Category Archives: Labor

UPDATED II (4/24): Why The H-1B Visa Racket Should Be Abolished, Not Reformed

Business, Free Markets, IMMIGRATION, Labor, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Technology, Welfare

“Why The H-1B Visa Racket Should Be Abolished, Not Reformed” is the new column, trending on Townhall.com. An excerpt:

Billionaire businessman Marc Cuban insists that the H-1B visa racket is a feature of the vaunted American free market. This is nonsense on stilts. It can’t go unchallenged.

Another billionaire, our president, has ordered that the H-1B program be reformed. This, too, is disappointing. You’ll see why.

First, let’s correct Mr. Cuban: America has not a free economy, but a mixed-economy. State and markets are intertwined. Trade, including trade in labor, is not free; it’s regulated to the hilt. If anything, the labyrinth of work visas is an example of a fascistic government-business cartel in operation.

The H-1B permit, in particular, is part of that state-sponsored visa system. The primary H-1B hogs—Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel—import labor with what are grants of government privilege. Duly, the corporations that hog H-1Bs act like incorrigibly corrupt rent seekers. Not only do they get to replace the American worker, but they get to do so at his expense.

Here’s how:

Globally, a series of sordid liaisons ensures that American workers are left high and dry. Through the programs of the International Trade Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, and other oink-operations, the taxpaying American worker is forced to subsidize and underwrite the investment risks of the very corporations that have given him the boot.

Domestically, the fascistic partnership with the State amounts to a subsidy to business at the expense of the taxpayer. See, corporations in our democratic welfare state externalize their employment costs onto the taxpayers.

So while public property is property funded by taxpayers through expropriated taxes; belongs to taxpayers; is to be managed for their benefit—at least one million additional immigrants a year, including recipients of the H-1B visa, are allowed the free use of taxpayer-supported infrastructure and amenities. Every new arrival avails himself of public works such as roads, hospitals, parks, libraries, schools, and welfare.

Does this epitomize the classical liberal idea of laissez faire?

Moreover, chain migration or family unification means every H-1B visa recruit is a ticket for an entire tribe. The initial entrant—the meal ticket—will pay his way. The honor system not being an especially strong value in the Third World, the rest of the clan will be America’s problem. More often than not, chain-migration entrants become wards of the American taxpayer.

Spreading like gravy over a tablecloth, this rapid, inorganic population growth is detrimental to all ecosystems: natural, social and political.

Take Seattle and its surrounding counties …

… READ THE REST. “Why The H-1B Visa Racket Should Be Abolished, Not Reformed” is now trending on Townhall.com.

UPDATE (4/22): A poignant observation on Townhall.com, where the column is now trending:

Carry ann • 4 hours ago

This article is spot on. The insane importation of h1b workers from India by Microsoft and Amazon has changed the Seattle area beyond recognition. The author’s contention that each visa is just a meal ticket to move the whole clan over is spot on. Everywhere you look in this area, trees are being cut down to make room for more development. All new homes now have 3 levels, with a finished basement intended for the grandparents who moved here to take care of the grand kids while both parents work, since Obama also allow the spouses of H1bs to work. Indians are taking over all the jobs in this area. Every new home buyer is either Indian or Chinese, both move the whole clan over. All the schools here are now at least 50% Asian, some are 90% Asian, esp. the elementary schools.
We need a 20 year moratorium on immigration, not just the H1b but its close cousins, H2b, H3, H4, J1, OPT, L1 and the EB5 all need to be cancelled for 20 years. Immigration is the colonization tactic of the 21st century. The US is being colonized by the third world. Most of the Mexicans and Asians are wildly liberal and vote Democrat, esp. the Indians. Republicans are dead if they continue to allow this stream of migration. They need to wise up in a hurry and stop this third world invasion.

UPDATE II (2/24):

On Ricochet.com, Jamie Lockett responds:

“Wouldn’t the real libertarian response to this be an immigration system unregulated by government and depended on economic necessity?”

MY REPLY: “A clear-thinking libertarian addresses reality. Would I like to see a world governed by private property? Indeed. Until that happens—if—I am obliged to address the reality I addressed in the column and call out the bluff of the H-1B visa by pointing to the existence of the 0-1 visa. I am not advocating for these systems; I’m illustrating how the immigration industry—corporations, lawyers, lobbyists and other clientele—stick it to American workers. I hope you are not suggesting that instead of addressing reality, I pontificate about my purist preferences.”

Robert McReynolds, aka JamieLockett: “Well, I don’t think I could of said it any better really.”

