Flash March 19 2009: Headline from FOX news.
As Economy Slumps, Firms Line Up to Hire Skilled Foreign Workers ...
... IT communications workers complain that H-1B visa workers take jobs away from Americans.
What's happening here ? Is this coming from the same Fox News we used to know ? Has there been some unannounced shakeup or takeover at Fox ? Or has the political capital of corporate America fallen so low that even the allegiance of Fox News is in doubt ?
What will happen next, hedge fund gunslingers signing up for a union ? Will failed bank executives return their multi-million dollar bonuses skimmed from bailout money without a court battle ? Once this sort of thing starts, where will it end ?
But wait a moment, don't be too quick to judgment: like Fox News, we must be fair and balanced. The article continues with: "Bank of America was granted just 32 H-1B visas last year".
So, let me see if I can figure this out ... it is true that just 32 H1Bs worked at BOA, including all the contractors from the many 100s of insourcing/outsourcing firms running H1B projects in the United States ? Not just the tiniest bit of 'suggestio falsi' in that statement, is there ?
The H1B industry should take particular comfort in the statement by Harvard economist Greg Mankiw that "restrictions on H-1B visas is simply poor economic policy, reflecting xenophobic populism rather than hard-headed analysis."
According to Fox, the H1B program should be allow to continue nibbling away at us and the erosion of employment of Americans computer science graduates in the American software industry should be allowed continue as it has for the past 10 years. Crisis over, an outbreak of xenophobic populism averted.
According to Fox, the American government should continue drilling holes in our boat with one hand while bailing us out with the other. Greg Mankiw will be pleased: our policy couldn't get much more "hard-headed" than that.
