The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

The primary function of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value. Expecting anything more from them is a recipe for disappointment, for either the shareholders or the larger culture, or both.

Do I want American corporations to be patriotic and act in the best interests of the country and its citizens? Sure! That sounds great in theory, but it turns quickly into a massive problem. Who gets to decide what is patriotic? Who gets to decide what is best for America?

Senior VPs of Human Resources? The board of directors? The CEO? The hourly employees on the shop floor? The shareholders?

We have seen how well that has turned out over the past generation, as corporations across the country have gone insanely Woke, and have acted in ways that many Americans think are antithetical to the political philosophy on which our country is grounded: Just look at Budweiser, Disney, Target, Nike, GM, and many more. Yet those boards of directors approved the behaviors that sent their stock prices crashing, and in the case of their frantic drive to be the poster children for DEI and AGW gutted generations of merit-based hiring in favor of a rabidly racist system that was almost guaranteed to destroy corporate value, radically shifted the direction of the company toward EVs, or made movies that glorified transsexual insanity, and on and on and on...

But it also works the other way, when corporations pursue the bottom line without any regard for their workers, their country, or their own long-term health. Off-shoring manufacturing and customer service, and using imported foreign or illegal labor to save the higher cost of American workers makes some financial sense in the medium term, but geopolitical realities rarely recognize earnings per share as important. China's implosion, a new and radically different perspective in Washington, and the long overdue response of the American body politic to the insanity of corporations actively rejecting everything "American," is a powerful incentive to pay more attention to America and American workers.

But can we count on that shift to be permanent? No, of course not, and that is why the election of Donald Trump is so important, and the 2028 election of J.D. Vance (or a similar nationalist/populist) is vital.

JD Vance Slams Big Tech’s Labor Shortage “Bullsh*t Story” — Calls Out H-1B Visa Abuse

The Vice President stated that he disliked seeing American companies firing thousands of American workers, then claiming there is a labor shortage.
“But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, we can’t find workers here in America.”
“That’s a bullsh*t story,” he said.

The next step is to reduce the number of H1B visas issued (maybe to zero for a long while until our education system catches up?), and tighten the requirements so that it isn't carte blanche for American corporations to reduce labor costs by injuring Americans! Will that increase the labor costs of many corporations? Maybe. And I don't care. It might also improve the products, and increase consumer spending. But again...I don't care. Employing Americans and reinforcing our shared culture is more important than some improvement on GM's bottom line. And if GM won't make that decision, then government should step in.

The same thing is necessary to rein in the horrid, racist hiring practices of many corporations. They want to hire 50% disabled black two-spirit mechanical engineers?With the appropriate laws passed and strictly enforced...they can't. They will have to hire using the now strange method of choosing the best people, regardless of color or sexuality or political bent.

And yes, I am arguing for more government interference in what ideally should be a private decision between employer and employee. But we have to admit that what worked reasonably well for a very long time has become an anachronism, as corporate profit has become distorted by competing pressures of Woke lunacy and MBA-driven profit over all other considerations.

Perhaps in a generation, if our universities return to actual education (or even better...disappear), our corporations return to recognizing that shareholder value cannot be created with Woke policies, and our culture discards the absolute insanity of the last generation, we might succeed without government and legal interference, but I doubt it.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Hola p

Posted by: Thanatopsis at July 29, 2025 11:00 AM (GYt5+)

2 1

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 29, 2025 11:00 AM (WvZaB)

3 MONKEY!

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at July 29, 2025 11:01 AM (N1tpc)

4 The Vice President stated that he disliked seeing American companies firing thousands of American workers, then claiming there is a labor shortage.

About damn time.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:01 AM (ExV1e)

5 yes

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:02 AM (GbwPZ)

6 The "pest" people?

Posted by: actually inside the beltway at July 29, 2025 11:02 AM (BW+Gb)

7 “But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, we can’t find workers here in America.”

“That’s a bullsh*t story,” he said."

Ramswamy may do fine as Governor of Ohio, if he wins - but this is why he's out of any position with the Trump administration.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 29, 2025 11:03 AM (uWKK8)

8 claiming there is a festive little hat shortage.

Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 29, 2025 11:04 AM (bsr0t)

9 I think H1-B visas are a great idea... that's been horribly abused.

We SHOULD want to bring in the best and the brightest, with an aim towards making them Americans.

The abusers, instead, have been wanting to bring in indentured labor that they can control better than the native populace.

The visas should be given regardless of employment status, not tied to an employer.

Suddenly the draw of indentured servitude disappears and the company will have to treat the visa holders as they would anyone else that works in the country.

That would likely solve the issues all by itself.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at July 29, 2025 11:04 AM (N1tpc)

10 >>But we have to admit that what worked reasonably well for a very long time has become an anachronism, as corporate profit has become distorted by competing pressures of Woke lunacy and MBA-driven profit over all other considerations.

Again and again I've read on social media: an Indian becomes Manager, then replaces all his American staff H1B Indians.

Now -- look at the CEOs of Silicon Valley/big tech companies are, and you immediately understand why Silicon Valley is now 80+% Indian workers.

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:05 AM (GbwPZ)

11 The Vice President stated that he disliked seeing American companies firing thousands of American workers, then claiming there is a labor shortage.

--------------

Simple solution. Eliminate H1B visas.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 11:05 AM (sX1BW)

12 The primary function of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value.
______

And immortality, so you don't have to continually deal with individuals, who tend to die.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 29, 2025 11:05 AM (XvL8K)

13 China's implosion, a new and radically different perspective in Washington, and the long overdue response of the American body politic to the insanity of corporations actively rejecting everything "American," is a powerful incentive to pay more attention to America and American workers.

I'd like to see more discussion on what you mean by China's implosion.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

14
As I said in the prior thread, CEOs are cock-a-hoop when they can fire employees, since they're nothing more than a cost. The NextGen corporation will be the CEO, his payrolled mistress, and AI.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 29, 2025 11:06 AM (lvXOQ)

15 If you fire your employees, there will be a labor shortage.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:07 AM (qadd3)

16 >>The next step is to reduce the number of H1B visas issued (maybe to zero for a long while until our education system catches up?)

How do we catch up when our elite universities are now significantly filled with foreign students? For example, Columbia is 40+% foreign students. This ensures that when companies are looking at STEM graduates, the pool is significantly foreign.

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:08 AM (GbwPZ)

17 The same thing is necessary to rein in the horrid, racist hiring practices of many corporations. They want to hire 50% disabled black two-spirit mechanical engineers?With the appropriate laws passed and strictly enforced...they can't. They will have to hire using the now strange method of choosing the pest people, regardless of color or sexuality or political bent.

And yes, I am arguing for more government interference in what ideally should be a private decision between employer and employee.

Either the government has a role in enforcing racial neutrality (e.g. in who gets to stay in a hotel room) or it doesn't. Pick one. You can't argue for the former, while allowing race-based hiring and admissions.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:08 AM (Riz8t)

18 The next step is to reduce the number of H1B visas issued

Didn't the Indians invent the concept of zero? I can think of no better way to honor them...

Posted by: t-bird at July 29, 2025 11:08 AM (OjdEO)

19 I'd like to see the corporations be charged $100,000 or more for each Visa granted.

Let's see how valuable these people really are.

I did work for an India-Indian computer company in Columbus, Ohio for 8 years. My Indian co-workers were fantastic.

But I'm pretty sure Americans could have done most of their jobs. Says the Canadian.....

Posted by: Stateless - HAPPY NOT HOMELESS! - New Life Creation 15.4 % at July 29, 2025 11:09 AM (jvJvP)

20 The Vice President stated that he disliked seeing American companies firing thousands of American workers, then claiming there is a labor shortage.

--------------

Simple solution. Eliminate H1B visas.

And as with most simple solutions, it's wrong. We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:09 AM (Riz8t)

21 The number of toilets on H1B beaches is zero.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:10 AM (qadd3)

22 I'd like to see more discussion on what you mean by China's implosion.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

Demographics.
Loss of manufacturing to other 3rd world countries.
An absolutely horrendous culture of corruption.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:10 AM (6FSdT)

23 Simple solution. Eliminate H1B visas.

And as with most simple solutions, it's wrong. We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.

------------

Rarely properly administered. Demand elimination and you may settle for reduction that can be better managed.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 11:10 AM (sX1BW)

24 In September 1983, while addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of Agriculture James Watt (allegedly) described a coal leasing panel by saying, "I have a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple. And we have talent."

Posted by: oglebay at July 29, 2025 11:10 AM (MMp6W)

25 >>I think H1-B visas are a great idea... that's been horribly abused.

We SHOULD want to bring in the best and the brightest, with an aim towards making them Americans.

They are hiring H1Bs for entry-level positions and fast food joints now. It has to be ended completely -- there is no clawing back from what it has become.
Completely start over.

There's also the visas issued to the spouses of H1B visa holders, which is different. This is how they get around restrictions on certain benefits, such as small business loans (the spouse gets the loan).

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:11 AM (GbwPZ)

26 The problems stated are mostly due to existing government interference. H1b visas. EV mandates. DEI based grants from govt or private sector carve outs.

The solution is not to use more government over and above the existing scams, but remove the external driving force for imbalance and unfairness in the first place.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 29, 2025 11:11 AM (PXq2s)

27 I'd like to see more discussion on what you mean by China's implosion.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

Demographics.
Loss of manufacturing to other 3rd world countries.
An absolutely horrendous culture of corruption.

Thanks. I view those as long term problems, so not really an implosion, but nonetheless very serious problems for China.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:12 AM (Riz8t)

28 The next step is to reduce the number of H1B visas issued (maybe to zero for a long while until our education system catches up?), and tighten the requirements so that it isn't carte blanche for American corporations to reduce labor costs by injuring Americans!

9 month moratorium from a person's last day to hiring an H1b employee. Maybe a year. Long enough to make it hurt if they refuse to look for an American employee.

Posted by: rickb223 at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (JBVNW)

29 And as with most simple solutions, it's wrong. We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:09 AM (Riz8t)

This is the attitude that got us the H1B problem.

Our culture and our employment is more important than some benefit we get from employing foreigners.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (6FSdT)

30 From the morning thread:

318 Posted by: Marcus T at July 29, 2025 09:08 AM (jlcJz)

Concealed carry permits for out of state residents are now possible for NYS AND NYC.

