Obama Picks Cheap Labor & Guest Worker Queen Janet Napolitano for DHS!

What bodes ill for United States Technical and Science Professionals is Obama's choice for Department of Homeland Security, AZ Governor Janet Napolitano.

So much for change right? So much for the United State middle class or U.S. workers!

Computerworld points out DHS controls the guest worker Visas, including H-1B.

"Napolitano has publicly and repeatedly called for major H-1B expansion," said Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of Outsourcing America, and "in that respect she is no friend of American IT workers." Hira said that Napolitano believes that employers should have easier access to H-1Bs, "meaning she would try to streamline the application process even more."

Great huh! The post which is supposed to be concerned about national security, border security will once again be used instead as a cheap labor conduit pool against the United States worker.

Damn the statistics, damn the facts, let's just put the biggest corporate cheer leader for cheap labor in a critical position and undermine United States Science and Technology Professionals!

This post shows how DHS can increase guest worker Visas through a simple executive order, bypassing Congress and of course ignoring the needs of United States workers.

Right, change you can believe in. You can believe if they can screw over U.S. workers....they sure will!

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On the plus side

41 new Senators ran on fair-trade protectionism campaigns- and a 42nd is up in a runoff election today in Georgia.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

minor disgruntle point

There is no such thing as anyone running on "protectionism", that is a pure public relations made up term by the lobbyists and their multinational corporate agendas.

True "protectionism" has tariffs, big tariffs and no one is even remotely suggesting that in terms of fair trade policy agenda.

Protectionism

I am proposing "protectionism", absolutely!

That is what it takes to pull us out of depression, jump start industry in the US, regain all those jobs lost to offshoring, Free Trade Authorities, OPIC, EX-IM, World Bank financing and indemnification of US industries to layoff hundreds of thousands of US workers and create factories in Mexico, India, China, Brazil, etc.

Think 1929. History is repeating itself.

What do you think "Fair Trade" is? Our industries must be protected from foreign slave labor, Communist supported industries that have only economic warfare on their agenda, and erosion of national sovereignty by economic invasion.

How do you think this would be achieved without "protectionism"?

Dana

Globalization is a LIE!

Dana

Globalization is a LIE!

Protectionism is a PR term

They try to paint it as bad and it also means tariffs which most trade refomers are not saying.

The idea is strategic trade, and tariffs can start trade wars, shut down trade and that will hurt a domestic economy in a global one.

So, what most good trade reform people are saying is the U.S. is a loser for it's national economy and it's citizens..

so our corporate pundits call us protectionists trying to scare people in thinking this means tariffs and it does not.

I wrote and entire blog piece on this, which has gotten a lot of reads.

But unfortunately because people do not understand trade theory or what's going on in depth with those agreements, still we get this false argument.

Tariffs are not a bad thing

We're already in a trade war, one that we've been losing for the last 40 years. Tariffs are a huge part of it- tariffs on the other side. So why is reciprocal fair trade, which would include tariffs because both India and China are allowed to have tariffs, be a bad thing?

Avoiding tariffs to avoid a trade war we're already in is like invading Iraq with sharpened mangos instead of machine guns. The WTO is the deadly enemy of every working American already- and those corporate pundits who claim different are nothing more than traitors who deserve to be executed for their treason.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

once again

It would be very helpful if you would read the many policy recommendations I certainly have written about and how a VAT is a much superior tool to tariffs.

Tariffs are the last thing in the tool box to look at as have been shown by international trade theory and other policy recommendations.

I'll do that

VAT bugs me because it seems a bit regressive- and non-targeted to specific industries, as opposed to tariffs.

I also have some skepticism about current international trade theory- is this the same international trade theory based on comparative advantage that said the Chinese would be buying more of our goods than we buy from them by now?

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

it's even more finely tuned

and is also correlated to volume, quantities. Plus all major countries have this except the US so it's going to be hard to challenge in the WTO, which is another advantage.

The US would lose on raw tariffs and well, not that I'm against pulling out of the WTO but odds are that won't happen so a VAT has more possibilities of getting through.

Thank you. There are many ways to skin the cat on getting a fair or strategically wise trade policy.

I think the cat died long ago

In that we haven't had a fair or even strategically wise trade policy since Nixon went to China.

In fact, the only country I've seen that has had a strategically wise policy was India- they carefully identified their surpluses, and ONLY trade in those surpluses.

Here's the problem I see with a VAT- it's got the same basic problem as a sales tax. The customer is who will get hit with it, as prices go up to pay the VAT.

Note I'm also coming from the culture of the one state that has defeated any sales tax on the ballot 11 times in the past hundred years, though, so I'm kind of against taxing consumers.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

Just on imports

What it will do is make imports more expensive, not Domestically produced goods. If you think a VAT is expensive to consumers, try a tariff, which is across the board price increase.

I thought a VAT

by definition, hit everybody who was "adding value". Anyway, that's the way it works in the UK. How can you have a VAT that *only* hits imports?

Tariffs, being assessed at the border, only hit imports by default. Are you saying your VAT would only be assessed at the border?

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

it's complex

EU VAT wikipedia.

example of a VAT. The US has no VAT.

A VAT can act like a tariff but is legal under the WTO.

In terms of Domestic production there are a series of adds and subtracts depending upon how the system is set up, but it's basically a PPP (purchase power parity) equalizer and can be much more finely tuned than a tariff.

In Pat Choate's book he writes chapters on VAT and I suggest reading this.

Also, can we please try to keep the comments attached to the posts they belong to?

the point is to keep the site organized as well as tracking on the comments, which are threaded.

This post has nothing to do with trade, VATs and so on.

You're the one who brought it up

And funny- the EU VAT is collected as a consumer tax, at retail (at least according to that wikipedia writeup), not at borders, which means while it might act like a tariff sometimes, it's less powerful than a tariff and hits domestic producers equally with foreign producers.

All I did to kick this off was mention that in my district at least, Merkely was running on a "reciprocal fair trade" platform- which I and several other voters certainly did take to mean tariffs & just say no to WTO/*AFTA free trade, since our enemies in this economic war are using tariffs. And that as such, the 41 new Senators who join 37 other Senators who came in in 2006 that support FAIR trade, might make a good spoil to the fact that Obama seems to have forgotten his campaign promises on this score.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

no, that's not accurate

If Merkley meant to withdraw from the WTO or tariffs, he would have said that. He's not going to say that because that is not what the Populist/Progressive caucus has as their policy agenda. Fair trade does not mean that because as I repeatedly pointed out, I don't know how many posts I've already written on this, there are more ways to get fair trade that are much more sophisticated. I don't know how many posts I've written on the Horizon Project policy recommendations alone on here.

ya know, if you cannot comprehend the facts, keep working on it. I don't want to sit here and type empty arguments in comments. It gets really old.

I just pointed to how VAT is collected at the border, as a duty tax. It would be very helpful if you would consider reading Choate's book. I think he gives a very good explanation on how this works.

Taiwan

This is why I can never figure out why the hell we keep saying we'll come to the defense of Taiwan. Why bother? A democracy? Oh please!

This is nothing more than us sacrificing our soldiers to defend a small nation who has been waging economic warfare on us against a supremely much larger nation that has been waging economic warfare on us. It's a lose-lose for us. Say we manage to hold of the ChiComs. Oh great, that means Taiwan Semiconductor gets to make more friggin' electronic stuff for supposedly American tech firms, meanwhile we just lost Los Angels and probably Chicago!

Some reformers are proposing

 Huge tariffs.  Found the link in your sidebar.


For generations, American policymakers and experts – like the world’s leading Depression “expert” and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke – have looked at the trade protection of the Depression with scorn. They should have been looking at it as a model for coping with difficult times. The United States cannot compete with wage rates in Latin America and Asia, but our obligations to “free-trade” propelled us into a fight we are doomed to lose.

If the United States simply placed a tariff – or even a quota – on Chinese imports it would be able to counteract the imbalance and make homegrown alternatives seem more reasonable. The U.S. doesn’t produce anything of substance in its “modern” economy, we all live on imports in every phase of life (you are probably reading this right now on a computer filled with Asian-made components).

