Kudos To Senator Grassley! What………Seriously?

by Michael F. Hammond

Although we have used this forum in the past to criticize Senator Grassley for his attacks on the H-1b visa program, we must commend him, at least in part, for his Sept 29, 2009 letter to USCIS Director Mayorkas. A copy of his complete letter can be found at http://grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=23410. Essentially, Senator Grassley's letter is a simple "Hey, Mr. Director, What have you done about all of the fraud that the 2008 H-1b Benefit Fraud and Compliance Assessment uncovered?" Fair question and one that I would surmise Mr. Grassley does not truly want answered. A full description of the inadequacies and downright misleading conclusions contained in the 2008 Fraud report was published in our November 2008 BIM, a copy of which can be found archived on our website but, suffice it to say that the so-called extensive fraud and abuse that Mr. Grassley so desperately wants to find, does not exist.

Certainly, there are instances of fraud and abuse in the H-1b program. A recent BusinessWeek article
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_41/b4150034732629.htm painted quite the picture of abuses of H-1b workers by certain U.S. companies branded as "High-Tech Sweatshops" however, the reality is that the abuses are minimal. The small number of DOL audits each year which actually find violations is but, one indication of a program that, though not perfect, is not rampant with abuse and fraud. Since 2004, the DOL has only declared 56 companies willful violators of the LCA rules.

In spite of a complete lack of any extensive fraud, several initiatives to prevent fraud have pushed forward. One of Senator Grassley's directives to the USCIS was to require extensive documentation from an H-1b sponsor when an H-1b worker is to be placed at a 3rd party client site. The USCIS obviously took Senator Grassley's orders to heart as they have instituted a policy requiring a myriad of extensive documentation from staffing companies including copies of contracts, work orders, and end client letters confirming placements. Forgetting for a minute that this implementation of Grassley/USCIS policy is not found in any regulation thereby violating the Administrative Procedures Act as rulemaking without proper notice and comment, it also disregards a series of court cases both from the USCIS' own Administrative Appeals Unit and Federal District Courts. This new policy also ignores the realities of corporate to corporate relationships and the need of corporations to protect the content of its contracts and relationships. Although well-intentioned, a change in policy which so significantly impacts staffing companies should be approached with more careful and reasoned consideration. Though I'm no expert in the Administrative Procedures Act, it is quite possible that the very basis for the requirement of a notice and comment period was to get input from various stakeholders before issuing rules.

Unfortunately, a consequence of Senator Grassley's sabre rattling is the over-reaction of the USCIS who now meets every filing, especially those from staffing companies, with outright contempt and disbelief. In our office, each week we see overly broad and simply put, outrageous requests for additional evidence from the USCIS., many of them nothing more than cookie cutter requests so filled with obvious factual and legal errors that a 1st grader would be embarrassed at the quality. For example, can anyone think of a reason why the question of "Please identify all of the computer technologies to be used on this project would be relevant in the case of an Physical Therapist? We also see the USCIS routinely ignore evidence submitted. It is as if some USCIS examiners believe that he or she is doing their part to rid the world of fraud, because if the fraud is extensive as Senator Grassley and others argue, the odds are that by denying this H-1b petition, regardless of its merits, he or she has helped to solve the problem. Instead the USCIS examiners are overstepping their legal authority and creating ghosts in the night hiding under every bed.

However, I digress, my kudos to Senator Grassley for trying to seek clarification from the USCIS on such key issues as: What evidence is required by law when a worker is being placed at a 3rd party work-site? When must a petitioner file an amended petition?, and What has happened to all of the companies and employees found to have committed fraud?

Let's analyze one of the questions raised by Senator Grassley, specifically, when must an employer file an amended petition based upon a material change? In the aforementioned 2008 fraud report, of the 51 identified instances of fraud and abuse (yes you read that correctly. Of the 100,000 H-1b petitions filed annually, the extensive fraud report reviewed only 246 cases) by far the largest allegation was that in 28 cases it was found that the worker was working at a different worksite than was included on the original petition and no amended H-1b petition was filed. Sounds like fraud to me, listing a worksite of Iowa and using an Iowa wage while placing the worker in Chicago, and, if those are the facts, then who could argue that both the system and the worker are not being abused. But, what if the employer had filed an LCA with the DOL listing the proper Chicago wage and was, in fact, paying the worker the Chicago wage but, had chosen not to file an amended petition, are you still concerned that fraud and abuse has occurred?

