From Tiny Acorns ...

This is the start of a blog about power and money in early 21st century America.

It is about working and striving and surviving and failing to survive.

Above all it is about the future of young professionals in America. College graduates have been hammered hard in the last 10 years, well before the current recession/depression got going.

This is particularly true for Information Technology (IT) graduates, who have experienced a 50% decline in numbers and an estimated 50% decline in those who actually make the jump from academia to a professional career in industry. In other words, America is producing about one quarter of the number of software professionals as the 1990s.

If America can not produce future generations of trained professionals, then it may not have a future, at least not a future in any recognizable form.

The central theme at the moment is proliferating foreign worker programs in America, H1Bs, L1s, etc. In short, they are eating us alive - especially the entry level positions that used to fuel the careers of our young professionals.

The cornerstone of foreign worker programs in America is our federal government; that is Washington. Vast amounts of money are being spent to influence our political establishment in order to continue and even expand foreign worker programs, even as we struggle with the worst economic depression in 80 years.

No one knows how much money is being employed to influence our politicians. It may be in the range of $100 million a year, perhaps $150 million including state and local lobbying. This may seem like a lot of money, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the foreign worker industry. Foreign IT workers alone cost us over $25 billion per year. The total for foreign workers in all categories is well over $100 billion per year ( it was $88 billion in 2001 ).

Note that no one knows even the approximate size of the foreign worker population in America. The government actually does not know how many legal foreign workers are in this country. Amazing, isn't it.

It must be stressed that these are legal foreign workers entering this country legally with work visas issued by the federal government. This has nothing to do with illegal workers and even less to do with all the touchy issues surrounding immigration reform. Personally, I am pro-immigration, I think that immigrants have done much for America and that legal immigration will continue to renew us with vigorous, talented citizens.

So I am pro-immigration. But I am also very pro-job, especially these days . To be pro-job means reducing both legal and illegal non-immigrant foreign workers in this country. The legals are estimated between 1 and 2 million ( again, no one knows for sure ). The number of illegal workers is anyone's guess - credible estimates range up to 10 million !

In other words, Americans have a huge mess to clean up and our political system has been seriously compromised by big money lobbies. Well it has been said that "K Street" is the fourth branch of government - it may have more power than the other three combined. Whether it is more powerful than the American people remains to be seen.

That's the basic outline of things to come.

TTFN.