 

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

True "protectionism" has

True "protectionism" has tariffs, big tariffs and no one is even remotely suggesting that in terms of fair trade policy agenda.

Merkley did- and the vote in his favor over Smith suggested that maybe protectionism isn't the bad word the right-wingers make it out to be.

Same with the other 41 fair-traders who won.  

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

no he didn't

Merkley has never suggested huge tariffs as the answer, not any policy position, speech or sound byte I have seen. but he is looking highly promising to be wanting to renegotiate, revamp trade policy.

I've said this now dozens of times, to renegotiate trade policy there are a host of tools to use, a VAT being one, you don't need huge tariffs to get a fair trade policy, there are many other factors causing the US trade deficit and loss of manufacturing.

As an example, remove China from Emerging Economy status. They clearly are not emerging and that status gives a country special tariff privileges via the WTO, which China as assuredly abused.

Reciprocal Fair Trade

Does indeed mean tariffs- they're just avoiding the word to be politically correct.

And what's wrong with huge tariffs? China has been using them for decades now, as you say. As for the WTO, I just consider them a bunch of traitors at this point, the United States has no business being in the WTO when we can't even keep enough food at home to feed our own people. Maybe someday when we've got SURPLUS goods to trade instead of being a net importer, we should venture out into the world to sell our wares, but until then, what has access to these emerging economies gotten us? Just more debt.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

no it does not

I'm getting quite tired of this. This site is about using your brain and understanding what specifically is in those trade deals and how trade, when done right is a critical feature for the US economy. I've written details after details on various economists and groups and their policy recommendations as well as Politicians. They are NOT recommending punitive tariffs!

I'm skeptical that trade CAN be done right

Given the 40 years we've had of screwing it up, I'm no longer sure that trade can be "done right" *at all*.

Better off a country that can actually feed it's population, than one ruled by economists who still buy into David Ricardo's lie of comparative advantage. Unless a country is actually self-sufficient, and can produce, it has no business being in the global market at all. We've had 40 years of proof that international trade for the United States produces nothing but debt, and yet we still claim that "trade, when done right, is a critical feature for the US economy"? Maybe, if the critical feature is to drive the dollar down until it is worth less than sand.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

Another Clinton clone

Just wonderful. More center-right Clintonesque politics from the Democrats.
The left-wing of this country will continue to be ignored.

"Clinton" clone means Bill

I kept trying to point to this in the primaries that in spite of Hillary being Bill's spouse, Obama was out Clintoning the Clintons in policy positions, political paybacks (this is one, he got her to switch as a super delegate) and strange as it might seem that Obama was more of a Clinton than Hillary was.

Few believed me, yet here we are.

Obama also out "punajabed" Hillary during the primary and promised NASSCOM more US jobs.

Of course Hillary also promised massive guest worker Visas and so on but in the primary she did acknowledge problems, wage repression, displacement...

But watching Obama morph into Bill more than Billary...
well, it's like the other woman really is Obama (only in a political sense mind you!).

I guess who ever gets the money starts spewing the corporate lobbyist talking points.

Increased labor mobility is a good thing

First of all, the technological advancement we've seen in the past century and with it the increasing ability to move people and goods around the world, cheaply and quickly, makes globalization inevitable, the only question is when and how the world becomes a single integrated market.

Currently the when and how question is being answered by the global corporate elite with "ASAP" and "increase financial mobility and the mobility of raw materials and goods, but restrict labor mobility". This works mostly in their favor by sequestering labor into isolated regions, at its extreme leading to sweatshop labor (if labor were mobile the workers would simply get up and find a different job elsewhere, forcing sweetshops to raise wages to remain competitive. Taken to the extreme, they would legally immigrate to the west, where they might still be impoverished, but at least they'd have a living wage). By answering the when part of the question with 'now' the corporate elite also makes life harder for the western worker by not giving him or her enough time to adapt to a changing employment market (a reasonable transition period would be on the order of 40-80 years). Globalization isn't inherently bad since it allows various geographic regions greater ability to specialize and thus increases the efficiency of the production process, it's just that neo-liberal globalization and pure absolute globalization done on a reasonable time scale are not the same things.

