The Open-Door Bailout

[DJ FC]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/op...dman.html?_r=2

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.

“If you do this, it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans, [because] Indians will be forced to innovate at home,” said Subhash B. Dhar, a member of the executive council that runs Infosys, the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms. “We protected our jobs for many years and look where it got us. Do you know that for an Indian company, it is still easier to do business with a company in the U.S. than it is to do business today with another Indian state?”

Each Indian state tries to protect its little economy with its own rules. America should not be trying to copy that. “Your attitude,” said Dhar, should be “ ‘whoever can make us competitive and dominant, let’s bring them in.’ ”

If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.

We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs.

According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005, said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com.

He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that “found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”

We don’t want to come out of this crisis with just inflation, a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs. We want to — we have to — come out of it with a new Intel, Google, Microsoft and Apple. I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today — in the clean-energy space they’re dying like flies — because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources.

Newsweek had an essay this week that began: “Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit?” Well, yes, it could. When the best brains in the world are on sale, you don’t shut them out. You open your doors wider. We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks, and with start-ups not just bailouts. One Detroit is enough.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

I honestly have never met a single indian (dots not feathers) that I have gotten along with.

Throw in some entitlement issues that most Americans have and combine it with how fucking self-righteous most of them are, and goddamn this idea would suck.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by SittinOnDubsWGW

I honestly have never met a single indian (dots not feathers) that I have gotten along with.

Throw in some entitlement issues that most Americans have and combine it with how fucking self-righteous most of them are, and goddamn this idea would suck.

As much as the idea might make sense financially, i'm going to have to agree with this. I really don't know what it is, but either on the phone (tech support...both ways), or in real life, they are so hard to get along with.

[Ironic Mustache]

In high school I had a friend who worked at quiznos and as a result, smelled like an indian after all his shifts.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by SittinOnDubsWGW

I honestly have never met a single indian (dots not feathers) that I have gotten along with.

Throw in some entitlement issues that most Americans have and combine it with how fucking self-righteous most of them are, and goddamn this idea would suck.

I've met plenty in my field and most of them are the best to have on your team, for a couple reasons:

1) The ones that make it to finance in America are the creme de la creme. Indian schools are so unbelieveable competitive. To go to a top school in India is like being in the top 5% at MIT or Stanford.

2) They know English better than the Chinese.

But really, who cares if you like them or not? I'm honestly surprized to see opposition to this article. To me it's just common sense, when it must not be common sense at all!

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

Originally Posted by George W. Bush

I'm honestly surprized to see opposition to this article. To me it's just common sense, when it must not be common sense at all!

I'm actually not opposed to the idea. I was somewhat joking with my post, as I'm sure not all Indian people are that way, I just unfortunately have yet to meet one that I have gotten along with.

It's not common sense at all.

[Dent]

I'm all for immigration, but I don't see this happening.
First you'd need 2 million jobs, which from what i've read aren't available (I know with the UK there's like 500k job vacancies for 2 million people, meaning that no matter how hard 1.5 million people try, they're fucked.
I still think strict immigration is needed, letting people in is fine, and I don't think there's anything wrong with letting in educated people, but doesn't this already happen?

[DJ FC]

Dent, your Europe is showing.

You don't bring people in to fill jobs and it's not the government's responsibility to create and fill them in the first place.

You bring them and they will CREATE jobs. You let them in because you are a state which promotes free trade, the movement of capital and labor to where it is best deployed! A healthy economy with people creating wealth all over the place benefits everybody!

[f3lix]

Originally Posted by George W. Bush

it's not the government's responsibility to create and fill them in the first place.

!!!!!

[Dent]

You know what jobs indians will create?
Fucking curry houses, thats it.

Edit: I guess I just don't understand what it is that a million indians can do that a million people looking for a job can't do.
Second Edit :

no thx.

[Mr. Blonde]

personally i love indian food but i get sick of it real fast when i eat it a lot.

that being said, with what capital are the indians who come here going to invest with? and buy houses? do a bunch of indians just have a couple hundred k lying around, or are we going to magically start giving business loans in this economic crisis to newly immigrated foreigners with no USA credit history?

[Ugly Bastard]

You might be surprised, Blonde. Those guys like run the internet.

[Dent]

Is this what Arnie is doing with California?
Didn't realise how much debt cali was in untill today.
here's the advert.

