America Doesn’t Need More Nerds And Foreigners To Start Winning Again

[mystery-ak]

[bAmerica Doesn’t Need More Nerds And Foreigners To Start Winning Again][/b]


Gage Klipper
Commentary & Analysis Writer
December 27, 2024 9:16 AM ET
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Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy just showed he doesn’t understand America at all, in what might just be the worst tweet of the year.

You should really read it in full, — it’s that horrifying — but for the sake of efficiency, I’ll give you the rundown:

A “key part” of why tech companies hire foreign workers over Americans is because of “culture:” “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” Ramaswamy writes.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he continues, before slamming some beloved 90s sitcoms for lionizing the cool kids over the techy nerds.

He dings “normal American parents” for succumbing to Hollywood’s idea of “normalcy,” while lauding “immigrant parents” who “limited” access to those kinds of TV shows to instill a stronger work ethic in the STEM fields.

“‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China,” he concludes.

more
https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/27/vivek-ramaswamy-immigration-tech-companies-stem-american-culture/

[Kamaji]

Uh, no, he pretty much hits that nail on the head.  There are, of course, still good kids who rise above mediocrity, but for at least the past few decades, American public education has been dedicated to the dumbing down of American kids.  DEI and racism are more important than actual performance in way too many schools.

[mystery-ak]

Musk and Ramaswamy try to clean up MAGA mess after criticizing American culture
By
Brady Knox
December 27, 2024 10:56 am
.

Department of Government Efficiency heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are running damage control amid a debate on H-1B visas.

The honeymoon between the traditional Trump base and new Big Tech members of President-elect Donald Trump’s coalition experienced its first major rift this week when a debate exploded, largely over X, regarding the H-1B visa program. The program, which employs hundreds of thousands of foreign workers every year, mostly from India, allows companies to employ foreign workers for specialty fields.

Musk and Ramaswamy both voiced their favor for the system, with Ramaswamy issuing a statement that incensed many within the Republican Party.

In a lengthy X post, Ramaswamy said American culture has “venerated mediocrity over excellence,” stating that it “celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian.”

“More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers,” he wrote. “More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.'”

The result of his statement was a political firestorm, with many in Trump’s base finding his comments about American culture insulting and incorrect.

“Turns out the ‘waste’ that DOGE wanted to cut from America was Americans,” conservative commentator Auron MacIntyre replied.

more
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3270875/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-try-clean-up-maga-mess-criticizing-american-culture/

[jafo2010]

Fact is, Trump has already agreed to displace more white collar Americans in the workforce by bringing in more low cost foreign labor.  American citizens have no one representing them today in this country, and so their jobs are taken from them and given largely to folks from India, and each time, it is a violation of federal law.  But who abides by federal laws in this nation today?  Almost no one!

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Unemployed IT guy for almost a whole year here... take it from me, we don't need H1b's polluting our country. Musk and Ramaswamy are wrong. I like them for other things, but not this.

[Ghost Bear]

Unemployed IT guy for almost a whole year here... take it from me, we don't need H1b's polluting our country. Musk and Ramaswamy are wrong. I like them for other things, but not this.

Exactly right. Illegal immigration is the tool that business interests use to drive down wages on the low end, H1B visas are the tool that they use to drive down wages on the high end. If you want the positions filled, pay more. It's that simple.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Exactly right. Illegal immigration is the tool that business interests use to drive down wages on the low end, H1B visas are the tool that they use to drive down wages on the high end. If you want the positions filled, pay more. It's that simple.

Reddit is hammering Trump on H1b's... however, Trump had perhaps the most anti-H1b administration in recent memory. Frankly Trump doesn't tout this enough, he cracked down greatly on H1b's and reddit tech bros still hate the guy for some reason. Of course, the site is a sewer.

[cato potatoe]

I work for a large CPA firm, and the partners would love to send our jobs to India for a fraction of the price.  Every one of them.  Supposedly the H1B workers in IT firms are highly compensated, but I do not trust the business owners to seek out American labor first. 

Our offshored labor never delivers the product we expect from American workers, deadlines are more a suggestion, and it seems like half of my time is spent on revisions or 9pm video calls.  There will be a catalyst for change at some point, but I feel sorry for those coming out of college now.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I work for a large CPA firm, and the partners would love to send our jobs to India for a fraction of the price.  Every one of them.  Supposedly the H1B workers in IT firms are highly compensated, but I do not trust the business owners to seek out American labor first. 

Our offshored labor never delivers the product we expect from American workers, deadlines are more a suggestion, and it seems like half of my time is spent on revisions or 9pm video calls.  There will be a catalyst for change at some point, but I feel sorry for those coming out of college now.

You want to work in America for an American company? Go through the immigration process like everyone else, no need to allow people to jump to the front of the line because some billionaire deems it necessary.

[jafo2010]

Weird Tolkienish Figure...

Reddit is hammering Trump on H1b's... however, Trump had perhaps the most anti-H1b administration in recent memory. Frankly Trump doesn't tout this enough, he cracked down greatly on H1b's and reddit tech bros still hate the guy for some reason. Of course, the site is a sewer.

