sarcasm

Summer is coming. Which means gas prices are going to go back up, unless we do something about it…

Not that it matters, but, no, there is no process for leaving NYPD and joining the FBI. You resign from NYPD and then you join the FBI after going through their interview process. The FBI might do a reference check with NYPD just as they would do a reference check with KFC if thats where you were working before you applied for the FBI job.

M. Nam

You dont have to get permission from the employer to leave a public sector job. Also public sector employees do get bonuses. They are just not as big and pervasive as they are in the private sector.

As long as the American public wants cheap goods, O/O are here to stay. Especially in this environment where households are being severely stretched, O/O will only increase.

Yes, but that does not mean that its necessarily a good thing for America. Also the WTO does not cover restrictions on movement of services/employees so a simple federal legislation can disincentivize O/O.

I am not so sure that offshoring and outsourcing are good for the US.

As long as the American public wants cheap goods, O/O are here to stay. Especially in this environment where households are being severely stretched, O/O will only increase.

Maybe some restrictions on outsourcing could be put on the financial sector so they dont take billions of tax payers money and outsource/offshore jobs.

Any company that takes in TARP money has to be treated as a Government company/Public Sector and there are already rules that restrict O/O in such companies. In addition:

• nobody working there should get a bonus. Ever. (Does anyone in DMV get a bonus?)
• nobody working there should be allowed to quit and join another TARP company unless both companies approve. If you are working as a janitor for the DMV and want to work as a janitor for the public school, you need permission from both places. Similarly if you are working for Citigroup as an investment banker, you cannot go to JP Morgan unless your manager at Citigroup signs off on it. If you are working for GM as a lathe operator, you are prohibited from joining Chrysler as a lathe operator for the same reason (but you can join Ford since they did not take TARP money).

M. Nam

I have not seen specific numbers, but there are hardly any H-1bs in Corporate Law.

I agree with Vinod and others here on trade protectionism. However, I am not so sure that offshoring and outsourcing are good for the US. Maybe some restrictions on outsourcing could be put on the financial sector so they dont take billions of tax payers money and outsource/offshore jobs.

I have sympathy for the motivations of the people who are trying to protect their jobs – I just think they should do it in the name of worker rights

How about they do it by being good at their job and charge competitive rates? Just a thought…

M. Nam

Essentially, you’re arguing that the U.S. government, through immigration policy, ought to regulate its labor market so that it can take on no risk (since H-1Bs are trained in foreign countries) while accruing the benefits when it needs them (and making up for poor coordination between economic and educational policy). I think it is in that context of fairness that we ought to look at this. In a world in which some countries have per capita incomes at 48,000 PPP and others have $1,100, and capital is free to roam but labor is not, the argument that H-1B workers are in some sense taking jobs unfairly seems very narrow to me.

However, I have sympathy for the motivations of the people who are trying to protect their jobs – I just think they should do it in the name of worker rights, not in the name of their citizenship status or nationalism. I also am fully aware that citizenship status (including temporary worker status) is used as a way to undercut labor organizing – and that’s a huge problem. But I hope that another solution can be found than ‘these are our jobs fullstop’ (with concomitant racism xenophobia etc).

I hope…

Where is anyone saying that paying taxes is the rationale for hiring foreign workers? October and April 2008 are both in the same year, my point is that when banks received bail out money, October onwards, they couldn’t be filing petitions for foreign workers (other than transfers) as the visa petitions are filed in April and the quota gets filled in relatively short time frame. Again, don’t know what this has to do with writing off losses against previous years profits.