What is legally required of an employer when moving an H-1b worker is murky at best with various policy memorandum being issued by the USCIS and the DOL with no clear answer. With today's more mobile workforce and with technology allowing work to be done from remote locations, a change in worksite is not unusual. In the staffing and contingent workforce industry, it is common for workers to move locations based upon the needs of customers . In the healthcare travel industry, 13 week assignments are the norm. Does the USCIS really want an amended petition every time an H-1b worker changes worksites? What purpose does that serve other than to unduly burden an already over-worked agency and over-regulated U.S. employers. A policy that balances the needs of employers to freely move its employees throughout the U.S. with the need to prevent the underpayment of wages and other abuses is needed. With a well-thought out policy that addresses but, this one issue, the extensive fraud and abuse could be cut by over 50%.

U.S. employers who are trying to follow the rules would love clear answers to the questions that Senator Grassley raises. U.S. employers and organizations that represent their interests including those such as the Staffing Industry Analysts, TechServe Alliance, American Staffing Association, and yes, even the American Immigration Lawyers Association, among others should have their input considered. Senator Grassley should demand that the USCIS promulgate regulations to address these issues rather than adjudicate by the flavor of the month method now being used.

About The Author

Michael F. Hammond founded the firm in 1991 as a way to have more time to play golf. It has not improved his score. Before beginning Hammond Law Group, Mike served as an associate at Benjamin, Yocum, and Heather handling civil trial work. When not working, Mike likes to spend time with his two children Ben and Kelsey. Ben graduated from high school this spring and will attend Purdue University in the fall majoring in Chemistry. Kelsey is a junior in high school and plays basketball and is involved in art and fashion design. She is participating in an art program this summer at Fordham University in New York City. He can be reached at mfh@...

US H-1B Cap Count November Update

22 November 2009

USCIS announced on 13 November 2009 that approximately 55,600 H-1B cap subject petitions had been filed. Also, that as already announced all 20,000 H-1B visas available for aliens with advanced degrees had been used and that new H-1B petitions filed for those with advanced degree will be counted against the general H-1B cap of 65,000.

Once all available H-1B visas have been used up for the fiscal year 2010 cap you will have to wait until next year to apply for an H-1B visa. This will take into account that some of these petitions may be denied, revoked, or withdrawn.

The US H-1B visa is a very useful visa to bring in professional level staff into the US for a period of up to six years. For many employers this is the only visa that they have available to bring in degree level professional and management level staff.

The White House’s Dirty Little Secret – Shame on you politicians

If you read the previous two articles, you would notice that they were for 2005.

In reading the fine print, I noticed that the IRS had some data out for 2006 so I decided to look

I would have been better off borrowing some money and crying in my beer then to look at it as that is how bad it is.

You can find this data by clicking here

By downloading the 2006 spreadsheet, we find that there were a total of 3,675,082 Form 1042S tax filers that had a total income of 544,777,885,000 dollars which is a little over 544 Billion dollars that is spread among 3,675,082 tax filers which works out to $148,236 dollars per person.

If that isn’t sickening enough, now to really be thorough, I need to look up the Americans numbers of which I am one, or I was until they put me out to pasture in 2003.

I found the 2006 data by clicking here

On table 1 we find that there were a total of 228,145,000 tax filers that had a gross income of 2,518,680,230,000 dollars which works out to $11,040 dollars per American.

Now does that sound fair to you?

Oh that is right, they are smarter then us so they deserve the lions share of our money.

To that I say Bull Shit!

Personally I no longer know why I research this stuff.

The more I dig, the more I realize that our representatives, our corporations and our media are holding us down while everybody else is sticking it too us and we either need lots more Vaseline, or we need to take the bull by the horn and fire our representatives, our corporate executives and our media executives and get people in there that will put America first.

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Posted on November 19th, 2009 by vbierschwale
Filed under: Uncategorized

H-1B Petitions Jump

EDITORIAL: Stimulus creates jobs in China

On the evening of Nov. 15, President Barack Obama, the youthful leader of one of the world's youngest countries, begins his first visit to China, among the world's most ancient societies. Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, have much to discuss. Nukes in Iran and North Korea. China's surging military spending. Trade imbalances. Climate change.

But the visit comes at an awkward moment for the U.S. China, despite its 5,000-year burden of history, has emerged as a dynamo of optimism, experimentation and growth. It has defied the global economic slump, and the sense that it's the world's ascendant power has never been stronger. The U.S., by contrast, seems suddenly older and frailer. America's national mood is still in a funk, its economy foundering, its red-vs.-blue politics as rancorous as ever. The U.S. may be one of the world's oldest capitalist countries and China one of the youngest, but you couldn't blame Obama if he leaned over to Hu at some point and asked, "What are you guys doing right?" (See pictures of people around the world watching Obama's Inauguration.)