UPDATED (5/3): What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets

Business, Celebrity, Democrats, Donald Trump, Feminism, Gender, Labor

“What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets” is the current column, now on The American Thinker. An excerpt:

“Donald Trump must get those kids out of the White House,” a blunt South African observer of our politics barked at me, weeks back. “You’re looking more and more like us.” She was alluding to the nepotism on display in the Trump White House.

Since the president started strafing Syria, it has become evident that Trump’s favorite offspring needs to be booted from the People’s House. The British press, more irreverent than ours, seconded the broad consensus that Ivanka had nagged daddy into doing it. For The Kids: The First Daughter was, purportedly, devastated by the (unauthenticated) images of a suspected gas attack in Syria.

Brother Eric Trump confirmed it: “Sure, Ivanka influenced the Syria strike decision.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer didn’t deny it.

Eric had headed back to the Trump Organization, as he promised during the campaign. Ivanka just wouldn’t go.

Who could fail to notice that the first daughter, a cloistered, somewhat provincial American princess, has been elevated inappropriately in the White House, while first lady Melania, a cosmopolitan steel magnolia, has been marginalized?

That Ivanka, now her father’s West Wing adviser, drove the offensive in Syria is but a logical deduction.

Ivanka promises that she and her poodle, Jared Kushner, are in compliance with the law. Clever lawyers told her so. Legalistic assurances pertaining to the 1967 Anti-Nepotism Statute mean nothing. Law is hardly the ultimate adjudicator of right and wrong.

Donald’s daughter has no place in the White House, no matter how cutely she “argues” for her ambitions:

“I want to be a force for good.” (Who defines “good,” Ivanka? Limited and delimited government means that it’s not you.)

“I want to pursue my passions.” (Your passions, Ivanka, are not necessarily the people’s passions—or even within the purview of their government.)

Whether she’s tweeting about the accomplishment that is the war on Syria or about inflicting her kids on China’s first couple, Ivanka’s tweets have the insipid emptiness of a contestant in a beauty pageant.

“Proud of my father for refusing to accept these horrendous crimes against humanity.”

“Proud of Arabella and Joseph for their performance in honor of President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan’s official visit to the US.”

Such provincialism and solipsism were certainly part of the Obamas’ international persona. Barack and Michelle gave the queen of England an iPod, customized with images and audio from Mr. Obama’s inaugural and DNC addresses.

Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who’s running the White House and whom to flatter. For doing their bidding, Syrian rebels—”we don’t know who they are,” cautioned the Old Donald—have even given President Trump an honorific:

Abu Ivanka al-Amriki: father of Ivanka the American.

I don’t think President Donald Trump’s dispiriting deviation of policy on Syria signaled a lack of core beliefs. What the folly of bombing Syria signals, very plainly, is that what Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets. Republicans and Democrats likely know it but won’t say it. The former because Ivanka is a woman. Republicans dare not wage war on a woman, much less if she wages war on Syria. The latter because Ivanka is a Democrat by any other name. …”

… READ THE “DISPIRITING” REST. “What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets” is now on The American Thinker.

UPDATE (5/3):

TRUMP News Round-Up (March 26 – April 5)

Donald Trump, Economy, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Gender, Healthcare, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Multiculturalism, Russia

As Steve Bannon Goes, So Goes the Promise of …

Is the foreign policy promised on the way out: America First?

Surveillance:

Ivanka milking the equal-pay nonsense:

Let’s have more of Melania, less of busybody Ivanka:

Yes to Dana Rohrabacher:

Job numbers are looking good, but not to our mad-hatter media:

No wonder DC dislikes Putin; he likes Russia just the way she is:

ForeignAffairs.com is getting religion on immigration restriction.

Julian Assange: They used him.

MICHAEL FLYNN: throwing him under the bus was probably WRONG, don’t you think?

Democrats in healthcare? Is this why we gave Trump the presidency and both chambers?

Robert Redford: The actor believes his own hype.

The best people are NOT in the Trump admin: Michele Bachmann, Phil Haney, Kris Kobach.

Ivanka’s office is way too close.

The CIA, America’s political police:

Leave Deep Space to the private sector:

Keeping bad company: Condoleezza Rice:

Supply and Demand is immutable, natural law, but … but …

Freedom Caucus: Thanks!

Equal-Pay Idiocy Refuted

Economy, Free Markets, Gender, Labor, Logic, Reason

The logic is as simple as it is foolproof. An “air-tight free-market argument,” as I explained: “If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. That entrepreneurs don’t ditch men en masse for women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”  (“The Week of Whining Womin”)

The logic is not, however, female proof.

Ridiculous: