HillaryBriss

c'mon now. is this really a proper topic for an HN discussion?

after it says in the absence of immigration, wages for US computer scientists would have been 2.6% to 5.1% higher in 2001 the NBER study's abstract continues US workers switch to other occupations, reducing the number of US born computer scientists by 6.1% to 10.8%

we can't really know the detailed impact of the immigration policy without also knowing how those occupation switchers fared. did they get jobs that paid the same, more or less? what were their new working conditions like? and, if their new careers are outside of STEM fields, would they have been better off majoring in something else in the first place?

it's possible that the economic efficiency gains of the corporations resulted in reduced efficiency in the individual lives of these job switchers. it's quite possible that these workers paid the price and corporations reaped the benefits.

anyway, economic, labor and immigration policy are determined by factors that go beyond corporate efficiency and profitability. and corporations advocate their own narrow interests, not just the interests of "the overall economy" or GDP maximization or some other umbrella. it seems reasonable that a sector's workers bear as little obligation to advocate for the "overall economy" as corporations bear.

workers who feel severely impacted by these changes are certainly free in a democracy to advocate for policies that benefit them. after all, that's precisely what corporations do. this is a political balancing act more than it is some sort of ethical argument.

what percentage of FedEx pilots are ex-military?

I'm definitely not against it, but my guess is the best minds will now be put to work figuring out how to defeat, avoid, mitigate this regulation.

> There are entire IT departments at companies like Disney, for instance, that are de-facto off limits to American workers.

what I hear from people who work or used to work in IT at Hollywood media companies is that Disney is not alone in that

> You don't need a legion of smart lawyers to hire from this large, unemployed, qualified, bonafide American talent pool

true, but I think the point is that the lawyer fees are less than the extra costs and risks associated with hiring from the existing pool of local US workers (i.e. losses from employees who freely leave the company after a short period, transfer knowledge to competitors, shop around for higher salaries, and confidently exercise the fuller collection of employee rights which H1Bs may lack)

> If you really know someone in tech that is unemployed and making nothing, then either they are not qualified or they have some other limitation making them unemployable.

That's certainly one interpretation of the matter. Here's another: If the labor pool lacked exogenous labor inputs, it is possible (though far from guaranteed) that corporations would be willing to use their resources to hire more from the existing pool of US candidates and then train them and/or help them to overcome other limitations.

Historically there's been a lot of anti-foreign bias and discrimination from US workers and companies, which in part goes under the heading of "cultural fit." But I've often wondered about it going in the opposite direction too. In an office where most of the workers have come from the same country (outside the US), is there ever a bias against US based, English-only speaking workers?

> does the difference even matter?

The article seems to say the answer is yes:

...scientists think that the initial exposure to bacteria at the moment of birth could be a “thermostat” moment for the immune system, defining its sensitivity and which strains of bacteria trigger a response.

Good point! The plan needs refinement.

I guess they could break the job down: use one team of 4 drones to lift multiple 1 square yard tarps.

Let's see, 12 square miles is roughly 37 million square yards. Multiplying by four they would only need about 150 million drones. Quite affordable for today's well-funded terrorist with an Amazon Prime account (as long as they choose 3-5 business day shipping instead of overnight).

It would be too easy for electro-terrorists to stop production at the solar park: four drones (one on each corner) could simply airlift a rectangular 3x4 mile opaque tarp from Sudan or outer space and drop it over the panels. Probably only take 15 minutes. Drones and tarps are available for a low price on Amazon. This is a scary possibility. Egypt must fund anti-drone defenses today!

> The article's author says Gmail filed it into the 'Promotions' folder.

Yeah, but they have to contact people by email because they don't have anyone's physical home address.

I ate at Cliftons some years ago, before the remodeling. It was pretty cool but also pretty worn out. Standard cafeteria fare, nothing really exciting. Mostly it was about the ambience. Some of the interior decoration (i.e. the fake animals and natural settings) looked like it had inspired Disneyland's designers.

here's a theory. shoot it down: work and cash are more abundant and salaries are higher in urban areas and this causes demand-pull price inflation.

why are salaries higher? because the labor pools in high density urban areas have, in some sectors, a more highly developed set of skills and capabilities than the comparable labor pools in other areas have (e.g. Wall Street bankers and quants, NYC chefs and restaurant workers, SV programmers and capital managers, San Diego life sciences and biotech, etc). IOW, agglomeration economies.