The above paragraph by you is an absolute falsehood.  Trump used his empty rhetoric in 2016 to get elected, promising to end the H1-b Visa Program DAY ONE.  A few months into his 1st term, he met with tech billionaires, and emerged increasing the number of H1-b recipients.  He lied and did the opposite of what he promised.

AGAIN, JUST MONTHS BEFORE THE 2024 ELECTION, TRUMP MET WITH TECH BILLIONAIRES FROM SILICON VALLEY, AND PROMISED TO INCREASE THE H1-B VISA RECIPIENTS YET AGAIN.

I sat and watched these tech billionaires giggle like little girls over their delight about him agreeing to increase the H1-b Visa Program further.  Trump is a phony, and he does not give a lick about US citizens.

We presently have 1.6 million H1-b Visa recipients and I suspect he will take the number to over 2 million.  That will be 2 million USA citizens displaced from their white collar jobs by individuals almost exclusively from India.  Many will be forced to train their replacement before they are forced out of their job.

AND NO ONE WILL REPRESENT THEM.  NOT THE DEMOCRATS, AND CERTAINLY NOT THE REPUBLICANS, DESPITE THE FACT THERE ARE LAWS PROHIBITING THE DISPLACEMENT OF A USA CITIZEN FROM A JOB AND REPLACING THEM WITH A FOREIGNER.  IN FACT THE LAW IS CLEAR, ONE CANNOT RECRUIT A FOREIGNER FOR A POSITION THAT CAN BE OCCUPIED BY A USA CITIZEN.  LAWS MEAN NOTHING IN THE USA TODAY.  WE CONTINUE TO CRAWL TO BE MORE LIKE RUSSIA EVERY DAMN DAY. 

[mountaineer]

I agree with this woman. If you've been around any high school or college kids lately, you may be alarmed at just how poorly educated they are.

Kira
@RealKiraDavis
I’ve got a daughter going into STEM. she’s a highly coveted candidate as a black woman. But I’m not dumb enough to believe black children have been prepared properly for STEM fields. And most American students are the same. This is an education debate, not an immigration one
8:52 PM · Dec 26, 2024

Never having been in the tech fields (completely ignorant, in fact), I don't know much about the alleged need to import Indians to do IT work, etc., but have seen comments on X about how the H1bs, once hired, really can't leave their American employers. It may be that employers want what amounts to indentured servitude, and not particularly well-paid servitude, at that.

Legit opinions, or no? I'll defer to you folks in STEM endeavors.

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
Let me simplify this H1-B thing.
The top 1% of immigrants who provide unique skills and innovation? Yes.
H1-Bs for interns and entry-level positions (from engineering to accounting) without any real attempt to attract and hire Americans? No.
That's it. That's the argument.
11:31 AM · Dec 27, 2024

Sherry
@NHLaVa
Every H1B I've ever hired was an entry level engineer that was here on a student visa.  They were all educated in the US.  I hired each and everyone of them as a last resort because I couldn't find an American to fill the job.  Supporting H1Bs is a PITA and expensive, no employer wants to deal with that system.
1:20 PM · Dec 27, 2024

[mountaineer]

The H1B visa debate—@elonmusk and @VivekGRamaswamy vs. immigration restrictionists—is set against the backdrop of a failed higher ed system.  Pres. Trump, VP @JDVance, and @DOGE can fix this on Day 1 by dismantling the College Cartel. Here's how...

https://twitter.com/GiancarloSopo/status/1872651048546177442

[mountaineer]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetMav/status/1872758642946330801

[cato potatoe]

You want to work in America for an American company? Go through the immigration process like everyone else, no need to allow people to jump to the front of the line because some billionaire deems it necessary.

Quite often the capitalists are their own worst enemies.  We wonder why people like Elizabeth Warren are elected, but it’s because her voters witnessed unethical behavior from their employers or something of that nature. 

[mountaineer]

Bill Mitchell
@mitchellvii
LEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT OUR PROBLEM.
We haven't even begun to solve illegal immigration yet.  Please first things first!  Once we have fixed illegal immigration we can talk about H1-B's. The house is on fire and we're arguing over the drapes.
12:54 AM · Dec 28, 2024


I'm convinced this whole H1b kerfluffle is just the left's pathetic attempt to show Trump supporters in disarray, which is why they're fanning the flames. "See, they disagree! There's no unity in Trumpland! We've got 'em now!"

[mystery-ak]

 MAGA civil war erupts between Musk, critics over H-1B visas
by Emily Brooks and Julia Shapero - 12/27/24 3:29 PM ET

A Trump World civil war has erupted over visas for highly skilled workers, with the president-elect’s new tech industry allies like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on one side and the anti-immigration MAGA base on the other.

The clash is a preview of the challenges in holding the Trump coalition together as his administration executes his immigration policy, an issue that drove his 2024 victory.

But while President-elect Trump has promised to shut down illegal immigration at the southern border and start a mass deportation effort, the latest debate concerns immigrants here legally — exposing a larger, sometimes racist, anti-immigrant sentiment on the right.

