Monthly Archives: May 2014

Byzantine Visas

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In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier in the week, Martin Lawler and Margaret Stock wrote about dysfunctional and too low limits on H-1B visas for skilled, educated foreign workers. While on the right track, though, they missed some points.

Some claim there is no shortage of science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) workers, and that US companies hire foreign employees to be “indentured workers” who can be paid low wages. In 2012, David North of the Center for Immigration Studies said, “It is well known that many H-1B workers are, in effect, indentured by employers who had filed to obtain green cards for them—they are nominally free to leave, but it can be hard to keep your resident alien application alive after leaving the employer who set it in motion.”

Lawler and Stock correctly point out the fatuousness of this erroneous claim, but they miss a larger point. Say, arguendo, that North is right. There are two solutions to this, and neither include North’s view of how such foreign workers should be treated. Lawler and Stock addressed the foolishness of the (low) quota for H-1Bs. The other solution is to cut out the nonsense on the green cards: decouple them from visas. Either the green card applicant is suitable, or he is not. His STEM education is only one criterion, and it needn’t be a critical one.

And, in support of the above correction, Lawler and Stock note that

[t]he Labor Department must certify, through a formal process, that H-1B wages are appropriate. Public notices of the jobs, including the wages, must be posted at the work site. The notices must contain specific information about filing a complaint challenging the wage and working conditions. Once the certification is issued, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts a thorough review of the entire case, including details about the employer, employees and positions.

But this misses a larger point, too. Government has no business entering the premises of a private enterprise and dictating to that enterprise who it may hire, at what pay rate, or (within very broad limits) under what conditions.

Full stop.

Labor price should be as competitive as any other good or service price.

Responsibility

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What is this thing, responsibility?

A Detroit teacher [at Pershing High School] has been fired after a cell phone video surfaced of her breaking up a fight between two students with a broom.

Keith Johnson, President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, understands what this thing, this idea of responsibility, is? He said that

the teacher was wrong for using a broom, although he understands her motive. “Unfortunately, the method that she used, in terms of swatting one with a broom, is a violation of the corporal punishment provision under the Michigan school code. But she’s caught in a quandary because under that same code she’s expected to do what is necessary to diffuse a situation.”

It’s the rules’ responsibility, not the person. Nope, the union rep doesn’t get it.

Then there’s Kiren Lowery, one of the pupils in the fight. He said that

he does not feel responsible for her termination. He thinks she should have waited for security to come.

Because it’s always someone else’s problem. No understanding here, either.

Does any school teach responsibility anymore?

The People’s Republic of China Escalates

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…and the Obama administration bleats. The escalation comes in the context of a PRC attempt to install a large oil rig near the Paracel Islands in waters claimed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of China (note: not the PRC; their claim is nothing other than an illegitimate sea grab).

…about 80 Chinese vessels had moved into an area…. [Vietnamese officials] said Chinese vessels repeatedly rammed into and fired water cannons at Vietnamese vessels, injuring at least six Vietnamese sailors.

Instead of doing anything concrete, Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary (of State), Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, while claiming to understand the importance of Vietnam to US security interests in the region, offered this, instead:

Competing sovereignty claims in disputed areas, including the Paracels, must be dealt with peacefully, must be dealt with diplomatically, and must be dealt with in accordance to international laws.

He added that the US has no position on the relative merits of any claims in the region.

Of course not.

Ya ta ta, ya ta ta, ya ta ta. Moral relativism. Ya ta ta, ya ta ta, ya ta ta.

All Two of Them

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The IAEA is planning to visit two—count them—Iranian nuclear…sites. Naturally, IRNA, the government-run Islamic Republic News Agency is touting this as fulfilling “a series of demands made by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.”

But of course. We won’t mention all the other sites that Iran won’t let the IAEA visit, much less inspect thoroughly, on this trip. It’s a toothless watchdog, anyway.

Aspects of the visits include

[a] visit [to] a uranium mine and a uranium-thickening facility in central Iranian towns of Ardakan and Yazd on Monday and Tuesday.

And

“Following the visit, Iran will be able to say that the seven agreed measures between Iran and the agency have fulfilled,” [Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Spokesman Behrouz] Kamalvandi said. “Already six steps have been taken.”

Never mind the advanced notice of such “inspections,” during which Iran can manipulate what will be allowed to be seen.

Never mind, either, that even after the “seven agreed measures” there continues to be no discernible effect on Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons.

The visits, and their predecessors, all take place in a carefully choreographed sequence, with equally set timing, all under Iran’s control. Of course the goodies are being equally carefully choreographed so as to remain hidden from fundamentally incurious UN eyes.

Economic Fears and War

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It would seem that European fears of the damage done by properly thorough economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion and occupation/partition of Ukraine might be overblown. As has been suggested before.

French bank Société Générale SA said Wednesday that a €525 million ($731.26 million) write-down on its Russian business pushed first-quarter net profit down 13%, while Carlsberg A/S and Imperial Tobacco Group PLC both said that falling sales in Russia and a weak ruble had cut profit and would weigh on revenue for the remainder of the year.

“Net profit down,” “cut profit.” Sounds like profits remain. Pretty small potatoes in some circles of sacrifice. That 13% drop for Société Générale, by the way, is to €315 million ($438.76 million) from €364 ($507). The pain…. And

Russia today accounts for only about 5% of the group’s total revenue….

The “damage” done Carlsberg and Imperial Tobacco is similar.

It’s true enough that Europe’s energy enterprises—especially Germany’s—that depend on Russian oil and gas will be hit harder, as well as those enterprises’ customers. But this is a wakeup call concerning the wisdom of depending on an aggressive and territorially acquisitive Russia for much of anything.

It’s an easily enough remedied situation, too, if time consuming.