They lost that fight.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 09:15 AM (6FSdT)

My husband had a NYS CCP.
We moved to Florida a few years ago.
He needed to re-up his NYS permit, so sent in the fee + paperwork.
It was returned to him with a "we need a NYS address."
Well, nowhere in the law does it say that. He called, pointed that out, and got a too-bad-so-sad. We need a NYS address.
So, he engaged an attorney (the guy who taught the original class to get his permit).
And, nada.

NYS is doing everything they can to make it impossible for someone in or out of state to get a CCP, regardless of what the Supreme Court says.

The only way this nonsense stops is for Congress to pass a reciprocity bill.

Posted by: Ann at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (4neFu)

31
The primary function of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value.

__________

I was reading a book about the last years of the USSR. Gorbachev visited a Siberian city built to exploit the oil deposits in the region. To maximize production, the managers skipped routine maintenance and didn't shore up their wellbores. So despite trying to enhance it, production continued to fall.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (lvXOQ)

32 They will have to hire using the now strange method of choosing the pest people, regardless of color or sexuality or political bent.

I had too many damned pest people at my hospital job.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (Dg2sF)

33 26 The problems stated are mostly due to existing government interference. H1b visas. EV mandates. DEI based grants from govt or private sector carve outs.

The solution is not to use more government over and above the existing scams, but remove the external driving force for imbalance and unfairness in the first place.

Or perhaps to put in office honest people who can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:14 AM (Riz8t)

34 China seems to have a drainage problem.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:14 AM (qadd3)

35 They want to hire 50% disabled black two-spirit mechanical engineers?

No, they want to hire Indians. That's what decades of rampant H1B abuse has bought us.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:15 AM (ExV1e)

36 9 month moratorium from a person's last day to hiring an H1b employee. Maybe a year. Long enough to make it hurt if they refuse to look for an American employee.

Excellent idea.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:16 AM (Riz8t)

37 Hey, since the government is the one issuing the H1-B visas, I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow them to "interfere" in the process.

It should be a relatively simple thing, too (devil is always in the details and the according loopholes, of course), but H1-B visas are actually a GOOD thing when used for their actual intended purpose - to allow foreign workers to come in to address critical shortfalls.

To prevent the abuse we see, there needs to be a more rigorous and less easy to game way to identify what a "critical shortfall" is. Certainly firing existing workers and trying to get H1-B to replace them is clearly not it, though.

Posted by: can of spam at July 29, 2025 11:16 AM (7oNMO)

38 They will have to hire using the now strange method of choosing the pest people, regardless of color or sexuality or political bent.

I would counter with the idea that focusing on color or sexuality or political bent is exactly how you get the pest people.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:16 AM (ExV1e)

39 with Regard to restricting (or preferably eliminating) H1B visas:

That is NOT the government 'stepping in'. That is the government stepping OUT.

H1Bs are the government interfering in the labor market.

How do colleges get away with churning out crap? Because companies can ignore them and use the government to supply trained engineers. Take away that interference, and companies will find a way to train talented people to fill the roles they need.

Bring back apprenticeships?

Posted by: ghbucky at July 29, 2025 11:17 AM (/xDbx)

40 It should be a relatively simple thing, too (devil is always in the details and the according loopholes, of course), but H1-B visas are actually a GOOD thing when used for their actual intended purpose - to allow foreign workers to come in to address critical shortfalls.

----------------

Define critical shortfalls?

There are many ways to address critical shortfalls.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 11:18 AM (sX1BW)

41 The visas should be given regardless of employment status, not tied to an employer.

Suddenly the draw of indentured servitude disappears and the company will have to treat the visa holders as they would anyone else that works in the country.

That would likely solve the issues all by itself.
Posted by: Formerly Virginian at July 29, 2025 11:04 AM (N1tpc)

How would you choose who gets the visas?

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:18 AM (ExV1e)

42 To prevent the abuse we see, there needs to be a more rigorous and less easy to game way to identify what a "critical shortfall" is. Certainly firing existing workers and trying to get H1-B to replace them is clearly not it, though.
Posted by: can of spam at July 29, 2025 11:16 AM (7oNMO)

If the program exists, it will be abused. The program, on paper, is very restrictive. The issue is that democrat administrations waive the restrictions.

Posted by: ghbucky at July 29, 2025 11:18 AM (/xDbx)

43 I'd like to see the corporations be charged $100,000 or more for each Visa granted.

A Trump Card goes for $5 million. I'm sure a refundable Trump Card would cost even more, but at least corporations can get their money back on these oh-so-valuable workers.

Posted by: t-bird at July 29, 2025 11:18 AM (OjdEO)

44 O/T - To those who didn't get Sidney Sweeney, this is how she dealt with race-obsessed, woke outrage yesterday:
https://tinyurl.com/bdza7brk

Attitude is everything, lol.

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:18 AM (GbwPZ)

45 It should be a relatively simple thing, too (devil is always in the details and the according loopholes, of course), but H1-B visas are actually a GOOD thing when used for their actual intended purpose - to allow foreign workers to come in to address critical shortfalls.

To prevent the abuse we see, there needs to be a more rigorous and less easy to game way to identify what a "critical shortfall" is. Certainly firing existing workers and trying to get H1-B to replace them is clearly not it, though.

I agree. A lot of the "cancel the whole program" stuff reminds me of Jefferson and his opposition to any kind of a central government that could collect taxes and defend the country. He was willing to do immense damage to the country and its prospects so he could preserve his precious state's rights and avoid "consolidation".

There are intermediate steps; it isn't all or nothing.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:19 AM (Riz8t)

46 How would you choose who gets the visas?

-----------

Simon Cowell's new game show: Americas Got Visas - Who wants one?

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 11:20 AM (sX1BW)

47 Again and again I've read on social media: an Indian becomes Manager, then replaces all his American staff H1B Indians.

Now -- look at the CEOs of Silicon Valley/big tech companies are, and you immediately understand why Silicon Valley is now 80+% Indian workers.
Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:05 AM (GbwPZ)

The top five levels of management at my employer, BigCorp, are Indian. We shut down offices around the world in favor of either importing more Indians to the US or shifting work to India.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:20 AM (ExV1e)

48 Critical shortfall = nobody wants to work for what we're paying

Posted by: J. Frank Parnell at July 29, 2025 11:20 AM (0bjKf)

49 Here's an idea : 25% payroll tax on all non-citizen employees. Makes cheap H1-Bs less attractive to employers.

Posted by: Some Moron at July 29, 2025 11:20 AM (Yt3ED)

50 If one leg of the stool is too short you lengthen it.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:21 AM (qadd3)

51 And as with most simple solutions, it's wrong. We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.

Posted by: Archimedes

Sorta like how the death penalty is invaluable with properly administered...which is why I no longer support it. Because it isn't and won't be.

And thus so with H1-Bs.

Navigate the terrain you have, not the one you think you should have.

Posted by: Brother Tim (102mm/W59), Keeper of the Tim Continuum at July 29, 2025 11:22 AM (OUMaO)

52 Isn't the core issue people coming out of college with zero interest in actually working? I mean, a degree in some socially acceptable field, DEI or whatever isn't what the country needs right now. But it's what we've been churning out for years.

There's a generation or two of people ill equipped to do anything productive with their lives. Fill the gap? H1B?

It's going to get pretty bleak before it gets better.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 29, 2025 11:23 AM (Q4IgG)

53 Sorta like how the death penalty is invaluable with properly administered...which is why I no longer support it. Because it isn't and won't be.

And thus so with H1-Bs.

Navigate the terrain you have, not the one you think you should have.

That approach simply says we should have no government at all, because bad people will inevitably try to bend it to their advantage. I'm not an anarchist.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:24 AM (Riz8t)

54 The H1B program needs to be gutted to its core and reformed with very specific language that narrows the scope to exactly what it was intended for and nothing more. That is, the ability for a company to bring in a foreign worker to fill a slot that they absolutely, positively cannot fill with an American worker.

As it is currently implemented, it's a thinly-disguised form of indentured servitude bordering on outright slavery. Companies bring in people from third-world shitholes on an H1B, pay them wages far below what the market would command, then holds the spectre of being fired and having their visa revoked, thus sending them back to shit in the streets of Delhi, if they utter a word of complaint about their situation.

I've seen enough absolutely absurd "job postings" in the IT field to understand what's going on. Company posts a "job" with ludicrous experience requirements that literally nobody on Earth can meet, then says "Oh no we've had this posting open for six months and no Americans qualify!!!" Then hires an Indian who doesn't qualify either, but that wasn't the point...

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:25 AM (3BwY8)

55 >>Critical shortfall = nobody wants to work for what we're paying

That, and post-BLM, companies and governments were desperate to hire non-whites, so they imported a lot of them. They had to avoid the ire of BLM activists ASAP.
I'm guessing that's how we got so many entry-level H1B hires. I mean, really, you can't find an accountant anywhere in the US? Srsly?!

Posted by: Lizzy at July 29, 2025 11:25 AM (GbwPZ)

56 The only way this nonsense stops is for Congress to pass a reciprocity bill.
Posted by: Ann at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (4neFu)

Which will never, ever, happen as that would remove a campaign issue. We could, theoretically, take note of the Constitutions "full faith and credit" clause... which courts will point out when a blue state does something spectacularly bad... but somehow fail to notice in this instance.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:25 AM (ExV1e)

57 Paul Dans running against Miss Lindsey.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:25 AM (qadd3)

58 Coastie rescue diver saved 160 peopleinthe Texas floods. He looks formidable in the pic I saw. probably not challenged in the bar.

Posted by: free tibet with purchase of equal or greater value tibet at July 29, 2025 11:26 AM (iNp3L)

59 a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple walk into a bar...

Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 29, 2025 11:27 AM (IntbO)

60 There's a generation or two of people ill equipped to do anything productive with their lives. Fill the gap? H1B?

It's going to get pretty bleak before it gets better.

Posted by: Martini Farmer

Folks adapted to the situation they found, which was that the "working world" was a shitshow, provided you could even get a job. That won't turn on a dime, even if all the issues from education to corporate governance were rectified this afternoon.

Posted by: Brother Tim (102mm/W59), Keeper of the Tim Continuum at July 29, 2025 11:27 AM (OUMaO)

61 Hard to think GM cares about the bottom line when they wasted millions building EV's NOBODY WANTED.

Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:29 AM (pohLc)

62 What will be fun is watching the Left turn their ire and bullshit back on corporations when they realize the decade long woke-a-thon was all just a money grab.