The debate was sparked by Trump on Sunday when he announced he was appointing Sriram Krishnan to be a White House policy adviser on artificial intelligence. Krishnan quickly came under fire for a November post suggesting immigration changes: “Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”

Far-right provocateur Laura Loomer called the comments “alarming,” accusing Krishnan of supporting foreigners being able to “come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students.”

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5057953-trump-world-clash-immigration/

[mountaineer]

A Trump World civil war has erupted ...

Exactly my point. The leftwing media are quite desperate to report on some trouble in Trumpland, and anything will do.

[Timber Rattler]

A Trump World civil war has erupted over visas for highly skilled workers, with the president-elect’s new tech industry allies like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on one side and the anti-immigration MAGA base on the other.

Whatever Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy are playing at, they really stepped in it now. 

H-1B vias are grotesquely abused, and there are countless stories out there of American IT folks being ordered to train their Indian replacements before layoff or else lose their severance pay.  I have some friends who were faced with that very scenario. 

And those "highly skilled" Indians are sent here by outsourced third-party staffing companies in India and paid pennies on the dollar for their work, with those companies pocketing the rest.  I know because I used to commute share ride with a nice Indian lady who was working under such an arrangement along with her husband, and she told me how the whole corrupt scam worked.

[Kamaji]

Whatever Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy are playing at, they really stepped in it now. 

H-1B vias are grotesquely abused, and there are countless stories out there of American IT folks being ordered to train their Indian replacements before layoff or else lose their severance pay.  I have some friends who were faced with that very scenario. 

And those "highly skilled" Indians are sent here by outsourced third-party staffing companies in India and paid pennies on the dollar for their work, with those companies pocketing the rest.  I know because I used to commute share ride with a nice Indian lady who was working under such an arrangement along with her husband, and she told me how the whole corrupt scam worked.

Not from other perspectives in the economy, they're not.  I know of a small accounting firm that focuses on German-speaking inbound investors and they would love to be able to get a few more German accountants onboard to grow their business - right now they're having to turn away a lot of new potential clients for lack of capacity - but the visas simply aren't there.

IT ain't the dog that wags the tail, and shouldn't be setting immigration policy on its ownsome lonesome.

[PeteS in CA]

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer).

Ummmmmm, it isn't just his and my imagination that US culture has, for several decades (since at least the 1980s, IMO), denigrated "nerds", the title of the OP article being an example. That denigration has affected many American students' choices to avoid STEM majors and thereby reduce the number of Americans working in those careers (e.g., I've been working in tech since the Carter Administration, and the number of female engineers or techs I've seen who had not been born & educated in Asia is 1; one American-born/educated woman engineer/tech in nearly 50 years ... because of choices!).

My Silicon Valley company has, probably, hundreds of H1B visa engineers. The idea that there are that many American-born engineers with the same qualifications wandering the streets or working fryolator at M that my company chose not to hire is simply absurd. I'm sure I'd find lots of H1B-visa engineers at places like Apple, Cisco, Broadcom, etc., etc., etc. . The demand for engineers here is greater than the American-born supply.

So, do tech companies here hire bogey-H1B-visa engineers or move their engineering partly/entirely out of the US (i.e. the other bogey, "off-shoring")? Or maybe just move out of the US entirely?

Unlike Gage Klipper, whoever he is, Ramaswamy and Musk have actual experience, lots of it, searching for and hiring people in STEM job positions.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

That our culture denigrates "nerds" hasn't been true since like the 80's when they all moved to silly valley and made money.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I support the legal entry of non-Americans who have certain skillsets that are limited presently in this country.

 It must be time-constrained and add-ons that do not replace Americans who have similar skillsets.

In time, if we reorient our education system to properly develop these needed skillsets, these visas need to go away.

I myself was an expat in the UK during the early days of North Sea development, and my skillset in oil and gas was very limited in the UK. That required a visa for this American to work there until the UK developed enough home-grown talent to make my job there unnecessary.

The UK would have never advanced in oil and gas if it had eliminated foreign professionals from working there.

[Timber Rattler]

Musk and Ramaswamy try to clean up MAGA mess after criticizing American culture

They're doing it by doubling down and actually shadow banning Conservative accounts now.

 

[mystery-ak]

Trump backs Musk and Ramaswamy on H-1B visas: ‘I’ve always liked the visas’
By
Ross O'Keefe
December 28, 2024 3:36 pm
.

President-elect Donald Trump has weighed in on the debate that roiled his MAGA movement and split them in recent weeks: skilled immigration.

Department of Government Efficiency nominees Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have come under heavy fire for their support of H-1B visas in recent days from the anti-immigration right.

Trump took Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s side with his comments Saturday.

“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump told the New York Post. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”

This follows Trump’s comments this summer, which didn’t attract as many headlines, that he is in favor of giving green cards to people who graduate from universities in the U.S.

“You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges, too,” he said on All-In, a podcast hosted by Silicon Valley tech investors.

The recent firestorm started after Trump nominated Sriram Krishnan, an Indian immigrant who became an American citizen several years ago, as his Senior White House Policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence.

more
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/3271657/trump-backs-musk-and-ramaswamy-on-h-1b-visas/