qualify for a wider range of
government services and would make greater use of such programs as the
earned income tax credit, even though more of their earnings would be
reported and taxed. Tax revenue per household would rise an estimated 77
percent, but costs would rise even more, by 118 percent. The net result
would be to nearly triple the annual fiscal cost, to $29 billion.
As illegal immigrants continue to spread throughout the country, more
legal workers will lose wages or jobs, and more employers will reap the
profits. Working Americans are greater in number but business seems to have
more political influence. If the balance is to shift, Americans must become
more vocal.
Alfred Tella is former Georgetown University research professor of
economics.
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=31261
U.S. Bill seeks to double H-1B visas
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
WASHINGTON: A measure to double the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary
visas to 115,000 with an option of raising the cap 20 percent more each
year has been introduced in the Immigration Bill.
The bill, now pending before the Congress, if passed, would open the U.S.
doors to highly skilled immigrants for science, math, technology and
engineering jobs from India.
The H-1B visa provisions were sought by Silicon Valley based technology
companies who enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the
U.S. might lose its lead in technology, according to a report in the San
Francisco Chronicle.
The provision for highly skilled workers enjoys support in both parties in
the Senate and in President George W. Bush's administration after a raft of
high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing
enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge
in innovation to India.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page
bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, now being
rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by
the end of the month.
Other provisions in the bill include a new F-4 visa category for students
pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or
mathematics. These students would be granted permanent residence if they
find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and
training of U.S. workers.
Other proposals in the bill include streamlining labor certification rules
for foreigners holding the desired advanced degrees from a U.S. university.
Immigrants with advanced degrees as well as those of 'extraordinary
ability' and 'outstanding professors and researchers,' would also get an
exemption from the cap on employment-based green cards and slots for
permanent residence.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=39444
Economics could fix shortages
March 8, 2006
by JONATHAN LOPEZ, columnist
Once again government officials have become privy to information that
concerns the well-being of the citizens of the United States. Ronald
Reagan, Bill Clinton and now George W. Bush has warned that America will go
through a manpower shortage of scientists and engineers.
The Bush administration is looking to spend $50 billion of our money over
the next 10 years to fix this problem.
Is there a valid reason to divert career paths, change majors or even spend
tax money on this?
The heads of government who push for the sudden influx of scientists have
not taken into account the simple concept of supply and demand. How does
this work in the real world?
Let's take a look at an extreme example. If the current administration
complained about the low number of house painters in the country what would
you expect them to do? Would you want the government to go out to schools
and encourage children to become house painters?
In a normal market economy, if the demand for house painters increased,
their wages would increase to meet the demand.
More professionals would leave their lower-paying jobs to make more money
as house painters. As wages continued to increase, more people would become
house painters. Eventually the market would be saturated with house
painters and wages would eventually even off as demand decreases. The
system would automatically gain equilibrium.
No government intervention would be needed. The same example can be applied
to scientists and engineers.
According to the 2000 Census Report, the average salary scales for
professors show the marketplace had a different demand than what we are
being told. The average law professor makes $109,478; business, $79,931;
biomedical sciences, $63,988; and mathematics, $61,761.
Most scientists in the field know firsthand how difficult it is to retain
their jobs. If there were a sudden influx of people, it would push wages
down and further push people to the unemployment lines.
As the law of supply and demand works, if pay is high, then that is where
the students will go. The market works without any government subsidies,
tax breaks or speeches.
Jonathan Lopez is a junior journalism major from Houston.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=39505
No shortage in tech jobs
Jonathan Lopez's Wednesday article titled "Economics could fix shortages"
is right on target. Big Business has been "shortage shouting" about an
alleged low supply of scientists, engineers, mathematicians and computer
programmers for the past 20-plus years.
The reality: there is not now, nor has there ever been, a dire shortage of
qualified Americans to fill such tech jobs.
Our lawmakers in Congress have enacted the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to
address this alleged shortage.