"Our industries must be protected from foreign slave labor, Communist supported industries that have only economic warfare on their agenda, and erosion of national sovereignty by economic invasion."

The problem with restricting labor mobility is that you still get outsourcing so US workers will still fall victim to more competitive foreign labor, but it also facilitiates the slave labor workforce by allowing for the creation of local monopsonies on labor in the third world (the place labor mobility is most severely restricted).

From the point of view of labor then, immigration liberalization is a good thing. If not in the short run, at least in the long run, where (baring corporate collusion) slave labor as a practice is eliminated.

As for 'erosion of national sovereignty by economic invasion of communist countries' people need to recognize that globalization erodes the sovereignty of all nations, not just the ones at the top of the hierarchy. Sure china now basically owns the US government, but now they can't demand their money back for fear of undermining the entire world economy as well as their own, so in a sense they've lost control over their assets (investment in US treasury bonds or whatever it is they use to buy up US debt) the same way we've had our 'sovereignty eroded'. It's a double edged sword.

you're an idiot, I'm sorry

Increased labor mobility will put wage repression on steroids. That's labor economics 101, anyone will tell you that who is a credible economist, including Paul Krugman. It's intuitively obvious as well, a 100 Million workforce is suddenly flooded with a 2 Billion workforce, what happens, the law of supply and demand, which is the overriding equilibrium force in labor markets of course kicks in and wages go to slave wages, i.e. nothing.

This has been proven over and over and over again and it's varied special interests who wish to rewrite the laws of economics and claim something doesn't work the way it has been proven to work through history as well as modern day policy scenarios.

That is precisely, precisely the reason the US Chamber of Commerce and other Multinational corporations wants such a belief, because they want control over Domestic labor markets to further manipulate labor costs.

Econ 101.

You also miss the entire point that there are still natural barriers to outsourcing by physical proximity and this is precisely why India outsourcing firms demand H-1B Visas and use other Visas as well...because they facilitate technology transfer out of the country.

Without them, that alone would stop a huge percentage of offshore outsourcing of S&T R&D.

Ya know, we're open to opinions on EP except for one thing, wriiting economic fiction and your post sure is that.

Slave labor is not eliminated, but encouraged

"If not in the short run, at least in the long run, where (baring corporate collusion) slave labor as a practice is eliminated."

But that's the problem. As long as deficit spending (Consumer debt) is allowed, slave labor will never be eliminated. And minimum wage work is actually *worse* than slave labor- you're taking all of the work a person has to offer without paying for his food, clothing and shelter.

To this end, it's time to realize that globalization is nothing more than a hot war targeting a nation's lower classes- and we should respond in kind, with nukes.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

How many times do you have to watch this tragedy?

We invent the transistor, the Asians sell us TVs and radios.

We invent the integrated circuit, the Asians sell us computers.

We invent the mass produced automobile, ...

Steel, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, ...

Not too long ago, we were the food basket of the world. Now, we can't feed our own population - just wait until this plays out.

Now, explain to me again how globalization is so great.

Dana

Globalization is a LIE!

Dana

Globalization is a LIE!

We'll keep watching it

Until we realize that the WTO is nothing more than the Anti-American world government that it is- and needs to be DESTROYED.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

What is it about Arizona

What is it about Arizona politicians, their support for more H-1B visas, green cards, and their utter disdain for American workers?

- Janet Napolitano
- John McCain
- Jeff Flake
- Gabrielle Giffords
- John Kyle
...

Is it big business in the state that owns these politicians? I believe that H-1B guest-worker cheerleaders Intel, Motorola, and Google have a large presence in Arizona. Who else?

Democrats, Republicans, ... it doesn't matter. They are all owned by business interests. It's really a one-party system like in China where you can vote for either Communist party candidate A and Communist party candidate B.

Ya got it

There is a tech hub in AZ, hence those corporations own the Politicians. Same with California, Washington.

I think the more "blue" a state is and the more there is absolutely no challenge to losing their elections the worse it is. (Same with "red" states).