Obama To Spring's American College Grads -- WE DON'T NEED YOU

[bobbyw24]

By Roy Beck, Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 4:16 PM EDT


While America's kids prepare for their college graduation events, Pres. Obama laid out an immigration blueprint in El Paso for making it much more difficult for them to find jobs. When it comes to unemployed Americans, Pres. Obama always gives higher priority to foreign workers.

Can you imagine forcing the college grads to compete for jobs with 400,000 additional college grads from around the world?

Our President can.

Along with his speech, he issued his "Building a 21st Century Immigration System" report that primarily calls for increasing U.S. work permits for foreign workers of all kinds by massive amounts.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-04/37992962.jpg
The President's immigration report reads as if it were written during a time of full employment, instead of during the fourth year of an unemployment crisis.

The insensitivity toward new college grads -- and their parents -- is especially telling.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/may-10-2011/pres-obama-springs-american-college-grads-we-dont-need-you.html

[Brian4Liberty]

Cheap labor and Democrat voters. The Left-establishment wet dream. Brought to you by Bernanke, Greenspan, Obama, Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates and Nancy Pelosi...

[libertarian4321]

By Roy Beck, Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 4:16 PM EDT


The insensitivity toward new college grads -- and their parents -- is especially telling.



As an engineer, and someone who has competed with, and worked with, foreign born scientists and engineers my entire career, I don't have a problem with this.

It looks to me like his is saying that we should retain more of the foreign born students who come here every year to be educated because we still have the best universities in the world (he doesn't seem to be referring to those brought here only for short term work). I agree.

We do not weaken our nation by retaining THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST from around the world. Most of those Chinese/Indian/whatever students who come to our colleges are among the best and brightest from their nation- the kids they send here are usually better than those who are educated in their native country's schools (again, because we have the best tech schools in the world).

When we attract, and retain, these very bright scientists, engineers, doctors, etc, we STRENGTHEN THE USA and weaken the nation they come from (a brain drain).

Yes, some American grads may not be able to find jobs in their field of study if we keep too many of them, but frankly these American grads will be from the bottom rung, those who just scraped by at low quality schools.

In the long run, we are better off having a top of the line Chinese born engineer working for Ford than forcing Ford to hire some half-assed American born engineer named Bubba who scraped through Lower NW Louisiana State Ag & Tech- Shreveport with a 2.3 GPA. Many of those foreign born engineers will stay here, raise families (and usually their kids are pretty damned smart, too), and contribute greatly to our nation.

We can feel sorry for Bubba, but he should have drunk a little less beer and worked a little harder in school. Bubba will still do alright, he may just need to take a technician level job (which is probably more in line with his qualifications anyway).

I say we not only accept, but actively encourage, every quality foreign engineer, doctor, scientist, etc to come to the USA and stay here.

[osan]

I say we not only accept, but actively encourage, every quality foreign engineer, doctor, scientist, etc to come to the USA and stay here.

As long as the best and most qualified that we already have here are first taken care of, sure. That is not happening. The foreign workers are brought in because they will undercut natives in terms of salary.

[Brian4Liberty]

As an engineer, and someone who has competed with, and worked with, foreign born scientists and engineers my entire career, I don't have a problem with this.

I have also worked with and hired foreign born engineers.


We do not weaken our nation by retaining THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST from around the world.

And it is my experienced opinion that this "BEST and BRIGHTEST" phrase is nothing more than a sales and marketing pitch put out by Bill Gates and the US Chamber of Commerce. People are people, and the people that have been imported are no better or worse than American born college grads.

It is all about advertising and propaganda. One day a group is called the smartest, the next day they are the dumbest. One day the hardest working, the next day the laziest. One day the highest quality, the next day completely incompetent. People are people.

[nobody's_hero]

I'm leaning towards this being a carefully calculated move to increase dependency on government rather than a genuine understanding and appreciation for competitive labor.