Hopefully conservatives aren't dumb enough to EVER protect or defend corporations again.

Posted by: ... at July 29, 2025 11:29 AM (RLuzd)

63 My husband had a NYS CCP.

So, he engaged an attorney (the guy who taught the original class to get his permit).
And, nada.

Posted by: Ann at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (4neFu)
------
You know what's cheaper, easier, and a lot less frustrating than doing all of that?

Never going back to New York.

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:30 AM (3BwY8)

64 That approach simply says we should have no government at all, because bad people will inevitably try to bend it to their advantage. I'm not an anarchist.

Posted by: Archimedes

More precisely "be wary of handing government more than the bare minimum capabilities". I'd argue that enabling corporations to import masses of workers to keep wages down and have more tractable employees is definitely not something government should be involved in, at all, quite the opposite.

Posted by: Brother Tim (102mm/W59), Keeper of the Tim Continuum at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (OUMaO)

65 H1B visas, like mass immigration, unfavorable trade deals, and offshoring, have always been a con run by the well-heeled on the middle class. Conservatives convinced themselves that all the immiseration worked by these policies were inadvertent. I don't think they are or were.

Posted by: bear with asymmetrical balls at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (4/BuS)

66 I like this Vance fellow. He sounds promising! Trump doesn't seem to say much about H1B at least not that I've heard. Nice to hear J.D. calling it out for what it is.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (2J/Lj)

67 A big part of the problem is CEOs and upper management being beholden to the board rather than shareholders. The boards of companies -- especially big ones -- have steadily increased their power over the decades to the point where they have huge power, and not just in big picture items but in daily business too.

Add in the new style of "professional" board members (especially "outside" board members) who are already insanely rich and get paid a set salary from the company, but otherwise don't have an interest in the profits of the company.

This is the Disney problem. While I've pointed out for a long time now that the company makes tons of money and is in no danger of folding, I do agree it could make even moremoney by focusing on money-making content rather than woke bullshit.

But the CEO, upper management, and the board are an incestuous, insulated regime of wokesters that are happy the way things are going, and have little incentive to change.

Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (iFTx/)

68 The primary function of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value. The primary function of the government is to, well....

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Hopefully they can work together within that framework.

Posted by: easy the elder at July 29, 2025 11:32 AM (0jTOo)

69 You would have to be an imbecile to believe leftards give a fuck about crime. There is ZERO evidence of that.

Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:32 AM (pohLc)

70 Good morning! Corporate America is an interesting place to navigate, I miss it sometimes, but also glad to be off the Ferris wheel. So much of this is performative with maybe 1 or 2 true believers right below the exec level.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 11:33 AM (p4NUW)

71 58 Coastie rescue diver saved 160 peopleinthe Texas floods. He looks formidable in the pic I saw. probably not challenged in the bar.
Posted by: free tibet with purchase of equal or greater value tibet at July 29, 2025 11:26 AM (iNp3L)
-----
Dude's mustache alone has probably already impregnated several women.

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:33 AM (3BwY8)

72 Which will never, ever, happen as that would remove a campaign issue. We could, theoretically, take note of the Constitutions "full faith and credit" clause... which courts will point out when a blue state does something spectacularly bad... but somehow fail to notice in this instance.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic

The blue states are slowly being ground down on their gun restrictions--9th Circuit killed the CA ammo law and that is likely to stick which affects other states. Even the bluest of the blue states now has to grudgingly recognize that people have the right to be armed and that includes items like tasers in states like Mass that banned them.

Progress is slow but compared with the 1980's, things are moving toward a restoration of the 2A.
It is sort of the same way that the South and border states drug their heels on integration for over a decade.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:33 AM (ctrM5)

73 Gonna need to get rid of that "Disparate Impact" B/S to make hiring competent workers more attractive.

Posted by: AshevilleRobert at July 29, 2025 11:33 AM (Hw6WF)

74 There's a generation or two of people ill equipped to do anything productive with their lives. Fill the gap? H1B?

The problem is that foreigners from a more racially homogenous nation will almost always prefer to deal with their own race. Going to college in the US won't change that. Getting a job in the US won't change that. So we've got an enormous number of people (Chinese and Indians) who're willing the lower levels of our technical jobs and who, when they get into the decision making positions, will hire yet more Chinese and Indians.

If we want actual Americans, regardless of race, to get hired then we're going to have to go through a period of forcing. Like many forcings, it will take time and it will be painful. Which is why it won't happen and the people who complain loudest about not taking their medicine will complain loudest when the consequences consume them, and their children.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:34 AM (ExV1e)

75 More precisely "be wary of handing government more than the bare minimum capabilities". I'd argue that enabling corporations to import masses of workers to keep wages down and have more tractable employees is definitely not something government should be involved in, at all, quite the opposite.

Government already has the responsibility to administer immigration. I'd rather get some capable engineers and scientists than another Somali welfare leech. Sure, you could completely close off all immigration, but let's not pretend that wouldn't come at a cost. It would.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:34 AM (Riz8t)

76 "Enhancing shareholder value" was the rationale behind Boeing cutting back on quality checks and outsourcing flight control software to Hyderabad. How did that work out?

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 29, 2025 11:35 AM (xiyqa)

77 Sure, you could completely close off all immigration, but let's not pretend that wouldn't come at a cost. It would.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:34 AM (Riz8t)

Read what I wrote.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:36 AM (6FSdT)

78 But the CEO, upper management, and the board are an incestuous, insulated regime of wokesters that are happy the way things are going, and have little incentive to change.
Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (iFTx/)
------
Modern corporate governance is a complete scam run by a relative handful of already-wealthy people. You sit on my board, I sit on your board, our buddies sit on a board here or there and help their buddies find a board position somewhere else. If you get into this club you can make a very, very comfortable living by attending three meetings a month. Not bad work if you can get it.

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:36 AM (3BwY8)

79 >>My husband had a NYS CCP.

Dad had one.

NYS tried threatening him with arrest if he didn't turn it in.

He told them to get fucked.

Posted by: garrett at July 29, 2025 11:36 AM (oSEaw)

80 Possibly white on a quiet street corner.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:38 AM (qadd3)

81 Hard to think GM cares about the bottom line when they wasted millions building EV's NOBODY WANTED.
Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:29 AM (pohLc)

Think of this from the perspective of the GM C-Suite. The world's governments are going to force people to stop buying ICE vehicles and move to EVs. We should make EVs. The US government will bail us out if this plan changes or the people prefer other EVs. Plus, Blackrock will fuck us over on our loans if we don't go all in on their stupid ideas.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:38 AM (ExV1e)

82 Coastie rescue diver saved 160 peopleinthe Texas floods. He looks formidable in the pic I saw. probably not challenged in the bar.
Posted by: free tibet with purchase of equal or greater value tibet at July 29, 2025 11:26 AM (iNp3L)
-----
Dude's mustache alone has probably already impregnated several women.
Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:33 AM (3BwY

_

Looks kinda twinky in the pics I saw. But obviously a badass. Actually, the really badass special forces-type guys I've met were usually smaller, wiry guys who you would not immediately think "this guy is a badass." They certainly don't look like Ahnuld or The Rock. Or at least not the ones I've met.

Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:38 AM (iFTx/)

83 After replacing their CEO with a retired C-Suite executive/former engineer, Boeing's stock surged last week. So, if and when companies get off the DEI train there's hope. That's one part of the equation. The other is attracting people with the ability to do the job, learn to do the job and want to do the job.

The pool of people that fit that bill is not deep. There needs to be a societal change, not just in the world of academia, but everywhere about holding down a job that doesn't necessarily involve a huge desk, a corner office and no responsibilities.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 29, 2025 11:38 AM (Q4IgG)

84 I've seen enough absolutely absurd "job postings" in the IT field to understand what's going on. Company posts a "job" with ludicrous experience requirements that literally nobody on Earth can meet, then says "Oh no we've had this posting open for six months and no Americans qualify!!!" Then hires an Indian who doesn't qualify either, but that wasn't the point...
Posted by: ballistic

Snitch line to a Dept of Labor investigator with a cash payment of $50k tax free per employee snitched on if the investigation pans out.

You posted a job requirement that an American employee couldn't meet, you don't get to hire an unqualified H1b. Fine is $5 million per hire. Play the court clerk ob your way out. Thank you.

You hired five H1bs via shady practices, pay the clerk $25 million on the way out. Snitcher gets $250k tax free.

Posted by: rickb223 at July 29, 2025 11:39 AM (JBVNW)

85 Some radio guy (Savage maybe.) used to do a bit about "overlapping corporate board members". Lots of the worst people have mutiple board positions across many companies and non-profits.

Posted by: Reforger at July 29, 2025 11:39 AM (TOnMl)

86 Thx CBD. Someone pointed Jennifer Sey who started a non woke sports company called XX XY Athletics. She refuses to have an HR department. She also said in an article that HR should never be allowed in the decision making process because they are all woke

Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025 11:39 AM (A7hgX)

87
Most CEOs are dull functionaries who got where they are by not messing up too badly. Some, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, are sociopaths who are tolerated because they live off the accomplishments of subordinates. Very few are actually visionaries.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 29, 2025 11:39 AM (lvXOQ)

88 Looks kinda twinky in the pics I saw. But obviously a badass. Actually, the really badass special forces-type guys I've met were usually smaller, wiry guys who you would not immediately think "this guy is a badass." They certainly don't look like Ahnuld or The Rock. Or at least not the ones I've met.
Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:38 AM (iFTx/)
----
I mean yeah, he's a rescue swimmer so hauling around a bunch of muscle bulk while trying to yank people out of a hurricane would be a handicap. Guarantee you wouldn't want to wrestle the guy.

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:40 AM (3BwY8)

89 85 That does sound like Weiner Nation.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:40 AM (qadd3)

90 Read what I wrote.

I assume you're referring to: This is the attitude that got us the H1B problem.

Our culture and our employment is more important than some benefit we get from employing foreigners.

Argument by assertion. You assume that there is a direct tradeoff between foreign workers and America's culture and employment. I can tell you from first hand experience about the benefits of having highly skilled, intelligent foreign-born workers in this country. There are tradeoffs, of course, but that's an argument about how to do it best, not that there are no benefits.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

91 73 Gonna need to get rid of that "Disparate Impact" B/S to make hiring competent workers more attractive.
Posted by: AshevilleRobert
=====
Fun fact, that ruling was not a constitutional ruling but statutory interpretation of teh US Civil Right Act. Congress can always change the law forbidding its use by fedgov. Although it is increasingly on shaky constitutional grounds via the equal protection clause given recent rulings.

But it is a firm rule that Scotus only interprets a statute once facially (that is broadly as to how it can function and whether it passes the constitutionality test). It will accept later cases that deal with as applied to specific cases until it interprets those and so on.

So the easiest procedural way is for Congress to change the law. Problem is of course the filibuster in the Senate.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:41 AM (ctrM5)

92 a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple walk into a bar...
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 29, 2025 11:27 AM

And the bar had quality!

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 29, 2025 11:42 AM (kgE5c)

93 https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:42 AM (7tRX6)

94 Snitch line to a Dept of Labor investigator with a cash payment of $50k tax free per employee snitched on if the investigation pans out.

You posted a job requirement that an American employee couldn't meet, you don't get to hire an unqualified H1b. Fine is $5 million per hire. Play the court clerk ob your way out. Thank you.

You hired five H1bs via shady practices, pay the clerk $25 million on the way out. Snitcher gets $250k tax free.

Another good idea.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:42 AM (Riz8t)

95 Cripples walk now?

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:42 AM (qadd3)

96 I'd rather get some capable engineers and scientists than another Somali welfare leech.

Most of the people you're getting aren't engineers. Most of the engineers you're getting aren't capable.

You know what they are? Married. And they have kids. Kids born in the US. And, when the company decides that this person just won't cut it and fires them... well, anchor baby.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:43 AM (ExV1e)

97 But the CEO, upper management, and the board are an incestuous, insulated regime of wokesters that are happy the way things are going, and have little incentive to change.
Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:31 AM (iFTx/)
------
Modern corporate governance is a complete scam run by a relative handful of already-wealthy people. You sit on my board, I sit on your board, our buddies sit on a board here or there and help their buddies find a board position somewhere else. If you get into this club you can make a very, very comfortable living by attending three meetings a month. Not bad work if you can get it.
Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:36 AM (3BwY

______

Correct. That is the already-rich "professional" board I mentioned. There's also the new phenomena of having outside board members who are basically "celebrities" and paying them a lot to be on the board. These are well-known people in the field -- that homunculus Fauci was on several boards -- and their sole motivation is to get on and stay on as many boards as possible. They know the way to do that is to go with the flow. They don't care about the profits of the company.

Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:43 AM (iFTx/)

98 We should put woke stuff in a time capsule. Then make a sci-fi where 100 years from now. They will die laughing.

Better yet, make a meme.

Posted by: Dreamingrobot at July 29, 2025 11:44 AM (BaEKA)

99 Read what I wrote.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:36 AM (6FSdT)

You must be new here.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 29, 2025 11:44 AM (i24o9)

100 Who gets to decide what is patriotic? Who gets to decide what is best for America?

----------------

#Woke AI Bots? https://is.gd/1ZAZbt

Smokahontas
@Smokahontas2024

This morning, I got a text from my boss that said, “Hey, I need to talk to you.” Instantly, my stomach dropped. A few minutes later, he sent me screenshots Facebook had flagged one of my posts about Dr. Moore and COVID… and their AI system actually reached out to him to ask if my post aligned with his morals and values.

Yes, an algorithm tried to drag my boss into a “moral review” of my personal Facebook post.

Let that sink in: AI not a real person, not a human moderator decided my content was controversial enough to alert my employer and spark a values check. That’s how far it’s gone.

Luckily, I have an incredible boss who immediately shut it down with two sharp responses defending my right to speak. But the fact that an AI is now programmed to involve your workplace in content disputes? That should terrify everyone.

Posted by: ShainS -- The Marshall Plan is MORTE! at July 29, 2025 11:44 AM (4UH+q)

101 Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

Read the post.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:44 AM (7tRX6)

102 Our culture and our employment is more important than some benefit we get from employing foreigners.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises at July 29, 2025 11:13 AM (6FSdT

What I think will happen is global orgs will keep their footprints outside of the US and funnel project work through those entities. It just won’t be China.

Listen, at the end of the day, most organizations are looking at the least expensive way to get products out the door. The creativity that springs forth in this endeavor is sometimes a site to behold. Keep your eyes on Bulgaria and Romania as China becomes more and more toxic.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (p4NUW)

103 I'd rather get some capable engineers and scientists than another Somali welfare leech.

Most of the people you're getting aren't engineers. Most of the engineers you're getting aren't capable.

You know what they are? Married. And they have kids. Kids born in the US. And, when the company decides that this person just won't cut it and fires them... well, anchor baby.

And those are things that competent governance can fix. As I said at the beginning:

We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (Riz8t)

104 To me it looks like higher education, and lower too has failed.

Posted by: Skip at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (+qU29)

105 We should put woke stuff in a time capsule. Then make a sci-fi where 100 years from now. They will die laughing.

Better yet, make a meme.
Posted by: Dreamingrobot

Put a copy of Idiocracy in the time capsule.

Posted by: rickb223 at July 29, 2025 11:46 AM (JBVNW)

106 Argument by assertion. You assume that there is a direct tradeoff between foreign workers and America's culture and employment. I can tell you from first hand experience about the benefits of having highly skilled, intelligent foreign-born workers in this country. There are tradeoffs, of course, but that's an argument about how to do it best, not that there are no benefits.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

So, you're going to counter his assertions with your anecdotes, none of which will actually demonstrate that foreigners were your company's only recourse?

Posted by: It's Anecproof! at July 29, 2025 11:46 AM (DBT/q)

107 I realize that companies made 2025 and 2026 business plans that included significant use of H1B visas--I don't have a problem with giving a ramp-down period for these rather than setting them at zero immediately. But they need to go to virtually zero at some point. It's fun to say "Let the bright foreigners come in", but come on--let's let the bright locals prosper first and then let's train the less bright among us to improve our lots in life. I don't see the need for "bright foreigners".

Posted by: Crusader at July 29, 2025 11:46 AM (TN0g+)

108 Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

Read the post.

I did. Twice. Care to be more specific?

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:47 AM (Riz8t)

109 Argument by assertion. You assume that there is a direct tradeoff between foreign workers and America's culture and employment. I can tell you from first hand experience about the benefits of having highly skilled, intelligent foreign-born workers in this country. There are tradeoffs, of course, but that's an argument about how to do it best, not that there are no benefits.
Posted by: Archimedes

Considerable downsides as to culture, societal cohesion etc. For example, China specifically targets its expats to recruit for spying. Other nations like Mexico etc. push their naturalized citizens to interfere in the political process of the US to favor Mexico and so on. Then there is the chain migration of families to the US to reinforce that old home feeling to the detriment of the US. And then you have the basic incompatibility of Islam with US society.

You are taking a micro look at the situation, while CBD is taking the macro. Aka forest for the trees.
In a world of fast transportation and easy comms, chain migration, and homogeneous pockets of with ye old homeland like in Maine and Minneapolis, the melting pot idea is essentially dead. Some will assimilate; a lot will not.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:48 AM (ctrM5)

110 H1B's are modern day wage slaves.
Corps hire them because they are only about 75% as good as a US educated tech worker, but they work for 35% of what they have to pay an American FTE.

It's pure economics, ugly economics.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (xcxpd)

111 If H1Bs were hawt Nordic Chicks really good at Rub n Tug America would be a better place.

Posted by: pudinhead at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (W3T6M)

112 Where were the violence interupters yesterday?

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (qadd3)

113 As I said at the beginning:

We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (Riz8t)

But you also seem to be saying that, because we get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered, theoretically, we shouldn't end them in the face of overwhelming evidence that they're NOT being properly administered.

That's a bit like saying that opioid vending machines would be handy if no one abused them.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (ExV1e)

114 86 Thx CBD. Someone pointed Jennifer Sey who started a non woke sports company called XX XY Athletics. She refuses to have an HR department. She also said in an article that HR should never be allowed in the decision making process because they are all woke
Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025

She is beyond wrong and will learn a good HR person is worth their weight in gold. HR is not DEI. The minute she has any organization attempt, she will find out what she needs, because we still have laws to navigate outside of diversity.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 11:50 AM (p4NUW)

115 You are taking a micro look at the situation, while CBD is taking the macro. Aka forest for the trees.

I'd argue the opposite. People cite especially egregious instances of H1B abuse as a reason to get rid of them altogether. I argue that there is good and bad, but that the solution is to keep the good, and fix or jettison the bad.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:50 AM (Riz8t)

116 To me it looks like higher education, and lower too has failed.
Posted by: Skip at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (+qU29)

It depends on your definition of failure. BigEd wants an equal number, or more, of women in STEM as men. Now, if women won't go into STEM, you just have to keep men out... white men, at least. But you still need to employ the STEM staff, so you import students.

From their perspective everything is great.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:51 AM (ExV1e)

117 That's a bit like saying that opioid vending machines would be handy if no one abused them.
----------------
How about Quaalude Bubble Gum Machines?

Posted by: pudinhead at July 29, 2025 11:51 AM (W3T6M)

118 Corporations are there to provide goods and services to its customers. In many instances, "shareholder value" is a red herring and/or excuse used by greedy executives to increase their wallets, not provide a better product or experience to the consumer. And often times, the latter is sacrificed at the altar of the former.

Posted by: Diabeetus at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (SlrUo)

119 Actually, the really badass special forces-type guys I've met were usually smaller, wiry guys who you would not immediately think "this guy is a badass." They certainly don't look like Ahnuld or The Rock.
———

The load carrying required for those guys is unreal, all the gear, ruck plus weapons, food, ammo. And then parachute gear or whatever. I think it is well known that someone built like a linebacker is not very well suited as well for carrying heavy loads. They are already carrying 100 pounds extra. Wiry guys, not too tall, are the folks who will surprise you.

Posted by: Common Tater at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (3pkwM)

120 But you also seem to be saying that, because we get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered, theoretically, we shouldn't end them in the face of overwhelming evidence that they're NOT being properly administered.

That's a bit like saying that opioid vending machines would be handy if no one abused them.

