Category Archives: Business

Business Is Already Mounting Pressure To Import Cheap Labor

Business, Donald Trump, Education, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Morality, Paleolibertarianism

On August 31st, President Trump signed an “executive order to boost retirement savings.” It’ll allow “small businesses to band together to offer 401(k)s.”

But what do you know? A businessman present lamented “a very tight labor market, which is tight because of the success of [the president’s’] economy. And we’re all grateful for that, but it is causing us a little bit of problems.”

There we go again.

Replied Trump obediently:

We have so many companies coming back to our country, which nobody thought was going to happen. And they want to be where the action is. And we’re going to — I can tell you, we’re going to start looking at, very seriously, merit-based immigration. We have to do it, because we need people. We need people to run these great companies that are coming in.

Big or small, American business is focused above all on elephantine-like expansion and greed.

It is not enough to do well and train American talent, so that fellow Americans can become part of the success story: this is never an option. If business is able to petition The State to import the world at a price subsidized by the American taxpayer—why not?

Again: It’s not enough to be doing smashingly well with the labor available. Or, with a view to training American talent. Or, with a view to paying more for American labor. Oh no.  Greedy American Business is forever poised to pull one over the American worker.

The New York Times has featured the “heartbreaking” story of “Rob Hurst, manager of Edgartown Commons on Martha’s Vineyard, has had to scrub bathrooms this summer because five Jamaican workers who had long worked at the hotel couldn’t get visas.”

It concluded:

In practice, businesses say the increased red tape has made it harder to secure employment-based visas. That has added to the difficulty of finding qualified workers with the unemployment rate falling to 3.9 percent.
A recent analysis of government data by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research group, found that the denial rate for H-1B visa petitions for skilled foreign workers had increased 41 percent in the last three months of the 2017 fiscal year, compared with the third quarter. Government requests for additional information for applications doubled in the fourth quarter, a few months after Mr. Trump issued his order.

See: “Companies Say Trump Is Hurting Business by Limiting Legal Immigration.”

Isn’t this about growth per capita, too—and perhaps community? And not just about GDP growth.

‘Labor Shortages’: Business Leaders Are Bitching, Workers Are Celebrating

Business, Economy, Labor, Outsourcing

Workers are happier than they’ve been for a long time.

“For the first time since data began to be collected in 2000, there are more job openings than there are unemployed workers.” By the Economist’s telling, “Fully 5.8m more Americans are in work than in December of 2015.”

Workers may be happy, but not businesses.

Big and small, business is nattering about labor shortages.  “Ninety percent of small businesses who are hiring or trying to hire workers report that there are few or no qualified applicants, according to the National Federation of Independent Business.”

Excerpted from, “Worker shortages could heal America’s economy: Why a scarcity of labor is probably something to celebrate”:

The shortage is reaching a “critical point”, read one recent CNBC headline. A lack of applicants for blue-collar jobs such as trucking and construction has received particular scrutiny, as have states like Iowa where the unemployment rate is especially low (it is just 2.7% in the Hawkeye state).
But portraying widespread labour shortages as an economic problem is misguided. While they may be bad for firms, they are a boon for society—so long as inflation remains contained. In fact, a labour market in which firms must compete for workers, rather than workers competing for jobs should help resolve three of America’s biggest economic problems.

* Inadequate wage growth.

* “Faster productivity growth, which has been disappointing in America—and in other rich countries—since the financial crisis. If less profitable firms have to fold because they cannot pay enough to attract workers, their labour and capital can be put to better use.”

* Wage gains accrued “to the poorest workers. Full-time employees at the 10th percentile of the income distribution are earning almost 4% more than a year ago.”

Thanks To Private Enterprise Ingenuity, Not Government Frugality, The US Is Not Venezuela

America, Business, Debt, Economy, Government

Venezuela’s inflation is 46,000 percent a year, “which in turn is largely caused by the printing of money to finance the government’s deficit of 30 percent of GDP.” (“Venezuelan cash is almost worthless, but also scarce,” Economist, July 12th, 2018.)

“In FY 2017, the federal deficit was 3.4 percent of GDP. This year, FY 2018, the federal government in its latest budget has estimated that the deficit will be 4.2 percent of GDP.” (https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_deficit_percent_gdp.)

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States was worth about 19 trillion US dollars.

Thanks to private enterprise ingenuity, not government frugality (see US Debt Clock), the US is not Venezuela.

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UPDATED (8/13/018): Who Knew? Microsoft Is On The Side Of The Little Angels

Business, IMMIGRATION, Technology, The State

It was only a matter of time before Microsoft began to signal its virtue around the politically correct issue du jour.

The company came out to the world about its dismay at “the forcible separation of children from their families at the border,” and expressed support for “family unification,” which is, after all, its H-1B bread-and-butter.

When your CEOs are worth hundreds of millions, their “humble” dwellings have zip codes that place them far from the madding crowds.

As a company, Microsoft is dismayed by the forcible separation of children from their families at the border. Family unification has been a fundamental tenant [sic] of American policy and law since the end of World War II. As a company, Microsoft has worked for over 20 years to combine technology with the rule of law to ensure that children who are refugees and immigrants can remain with their parents. We need to continue to build on this noble tradition rather than change course now. We urge the administration to change its policy and Congress to pass legislation ensuring children are no longer separated from their families.

HERE.


UPDATE (8/13/018): On the side of the state: