Roundup
(1) Biden met with Hunter’s Chinese business associates, and it’s being treated as news – at least by media on the right, although I really think we already knew this. On the left, as far as I can see, it’s being pretty much ignored.
(2) The MSM is happy to report that there’s a “feud” or a “war” between DOGE and MAGA on the subject of H-1B visas. There’s certainly a heated disagreement:
-President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday sided with key supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk in a public dispute over the use of the H-1B visa, saying he fully backs the program for foreign tech workers opposed by some of his supporters.
Trump’s remarks followed a series of social media posts from Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who vowed late Friday to go to “war” to defend the visa program for foreign tech workers.
Trump, who moved to limit the visas’ use during his first presidency, told The New York Post on Saturday he was likewise in favor of the visa program.
“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,” he was quoted as saying.
Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric-car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for green cards.
(3) Another person on fire in NYC, this time in Grand Central Station. This time the person was burned but is still alive. In this case, the man is believed to have set himself on fire.
(4) Meanwhile, the illegal alien who is believed to be the person who set a woman on fire in the NYC subway has been indicted for her death.
A couple of weeks ago, WSJ included Marcia Davenport’s novel The Valley of Decision in a roundup of books about family business. I reviewed this book, and the movie that it inspired (starring Greer Garson and Gregory Peck), last year–review now reposted.
The book/movie could be subtitled An Industrial Romance, and should be enjoying some renewed attention in our time when the importance of manufacturing is receiving increased focus. Book and movie are both excellent.
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/72764.html
The H-1B tempest feels like an opposition project, and is certainly being pushed by the opposition by throwing gas on the fire.
I have a nuanced position regarding the H-1B visa. They make sense as a tool for going after that top .01%, but beyond that the program is rife with fraud. As a consular officer in London I adjudicated many H-1Bs, 98% were Indians living in the UK, and our fraud department determined that nearly all were either fraudulent or were for less-skilled jobs. Absolutely NOT Elon Musk’s supposed .01%.
Trump praises the program now, saying he has employed H-1Bs. Considering his business, I find it very difficult to believe his businesses ever hired an H-1B applicant for any reason other than to lower labor cost. This is an area where Trump has always annoyed me.
The H-1B visa does well-serve the nation, and I believe we should keep it, but reforming it and attacking its rampant fraud well-serves the nation, too. There’s no reason we can’t do both.
Telemachus…”The H-1B tempest feels like an opposition project, and is certainly being pushed by the opposition by throwing gas on the fire” I’m sure the opposition is happy to benefit by this dispute, but I don’t think they originated it. I’ve been following the discussion at X pretty closely, and I think there’s a lot of genuine opinion/emotion on both (all) sides.
David Foster @ 6:53
I’ve followed it on X as well, and I agree with you that it’s a genuine issue. President Trump (and his tech bros) needs to understand that he was elected to address not just illegal immigration but also legal immigration that is abused to serve only foreign and corporate interests.
(6) This
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/27/g-s1-40144/syria-israel-relations-hts-damascus-governor
is an extra bit good news, and the Philistines are already freaking out.
As of H-1B — this summary by ESR looks accurate:
https://x.com/esrtweet/status/1872404345003692207
> The H-1B visa does well-serve the nation, and I believe we should keep it, but reforming it and attacking its rampant fraud well-serves the nation, too. There’s no reason we can’t do both.
Abolish it and keep L-1B (intracompany transferee). The burden of proof that the foreign worker is exceptionally valuable, as well as the burden of his or her inculturation, should lie on the company, and shouldn’t be limited to mere paperwork.
> corporate interests
Corporate interests are still American interests. The correct goal statement is “don’t let anyone (not just corporations) nationalize their costs”.
H1Bs are a fraud, top to bottom. Fake degrees from (dot)Indian diploma mills – which are actually what we would call high school vocational schools – hired by temp contract outfits who don’t really have a specific job in hand when they bring in a body, low-skill dog-work jobs in large corporations who don’t want to redesign their design processes to not require these kind of jobs that only make economic sense if you have indentured cheap labor.
Kill the program. There is the very restrictive O1 program to bring in that top 0.1%.
Buddha @ 8:07
Yes, you’re getting to the heart of it. Consular Affairs at the State Dept keeps a file of those diploma mills, and the Dept of Labor is supposed to screen those applicants out before they get to visa window, but during my time that almost never happened. It was left to a very busy adjudicating officer (150 interviews/day with a boss breathing down your neck) ordered to take no more than 2-3 minutes per interview. If one’s refusal rate was too high that officer was “taken to the woodshed.” My interviewing tour in London was during the Obamanation, and there was a certain mindset during that time. And while I still see a benefit to a properly run H-1B program, I agree that the O-1, which needs reform, could serve that role.
LXE @ 7:34
I’m not convinced anymore that corporate interests are still American interests. As for L-1 visas, I’ve adjudicated many of them, and even done L-1 consulting, and I agree that it is a fine program.
‘There was a good movie with Tim Allen based on a Dave Barry book. I watched it at least three times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trouble_(2002_film)
Worth looking up for a Dave Barry comedy experience.
Trump cut back on the H1B visa program in his 1st term. He made political hay out of Disney forcing employees to train their H1B visa replacements. There has been an ongoing abuse of the program by many Silicone Valley companies, but now that Vivek and Elon are running things Trump is singing another tune. And then of course JD’s wife is of Indian descent as is the new FBI director. “C’est la vie.”
As for HB-1 controversy, the opinions expressed above are well founded, I would though draw your attention the MSM’s drop in watching. A Trump presidency is a godsend to them.
Re: H1-B – It’s interesting that Nikki Haley has come down opposite Musk and Ramaswamy and with the more traditional MAGA elements. Realignments make strange bedfellows. And speaking of bedfellows, its is beginning to look as though Trump owes favors to Musk and the “tech bros” that are going to be anathemas to the traditional MAGA faithful.
Coalitions win elections. I’ve been banging that gong for years now. It sure looks to me as though 2024 wasn’t so much about MAGA winning an election on its own as it was about MAGA forming a non-traditional coalition and compromising on different aspects of their agenda. Although the “big business, pro-immigration” wing of the GOP has always been there. And always remember that Trump sells himself as a great deal maker. I guess we’ll see.
(Finally, shame on Musk for responding to criticism by crying “racist.” I have little doubt that a portion of the criticism of Ramaswamy and Musk on social media actually is vile and racist. The Internet is a cesspool. But the main arguments for reforming or even eliminating H1-B are not at all racist and deserve serious consideration. Whether due to calculation, emotional response to the online drek, or some other reason, Musk has chosen to stake out his position with an emotional appeal that focuses on the trolls. This isn’t exactly a straw man because, there almost certainly are racist trolls out there arguing against H1-B visas. It isn’t exactly “nut-picking” because I have little doubt that the trolls are seeking out Musk and Ramaswamy instead of the other way around. It is even somewhat understandable assuming that Musk is experiencing online abuse. But all of that aside, Musk’s strategy absolutely is fallacious sophistry that should have no place in a reasoned debate of public policy. It deserves to be called out as such.)
I stumbled upon this write-up on an X- site and it describes my sentiments exactly:
“More often than not, Conservatism, Inc. shoots itself in the foot by taking “principled stances” that ultimately fail to conserve anything. They cling to antiquated ideals and refuse to engage in the realpolitik necessary to effect tangible change, leaving them perpetually on the defensive and on the losing side of history.
Instead of wielding power to manifest their political will, they end up ceding ground to political adversaries who are unencumbered by such scruples.
This cowardice and naivety in recognizing and adapting to the actual reality of the political struggle is why they continue to lose ground on all sides. They’d rather lose honorably than win with grit, making them the perfect doormats for those who actually understand how to play the game.
If we want to win, and I’m not just talking about the next election, we need to start doing what’s necessary to emerge victorious.”
Winning an election only gets your foot in the door. What really matters is what you do when you are in the drivers seat. Trump will be unable to accomplish much unless he can get nearly 100% support from republicans.
Republicans are very often their own worst enemy. Maybe this time around they will support Trump.
The Other Chuck:
Both Silicone Valley and Silicon Valley are in California. But only one has many HB-1 visa workers.
@Ben David 12:32 pm
While you are correct that it is indeed Silicon Valley, and of course that “e” makes my comment a worthless, less than erudite utterance from a know-nothing, nevertheless I shall stand by the Silicone spelling which in and of itself conveys a more thorough description of the slimy, slippery, self-indulgent, and very well-oiled know-it-all technocratic class which uses low pay H-1B visa slaves to enrich their portfolios and fund their often frivolous fecundity.
Got to tend to that squeak in the pantry door. Thanks for the reminder!
Oops, Ben David. It took me a while to realize the pun since I’m from NorCal and as far as I know we don’t have that kind of “Silicone Valley” up here, although everyone’s heard of North Hollywood and its products, ahem…
Dave Barry got overtaken by the evolution of media and humor like Mad Magazine or Saturday Night Live. The jokes and memes that came out all through the year were funnier and more to the point than his year-end summary.
I’d advise Trump to have somebody who knows what to do about H-1B visas, rather than let Vivek and Elon fight it out with other supporters online. That probably goes for other things as well. Vivek and Elon can have good ideas and can publicize them, but I wouldn’t make either the decider or have the final say.
Well hes trying to make it more absurd then reality
Why push h1bs now way to chill the mellow like airing of grievances at festivus
This is a good review of the state of the H1bs: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873174358535110953
I’m tech adjacent and have found some really great foreign workers, but more typical is the barely average but overworked (exploited) Indian.
H1-Bs are tens of thousands of people per year, the porous border is millions per year. (Incidentally the H1-B is technically a non-immigrant visa.)
Securing the border is just so much more pressing of an issue. H1-Bs disproportionately threaten the laptop class, so I can see why that blows up on X. But corporate America offshores functions to India and the Phillipines, and that affects the wages of Americans but doesn’t involve immigration at all.
If it is desirable to limit H1-Bs for some reason, that’s pretty easy to do, it’s just paperwork. It’s not like having to find and deport people.
So my thought is that the primary emphasis of the second Trump Presidency needs to be on securing the border; it is certainly possible and simple to at the same time get much stricter about H1-Bs, but they are a drop in the bucket, and aren’t bringing such bad social and criminal problems with them as illegal immigrants have been.
Best of course would be to require employers to only hire people whose work authorization can be confirmed, since it is illegal to check that without first hiring the person, but that would involve changing the laws and we will never see that happen without switching out 90% of Congress.
Here’s a guy who spent a day analyzing and charting information about H-1B program actually works in practice:
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1873174358535110953
#1.
IOW, “Biden” LYIN’ about everything.
(When you lie about everything, then everything is a distraction.)
‘“The Bond Markets Are Revolting” – Ed Dowd Exposes Biden Admin’s “Incompetence… Or Fraud”’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bond-markets-are-revolting-ed-dowd-exposes-biden-admins-incompetence-or-fraud
Opening grafs:
@ Faith2014 & David Foster are referencing the same author, Robert M Sterling; Faith’s link is to the unrolled thread, and David’s to the first tweet (really, doesn’t Musk have a NAME for the individual posts at X? Twix is already taken.).
The thread is well worth reading.
I looked at Sterling’s past production on the Thread Reader App , and he posts there very infrequently, but all of them were interesting, most were informative about then-current topics, and a large number were highly data-driven.
The most intriguing thing I noticed, in the spread from October 2022 to December 2024, is that he went from being a self-proclaimed Biden voter and renewable energy supporter to MAGA-adjacent if not ally.
I wonder who he voted for this year?
He has a lot more posts on X that are not unrolled, so, after reading a lot of his tweets for this year (which I really wish were in chronological order), this is the answer:
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1853536704944132591
Definitely ally.
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1856054437317370359
For a great example of consulting experts for the correct reasons (to wit: they actually know what they are talking about) and because… well, read all the way down.
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1824840348008391127
@ Barry > “The Bond Markets Are Revolting”
Dowd also said this: “So, there is pain coming, and it’s up to the Trump Administration to get all their policies enacted. Then we have a hope and a prayer coming out the other side that we will be way better off. The bottom line is there is pain coming regardless. The question is how fast can we restart with Trump’s policies?”
What is going to be maddening, because it’s standard operating procedure for the Democrats so we’ve seen them do it before, is that the Left will blame the pain on Trump, Republicans, and conservatives — and Christians, straight white males, and Israel — for fixing the mess THEY created.
That’s like blaming the EMTs for the pain in the leg you broke crashing your car with reckless driving.
But they do it every time, and people believe them.
Robert Stewart’s progress from Biden-voter to ultra MAGA is a great example of what happens when intelligent people actually bother to LOOK at the data, instead of brushing it off when presented to them.
I wonder if he made any converts in his former circles?
Thanks much for the Robert Sterling links, AF et al.
Truly awesome guy….
ref (2) – DOGE and MAGA on the subject of H-1B visas:
How are the MAGA anti-H-1B visaists? GOP is starting to look like the House GOP when they are the majority.
Bannon might say the GOP reminds him of rowdy ‘Toddlers’ in a kindergarten class, but there he is fully participating in the rowdiness by name-calling.
MAGA far-left activists (hey, they remind me of the DEMs far-left, but more rowdy) are whining that Don Jr.’s ‘new flame isn’t ‘MAGA enough’’!?!
Ditto on the MAGA far-left activists are whining – someone please get them a ‘Crying Towel’ before they ruin my monitor! 😉 MAGA far-left activists are furious that ‘Flags will be half mast on Inauguration Day’!?!
Anyone think Obama, DEMs, and MSM would’ve allowed Flags being at half mast on Obama’s Inauguration Day? That entire Inauguration Day setup reminded me of scenes outta Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Speaking of Obama ‘n whining – Joe Biden is throwing everyone withing reach under the bus, whilst proclaiming he could’ve beaten Trump a second time.