Could the world's lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? It's a politically incorrect question, of course. China is an authoritarian nation; its ruling Communist Party deals ruthlessly with any challenge to its hegemony. It remains, relatively speaking, a poor, developing country with huge problems to confront, massive corruption and environmental degradation being Nos. 1 and 1a. Still, this is a moment of humility for the U.S., and China is doing some important things right. If the U.S. were to ask the Chinese what it could learn from their example, it might gain some insight into what it's doing right and wrong. Here are five lessons from China's success story:

1. Be Ambitious
One day this summer, Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel, was bouncing from one appointment to another in northeastern China, speeding along in a van traversing newly built highways. He gazed out at one of the world's biggest construction projects: a network of high-speed train lines - covering 10,000 miles (16,000 km) nationwide - that China is building. As far as the eye could see, there sat vast concrete support struts, one after another, exactly 246 ft. (75 m) apart. Each was full of steel cables and weighed about 800 tons. "We used to build stuff too," Maloney mused, unprompted. "But now it's NIMBY [not in my backyard] every time you try to do something. Here," he joked, "it's more like IMBY. There's stuff happening here, everywhere and always." (See pictures of the largest military parade in China's history.)

It's not just NIMBYism that constrains the U.S. these days, of course. America is close to tapped out financially, with budget deficits this year and next exceeding $1 trillion and forecast to remain above $500 billion through 2019. But sometimes the country seems tapped out in terms of vision and investment for the future.

Some economists believe that given its stage of development, China spends too much on expensive items like high-speed rail lines. But step back from the individual infrastructure projects and the debates about whether a given investment is necessary, and what's palpable in China is the sense of forward motion, of energy. No foreigner - at least not one I've met in five years of living here - even bothers denying it. And the Chinese take it for granted. When a brand-new six-lane highway opened in suburban Shanghai in October, Zhong Li Ping, who shuttles migrant workers to the city and back to their hometowns, said, "I don't know what took them so long." In truth, it took about two years - roughly the time it would take to get the environmental and other regulatory permits for a new highway in the U.S. If, that is, you could get them at all. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Making of Modern China.")

There's no direct translation into Chinese of the phrase can-do spirit. But yong wang zhi qian probably suffices. Literally, it means "march forward courageously." China has - and has had for years now - a can-do spirit that's unmistakable. Americans know the phrase well. They invented it. It used to define them.

Critics of the authoritarian Chinese government would say it's a system more accurately called "can do - or else." And they have a point. No one in the U.S. would argue that it should adopt China's dictatorial style of government. America doesn't need to displace tens of thousands of people in order to build a massive dam, as China did in Hubei province from 1994 to 2006. (The value of checks and balances is, in fact, among the many things China could learn from the U.S.) But you don't have to be a card-carrying communist to wonder how effectively the U.S. develops and executes ambitious projects. Ask James McGregor. He's a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and now a business consultant who divides his time between the two countries. "One key thing we can learn from China is setting goals, making plans and focusing on moving the country ahead as a nation," he says. "These guys have taken the old five-year plans and stood them on their head. Instead of deciding which factory gets which raw materials, which products are made, how they are priced and where they are sold, their planning now consists of 'How do we build a world-class silicon-chip industry in five years? How do we become a global player in car-manufacturing?'"

See 10 things to do in Shanghai.

See 10 things to do in Beijing.

Some of this is the natural arc of a huge, fast-growing country in the process of modernization. The U.S. in the late 19th century was nothing if not what Intel's Maloney would call an IMBY country. America was ambitious. There's no secret formula to help the nation get back its zeal for what it used to enthusiastically and sincerely call progress. But even though the U.S. is a mature, developed country, many economists believe it has shortchanged infrastructure investment for decades. It possibly did so again in this year's stimulus package. Just $144 billion of the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed earlier this year went to direct infrastructure spending. According to IHS Global Insight, an economic-consulting firm, U.S. spending on transportation infrastructure will actually decline overall in 2009 when state budgets are factored in - this at a time when the American Society of Civil Engineers contends that the U.S. should invest $1.6 trillion to upgrade its aging infrastructure over the next five years.

When the economic crisis hit China late last year, by contrast, almost half of the emergency spending Beijing approved - $585 billion spread over two years - was directed at projects that accelerated China's massive infrastructure build-out. "That money went into the real economy very quickly," says economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But it's not just emergency spending on bridges, roads and high-speed rail networks that's helping growth in China. Patrick Tam, general partner at Tsing Capital, a venture-capital firm in Beijing, says the government is aggressively helping seed the development of new green-tech industries. An example: 13 of China's biggest cities will have all-electric bus fleets within five years. "China is eventually going to dominate the industry for electric vehicles," Tam says, "in part because the central government has both the vision and the financial wherewithal to make that happen." Tam, a graduate of MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, says he does deals in Beijing rather than Silicon Valley these days "because I believe this is where these new industries will really take shape. China's got the energy, the drive and the market to do it." Isn't that the sort of thing venture capitalists used to say about the U.S.? (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

2. Education Matters
On a recent Saturday afternoon, at a nice restaurant in central Shanghai, Liu Zhi-he sat fidgeting at the table, knowing that it was about time for him to leave. All around him sat relatives from an extended family that had gathered for a momentous occasion: the 90th birthday of Liu's great-grandmother Ling Shu Zhen, the still spry and elegant matriarch of a sprawling clan. But Liu had to leave because it was time for him to go to school. This Saturday, as he does every Saturday, Liu was attending two special classes. He takes a math tutorial, and he studies English.