As mentioned above, you have to look at who is pulling the strings:


Cheap labor and Democrat voters. The Left-establishment wet dream. Brought to you by Bernanke, Greenspan, Obama, Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates and Nancy Pelosi...

[libertarian4321]

People are people, and the people that have been imported are no better or worse than American born college grads.



I'm talking about the ones who come here for school then decide to stay. I'm not talking about the one-year rental types (who may or may not be top of the line). Almost all of those educated here are among the best and brightest their nation has to offer. If you want proof, go to a graduation ceremony at any top engineering school- MIT, RPI, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc- you will see a lot of those graduating with highest honors are foreign. It ain't that the foreigners are smarter or even that they work harder than Americans (though they usually do)- it's just that they are among the elite of the elite.

For a Chinese student to come to the USA, he usually has to pass an elaborate set of tests, and score in the top fraction of a percent of the population (there are exceptions, of course, but that is usually the case). So that Chinese kid at RPI or MIT is probably in the top 0.1% of the population- meaning he's damned smart, and on top of that, there is tremendous pressure on those kids to succeed- meaning they work like Hell and usually become damned good engineers/scientists. When I was going to school, I always thought the reason those foreign kids were beating the crap out of most of us Americans academically was just that they worked harder, but that was only part of it.

American kids going to MIT or RPI or other top schools are going to be way above average academically (almost certainly in the top 2-3% of American HS students), but most of them won't be in the top 0.1%. And that American kid with the 2.2 GPA from Lower NW Louisiana State Ag and Tech probably isn't even in the top 10%.

That is why I say those Chinese/Indian/Japanese/etc students who come here are good- because most of them were selected as such long before they came here. That kid from LA Ag & Tech couldn't compete with these foreign kids even if he busted his ass studying 24/7.

Even as one of those American engineers "threatened" by the influx of foreign engineers/scientists, I still say we only help the nation, not hurt it, by draining the intellectual elite from other nations and bringing them here.

FYI, I'm not Bill Gates, I'm not with the chamber of commerce, I don't own a business. I'm just an American engineer who isn't afraid of a little competition if it, in the long run, makes our nation stronger.

[libertarian4321]

Cheap labor and Democrat voters. The Left-establishment wet dream. Brought to you by Bernanke, Greenspan, Obama, Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates and Nancy Pelosi...

BTW, Asian-Americans (and that's where most of these immigrant engineers/scientist types come from) are hardly reliable Dem votes.- they tend to be about evenly split.

[RoyalShock]

When I was in college, circa 1990, majoring in computer science I had numerous foreign classmates, at least to start the semester. After the first exam, 50-75% of them dropped the class. I noticed this almost every semester, both at community college and the four-year state university. Whereas you might lose 10-25% of the "local" students after the first exam.

It looked to me like these weren't necessarily the "best and brightest", but the ones who were able to parlay their parent's wealth into an extended U.S. vacation.

[RoyalShock]

I should clarify, this seemed to be more from the middle-eastern types than the Asian types.

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm talking about the ones who come here for school then decide to stay. I'm not talking about the one-year rental types (who may or may not be top of the line). Almost all of those educated here are among the best and brightest their nation has to offer. If you want proof, go to a graduation ceremony at any top engineering school- MIT, RPI, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc- you will see a lot of those graduating with highest honors are foreign. It ain't that the foreigners are smarter or even that they work harder than Americans (though they usually do)- it's just that they are among the elite of the elite.

And ironically, just this week I was shown the grades of a foreign-born, American educated college grad who just started a new job at a major company in Silicon Valley. Pretty much a 2.0 student. That's 2.0 in the US, with multiple jobs offers straight out of school. One might guess that the job offers had more to do with this student's heritage than with his grades. He qualifies as a US college grad, but how many US college grads with GPAs higher than that did not get job offers?