Did a fairly lengthy research on the comparison of how American students do against foreign Nation’s students—in math and science. American students did better than I had expected – according to the PISA & TIMSS reports I saw. That got me into STEM where China and India were dominate in producing the most STEM graduates, but America was at #3. Amazing, when considering the left-wing education that America’s Educational System has been radically pushing for decades.
That research allowed me to see both sides of the H-1B issue a little better.
Conclusion:
I still side with Musk and Ramaswamy on the H-1B issue, but the MAGA anti-H-1B visaists have a point—tho they seem to be unable to make the good one tho, IMHO.
Vivek Ramaswamy seems to make the best point of all in this X post:
Can the GOP hold it together long enough to ‘awaken from slumber’ and solve all the issues before us—including the H-1B issue? Not if the House GOP and MAGA anti-H-1B visaists are an example of whats to come…
Here is a story about all of the lawyers at DOJ who participated in the various prosecutions of President Trump, in going after the Jan sixers, etc. who are now scrambling, worried that, now, they will be identified, and they will be the ones prosecuted.
So they’re hiring their own lawyers, wondering if they should flee the DOJ, trying to find ways to protect their assets, so they woun’t go bakrupt from legal fees the way they tried to bankrupt Trump.*
If I were Trump, I’d d set up a seperate organization, outside of DOJ, to track these guys down and to prosecute them, not for personal revenge, but to make sure that something like this political persecution by DOJ never happens again.
This couldn’t happen to a nicer crew, and I hope each one of them gets everything they deserve.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/federal-prosecutors-involved-trump-witch-hunts-january-6/
RE: Indications of the dire condition of the Chinese economy–
Apparently local governments–which used to get much of their revenue from sales of land and property taxes–are struggling to find such revenue, now that the highly inflated housing market is collapsing/has collapsed.
According to the reporting below, to get that missing revenue they are now resorting to, in effect, kidnapping wealthy businessmen and holding them for ransom, as they arrest and hold wealthy businessmen, some owning businesses located far away from the local governments doing the arresting.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-VHNjIUAUM
RE: China, it’s traditional “Dynastic Cycle,” and the “Mandate of Heaven”
It has always been a problem to keep such a large and varied country as China together–under unitary rule–and banditry and warlordism have always been major problems, with each region trying to pull away from the central power, and going it’s own way.
With all of the turmoil, the apparently growing number of both man-made (Tofu-dreg construction),and natural disasters, imminent population decline and imbalance, millions of never to be married, “leftover women, the “going flat” movement among the young–giving up on having a career, working, marrying, buying a car and house, and having children–and the extremely bad state of many spheres of Chinese life today, I’m wondering if the Dynastic Cycle is actually still at work, if Xi has lost the Mandate, and if a new “Dynasty” is in the process of coming into being.
Happy nearly New Year!
Snow on Pine, I have to admit I would be very impressed if someone were to manage to invent a type of heavy-duty building material made from tofu that would actually hold up.
Karmi’s point about the flags being at half-staff on Jan. 20 is a bit of an interesting point. Of course, the 30-day period is statutory and I assume has been for a good while. We can’t really fault Carter for leaving this world when he did.
Phillip Sells–Examples of Tofu-dreg construction in China*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNmPO211WGQ
Phillip Sells–More on Tofu-dreg construction at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smvjWLDtFWQ
Chinese propaganda presents a picture of China, it’s progress–especially it’s technological progress, it’s economy, and it’s society–to the world which is apparently, in many aspects, just not true, it’s deliberately faked.
If you fake a lot of things in order to make China seem far more impressive and powerful than it really is, their total population figure and claim to be the world’s largest population would seem to be a very likely thing to lie about, to fake.
Here is an interesting article, discussing the idea that China’s population is far less–perhaps only 600 to 800 million people–than the 1.4 billion which is usually claimed.*
* See https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=62161
Update on my December 30, 2024 at 7:13 am ref (2) – DOGE and MAGA on the subject of H-1B visas post.
Not a wrestling fan, but I think that Techno Fog just body slammed Vivek Ramaswamy with some kind of wordsmith like words!?!
H-1B and Cheap Foreign Labor – ‘Wars on the American middle class.’ – Techno Fog
Long post, but Techno Fog starts the repetitious body slamming of Vivek Ramaswamy from around where quote ended.
• “Steve Jobs was a mischievous kid”
• “Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs, was an electronics prodigy who was self-taught.”
• “Jack Kilby” … “failed the MIT entrance exam and enrolled at the University of Illinois to Electrical Engineering … had average grades … He went on to invent the integrated circuit (microchip) … would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.”
Yeah, the H-1B issue is a long way from being settled, but Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy need to take another look at that issue thru the eyes of a ‘MAGA anti-H-1B visaists‘ before Techno Fog decides to start body slamming all three of them at once… 😉