TRHLIM

His basic point is correct. For a variety of reasons, this country produces fewer scientists, engineers, mathematicians than it needs. The immigrants we import in these fields do an incredible amount of heavy and important lifting. In industry and in academia where they train the next generation.

My own department (economics and finance, the closest things to technical fields in business and the social sciences) has been greatly enriched by colleagues from China (3), Indonesia, South Korea, Jamaica and Ecuador. Plus a couple others who are children of immigrants.

We are conducting a job search for a tenure-track position to teach finance. I'm having dinner with the first of three candidates tonight. She from China by way of LSU. Very impressive job paper. Very personable. Good teaching evaluations. If there were more Americans like that we would hire them. And there is one American-born candidate among our three finalists. But they are few and far in the more technical fields.
For many dunking on him, I don’t think the issue is whether or not he’s right. It’s that he and his administration are making a big show of how pro-American and anti-immigrant they are, up until you hit the point that Google might have to pay their coders more. It’s really hard to square the stated reasons for his aggressive and violent campaign against any and all illegal (and often legal) immigration with the often pretty flagrant abuses of the H1-B Visa program.
 
For many dunking on him, I don’t think the issue is whether or not he’s right. It’s that he and his administration are making a big show of how pro-American and anti-immigrant they are, up until you hit the point that Google might have to pay their coders more. It’s really hard to square the stated reasons for his aggressive and violent campaign against any and all illegal (and often legal) immigration with the often pretty flagrant abuses of the H1-B Visa program.
Exactly this. His campaign messaging was that if there are not enough qualified people here for a job then the pay should reflect that to drive more people into it, and businesses should increase training efforts. This is farm labor all over again with STEM fields.
 
For many dunking on him, I don’t think the issue is whether or not he’s right. It’s that he and his administration are making a big show of how pro-American and anti-immigrant they are, up until you hit the point that Google might have to pay their coders more. It’s really hard to square the stated reasons for his aggressive and violent campaign against any and all illegal (and often legal) immigration with the often pretty flagrant abuses of the H1-B Visa program.
I'm not a fan of the more performative aspects of his immigration policy. As anyone who is familiar with my posts knows. I'm just saying once you set aside the performative and assess his comments on the merits, it is obvious he is right to say that we need to import that sort of talent. We can't get by with what we produce in house. It would an interesting topic to discuss why that is the case. But whatever the reason it aint changing anytime soon. This country would be very different without our technological hubs. And those technological hubs would be very different without immigrant labor.
 
What I find funny is the particulars of the H1-B program make opposing them a political slam dunk. While my solutions would be *dramatically* different than MAGA’s, the program should be reformed. I think the combination of restrictions on mobility and low wages make the program predatory in a way that could be rectified and that the use of them in this way does also impact native born workers at the same time.

But unfortunately the opposition to the program has been dominated by a nativist movement that poisons the conversation politically and the opposition party is too spineless to be perceived as agreeing on any policy aims of the right. To me, this is fundamentally a question of worker’s rights vs. cost of labor issue, and it’s instead been turned into a cultural one politically.
 

I can’t say I envy the position these goobers have put themselves in regarding Epstein right now. If you accept these emails as legitimate accounts of what Epstein was doing, you back yourself into a corner of accepting that Trump was still hanging out with him as recently as 2017. But they can’t do that either, so it’s a bit surprising that they’re engaging with the emails in this way.
 
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd its finally time for MTG to get thrown under the MAGA bus. Trumps calling her a RINO and vows to primary her. This is what happens when you wont sacrifice your principles and ethics for Trump. I am as shocked as anyone to find out she had either but here we are.
 
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