Liu is 7 years old.

A lot of foreigners - and, indeed, a fair number of Chinese - believe that the obsession (and that's the right word) with education in China is overdone. The system stresses rote memorization. It drives kids crazy - aren't 7-year-olds supposed to have fun on Saturday afternoons? - and doesn't necessarily prepare them, economically speaking, for the job market or, emotionally speaking, for adulthood. Add to that the fact that the system, while incredibly competitive, has become corrupt.

All true - and all, for the most part, beside the point. After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. (The U.S.'s is 86%.) And in urban China, in particular, students don't just learn to read. They learn math. They learn science. As William McCahill, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says, "Fundamentally, they are getting the basics right, particularly in math and science. We need to do the same. Their kids are often ahead of ours." (See pictures of China on the wild side.)

What the Chinese can teach are verities, home truths that have started to make a comeback in the U.S. but that could still use a push. The Chinese understand that there is no substitute for putting in the hours and doing the work. And more than anything else, the kids in China do lots of work. In the U.S., according to a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 37% of 10th-graders in 2002 spent more than 10 hours on homework each week. That's not bad; in fact, it's much better than it used to be (in 1980 a mere 7% of kids did that much work at home each week). But Chinese students, according to a 2006 report by the Asia Society, spend twice as many hours doing homework as do their U.S. peers.

Part of the reason is family involvement. Consider Liu, the 7-year-old who had to leave the birthday party to go to Saturday school. Both his parents work, so when he goes home each day, his grandparents are there to greet him and put him through his after-school paces. His mother says simply, "This is normal. All his classmates work like this after school."

See pictures of Beijing.

Read "Can China Save the World?"

Yes, big corporate employers in China will tell you the best students coming out of U.S. universities are just as bright as and, generally speaking, far more creative than their counterparts from China's Élite universities. But the big hump in the bell curve - the majority of the school-age population - matters a lot for the economic health of countries. Simply put, the more smart, well-educated people there are - of the sort that hard work creates - the more economies (and companies) benefit. Remember what venture capitalist Tam said about China and the electric-vehicle industry. A single, relatively new company working on developing an electric-car battery - BYD Co. - employs an astounding 10,000 engineers.

China, critics will point out, doesn't produce (at least not yet) many Nobel Prize winners. But don't think the basic educational competence of the workforce isn't a key factor in its having become the manufacturing workshop of the world. It isn't just about cheap labor; it's about smart labor. "Whether it's line workers or engineers, we're finding the candlepower of our employees here as good as or better than anywhere in the world," says Nick Reilly, a top executive at General Motors in Shanghai. "It all starts with the emphasis families put on the importance of education. That puts pressure on the government to deliver a decent system." (See pictures of the best-selling cars in China.)

And the Chinese government responds to that pressure in some intriguing ways. It insists that primary-school teachers in math and science have degrees in those subjects. (Less than half of eighth-grade math teachers in the U.S. majored in math.) There is a "master teacher" program nationwide that provides mentoring for younger teachers. Zhang Dianzhou, a professor emeritus of mathematics at East China Normal University in Shanghai who co-chaired a committee charged with redesigning high school mathematics programs across the country, says recent changes have begun to reflect more of a "real-world emphasis." Computer-science courses, for example, have been integrated into the math curriculum for high school students. And China is placing even more importance on teaching young students English and other foreign languages. If you think China's willingness to constantly fine-tune its educational system is not going to have much of an impact 20 years from now, there's a 7-year-old boy in Shanghai who'd be happy to discuss the issue with you. In English.

3. Look After the Elderly
it's hard to imagine two societies that deal with their elderly as differently as the U.S. and China. And I can vouch for that firsthand. My wife Junling is a Shanghai native, and last month for the first time we visited my father at a nursing home in the U.S. She was shaken by the experience and later told me, "You know, in China, it's a great shame to put a parent into a nursing home." In China the social contract has been straightforward for centuries: parents raise children; then the children care for the parents as they reach their dotage. When, for example, real estate developer Jiang Xiao Li and his wife recently bought a new, larger apartment in Shanghai, they did so in part because they know that in a few years, his parents will move in with them. Jiang's parents will help take care of Jiang's daughter, and as they age, Jiang and his wife will help take care of them. As China slowly develops a better-funded and more reliable social-security system for retirees - which it has begun - the economic necessity of generations living together will diminish a bit. But no one believes that as China gets richer, the cultural norm will shift too significantly. (See 10 health care[EN]reform ads.)