It is collectivist to pick the absolute best or absolute worst of a given group and then apply that to the entire group. I have seen bad in real life, you point to top university grads. Once again, people are people, with alot of variety. This "BEST and BRIGHTEST" propaganda, and the associated corporatist government policy is not justified by a few exceptional people.

[Brian4Liberty]

When I was in college, circa 1990, majoring in computer science I had numerous foreign classmates, at least to start the semester. After the first exam, 50-75% of them dropped the class. I noticed this almost every semester, both at community college and the four-year state university. Whereas you might lose 10-25% of the "local" students after the first exam.

It looked to me like these weren't necessarily the "best and brightest", but the ones who were able to parlay their parent's wealth into an extended U.S. vacation.

In good University programs, there are multiple "weeder" classes that eliminate at least 50% of the students each time, so that only the top 15-20% even graduate. In bad programs, anyone can get the degree.

[dannno]

As an engineer, and someone who has competed with, and worked with, foreign born scientists and engineers my entire career, I don't have a problem with this.

It looks to me like his is saying that we should retain more of the foreign born students who come here every year to be educated because we still have the best universities in the world (he doesn't seem to be referring to those brought here only for short term work). I agree.

We do not weaken our nation by retaining THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST from around the world. Most of those Chinese/Indian/whatever students who come to our colleges are among the best and brightest from their nation- the kids they send here are usually better than those who are educated in their native country's schools (again, because we have the best tech schools in the world).

When we attract, and retain, these very bright scientists, engineers, doctors, etc, we STRENGTHEN THE USA and weaken the nation they come from (a brain drain).

Yes, some American grads may not be able to find jobs in their field of study if we keep too many of them, but frankly these American grads will be from the bottom rung, those who just scraped by at low quality schools.

In the long run, we are better off having a top of the line Chinese born engineer working for Ford than forcing Ford to hire some half-assed American born engineer named Bubba who scraped through Lower NW Louisiana State Ag & Tech- Shreveport with a 2.3 GPA. Many of those foreign born engineers will stay here, raise families (and usually their kids are pretty damned smart, too), and contribute greatly to our nation.

We can feel sorry for Bubba, but he should have drunk a little less beer and worked a little harder in school. Bubba will still do alright, he may just need to take a technician level job (which is probably more in line with his qualifications anyway).

I say we not only accept, but actively encourage, every quality foreign engineer, doctor, scientist, etc to come to the USA and stay here.

This is correct. This is why Ron Paul used to be a principled free market, open borders advocate. I'm pretty sure deep down inside he still is, but in the context of our current system and with our Constitution it makes sense to protect our borders until we take away the ability for non-citizens to receive government services.

[libertarian4321]

And ironically, just this week I was shown the grades of a foreign-born, American educated college grad who just started a new job at a major company in Silicon Valley. Pretty much a 2.0 student. That's 2.0 in the US, with multiple jobs offers straight out of school. One might guess that the job offers had more to do with this student's heritage than with his grades. He qualifies as a US college grad, but how many US college grads with GPAs higher than that did not get job offers?

It is collectivist to pick the absolute best or absolute worst of a given group and then apply that to the entire group. I have seen bad in real life, you point to top university grads. Once again, people are people, with alot of variety. This "BEST and BRIGHTEST" propaganda, and the associated corporatist government policy is not justified by a few exceptional people.

It's not propaganda, it's the truth. Again, I'm not a corporation, I'm not Bill Gates, I'm not pro government, or any other conspiracy minded person. I'm just an engineer who went to top engineering schools, and who has worked a long time in engineering giving my opinion. It is my experience that those foreign engineers who are educated in the USA tend to do very well both academically and in the work place- largely because they are PRE SELECTED to excel (they generally don't get to come to American Universities unless they are the best of the best students in their native country).

Yes, you may find one who occasionally does not do well. As you said, some are there just because their Chinese/Indian/whatever parents have money. However, for MOST, they are there based on academic merit, and the vast majority excel even at top universities. Just look at the makeup of the student body at schools like MIT, RPI, Stanford, Cal Tech or any other top science or engineering school- you'll find an extremely high percentage of foreign students, most of them Asian, and most of them well ahead of their peers academically.

