Josh, yes I would say that about defense and healthcare. Not so much that they are as commoditized as other areas – they’re not – but I don’t care about the origin of the people doing the work. In the case of defense, so long as they agree not to sell their research to other countries and plan to live here, I have no problem. The fact is that we have a disproportionate number of scientists from Eastern Europe already working in the defense field. Doesn’t bother me a bit.
You “assume its unfair because the costs of education/life/skills are higher here than in other places.” As an engineer I’m sure you see the flaw here. What’s important is not the ABSOLUTE level of wages and/or cost of education/living in two places but rather the difference between them. For example, I’m sure that Indian engineers would have no problem with you coming to India to work for a wage that might leave you with a hundred dollars per month of savings after their much lower cost of living. In contrast, they’re dying to come here because the wages here are extremely high even RELATIVE to our much higher cost of living.
SebNY, good point about the prevailing wage issue with H-1Bs. I had completely forgotten about that. Although I think this discussion goes beyond just H-1Bs and into the issue of outsourcing in general of which I am a proponent (and where generally lower foreign wages obviously prevail).
bgates, I’m assuming that most people who obtain H-1Bs probably would like to become citizens, with which I have no problem. When I distinguised between “consumer” and “citizen” I was just trying to distinguish between the benefits that I might derive as a consumer (which are economic) and the benefits I might derive from living amongst a more diverse population (which are social/cultural). I was just trying to make the point that having highly educated foreigners here isn’t just an economic issue but a social/cultural one as well. You may disagree.
I like the U.S. and I enjoy living here. But I have no great emotional attachment to this country. I live here largely because my job demands it. Otherwise I could be just as happy living in a lot of other places. That’s probably the root of my H-1B/outsourcing opinions, rightly or wrongly. At the end of the day I think people should be forced to compete, geographical boundaries be damned.