There are now more than one million foreign workers in the United States
today on H-1B and L-1 visas.
Unemployment and underemployment of American citizens in the tech fields is
at all-time record levels and wages are declining.
At the same time, CEO pay packages have skyrocketed.
If a true shortage of tech workers exists, if tech companies really value
well-educated American tech workers, why are these same companies that pay
CEOs obscene salaries, bonuses and stock option packages laying off so many
American tech workers, and why are these companies unwilling to pay higher
wages?
The H-1B and L-1 visa programs amount to nothing less than a government
subsidy to the corporations that hire these foreign workers, and in fact
these visa programs short-circuit the laws of supply and demand that
Jonathan refers to.
A bright young person would be very foolish indeed to pursue a rigorous,
difficult course of study in engineering or the sciences, given that the
prospects of getting a good job with decent pay and growth potential aren't
very good.
The CEOs and their highly paid lobbyists who scream shortage need to shut
up and put their money where their mouths are. American young people would
be interested in tech jobs again if the pay, growth prospects and respect
for such jobs were better than they are.
Gerard Wevers
Reno, Nevada
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/030506.html
The foreigners U.S. should fear don't live here
By Cynthia Tucker
Sat Mar 4, 8:16 PM ET
It's not the Mexicans we should worry about. Or the Guatemalans, Colombians
or Salvadorans. Waves of laborers -- legal and illegal -- from south of the
border don't constitute the grave threat to national security or economic
stability that the anti-immigrant hysteria would suggest.
If you want to worry about the future, look to China. Or to India. Those
countries are producing millions of well-educated young people who are
already taking jobs from American workers -- and are poised to take more.
While Congress and state legislatures are busying themselves with
meaningless bills aimed at undocumented workers pouring over our southern
borders, the real threat to U.S. economic hegemony lies elsewhere.
It's not gardeners from Guerrero who are likely to replace American
accountants, engineers and graphic designers. It's eager students from
Bangalore who master mathematics and engineering, speak English and work
for less -- at least for now. Already, multinational corporations are
transferring scores of job categories to workers outside the country. Those
aren't limited to customer service reps in call centers but include Indian
computer geeks who can design video games.
China, too, intends to be more than a low-cost manufacturing center. As
Thomas Friedman put it in his latest book, "The World Is Flat": "China does
not just want to get rich. It wants to get powerful. China doesn't just
want to learn how to make GM cars. It wants to be GM and put GM out of
business."
You'd think members of Congress, who are supposed to be smart people, would
have noticed. You'd think they'd be making speeches, appointing task forces
and appropriating funds -- all aimed at preparing American students to meet
the challenges of a global economy. You'd think President Bush would back a
broad national program to jump-start education in math and science,
starting in elementary school.
Instead, the Bush administration has engaged in wholesale warfare against
science, censoring reports, rewriting documents and muzzling scientists
whenever their conclusions contradict the religious views of a narrow
constituency of ultra-conservative Christians. Congress, meanwhile, is
bogged down with controversial legislative efforts to seal off the borders
and punish illegal workers.
It's not as if Mexicans are suicide bombers. With all the inflammatory
rhetoric bandied about on talk radio and cable TV -- CNN's Lou Dobbs has
carved a new career out of bashing illegal immigrants -- you might get the
impression the United States had the same problem with its Latino
immigrants that Western Europe has with restive Muslims, some of whom have
cozied up to the jihadist strain of Islam that despises the West and scorns
modernity. By contrast, Latinos, including those who crossed the border
illegally, want nothing more than to assimilate. They like baseball, Nikes
and Wal-Mart. What could be more American than that?
It's true that some regions of the country, including areas around Atlanta,
have been burdened by a huge influx of illegal workers; they are often
minimum-wage earners who speak little English and need social services. But
the rapid influx of undocumented workers has a fairly simple solution:
Impose harsh penalties -- prison time -- for the business executives who
employ them, and fewer companies will take the risk. If fewer jobs are
available, fewer workers will cross the borders. It's as simple as that.
The challenge of a global workforce cannot be met as simply. It will
require politicians who are open-minded and forward-looking, with the
political courage to resist the easy call for closed borders and
restrictions on free trade. They will have to resist, as well, a growing
xenophobia which would see in a rising China a new "yellow peril."
Instead, President Bush and Congress should be pouring billions of dollars
into a brand-new science and math initiative, modeled after the program
that followed the Soviets' successful launch of Sputnik in 1957. With
national defense as the battle cry, it was easy enough to get Americans
behind a plan that churned out mathematicians, scientists and engineers.
Now that those baby boomers have started retiring, the nation needs another
plan to groom biologists, physicists and computer engineers.
That makes more sense than spending millions more to seal off the border
with Mexico. Some of those young illegal immigrants -- the children of
today's poultry workers or landscapers -- could be tomorrow's American
scientists.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for the Atlanta Constitution. She
can be reached by e-mail: cynthia@ajc.com.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701765.html?
New Economy Hurting People in the Middle the Most
By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; D01
It's the new conundrum.
The last several years have been marked by low unemployment, strong
economic growth, robust productivity gains and record corporate profits.
Normally, you'd expect most Americans to be doing pretty well. As it
happens, however, inflation-adjusted income for all but a tiny fraction of
the wealthiest households hasn't increased at all.
So what gives? Why is there such a disconnect between economic growth and
household income? What happened to all the money?
Anyone who offers a simple answer to those questions -- that it's all the
fault of the Bush tax cuts, or it can be solved by sending everyone to
college -- is blowing smoke.
There is also a plethora of data sets that can be used to show that, in
reality, we're all still better off than we were 10, 20 or 30 years ago,
or, if you wish, that the American Dream is dead and the economy is now run
by and for the super-rich.
What is almost certain, however, is that fundamental changes in the
structure of the labor, product and capital markets are accelerating a
long-term trend toward income inequality. And this is happening not only
here in the United States, but other places as well.
My favorite statistic comes from a recent study of tax returns by the
Internal Revenue Service. It shows that, in 1979, the top 10 percent of
households earned 33 percent of all pretax income. By 2003, their share had
climbed to 44 percent. The shares of everyone else declined.
That's not to say that the households at the top in 1979 were the same as
in 2003 (they weren't), or that the living standards of everyone else
declined (they didn't). But it does show the degree to which income
distribution has become more skewed.
Two things are going on here.
First, the share of the economic pie going to workers in the form of wages,
salaries and benefits seems to have fallen, while the share going to
holders of capital -- in the form of interest, dividends and capital gains
-- has gone up.
The culprits here include the variety of factors that go under the heading
of globalization -- trade, immigration, outsourcing, the rise of the
multinational corporation and cross-border investment -- all of which have
weakened the position of workers in negotiating for wages and benefits.
Just as significant have been the decline in the influence of labor unions,
the employer tilt of labor laws and the rising influence of Wall Street
that now focuses corporate managers on the single-minded goal of increasing
shareholder value.
Even while labor's share of the economy is shrinking, the distribution of
income within labor's share has become more unequal.
Until recently, most of the academic research focused on the role of trade
and technology in reducing the demand for unskilled workers -- those whose
jobs could be more efficiently done by machines or by lower-paid workers in
foreign countries. At the same time, they increased the demand for workers
with higher skills and education. As a result, the more education you had,
the better off you were.
But two recent studies -- one by David Autor of Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Melissa Kearney of the
Brookings Institution, and another by Frank Levy of MIT and Richard Murnane
of Harvard -- have found that most of the impact from trade and technology
has shifted to workers in the middle of the wage and skill distribution.
More powerful computers and software and the Internet have reduced the
demand for travel agents, retail salesmen and inventory control
specialists, while making it possible for companies to outsource to India
and Poland work like computer programming, tax preparation and customer
service.
Those developments, according to the studies, had a "barbell" effect on
wages. At the high end, they have increased demand (and pay) for workers
with the higher-level skills needed to design and market all this new
technology and the new goods and services associated with it. At the same
time, these newly enriched people near the top now demand more services
from yoga instructors, gardeners and manicurists, boosting demand (and pay)
for such lower-paid workers who can't easily be replaced by machines.
According to Levy and Murnane, those trends have created a new imbalance in
the labor market, where workers with moderate skills and education are
chasing a diminishing number of jobs, "hollowing out" the middle of the
income scale even as incomes rise at the top and the bottom.
It's one thing to lay out or bemoan these developments. It's quite another
to figure out what to do about them. I'll leave that for a column next week
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031406R.shtml
Dubai Firm Accused of Breaking Pledge to Divest Itself of US Port
Operations
By Doreen Hemlock
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Tuesday 14 March 2006
The weeks-long saga of Dubai Ports World's purchase of operations in
Miami and five other US seaports took another turn Monday, when the
company's Fort Lauderdale nemesis publicized a private e-mail and charged
the note shows the Arab company has no intention of selling its US assets.
Eller & Co., now a partner with DP World in a Miami operation after DP
bought out a British firm last week, shared an e-mail that said the Arab
company's sale of US assets "would probably take a while."
The e-mail from Robert Scavone, a vice president for the port company
now owned by DP World, also told managers in Miami to assume for now
"ownership ... is not going to change."
Eller's lawyer Michael N. Kreitzer said Monday the e-mail proves the
Arab company has no plans to meet Thursday's pledge to transfer US assets
to a US entity. The move aims to quell political furor - much of it stirred
up by Eller on Capitol Hill.
"We're making this public because we think Congress should do what it
planned last week - to pass a bill to specifically disavow the Dubai
company from owning a US port operation," Kreitzer said by phone.
But Scavone told The Associated Press that the e-mail instead was
intended to reassure officials at the Miami unit that uncertainty
surrounding ownership would not affect their work and operations.
Eller has been fighting for years against the British company that was
its partner in the Miami ports venture and now has a lawsuit against DP
World seeking $100 million in damages. It alleges both companies violated
contract terms by buying and selling stakes without its consent. It also
claims Dubai's ownership will hurt its operations.
The company has been pressing its case with fervor to Sen. Charles
Schumer, D-NY. Schumer claimed the purchase of port operations by a United
Arab Emirates government-owned company would compromise US security.
"It is the American people's understanding that Dubai Ports World
promised to relinquish control of all US ports," Schumer told the AP on
Monday. "If that is not the case, we will move our legislation immediately
and force them to do just that."
His comments came a day after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., said a Dubai purchase could still go through. If a US buyer is not
found, and a 45-day review finds no security risks, "I don't see how the
deal would have to be canceled," Frist said on ABC's This Week.
10. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060313-120147-4562r.htm
Bill seeks to keep U.S. technology lead
By Carolyn Lochhead
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICL
Published March 13, 2006
Increases skilled-worker visas
Buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill -- hardly noticed amid a
fierce debate over a guest-worker program for unskilled laborers -- are
provisions that would admit more immigrants for science, math, technology
and engineering jobs.
The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley companies and enjoy
significant bipartisan support because of concerns that the United States
might lose its lead in technology. They would broaden avenues to legal
immigration for foreign technology workers and would put those with
advanced degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence, should they
want it.
The measures include nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker
temporary visas to 115,000 -- with an option of raising the cap 20 percent
more each year. H-1B visas reached a peak of 195,000 a year in 2003.
Congress had increased the number of visas during the late 1990s'
dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley complained of technology-worker
shortages, although native-born engineers complained that their wages were
undermined by cheap labor from India and China.
With the technology crash and the revelation that some of the September
11, 2001, hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political
climate for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the
number of H-1B visas to decline to 65,000 a year.
The cap was reached in August, in effect turning off the tap. A special
exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees was reached in
January.
"We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the
P9
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