No, your example is like saying if there's a cost overrun on a defense program, we should simply eliminate all of our defense capabilities. The answer is not to do that, but to fix the bad administration that allowed the abuse.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (Riz8t)

121 It's fun to say "Let the bright foreigners come in", but come on--let's let the bright locals prosper first and then let's train the less bright among us to improve our lots in life. I don't see the need for "bright foreigners".
Posted by: Crusader
=======
Ideally, you separate out those that want to become American in all its values from those simply wanting a higher wage. But no way to do that as that would be unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. So, with the gold star immigrants, you get a lot of dross and with chain migration--you get a lot more unintended dross.

We are no longer in a world wide overarching fight for ideology with the Soviets and as such, a lot of Cold War assumptions need to be uprooted and buried. Including open borders and open universities. Instead, have partnerships with our Ivies on site in local countries (aka the old American University in country X). Let vetted students prescreened by those universities in for more advanced study if needed.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (ctrM5)

122 114. That was organizing, not organization. Sheesh.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 11:53 AM (p4NUW)

123 Neil Armstrong, greater than any Indian to ever live and product of American culture, chose the less academic Purdue over MIT because he liked the football team.

Posted by: Vivek Ramaslamadingdong, 7-11 Cashier at July 29, 2025 11:53 AM (3ui1p)

124 I argue that there is good and bad, but that the solution is to keep the good, and fix or jettison the bad.

The good being defined as whatever we, the American people, decide is in our best interest.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:53 AM (Riz8t)

125 Wiry guys, not too tall, are the folks who will surprise you.
-----------------
They're short and small. They are harder to shoot.

Posted by: pudinhead at July 29, 2025 11:53 AM (W3T6M)

126 If untrained Americans are the problem shouldn't the H1B hire help train them?

Those want-ads with a raft of details are to get a pile of rejectable resumes so they can keep the import.

Posted by: DaveA at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (FhXTo)

127 Do I want American corporations to be patriotic and act in the best interests of the country and its citizens? Sure! That sounds great in theory, but it turns quickly into a massive problem. Who gets to decide what is patriotic? Who gets to decide what is best for America?
---
The organization that would decide that, whatever it is, is essentially fascist.

There is a reason why Marxism says that the government shall *own* the means of production. Because ownership is a word that implies control.

It's the reason that fascists can still be quasi-Marxists, because, as a number of them have pointed out, there is no need for the term "ownership" if everything has to be directed to the good of the State, or what the State determines the "common good".

It's odd because a lot of posturing Marxists would say that they just want "socialism", they don't want to abolish personal property! (And how DARE you say they do!) But besides keeping the state around, this is what divides Marxism from fascism, and they call fascism "capitalism" because the fascists split with the Marxist on title definitions.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (krQz2)

128 If H1Bs were hawt Nordic Chicks really good at Rub n Tug America would be a better place.
Posted by: pudinhead at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (W3T6M)

Wiser words were never spoken.

Posted by: tbodie Lurker. Unless you are reading this. at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (GiLer)

129 We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (Riz8t)
----
Cool. Care to point to a time or place when it is/was properly administered, or are you just wish-casting about how things SHOULD be?

I would get a lot of relaxation if the Swedish Bikini Team came to my house and gave me a hot-oil massage. This has never happened and never will, but I definitely WOULD be relaxed if it did!

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (3BwY8)

130 Funnily enough, none of the golden parachute crowd ever needs replacing by cheaper foreign workers. Can't attract the talent necessary at the top without all that pay and benefits, exit packages that make their landing comfy regardless of results. Now the engineers and whatnot, those guys are just widgets. Any Indian can do their jobs, and it's all to the greater good if they do!

Posted by: Bear with Asymmetrical Balls at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (4/BuS)

131 She is beyond wrong and will learn a good HR person is worth their weight in gold. HR is not DEI. The minute she has any organization attempt, she will find out what she needs, because we still have laws to navigate outside of diversity.
--------

I laughed when I read that "she refuses to have an HR department". Come on, once you have more than 3 or 4 employees you HAVE an HR department--you just haven't woke up enough to realize it. Payroll doesn't do itself. Filings with the state and feds don't do themselves either. It was silly of her to assert that. She should have just asserted that human resources will be task focused and have no role in setting company policy.

Posted by: Crusader at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (TN0g+)

132 Thx CBD. Someone pointed Jennifer Sey who started a non woke sports company called XX XY Athletics. She refuses to have an HR department. She also said in an article that HR should never be allowed in the decision making process because they are all woke
Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025
_______

She will sadly eventually be sued into oblivion. There's a reason HR departments have exploded in size and power. They started out as good armor against discrimination and other kinds of employee lawsuits. A HR department with complicated formal policies for hiring/promotion/firing and employee disputes looks a LOT better in a lawsuit. Now they are basically REQUIRED at a company, or else the company looks very callous and dismissive of employee concerns.

Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 11:55 AM (iFTx/)

133 No, your example is like saying if there's a cost overrun on a defense program, we should simply eliminate all of our defense capabilities. The answer is not to do that, but to fix the bad administration that allowed the abuse.
Posted by: Archimedes
========
Your way ends up with Chinese coders for Microsoft administering our Azure cloud storage for US defense (as recently happened) with non techie minders over them.

Tech industries are hooked on cheap labor since the Y2K hysteria. Time for them to grow up and build their companies up at home.

Also see the decline of Intel as another example and the death of Bell Labs.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:55 AM (ctrM5)

134 111 If H1Bs were hawt Nordic Chicks really good at Rub n Tug America would be a better place.
Posted by: pudinhead at July 29, 2025 11:49 AM (W3T6M)

Truth.
Some good oral skills also should be worth a bump in queue.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at July 29, 2025 11:56 AM (xcxpd)

135 HR professionals ARE in fact, all very woke.

also not that useful, at least not any longer.

they are useless at recruiting and don't do much to help with retention or benefits either. especially where they are most needed - at large firms.

I've been to SHRM year upon year. Talked to many HR peeps. I know whereof I speak.

maybe a small company has a good Ops person who covers HR here and there - they don't go to SHRM or other events, only public employees and large co employees tend to go to the events.

anyway.

Jennifer Sey has a very good point. you don't need HR. if you want you can outsource to a fractional or contracted outside company, if for some reason it seems warranted.

Posted by: Black Orchid at July 29, 2025 11:56 AM (Pv3Rg)

136 If untrained Americans are the problem shouldn't the H1B hire help train them?

That would be hilarious. Immensely valuable entry-level H1B's training their replacements in spreadsheets, scripting, and Python. Perhaps at the high school level.

Posted by: t-bird at July 29, 2025 11:57 AM (OjdEO)

137 I would get a lot of relaxation if the Swedish Bikini Team came to my house and gave me a hot-oil massage. This has never happened and never will, but I definitely WOULD be relaxed if it did!
Posted by: ballistic
======
Hate to spoil your dream but I think they were all American models, not Swedish. Call it truth in advertising case.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 11:57 AM (ctrM5)

138 Vance is correct that tech companies are using foreign workers to hold down salaries. However as people have discussed here and I've seen first hand it is difficult for companies to hire competent people. Getting younger people to show up, have a work ethic and not act entitled is difficult. Ace posted the other day about work etiquette counselors in Silicon Valley. Same idea.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025 11:58 AM (A7hgX)

139 Most of the HR work can be handled by a secretary, a lawyer and an accountant. Letting HR get power and authority is slow death for a company, or fast death, sometimes. These are not steely-eyed missile men working in HR.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at July 29, 2025 11:58 AM (xcxpd)

140 Gonna take exception to the little wiry guys handling more weight. Since I saw the late Hulk Hogan, at 300 pounds body slam Andre the Giant at 520 pounds.

Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:58 AM (pohLc)

141 We get a lot of benefit from them when properly administered.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:45 AM (Riz8t)
----
Cool. Care to point to a time or place when it is/was properly administered, or are you just wish-casting about how things SHOULD be?

If you're asking me to defend how the system has been run to date, good luck. However, since you asked, I've seen lots of benefits in my scientific field. You know who the leaders are by the papers they publish and the patents they receive, and they are often foreigners studying in the US. I certainly wouldn't argue that the system hasn't been abused, especially by China, but that doesn't mean there weren't benefits as well.

A general, possibly severe tightening up would work to get rid of the lower performers, while leaving those who produce here. Simply reducing the numbers would go a long way to solving the problem.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:59 AM (Riz8t)

142 No, your example is like saying if there's a cost overrun on a defense program, we should simply eliminate all of our defense capabilities. The answer is not to do that, but to fix the bad administration that allowed the abuse.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (Riz8t)

That assumes that the people in charge of the government are interested in honest and efficient administration of the rules. They're not. They're ideological. That cannot be changed by running around saying "just do this the correct way".

Having Trump make H1b work as it should, followed by Vance continuing the trend, all goes into the crapper within 24 hours of a Democrat in the WH.

I'm sorry but there's just no fucking way that US corporations cannot hire US citizens fresh out of college to fill the positions that they're filling with HIbs fresh out of college. It's just not true. I've watched the shitshow happen for a decade now and it's all a lie.

They've fired competent and talented engineers and hired new grads to replace them who don't know a fucking thing but who's family comes from the correct village back in the old country.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 11:59 AM (ExV1e)

143 140 Gonna take exception to the little wiry guys handling more weight. Since I saw the late Hulk Hogan, at 300 pounds body slam Andre the Giant at 520 pounds.
Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:58 AM (pohLc)

Mass matters. And it wins melee fights.

But small wiry guys tend to do well with the accuracy and cardio of modern combat. As a bulky guy, I'm carrying a lot of weight and I feel it when I hustle through IDPA course, let alone a two-way gun range.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at July 29, 2025 12:00 PM (xcxpd)

144 If H1Bs were hawt Nordic Chicks really good at Rub n Tug America would be a better place.
Posted by: pudinhead

If they were, there would be no H1Bs.

Posted by: rickb223 at July 29, 2025 12:00 PM (JBVNW)

145 Now they are basically REQUIRED at a company, or else the company looks very callous and dismissive of employee concerns.
Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade

Yes. GOOD HR and legal are joined at the hip. Good HR challenges the more conservative legal group, but keeps it between the beacons. But again, back to my example, all it takes is one manager to promise something or threaten somebody (and I don’t mean physically) during an organizing attempt and it gets very ugly, very quickly. None of that is intuitive- truly in labor relations, if it makes sense, do the opposite. I would also argue if you find yourself in a union organizing situation, your leadership has already failed, and you better figure that one out quickly.

Also, I have played in very deep HR waters, if your HR leaders don’t have a seat at the table, you hired the wrong HR people. Your HR team should be business people who happen to be good at HR. The end.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 12:01 PM (p4NUW)

146 Corporations are there to provide goods and services to its customers.

Posted by: Diabeetus at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (SlrUo)
---
Nope. If somebody sets up a shop with the idea "I'm going to provide X to the market and customers", it's with the idea that they will profit off of their special X or how they are going to provide it. It's primarily self-enrichment that creates an entrepreneur, who is then driven to deliver goods and services to customer, often with a view on what the market does not provide and filling that niche.

Even "idealists" who can have a mostly a feeling of "People should have this," would donate their contribution if they were really that idealists. They may only want to be "free of the system". But, that too is a buffer from the everyday experience that money can buy for the competent.

And they want control, and control is implied by ownership (or confidence of an owner in you), and that's capital.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (krQz2)

147 Gonna take exception to the little wiry guys handling more weight. Since I saw the late Hulk Hogan, at 300 pounds body slam Andre the Giant at 520 pounds.

Poor Andre had many health issues throughout his life and he also was very fond of cheese, lot and lots of cheese, which made him very gassy.

Hulk was lucky that day my friend.

Posted by: Pierre The Midget at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (3ui1p)

148 Gonna take exception to the little wiry guys handling more weight. Since I saw the late Hulk Hogan, at 300 pounds body slam Andre the Giant at 520 pounds.
Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 29, 2025 11:58 AM (pohLc)
_____

I assume you are joking, but if not Hulk has talked about this many times. As he says, he had a LOT of help from Andre. You can see it in the videos. Andre all but climbs on his back, and then pushes himself up using Hulk's leg. Even then, Hulk claims the weight was so much that he damaged his biceps and back.

Pro wrestling make be fake, but the hits and injuries aren't. Hulk had something like 25 surgeries, including new knees, new hips, and all kinds of steel and plating in his back and neck. Amazing he could still walk.

Posted by: Elric The (One and Only) Blade at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (iFTx/)

149 It may be the globalists at Blackrock and Vanguard have a lot of say (by votes or influence) on who is elected to boards, and on pushing the globalist agenda (which seems decisively anti-American).

Posted by: illiniwek at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (vbXSk)

150
I laughed when I read that "she refuses to have an HR department". Come on, once you have more than 3 or 4 employees you HAVE an HR department--you just haven't woke up enough to realize it. Payroll doesn't do itself. Filings with the state and feds don't do themselves either. It was silly of her to assert that. She should have just asserted that human resources will be task focused and have no role in setting company policy.
Posted by: Crusader at July 29, 2025 11:54 AM (TN0g+)
------
You do realize that a lot of companies have a department called, get this, "Payroll" that would probably handle those tasks.

Posted by: ballistic at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (3BwY8)

151 Let that sink in: AI not a real person, not a human moderator decided my content was controversial enough to alert my employer and spark a values check. That’s how far it’s gone.

---

Uh, no. A human weaponized an AI model to go after wrong-think, and gave it a mechanism to follow associations to file a report to your boss.

Posted by: Grudge Harbor at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (4DY5T)

152 Speaking of VISA

Stop them from being the final arbiters of what people can buy.

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (ANS4O)

153 I don't know about large public corporations but, I have worked at smaller Title-S corps that practiced their own form of affirmative action, particularly at the entry level positions.

They didn't necessarily hired the literal best applicant for a job, but the applicants hired could do the job, and they considered that to be enough, and they weighed who would benefit the most.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (jc0TO)

154 You are taking a micro look at the situation, while CBD is taking the macro. Aka forest for the trees.

I'd argue the opposite. People cite especially egregious instances of H1B abuse as a reason to get rid of them altogether. I argue that there is good and bad, but that the solution is to keep the good, and fix or jettison the bad.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 11:50 AM (Riz8t)

--------------

To extend whig's analysis:

macro bad > (i.e. outweighs) micro good

Posted by: ShainS -- The Marshall Plan is MORTE! at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (gHVXY)

155 You guys should push your podcast harder. It's worth a listen.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 12:03 PM (qadd3)

156 I'd argue the opposite. People cite especially egregious instances of H1B abuse as a reason to get rid of them altogether. I argue that there is good and bad, but that the solution is to keep the good, and fix or jettison the bad.
Posted by: Archimedes

Arguing about the H1B is specifically about micro needs of firms, it affects the broader macro problem of immigration entirely but is specifically rent seeking behavior by a relatively small number of really big corporations. The coordination of laying off American based staff and making them train their H1B replacement in particular is a common phenomenon.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:03 PM (ctrM5)

157 152 Speaking of VISA

Stop them from being the final arbiters of what people can buy.
Posted by: Anna Puma at July 29, 2025 12:02 PM (ANS4O)

Truth

Weaponizing banking is ugly.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at July 29, 2025 12:03 PM (xcxpd)

158 Harris would ultimately not be a candidate in the race, that she would struggle to raise money for another presidential run and would leave politics for good.
Mark Halperin Makes Grim Prediction About Kamala Harris’ Political Future

Trump: McDonald's then political office.

Kamalalamaladingdong: political office then McDonald's.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at July 29, 2025 12:04 PM (zcCCi)

159 You do realize that a lot of companies have a department called, get this, "Payroll" that would probably handle those tasks.

yep. Legal, Payroll - in house coverage. for recruiting, outsource.

Posted by: Black Orchid at July 29, 2025 12:04 PM (Pv3Rg)

160 To extend whig's analysis:

macro bad > (i.e. outweighs) micro good
Posted by: ShainS
------
Yes. You did it before me.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:04 PM (ctrM5)

161 If you want only H1B employees at the most severe need, make the H1B wages non-deductable for the companies' federal returns.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 29, 2025 12:04 PM (D7oie)

162 Sey's company has a personnel department which takes care of the things various commenters here have pointed out. She doesn't elevate it into production and decision making.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (A7hgX)

163 Your way ends up with Chinese coders for Microsoft administering our Azure cloud storage for US defense (as recently happened) with non techie minders over them.

I was the first one to post that here, and called it out for the lunacy it was. The military and Microsoft have agreed and are taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. However, it makes my point. Would anyone define this as "properly administered"? I think not. Stop doing stupid s*** is a pretty good approach to most problems.

Also see the decline of Intel as another example and the death of Bell Labs.

Bell Labs was the result of a monopoly, and when the monopoly disappeared, it was a luxury they could no longer afford. I assume you don't defend monopolies.

Intel's problem was that they had a really bad CEO, now departed, who didn't understand the business, and destroyed the company in the process of implementing his "vision". They are struggling now to recover. I was just hosting a friend who did a lot of work for them, and he is hopeful they'll recover.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (Riz8t)

164 In my recent job search I've found HR to be mostly useless and incompetent. Everybody is just using that stupid hiring app. They've subbed out their job to AI. Others are using temp agencies.
Then when you do go to work they are using some agency for payroll. Everytime I have to go to them (far to often in my book) all they do is send an e-mail and tell me to come back. I got a raise a month ago and just last week saw it on my check. They owe me about $400 and it's stuck in the e-mail vortex.
Looking for a job these days sucks and HR is 90% of why.
Back in the day when I quit a job I went to the bar and had one the next morning.
"Dude my company is looking for someone. Talk to Ann at the front desk."
It ain't like that no more.

Posted by: Reforger at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (TOnMl)

165 Thx CBD. Someone pointed Jennifer Sey who started a non woke sports company called XX XY Athletics. She refuses to have an HR department. She also said in an article that HR should never be allowed in the decision making process because they are all woke
Posted by: Smell the Glove at July 29, 2025
_______

She will sadly eventually be sued into oblivion. There's a reason HR departments have exploded in size and power. They started out as good armor against discrimination and other kinds of employee lawsuits. A HR department with complicated formal policies for hiring/promotion/firing and employee disputes looks a LOT better in a lawsuit. Now they are basically REQUIRED at a company, or else the company looks very callous and dismissive of employee concerns.

-----------------

Both posts are correct.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (sX1BW)

166 Immensely valuable entry-level H1B

There never was such a thing and AI is going to replace them. Then the whole shit-show crashes.

Posted by: DaveA at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (FhXTo)

167 157 152 Speaking of VISA

Stop them from being the final arbiters of what people can buy.
Posted by: Anna Puma
=======
VISA and Mastercard are cartels which should be trustbusted out of existence. Little reason for their existence anymore as middlemen.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (ctrM5)

168 Sure, you could completely close off all immigration, but let's not pretend that wouldn't come at a cost. It would.

Posted by: Archimedes

Never said it wouldn't. I read the menu and decided which cost I'd prefer to pay in return for what result. That's all.

Posted by: Brother Tim (102mm/W59), Keeper of the Tim Continuum at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (OUMaO)

169 >>I laughed when I read that "she refuses to have an HR department". Come on, once you have more than 3 or 4 employees you HAVE an HR department--you just haven't woke up enough to realize it. Payroll doesn't do itself. Filings with the state and feds don't do themselves either.

She says her company has a department that handles those things. It's called the "personnel department."

Posted by: Roman Polanski at July 29, 2025 12:06 PM (Y1sOo)

170 Mark Anthony Edwards, caught up on My Dress Up Darling?

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 29, 2025 12:06 PM (ANS4O)

171 Actually, the really badass special forces-type guys I've met were usually smaller, wiry guys who you would not immediately think "this guy is a badass." They certainly don't look like Ahnuld or The Rock.
———

The load carrying required for those guys is unreal, all the gear, ruck plus weapons, food, ammo. And then parachute gear or whatever. I think it is well known that someone built like a linebacker is not very well suited as well for carrying heavy loads. They are already carrying 100 pounds extra. Wiry guys, not too tall, are the folks who will surprise you.

Posted by: Common Tater at July 29, 2025 11:52 AM (3pkwM)

Several guys I went to SAR school with washed out purely because they were too big.

You're looking for 'farm-boy strong,' but honestly, what you're mostly looking for is 'stubborn and spiteful.' That's what I got through on. AW1 Young, who was my lead instructor way back when, told me I was 'too small to graduate [his] program.' In hindsight, that was probably deliberate, and it worked.