Even look at large state universities- whether it be the University of Washington (where you'd expect large numbers of foreign students) or Texas A&M (where you might not)- look at the schools of engineering and science, especially at the advanced level (master's and PhD)- you'll find tons of those foreign students, and most of them are doing extremely well.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of good engineers from the USA- there are, and they do just fine. But the USA also pumps out a lot of crappy/marginal engineers who frankly aren't up to the task- if GE replaces some marginal clown with a 2.2 GPA and a BS degree from SW Mississippi Tech with a Chinese guy with a PhD from MIT, I don't see it as a bad thing.

In 26 years of engineering, I've met plenty of American engineers who's degrees weren't worth the paper they were printed on- many of them were no more than technicians. While there are many low quality engineers in China and India as well, they generally don't end up here (unless on a short-term contract basis). The ones who graduate from American Universities are generally very good and we do ourselves no favors by kicking them out of the country just to give a job to a poor quality American engineer. It hurts the company they work for, and in the long run, it hurts the USA.

Of the many foreign engineers and scientists I've worked with, I can think of only two who weren't good- one was an Indian female who was was competent, but not great (she was one of those exceptions who went to a US university because her family had money, not because she excelled academically), the other was a really old Turkish guy who was just going through the motions prior to retirement.

Here's an idea. Let the company decide who to hire.

Despite the demagoguery you see on these boards from time to time, COMPANIES DO NOT WANT TO HIRE BAD ENGINEERS (American or foreign). Nor are American university educated Chinese engineers "willing to work for half of what American engineers do." The foreign engineers I know make salaries commensurate with their skills. No MIT educated Chinese engineer is going to work for $40k when his co-workers are making double that (and any company that does manage to hoodwink a foreign engineer into a low salary right out of school will lose him in a hurry- these guys aren't stupid, they'll figure it out pretty quickly).

[Brian4Liberty]

It's not propaganda, it's the truth.

We'll agree to disagree on that.

You have seen mostly good imported engineers, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I say people are people, and you can't judge an entire group based on certain individuals. You keep coming back to your individuals who are good, and applying that to all imported engineers. I know for a fact that H1-B and L-1 Visas have been used extensively for so-so workers, and it is not true that they are all the best and brightest. I say it is a propaganda slogan, used mostly by politicians and corporatists to justify expanding immigration, especially when they can point out a genius at MIT who can't get a Visa because some body-shops used up the 250,000 quota with average, yet marginally cheaper workers. Some companies responsibly apply for visas, and maybe you work there. Other companies apply for as many as they can, with no criteria other than getting as many as possible.

Advocating for a free, open world with no borders is a separate issue from how Visas are currently distributed.

[madengr]

Even look at large state universities- whether it be the University of Washington (where you'd expect large numbers of foreign students) or Texas A&M (where you might not)- look at the schools of engineering and science, especially at the advanced level (master's and PhD)- you'll find tons of those foreign students, and most of them are doing extremely well.

Ha ha, I went to grad school at University of Kansas in mid 90's, where 26 of 28 students in my digital signal processing class were Asian or East Indian. Lab partner and I got into an argument with the Chinese TA over a speech recognition algorithm we developed since it wouldn't recognize his pronunciation of "cat", yet it was fine with western voices. Yes, I agree though, engineering will go down the toilet without the foreign nationals.

[Blueskies]

If you want to restrict the immigration of skilled workers to "take care of" American skilled workers you don't understand economics. At all. End of discussion.

[Brian4Liberty]

If you want to restrict the immigration of skilled workers to "take care of" American skilled workers you don't understand economics. At all. End of discussion.

Maybe you can come down from Mt. Olympus and enlighten all of us mere mortals, as you are all knowing and wise. :rolleyes: