On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:15:07 -0800, "Calif Bill"
wrote:


"jps" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:14:08 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:44:38 -0800, jps wrote:



The bill sucks but don't blame Obama for the **** we're in or the debt
our progeny will shoulder.

I suspect that bill will be radically changed in the Senate.
Too much resistance to the debt incurred.
And too many pieces that aren't "stimulative."
We got burned when the pols rushed TARP, and public resistance
against hurriedly tossing money is pretty high.
What I'm enjoying seeing is tentative jabs at "free trade."
We need more PERMANENT jobs.
Without addressing that need none of this stuff is good long term.
Cheap consumer goods and crass materialism is what got us here.
Wall Street bull**** telling everybody they could be rich without
labor.

--Vic

I haven't confirmed but rumor is that many of the layoffs at Microsoft
were blue badge (permanent hires) US citizens and few were H1-B's.

If so, I don't think it's a good formula for enticing congress to
relax H1-B quotas, as Microsoft has long argued.

We need a more educated workforce. While manufacturing would be a
good thing, we need more engineers and programmers.

But why go into engineering or programming when the jobs are being outsource
for $40k a year? Or less. I figured H1-B's kept our salaries down about
40%. When you could get a guy with a MS-electronics engineering for $50k a
year, why would they pay us American engineers $80k to start? And max out
at about $100k. Good sounding salary but when you go to school for 6 years
and take courses to keep up on the latest, the money starts to pale.

Outsourcing is efficient for pedestrian applications. Real
development of new products is best done under the watchful eye of
local managers.

There's a lot of folks out there who'd be damned pleased with a
$40K/yr. job right now and it surely wouldn't require 6 years of
school. 2 - 4 at most.