To a degree, of course, three generations living under one roof has long happened in the U.S., but in the 20th century, America became a particularly mobile and rootless society. It is hard to care for one's parents when they live three time zones away.

Home care for the elderly will most likely make a comeback in the U.S. out of sheer economic necessity, however. The number of elderly Americans will soar from 38.6 million in 2007 to 71.5 million in 2030. But, says Arnold Eppel, who recently retired as head of the department of aging in Baltimore County, Maryland, "There won't be enough spots for them" in the country's overwhelmed nursing-home system. Appreciating the magnitude of the coming crisis, the U.S. government has begun to respond. Two new initiatives - Nursing Home Diversion and Money Follows the Person - expand subsidies for home elder care, and the Veterans Health Administration has just put in effect its own similar initiative. "The whole trend will be into home care, because nursing homes are too expensive," Eppel says, noting that nursing-home care in the U.S. costs about $85,000 annually per resident.

In China, senior-care costs are, for the most part, borne by families. For millions of poor Chinese, that's a burden as well as a responsibility, and it unquestionably skews both spending and saving patterns in ways that China needs to change (see Save More, below). For middle-class and rich Chinese, those costs are a more manageable responsibility but one that nonetheless ripples through their economic decision-making. Still, there are benefits that balance the financial hardship: grandparents tutor young children while Mom and Dad work; they acculturate the youngest generation to the values of family and nation; they provide a sense of cultural continuity that helps bind a society. China needs to make obvious changes to its elder-care system as it becomes a wealthier society, but as millions of U.S. families make the brutal decision about whether to send aging parents into nursing homes, a bigger dose of the Chinese ethos may well be returning to America.

See how to prevent illness at any age.

See pictures of Shanghai.

4. Save More
You've now heard it so many times, you can probably repeat it in your sleep. President Obama will no doubt make the point publicly when he gets to Beijing: the Chinese need to spend more; they need to consume more; they need - believe it or not - to become more like Americans, for the sake of the global economy.

And it's all true. But the other side of that equation is that the U.S. needs to save more. For the moment, American households actually are doing so. After the personal-savings rate dipped to zero in 2005, the shock of the economic crisis last year prompted people to snap shut their wallets. Now that it's pouring, in other words, American households have decided to save for a rainy day. The savings rate is currently about 4% and has gone as high as 6% this year. (See TIME's photo-essay "A New Look at Old Shanghai.")

In China, the household-savings rate exceeds 20%. It is partly for straightforward policy reasons. As we've seen, wage earners are expected to care for not only their children but also their aging parents. And there is, to date, only the flimsiest of publicly funded health care and pension systems, which increases incentives for individuals to save while they are working. But China, like many other East Asian countries, is a society that has esteemed personal financial prudence for centuries. There is no chance that will change anytime soon, even if the government creates a better social safety net and successfully encourages greater consumer spending.

Why does the U.S. need to learn a little frugality? Because healthy savings rates, including government and business savings, are one of the surest indicators of a country's long-term financial health. High savings lead, over time, to increased investment, which in turn generates productivity gains, innovation and job growth. In short, savings are the seed corn of a good economic harvest.

The U.S. government thus needs to get in on the act as well. By running perennial deficits, it is dis-saving, even as households save more. Peter Orszag, Obama's Budget Director, recently called the U.S. budget deficits unsustainable - this year's is $1.4 trillion - and he's right. To date, the U.S. has seemed unable to have what Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has called an "adult conversation" about the consequences of spending so much more than is taken in. That needs to change. And though Hu Jintao and the rest of the Chinese leadership aren't inclined to lecture visiting Presidents, he might gently hint that Beijing is getting a little nervous about the value of the dollar - which has fallen 15% since March, in large part because of increasing fears that America's debt load is becoming unmanageable. (See TIME's special report "Obama After a Year: What's Changed, and What Hasn't.")

That's what happens when you're the world's biggest creditor: you get to drop hints like that, which would be enough by themselves to create international economic havoc if they were ever leaked. (Every time any official in Beijing muses publicly about seeking an alternative to the U.S. dollar for the $2.1 trillion China holds in reserve, currency traders have a heart attack.) If Americans became a bit more like the Chinese - if they saved more and spent less, consistently over time - they wouldn't have to worry about all that.

5. Look over the Horizon
The energy that so many outsiders feel when they are in China and that President Obama may see when he is there comes not just from the frenetic activity that is visible everywhere. It comes also from a sense that it's harnessed to something bigger. The government isn't frantically building all this infrastructure just to create make-work jobs. And kids aren't studying themselves sleepless because it's a lot of fun. A few years ago, I interviewed Zhang Xin, a young man from a deeply poor agricultural province in central China. His parents were wheat farmers and lived in a tiny one-room house next to the fields. He had graduated from Tsinghua University - China's MIT - and gotten a job as a software engineer at Huawei, the Cisco of China. His success, Zhang told me one day, had changed his family forever. None of his descendants would "ever work in the wheat fields again. Not my children. Not their children. That life is over." (And neither would his parents. They moved to prosperous Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, soon after he started his new job.)

Multiply that young man's story by millions, and you get a sense of what a forward-looking country this once very backward society has become. A smart American who lived in China for years and who wants to avoid being identified publicly (perhaps because he'd be labeled a "panda hugger," the timeworn epithet tossed at anyone who has anything good to say about China) puts it this way: "China is striving to become what it has not yet become. It is upwardly mobile, consciously, avowedly and - as its track record continues to strengthen - proudly so."

Proudly so, because as Zhang understood, hard work today means a much better life decades from now for those who will inherit what he helped create. And if that sounds familiar to Americans - marooned, for the moment, in the deepest recession in 26 years - it should.

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Sign in | Join      EndH1b.com Newsletter v 10.0 - Nov 15th, 2009 Atlanta Journal Constitution: Tech firms invent shortage panic ...The latest evidence comes from a study released last month titled “Steady as She Goes? Three Generations of Students Through the Science and Engineering Pipeline.” Investigators B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University and Harold Salzman of Rutgers University found that the flow of math and science students is strong — except among high achievers, who are defecting to other majors and fields. In 2007, the same researchers reported in “Into the Eye of the Storm” that about three STEM graduates exist for every new STEM position, not counting openings caused by retirements. They also found that two years after graduation, 20 percent of STEM bachelor degree holders were still in school — but not in STEM fields. Moreover, 45 percent of STEM graduates who were in the workplace were not in STEM jobs. They concluded that the educational system is producing a supply of qualified STEM graduates far in excess of demand...   EAA (Employ America Act) Would Limit Non-immigrant Hiring   There is very little press coverage about a bill that is being sponsored by Senators Grassley and Sanders.  Called the Employ America Act, it expands upon the provision in the American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan to prevent any company engaged in a mass layoff of American workers from importing cheap labor from abroad through temporary guest-worker programs.

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Dobbs will appear on O'Reilly Factor...as a guest

Posted Nov 13th 2009 8:30PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: News, Reality-Free

It looks as though Lou Dobbs has picked up another spot on another cable news network. This time, he's not the interviewer. He's the interviewee.

Dobbs will appear as a guest on Monday's episode of The O'Reilly Factor where host Bill O'Reilly will grill the former CNN talking head on his sudden departure from his previous employer, his future career options and his never-ending quest to battle the invading armies of the Mexican empire aka illegal-immigrants.

Of course, the timing could not be worse. His appearance should only "fuel speculation" that Dobbs has scored a job at the Fox News Channel. The network's PR team continued to deny such speculation, something they'll continue to do until he scores a job at the Fox News Channel.

Tags: bill oreilly, BillOreilly, cnn, fox news channel, FoxNewsChannel, Lou Dobbs, Lou Dobbs Leaving CNN, Lou Dobbs Tonight, LouDobbs, LouDobbsLeavingCnn, LouDobbsTonight, the oreilly factor, TheOreillyFactor

Stricter Rules for Skilled-Worker Visas Are a Mistake

November 12, 2009

Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.

Indian IT companies will have to be content with the existing visa options for the United States as the US Congress, the country’s highest lawmaking body, is unlikely to take up the issue of immigration reform in the short-term.

Also Read   Related Stories News Now - Sensex ends up 153pts - Street View service lands Google in Swiss court - Jet pilots' union de-registered - Koda fears for life, plays tribal card - More cos should go for listing: Corp Affairs Secy More

Presently, Indian and multinational technology firms primarily rely on H1B and L1 visas for sending Indian passport-holding employees to work in the US. However, this practice has recently come under the scanner as the American government attempts at protecting the employment opportunities for its domestic workforce, which is reeling under the impact of the slowdown.

Though the Barack Obama-led administration is interested in undertaking certain modifications to the existing visa regime, changes to the immigration policy will require an amendment to the existing legislation, US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Janice L Jacobs said here on Thursday.

“Reforming the immigration policy was under consideration by the earlier (George W. Bush) administration and is something that the US Congress will take up sometime in the future. We don't know when this will happen but President Obama is interested in the matter,” Jacobs said.

While the US Congress is currently debating over health care reforms that Obama wants to push through, climate change could be the next issue of discussion that the legislative body takes up, she explained.

After facing criticism from certain sections of US lawmakers for allegedly misusing immigration visa, Nasscom — the Indian IT industry’s apex body — had recommended the introduction of a service visa or work permit allowing foreign nationals to visit the country with relation to their jobs for a temporary period.

