If "laissez-faire capitalism" means outsourcing American jobs while enjoying all the benefits of operating in America, then I know one of your bodily orifices where you can shove it.
There is no such thing as an "American job". There are jobs. And there are jobs. Your choice of adjective belies your subjective bias and muddies your reasoning. Jobs are not patriotic. A job doesn't care who fought for it or what freedoms it has or what infrastructure was used to "make" it. A job can be done by anyone, anywhere with the capability and capacity to complete it. In a global market, an "American" job will go to the most economically deserving, because this is the natural function of markets: to allocate capital. Requiring U.S. corporations and citizens to pay taxes that make them globally noncompetitive is unpatriotic as it does more damage to the U.S. economy than any inversion or transfer pricing could ever do. If you want to shout about lack of patriotism, look in the mirror. The liberal agenda is to "fundamentally change" the nation. The patriots are those most aligned to its founding principles. The unpatriotic are those most opposed to its founding principles: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
our posts crossed because I changed it to similar before seeing your post. check the time stamps. my original post was at 11:52. posts can be changed up to 30 minutes later which would bring it latest to 12:22. you posted it at 12:24.
'A job can be done by anyone, anywhere with the capability and capacity to complete it. In a global market, an "American" job will go to the most economically deserving, because this is the natural function of markets: to allocate capital. " governments will waste money and resources to fight markets instead of letting their populations upgrade their skills in order to compete.
" if the employer paid a sub-standard wage then the H1-B holder could simply walk down the road to a better paying job any time during the visa term. After all this is what "free market" is all about." this is not what a free market is all about. a free market does not mean anarchy or no contracts. a company sponsors someone for an h-1b visa including the legal requirement that he could not find an american to fulfill the job. no company will go through the necessary steps to sponsor an h-1b, which involves time and money if the h-1b visa holder can leave the next day for another job . "This means that the company can offer any absurdly low (by U.S. standards) wage that it wants" it is not in the interest of a company to offer an absurdly low wage offer. it is a competitive market. the potential h-1b visa holder can negotiate with more than one company before accepting an offer.
Have you seen all the videos of conferences where corporate lawyers explain to corporate executives how to game the H1-B Visa system. How to post jobs with such specific requirements so that no American will meet the detailed criteria. I see these type of ads in our local paper and tech publications regularly (to meet the requirement that the job was posted and no American applicants qualified). Let me explain who is being hired instead. We get a large pile of resumes over from India. Every one is tailored to the exact specifications of the job that was posted. Every resume is a photo-copy of the previous one except for the name at the top. The managers are told to select a candidate to phone screen from this pile. Most H1-B holders take the first U.S. job offer they get. It is very competitive to get a visa. They are more than willing to work for 20% to 30% under prevailing market rates (or more) in the IT sector. Want to fix the H1-B Visa issue? Then stop forcing the Visa holders to be indentured servants. I will also note that the majority of H1-B Visa holders are no longer hired directly. They are hired by contract firms such as TCS who then contract them out to large American companies. Anyone familiar with the IT industry knows that the salaries paid by these off-shore contract firms are dismally low.
A somewhat related inefficiency: H1B-holders seem less willing to challenge the status quo and be innovative - especially when rocking-the-boat could get you sent home. That is my experience, at least, with one large employer. I don't think companies realize this when they decide to import their workers. So much wasted human potential.
20to 30% smaller salary and even a smaller % after taxes is not unreasonable for the opportunity to work in the US. you have in no way proven that these visa holders are indentured servants. it is a win win situation for both employer and employee. perhaps you don't know the meaning of indentured servant. unlike abused foreign maids in arab countries these people have the resources to get on the next flight out if they deem the situation to be intolerable.
Fremont Tech Company Paid Workers $1.21 An Hour: U.S. Dept. of Labor http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loca...s-121-An-Hour-US-Dept-of-Labor-280148082.html A Bay Area tech company has been slapped with a fine and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in back wages after a United States Department of Labor investigation revealed the company paid workers $1.21 an hour. The Labor Department said about eight employees of Fremont-based Electronics For Imaging were flown in from India and worked 120-hour weeks to help with the installation of computers at the company's headquarters. The employees were paid their regular hourly wage in Indian rupees, which translated to $1.21. (More at above url)