You want guys who don't know how to quit, no matter what, just because they want to rub your nose in your doubt and disbelief.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (fCgdX)

172 H1B problem is simple - the Pakistanis/Indians.

once they get to be too numerous in a company, they seek to hire their clan and compadres only. quality of work is set aside.

this doesn't happen with other Asians (who make up only about ten percent of H1Bs, the program is completely dominated by Indians many of whom have falsified resumes).

its a whole mess as it stands, and needs a total overhaul (and a long pause while we're doing that).

Posted by: Black Orchid at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (Pv3Rg)

173 VISA and Mastercard are cartels which should be trustbusted out of existence. Little reason for their existence anymore as middlemen.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (ctrM5)

------------

Truth.

Posted by: ShainS -- The Marshall Plan is MORTE! at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (00fnD)

174 Intel's problem was that they had a really bad CEO, now departed, who didn't understand the business, and destroyed the company in the process of implementing his "vision". They are struggling now to recover. I was just hosting a friend who did a lot of work for them, and he is hopeful they'll recover.

---------------

Intel's problem seems to be similar to Boeing. Finance took the place of engineering. Which unfortunately is part of the time we live in ... that is the way the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, it had consequences.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (sX1BW)

175 Human resources and personnel are almost interchangable.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (qadd3)

176 Arguing about the H1B is specifically about micro needs of firms, it affects the broader macro problem of immigration entirely but is specifically rent seeking behavior by a relatively small number of really big corporations. The coordination of laying off American based staff and making them train their H1B replacement in particular is a common phenomenon.

And other than the CEOs of those particular companies, I know of nobody who defends this. I certainly don't.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:08 PM (Riz8t)

177 It'll never get and stay better. Anyone who has been a cube-dweller will know just how true Office Space is. Just recently I was talking to the manager of our local Food Lion, and I commented that their new way of rotating carts during checkout just clogs things up and makes life difficult for the checker and the customer, and I said some Genius in Corporate no doubt is getting a bonus for coming up with it. She agreed, heartily.

And not just corporations. Remember the scene early in Patton where Bradley is getting from a private what he thinks of high command, while they're both ducking in cover? It's just the way the world is.

I will admit public spiritedness in corporations worked better in WWII than later, or in WWI.

Posted by: Eeyore at July 29, 2025 12:08 PM (od0dV)

178 In my recent job search I've found HR to be mostly useless and incompetent. Everybody is just using that stupid hiring app. They've subbed out their job to AI. Others are using temp agencies.
Then when you do go to work they are using some agency for payroll. Everytime I have to go to them (far to often in my book) all they do is send an e-mail and tell me to come back. I got a raise a month ago and just last week saw it on my check. They owe me about $400 and it's stuck in the e-mail vortex.
Looking for a job these days sucks and HR is 90% of why.
Back in the day when I quit a job I went to the bar and had one the next morning.
"Dude my company is looking for someone. Talk to Ann at the front desk."
It ain't like that no more.
Posted by: Reforger at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (TOnMl)
---
In blind studies (and I'm not sure the exact metrics of measuring it), HR are the *worst* at picking new hires that turn out. They are the best at turning away really useful talent.

Co-workers are the best at spotting useful additions to their teams. Managers second, and HR a distant last.

But none of them, in the findings of the studies, performs better than ... random selection.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:08 PM (krQz2)

179 At one of the companies I worked at, payroll was handled by the Accounting Department, not HR.

We still had an HR Department, but it didn't handle payroll.

Posted by: Bulg at July 29, 2025 12:09 PM (77rzZ)

180 NGC 1309 is about 100 million light years away, but behind it along its line of sight and at much greater distances are innumerable other galaxies, so many it is impossible to count them. And each is roughly comparable in size to our own Milky Way galaxy, containing billions of stars.

-
That's outside our delivery radius.

- Intergalactic Domino's.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at July 29, 2025 12:09 PM (zcCCi)

181 Intel's problem seems to be similar to Boeing. Finance took the place of engineering. Which unfortunately is part of the time we live in ... that is the way the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, it had consequences.

Just so. The curse of the MBA.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (Riz8t)

182 We still had an HR Department, but it didn't handle payroll.

they rarely cover payroll

they cover "online shopping while at work" and "gossiping nastily about interns"

Posted by: Black Orchid at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (Pv3Rg)

183 75% of H-1B visas go to Indians.

Douce out front shoulda told ya ...

Posted by: ShainS -- The Marshall Plan is MORTE! at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (00fnD)

184 macro bad > micro good
Posted by: ShainS
---
Except when followed by "penis".

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (krQz2)

185 Pro wrestling make be fake

Wrestling was invented to make boxing look honest.

Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (FR2Ji)

186 Just so. The curse of the MBA.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:10 PM (Riz8t)

-------------

* The Las Vegas Hotel Casinos have entered the chat *

Posted by: ShainS -- The Marshall Plan is MORTE! at July 29, 2025 12:11 PM (00fnD)

187 Intel's problem seems to be similar to Boeing. Finance took the place of engineering. Which unfortunately is part of the time we live in ... that is the way the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, it had consequences.

Just so. The curse of the MBA.

---------------

But this is part of the discussion. With so many H1B visas, there is less money in engineering, more in finance. So best and brightest go that route. Unsurprisingly, they champion finance over engineering.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:11 PM (sX1BW)

188 Archimedes,
The problem with Intel was General Manager of Intel's custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi who was responsible along with his cohort of fellow countrymen in making the transition from 14A to 10A processing. Guy kept promising and his team kept screwing up--meanwhile TSMC made the leap just fine and AMD/NVIDIA/APPLE were along for the ride.

Bell Labs was badly dinged by the Antitrust but ATT never treated it as an asset. Instead it tried every single bad merger known to the corporate world to regain its power to price. But Bell Labs was an example along with much of the early Silicon Valley/space technology where foreigners played little part in developing breakthrough after breakthrough without H1B hires.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:11 PM (ctrM5)

189 But along with those few 'Bright' foreigners you get millions of barely educated

Posted by: Skip at July 29, 2025 12:11 PM (+qU29)

190 There are some Indian IT consulting firms that set up shop in the US near large clients. Called onshoring, and it works great for the for establishing IT services monopolies with college certified Indian indentured employees.

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at July 29, 2025 12:11 PM (wBaIH)

191 In blind studies (and I'm not sure the exact metrics of measuring it), HR are the *worst* at picking new hires that turn out. They are the best at turning away really useful talent.

Co-workers are the best at spotting useful additions to their teams. Managers second, and HR a distant last.

That's not really surprising. The people already in the field are the best ones to spot the incompetents.

We used to have to submit purchase orders for big, complex pieces of scientific equipment to our purchase department. They could barely pronounce the names, much less select the best one, yet they had the final say.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:12 PM (Riz8t)

192 Don't ever open a time capsule from the middle east.

Posted by: Dreamingrobot at July 29, 2025 12:13 PM (BaEKA)

193 VISA and Mastercard are cartels which should be trustbusted out of existence. Little reason for their existence anymore as middlemen.
Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:05 PM (ctrM5)

Stablecoins have a lot of danger, since they are basically fiat, but one thing they do is to be used via various wallets and services like Ripple, lightning and Chivo. They can be passed back and forth for minimal cost, without an intermediary,
If they take off, Visa and Mastercard will be back to being a short term loan service

Posted by: Kindltot at July 29, 2025 12:13 PM (D7oie)

194 Apropos of nothing, a small crew is putting in a driveway up the block from me so I strolled down to watch for a minute. Then it occurred to me that I need a little bit of dirt pushed around so I asked the guy if I could pay him for a $100 for less than a half hour of pushing dirt with his bobcat and he said Sure, that will pay for my diesel for THIS job.

So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

195 Intel's problem seems to be similar to Boeing. Finance took the place of engineering. Which unfortunately is part of the time we live in ... that is the way the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, it had consequences.
Posted by: SH (no more socks)

No, they had an incompetent head over their Foundry and he (and his largely Indian team) kept screwing up transitioning to a newer cpu process (shrinking the die size for power sipping or increasing computing power by adding more transistors) and they let TSMC get the lead on foundry processing. First place gets the gold, Intel got the steak knives.

A lot of bad things happened at intel and its engineering and that just happened to coincide with the influx of H1B employees and those of its contractors.

Posted by: whig at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (ctrM5)

196 We should outsource the comments to Indians. Get some motherfuckers in here who understand all out modalities.

Posted by: Bear with Asymmetrical Balls at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (4/BuS)

197 There never was such a thing and AI is going to replace them. Then the whole shit-show crashes.
Posted by: DaveA

Oh, I know. It's a ludicrous farce on its face. Over 400,000 H1b applications were approved last year. That's 400,000 highly specialized experts in very specific fields that can't be found in the US. Yeah, right...

Posted by: t-bird at July 29, 2025 12:15 PM (OjdEO)

198 Shut H1b down and let the chips fall where they may.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at July 29, 2025 12:15 PM (T4rDE)

199 they let TSMC get the lead on foundry processing. First place gets the gold, Intel got the steak knives.

Okay, that's funny.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 29, 2025 12:15 PM (Riz8t)

200 A great analogy of FO comes from the fundamental physics theory: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. FAFO isn't about being mean; it's about learning the concept of consequence.
FAFO Parenting: The Return of the Line You Don’t Cross. Finally!

-
When we were trying to adopt, we had to take a parenting course based on the book Love and Logic. The basic idea is allow your children the maximum freedom possible but don't shield them from the consequences of their actions.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at July 29, 2025 12:15 PM (zcCCi)

201 189 But along with those few 'Bright' foreigners you get millions of barely educated
Posted by: Skip
=======
But cheap labor that cannot go elsewhere for higher wages!!!

Posted by: CEO's at July 29, 2025 12:17 PM (ctrM5)

202 Apropos of nothing, a small crew is putting in a driveway up the block from me so I strolled down to watch for a minute. Then it occurred to me that I need a little bit of dirt pushed around so I asked the guy if I could pay him for a $100 for less than a half hour of pushing dirt with his bobcat and he said Sure, that will pay for my diesel for THIS job.

So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.

--------------

Reminds me of my favorite Milton Friedman story upon seeing a bunch of workers with shovels, and he commented that you could get rid of all the workers with heavy equipment, and was told this was a jobs program. His response was then give them spoons.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:17 PM (sX1BW)

203 H1B androids.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 12:17 PM (qadd3)

204 Your youthful experience in framing is still evident. That is a great display of wielding that 32oz Estwing and sinking the nail with authority.

Posted by: Sock Monkey * sporting my Andrew Breitbart attitude at July 29, 2025 12:18 PM (5ag4x)

205 A great analogy of FO comes from the fundamental physics theory: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. FAFO isn't about being mean; it's about learning the concept of consequence.
FAFO Parenting: The Return of the Line You Don’t Cross. Finally!

---
I mention this frequently, but some people on the net think "unintended consequences" is a "right-wing talking point".

You know, because conservatives warn about "unintended consequences" and then point out "unintended consequence" of progressive failures.

And they hate that.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:18 PM (krQz2)

206 You know what is REALLY bad? HR people with MBAs. We should take them to the back 40 and shoot them. 😂

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 12:18 PM (p4NUW)

207 So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.
Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

Imagine a world, where people negotiated with each other, to provide goods and/or services to others, in exchange for money, or something else of value.

No one else need be part of the transaction. Not the government, and certainly not HR department hags.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 29, 2025 12:18 PM (dGCAG)

208 So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.
Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

Imagine a world, where people negotiated with each other, to provide goods and/or services to others, in exchange for money, or something else of value.

No one else need be part of the transaction. Not the government, and certainly not HR department hags.

--------------------

Now you know why some are eager to promote a cashless society.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:19 PM (sX1BW)

209 @195

But the financial aspect is compelling, my company has started to outsource CAD work to India, the cost basis for a US CAD Engineer is 150.00 and hour, the cost basis for a similar Indian CAD Engineer is 25.00 and hour.

We did this to ourselves over the course of the last 40 years, and it will take at least that long to course correct, if we can at all.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 29, 2025 12:19 PM (/tVXZ)

210 Several guys I went to SAR school with washed out purely because they were too big.

You're looking for 'farm-boy strong,' but honestly, what you're mostly looking for is 'stubborn and spiteful.' That's what I got through on. AW1 Young, who was my lead instructor way back when, told me I was 'too small to graduate [his] program.' In hindsight, that was probably deliberate, and it worked.

You want guys who don't know how to quit, no matter what, just because they want to rub your nose in your doubt and disbelief.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider at July 29, 2025 12:07 PM (fCgdX)

Guys who are big end up being just the right size at graduation

Posted by: JAVEMS at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (8I4hW)

211 HR department hags.
Posted by: BurtTC at July 29

You don’t have to attack personally, Burt. lol.

Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (p4NUW)

212
You know, because conservatives warn about "unintended consequences" and then point out "unintended consequence" of progressive failures.

And they hate that.
Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:18 PM (krQz2)

Often their unintended consequences are actually intended consequences.

Posted by: ... at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (RLuzd)

213 Mutual agreement for mutual benefit. That would be a hell of a system.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (jc0TO)

214 Sounds like Ayn Rand.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 29, 2025 12:21 PM (qadd3)

215 Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 29, 2025 12:19 PM (/tVXZ)

Depends on the CAD platform and the type of modeling/design?

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead...Wearing Pants and Working at July 29, 2025 12:21 PM (luW68)

216 and that is why it is good to keep a few Benjamins around the house.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:21 PM (jc0TO)

217 Markets down again.. Did Powell say something stupid ?

Posted by: It's me donna at July 29, 2025 12:21 PM (VE6XX)

218 Reminds me of my favorite Milton Friedman story upon seeing a bunch of workers with shovels, and he commented that you could get rid of all the workers with heavy equipment, and was told this was a jobs program. His response was then give them spoons.
Posted by: SH (no more socks) at July 29, 2025 12:17 PM (sX1BW)

Another illustration is to pick up a pencil, and realize no one in the world could make a pencil all by themselves.

You need people to mine the graphite, chop down the tree, forge the metal, and harvest the rubber. Such diverse tasks would be beyond any one person's capacity, and if you DID have one person doing it, that pencil would cost about $500 a piece.

Instead they cost 5 cents.

If government made them, it would be $5000.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 29, 2025 12:22 PM (dGCAG)

219 Markets down again.. Did Powell say something stupid ?
Posted by: It's me donna at July 29, 2025 12:21 PM

A 1% drop in the NASDAQ would make my day.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:22 PM (jc0TO)

220 I've worked with brilliant Indians, Pakistanis, and ME engineers.

And I've worked with code generators from those same places. Their code eventually works, but what they produce pretty much has to be scrapped by anyone following them.

And then you get high-level types asking you "Why couldn't you just use the code that was there?" As if "it works" is the model of code you have to adapt.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (krQz2)

221 Nood. Winning.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (ExV1e)

222 But the financial aspect is compelling, my company has started to outsource CAD work to India, the cost basis for a US CAD Engineer is 150.00 and hour, the cost basis for a similar Indian CAD Engineer is 25.00 and hour.

We did this to ourselves over the course of the last 40 years, and it will take at least that long to course correct, if we can at all.
Posted by: Thomas Bender
=====
Compelling for who? The CEO and stockholders, the customers and the firm not so much in the long run. When you eventually outsource everything, why hire your company to be the middleman?.

The inexorable logic over the long term is middlemen get eliminated over time, in part, because they get too greedy and try to buy government to keep their perks.

Posted by: CEO's at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (ctrM5)

223 So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.
Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

I got about 10 yards of gravel for free by letting the pavers down the road use my yard as a dumping spot for what they took out on their site. Replacing really nice gravel for asphalt. And now my driveway has a grade to it. Doesn't turn into a mud pit in the winter.

Posted by: Reforger at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (TOnMl)

224 Nope. If somebody sets up a shop with the idea "I'm going to provide X to the market and customers", it's with the idea that they will profit off of their special X or how they are going to provide it. I
-----

Understand the profit motive. That went without saying. My point was the greed over everything model that has corrupted many American corporations - we must think of shareholder value while we fire American workers for foreigners, or make cheap products in China to get more profits.

You know, you can still make a healthy profit with an eye on providing consumers a good and fair product. Of course, the "shareholders" may not make 10 billion. Only 8 billion.

Posted by: Diabeetus at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (SlrUo)

225 HR department hags.
Posted by: BurtTC at July 29

You don’t have to attack personally, Burt. lol.
Posted by: Piper at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (p4NUW)

It's like everything else, I'm sure there are some hot HR chix.

That's not the norm.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 29, 2025 12:24 PM (dGCAG)

226 @215

>>Depends on the CAD platform and the type of modeling/design?

I'm talking about a Design Engineer doing the initial design, getting the markups from the review process and then a CAD/Revit Engineer taking the revision set and producing either the IFC set or as-built set. That CAD engineer was typically an American, now it's an Indian.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 29, 2025 12:26 PM (/tVXZ)

227 Often their unintended consequences are actually intended consequences.
Posted by: ... at July 29, 2025 12:20 PM (RLuzd)
---
True for Obama, I would say.

But at least "unintended consequences" is a way to not simply get into an argument about their dishonestly.

If you can win by a path the opponent gives you, that is the best strategy of argument.

However, if power prices had skyrocketed under Obama, there would be no way his toadies could argue he didn't really mean "necessarily skyrocket".

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:26 PM (krQz2)

228 So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.
Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

Our son is getting his house ready to move in. Its right next to us. His contractor was digging for the septic using a backhoe when our neighbor came up to ask the guy if he would be willing to bring that backhoe over and dig a big hole for him. Would pay him fair in cash. Contractor was a yes. The hole was for a horse that had to be put down.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 29, 2025 12:26 PM (2J/Lj)

229 Apropos of nothing, a small crew is putting in a driveway up the block from me so I strolled down to watch for a minute. Then it occurred to me that I need a little bit of dirt pushed around so I asked the guy if I could pay him for a $100 for less than a half hour of pushing dirt with his bobcat and he said Sure, that will pay for my diesel for THIS job.

So for a hundred bucks I will get a job done that would have taken my old ass a week with shovel and barrow.

Posted by: toby928 at July 29, 2025 12:14 PM (jc0TO)

Yup, thats how I view my lawn. There is about 1 clear acre to mow. During the move I couldn't do both houses, so I got a great crew to do the lawn at the new place that had a way larger lawn. My FIL visited after a few weeks of professional cutting and remarked how great the lawn looked. Mrs b says "thats because we're not doing it". I thought about it and figured yup, no point in me doing it, having to maintain the ride on mower, the gas trimmer, the frigging heat, the trimming/edging, etc, and it wouldn't look as good as the professionals do it. $1200 for the season, yeah I'm all over that.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at July 29, 2025 12:28 PM (snZF9)

230 Understand the profit motive. That went without saying. My point was the greed over everything model that has corrupted many American corporations - we must think of shareholder value while we fire American workers for foreigners, or make cheap products in China to get more profits.

You know, you can still make a healthy profit with an eye on providing consumers a good and fair product. Of course, the "shareholders" may not make 10 billion. Only 8 billion.
Posted by: Diabeetus at July 29, 2025 12:23 PM (SlrUo)
---
I don't have a problem with pointing out that problem.

It's one of the benefits of not being an ideologically libertarian country, that employers used to consider "heads of family" special cases. (Until that became "unfair").

Marx actually predicted that the market could end up eliminating "arbitrary values" and replacing them with dollar demand.

But he had a step after that, that is precisely what you see the people on the left side falling for. Because the dollar becomes "arbitrary" when "people are suffering because of it". So the movement develops to make "people" the unit of demand.

Posted by: Axeman at July 29, 2025 12:31 PM (krQz2)

231 Way back, when things were simpler, I worked for a small company. We had no "HR" department, secretaries and managers handled all that business. Until we were bought out by a major international company. That's when I met my first MBA. He didn't wear socks and made sure you noticed within minutes of meeting him, just like when he mentioned that he was a Harvard grad.

I got shipped overseas to work but when I transferred home some years later that business unit was all but dead and was eventually sold off

Posted by: JAVEMS at July 29, 2025 12:41 PM (8I4hW)

232 Luckily, I have an incredible boss who immediately shut it down with two sharp responses defending my right to speak. But the fact that an AI is now programmed to involve your workplace in content disputes? That should terrify everyone.

----
That's why I keep a burner account along with my "real" one.

Posted by: Kareem of Wheat at July 29, 2025 12:43 PM (9CBNQ)

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