Bulletin

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November 06, 2009

Laid-off workers tapping 401(k) funds to survive

With no paycheck, many cash out to cover mortgage, groceries

As the last of his severance pay dwindled away in March, Brad Cleghorn of northwest suburban Marengo cashed out his 401(k) plan in order to pay his mortgage and feed his family.

Cleghorn is not alone. A Hewitt Associates study shows that 46 percent of workers with 401(k) plans who lost or switched jobs cashed the plans in, a trend that could lead to serious problems when younger generations of people working today reach retirement.

� Click to enlarge image

After getting laid off, Brad Cleghorn had to cash out his 401(k) to pay the mortgage. "Necessity outweighs any other thing, any investments.," he said.

(Rich Chapman/Sun-Times)

A heavy price

Those who lose or change jobs may cash out their 401(k) plans, but they must pay a heavy price: a 10 percent penalty plus income taxes on the full amount, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
For a married couple filing jointly in the 25 percent tax bracket (income between $67,900 and $137,050), a $10,000 withdrawal would incur a $1,000 penalty plus $2,500 in income tax, leaving only $6,500.
Some cashouts are exempt from the 10 percent penalty, including money paid to those 55 or older at the time they lose their jobs, money to pay medical expenses that are more than 7.5 percent of income, or money to pay divorce settlements.

'"They don't have anything else to fall back on," said Pamela Hess, director of retirement research for the human resources consultant. With Social Security uncertain and providing only a minimum safety net, "the 401(k), that is their main retirement vehicle."

Hess noted that a 25-year-old cashing out $5,000 today may be sacrificing $75,000 at retirement (assuming a 7 percent return until age 65).

"If people continue to cash out what seems like a small bit of money, over time it's certainly going to sabotage their retirement."

"What retirement?" asks Cleghorn, 41. "I don't think people my age are even thinking about retirement. I expect having to work somewhere for the rest of my life. Gone are the days where you can work the same job for a couple of decades or more and retire with a pension."

An information technology professional who has worked in project management and network administration, Cleghorn was laid off in January when his company was sold to a foreign firm and shut down.

He got seven weeks of severance pay, and when that ran out, he had no choice but to tap his 401(k).

"Necessity outweighs any other thing, any investments. You have to pay your bills, and paying your bills means more than any other kind of return your investments are going to give you," Cleghorn said.

"So we made a decision it was necessary for us to keep the lights on, to keep food on the table for the kids. We have to do what we have to do, and whatever penalties we face on next year's tax return, we'll worry about that next year."

Lou Watson, who maintained computer databases for a Chicago electronics distributor and was laid off in March, was up against the same wall.

His first unemployment check was overdue, and "I had to pay rent, utilities and all that stuff, so there was really no other option," he said. "I didn't want to, but what can you do?"

The "few thousand" Watson got has helped tide him over while searching for work.

"I'm the type of person who doesn't like to keep calling home and asking my mom for money."

The Hewitt study of 170,000 401(k) participants who lost or changed jobs in 2008 showed that those with larger sums in their plans tended not to cash out as much. Also, younger workers were more likely to cash out than older workers.

Six out of 10 employees in their 20s took the money, compared with one-third of those in their 50s, according to the study.

But Evanston resident Michael Cook, 57, has been laid off twice and cashed out 401(k)s twice in the last four years.

The first time, he got about $6,800; the second, about $1,600.

A medical billing supervisor who is still looking for work, Cooke sometimes wishes he had rolled over at least part of the money. But, "Bottom line, I have no regrets. It was necessary to pay for my living expenses, my car and what have you."

Though Hess agrees that hardship can justify cashing out, she points out that many who are simply switching jobs use that opportunity to take the money and run.

"Just because you change jobs, that shouldn't be a reason for you to take it out," said Hess.

So the Hewitt study recommends that regulators make it more difficult for people to cash out 401(k) plans, perhaps by limiting access until age 59½, with exceptions for hardship cases.

Hewitt is also proposing making the rollover process simpler and that companies offer 401(k) participants lower-fee institutional funds, which according to the study retained more money than some higher-cost mutual funds.

Cleghorn, however, says the changing job market and the up-and-down economy are making the concept of a 401(k) as a retirement option almost irrelevant.

When he lost an earlier job in the tech bubble burst of 2001, he also tapped his 401(k).

"It's nice to think, 'That's my retirement,' " he said. "But it's also my safety net because you just never know when the economy will turn south and you need to have that safety net."

Friday, November 06, 2009

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November 03, 2009

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Chinese chicken: Which fast food chain may serve you this scary import?

Mitch Lipka
Oct 29th 2009 at 3:45PM

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Filed under: Food, Health, Consumer Ally

Would you eat chicken imported from China? Overwhelmingly, 96% of WalletPop readers say they wouldn't touch the stuff.

Now that a 2004 ban on chicken imported from China has been lifted, it could be awfully tempting for some of America's favorite fast-food chains to buy the cheap meat. We asked seven of the biggest fast food chains in the U.S. whether they would buy the chicken when it becomes available. Three said they will only buy American chicken. Three would not say what they'll do. And one, a very big one, left the door wide open.
McDonald's, the maker of McNuggets and the McChicken sandwich, would not rule out using chicken products imported from the land of recalls and food safety disasters.

"As a matter of practice, we review potential supplies of raw materials globally that could meet our high quality, food safety and value screens to our customers," McDonald's vice president Walt Riker told WalletPop.

But, Riker did not want to discuss the matter further. "It is inappropriate to project anything more based on a hypothetical and speculation," he said.

Do you think McDonald's should have said it won't buy chicken from China?

Yes. McNuggets suddenly seem a lot less appealing.No. They can buy what they want from where they want.We'll see. Maybe Chinese chicken products will be OK.Vote

It really isn't that big of a leap for McDonald's to get into the Chinese chicken game. After all, some of America's biggest chicken concerns -- such as Tyson -- are advocating to open the chicken coop door to China. And Happy Meals already have a fair amount of Chinese components -- the toys, obviously, and the apple juice. (To be fair to McDonald's, most apple juice sold in America is made using a powdery concentrate from otherwise inedible apples grown in China and shipped around the world in 55-gallon drums.)

What did the other fast food chains have to say?

Kentucky Fried Chicken strongly affirmed its commitment to a USA-only chicken policy.

"As you may know, in the U.S. our chicken on the bone is delivered fresh, not frozen," KFC spokesman Rick Maynard said. "It is all sourced locally, in the United States. All of our poultry products served at KFC U.S. restaurants come from the U.S."

The Popeyes chicken chain also said it would stick with American chicken.

"All Popeyes' chicken supply, including prepared chicken products, is procured from domestic distributors and not sourced internationally," the company said in a statement sent to WalletPop. "Popeyes is aware of the possibility that the ban on imported Chinese chicken products could be lifted. However, the relationship with our domestic distributors will not be affected in the event this should occur."

And Wendy's took the same posture. "All domestic restaurants use U.S. chickens," senior vice president. Denny Lynch said. "We have no plans to change."

Burger King, Chick-Fil-A and Arby's did not respond to questions from WalletPop about chicken from China. Only processed chicken products, not whole chickens, would be imported.

The temptation to use Chinese manufacturing facilities and buy products from China has proven almost irresistible to many American companies. You can usually get what you need from China a whole lot cheaper than you could if it was made here, even though it has to be shipped halfway around the world.

But food safety in China has had a terrible track record. Just last year, tens of thousands of chickens had to be killed after being exposed to avian flu (following the outbreak in 2004 that led to the U.S.ban). At about the same time last year, nearly 300,000 babies took ill in China after drinking melamine-tainted powdered milk. Oh yeah, and that same melamine was also found in chicken feed -- which led it to also being found in Chinese chickens. And that's not even mentioning how many people's pets died in 2007 after eating pet food with a tainted ingredient that came from China.

George T. Haley, a professor and author of "New Asian Emperors: The Business Strategies of the Overseas Chinese," said the Chinese central government is becoming more responsive to U.S. government requests to raise their safety standards, although food safety is monitored by local and regional authorities.

"The problem is well known and the FDA has substantially increased its testing of Chinese processed foods and chemicals," Haley said. "While the Central government in Beijing has limited capacity to do very much, it is cooperating with U.S....authorities."

Still, he and others are concerned that the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- which, under the new law that lifts the ban, would be charged with inspecting Chinese facilities and making the findings public -- is not up to the challenge.

"Due to significant budget cuts by previous administrations, (food safety inspectors) cannot do the job," Haley said.

Food safety expert Mark Jarvis, CEO of global food safety and consulting firm Steritech, said Americans should be concerned about food coming from China.

"China has a very difficult challenge in the lack of confidence people have with any consumable products from China," he said. "There have just been a lot of issues from China...that are grounds for real concern. Although the government is saying all the right things...I think they've got a long way to go."

And Jarvis said he's not so sure having inspections in China will really mean all that much, given the problems the government has had policing food safety in the U.S.

Former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration David Spooner said politically the U.S. had little choice but to lift the ban. China had filed a World Trade Organization complaint over the ban and he said they rightly accused the U.S. of singling them out -- something forbidden by WTO rules. He said the requirements placed on the Chinese -- allowing U.S. inspectors into their plants and then publishing their findings -- still might be placing too much of a burden on the Chinese to comply with WTO rules. And the Chinese might not agree to the terms, Spooner said.

But if the imports do start, he noted that consumers could end up with the chicken whether they want it or not.

"Poultry doesn't have to be labeled," he said. "I don't think consumers will know the poultry they are buying is from China."