YouTube - Visit California Advert - UK & Ireland

YouTube - Visit California Advert - UK & Ireland

[ninjaface]

I've seen that commercial quite a few times. It's been on tv for several months at least in the U.S.

[Dent]

Yeah, Its probably a year or so old.
But is the purpose of it to try and get (wealthy) people to come to cali because they have a 40 billion dollar debt?
20k jobs lost if obama doesn't bail cali out?

[ninjaface]

I've seen similar commercials for other states, but all the other ones were about taking a vacation(holiday to you brits) in those particular states. The California commercial takes it a step further and is trying to get people to live there. I assume they'd prefer the wealthy, but they'll take what they can get.

[DJ FC]

States advertising for businesses to move is nothing new.

I can recall Michigan, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and West Virginia ads, and I'm sure lots more do it as well.

[Mr. Blonde]

Like cali needs any more fucking people living there

[angry pancake]

I'll give the dots big credit for inventing quaaludes (mandys for you Euros). Very popular in AP's early days.

Just the same, I think the point that GWB is getting at, albeit through this article, is that competition and new idea are what drive the market place. There's no question that the first generation immigrants are a definite asset. They are the best of where they came from. Granted, their American born kids will be lazy pieces of shit with a sense of entitlement just like all the rest.

I also agree with the parts about personal responsibility and I also resent the government intervention. But, the best and brightest and most industrious should always be invited.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

its really not that hard to immigrate here legally. Particularly for gifted/intelligent/people with money. Sure it takes a little time, but its not that hard.

Quickest way is by marriage obviously.

[TwoBlackEyes]

Originally Posted by SittinOnDubsWGW

its really not that hard to immigrate here legally. Particularly for gifted/intelligent/people with money. Sure it takes a little time, but its not that hard.

Quickest way is by marriage obviously.

You're talking about immigrating to the US?

Because according to one of my best girlfriends (a Canadian, who married an American) you're completely wrong.

She's educated and intelligent, speaks English natively and it was a legitimate marriage. It still cost them tens of thousands of dollars, several years of constant stress, 6 months away from her career for her.

It's an absurdly expensive and complicated process, and she's still not a citizen several years later. Just holds a green card. It was confusing and ridiculous for her; imagine what it would be like for someone who doesn't speak the language?

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by SittinOnDubsWGW

its really not that hard to immigrate here legally. Particularly for gifted/intelligent/people with money. Sure it takes a little time, but its not that hard.

Quickest way is by marriage obviously.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The H-1B AKA the holy grail of immigration is so hard and expensive to get it's ridiculous. I work with so many smart people in London because they were denied H-1B's. Many companies (including mine) are in the process or have already opened offices in Toronto just to attract the high-caliber talent that can't get an H-1B. Do you know how expensive it is to run an international office? Can you imagine that our governments fuct immigration policy is sooo bad that it's still worth while for companies to oppen Toronto offices for this 1 specific reason?

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

"O" class immigrants is probably more "holy grail" type status than anything. Why? because its for "outstanding immigrants" AKA pro athletes/people "outstanding in their field" regarding teaching, blah blah blah.

K1 status is fairly easy to achieve. This is from becoming a fiance of a US citizen. You have 90 days of K1 status, then its on to CR level as to where you are conditional for two years. You keep that conditional status for two years, then wallllah, you are a fucking citizen.


I don't know, I just guess I see the obscenely easy part of acquiring a Border Crossing Card (which allows you 3 days access and up o 75 legal miles of travel) on a daily basis, and see people with residency way more, due to the nature of my job.

I know several mexican chicks that obtained citizenship relatively easily. Good immigration lawyers, I dunno. It still seems ridiculously easy to me.


ALSO, its not like people actually check your status, if you actually have ANY fucking documents at all, regarding work, travel, etc. You carry your passport, visa, I-94 with you on a student visas, you are money.

[DJ FC]

OK so be a pro athlete or get engaged... and you consider this easy?

What about the whiz kid from Hong Kong who wants to work at an engineering firm? Sucks to be him.

Sure people can get over here without the proper documents... but only at shitty jobs. Not the good ones.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

Originally Posted by George W. Bush

Can you imagine that our governments fuct immigration policy is sooo bad that it's still worth while for companies to oppen Toronto offices for this 1 specific reason?

Thats pretty interesting actually.

I never said being a pro athlete was easy. O class visas are for people "outstanding in their field" of course thats not easy. That applies to a lot of areas, not just sports. I just stated that would be more "holy grail-ish."