Have you been in a truck stop or Interstate travel center lately? Anymore these places have TVs all over the place, and they are almost always tuned to FOX News. I worry deeply for this country.
Undereducated / Uneducated Americans
I have taken a more circuitous educational path than most folks. My career road has perhaps been even more tortured. Now factor in that I have lived in ten states and one foreign country. One of the advantages of such meanderings is that I have studied in several different fields, seen many types of jobs and industries, and I have been exposed to a wide range of people.
I do not see myself as atypical, but sometimes I wonder. I work in a technical field, computer programming. Most of the folks I work with are college educated, and many are very smart. What does surprise me is the narrowness of their knowledge and world view. The folks discussed below are smart and successful in their fields, but the following anecdotes do illustrate my point.
I have an Indian co-worker that related to me a story about his birthday which is on the same day as Mohandas Gandhi. Continue reading “Undereducated / Uneducated Americans”
Is this racist?
I don’t like this man. And at the same time I sometimes feel like we see racism where it ain’t.
Howard Cosell (not old enough to remember who this is?) lost his job over a “monkey” remark.
I can see this clip as racist, or given my opionion of Washington in general I can see it as a statement of the reality of the place.
What do you think?
Glenn Beck refuses to define ‘white culture’
This man can dissemble with the best of them. I could make some more comments, but watch the video. He pretty much makes an idiot of himself. It is so sad to think that FOX is the number 1 cable news outlet, and this jerk has the most popular show on that propaganda machine.
The New Pledge of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the registered trade mark
Of the United Corporations of America
And to the greed for which it stands
One conglomerate under Adam Smith
Outsourced, with excessive profit
And power for an chosen few
Wealth Distribution in USA
Just in case you cannot read the graph which is data on wealth distribution in the USA from 2003.
The top 1% have 25% of the wealth in the USA
The top 5% have 50.7%
The top 10% have 62.9%.
That leaves 90% of us fighting over 37.1% of the pie.
The only country with a worse mal-distribution of wealth is Mexico.
———–
“Wealth is a person’s net worth, expressed as:
wealth = assets – liabilities
The word “wealth” is often confused with “income”. These two terms describe different but related things.”
“A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth… Moreover, another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.”
Source for above – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
As Shakespeare so nicely put it, “There is something rotten in Denmark.”
Since you landed on this page this is an issue that probably concerns you. Question is now what are you going to do about it?
U.S. expands H-1B fraud case against IT services firm
Gee whiz, what a surprise!
“The indictment charges that the methods used by Vision Systems “have substantially deprived U.S. citizens of employment.”
Link to article below:
U.S. expands H-1B fraud case against IT services firm
I was working at a Fortune 500 financial company. My consulting firm stop sending over folks as they were paying Indian H1-B workers $20 – $25 an hour less than old consultants were receiving. Guess whose contract was cut short. Apparently they had an arrangement to bring over these young workers with a firm in Indian. No proof, but that was the general supposition.
Links on H-1B Issue
As I find them I am going to add links about the H-1B / outsourcing issue that is quickly eroding the life style of middle class worker in this country. All in the name of profit at any cost.
- Wikipedia article on H-1B visas
- Analysis: H-1B Pay Drags Down All Salaries
- Microsoft layoffs add more fuel to H-1B fire
- Government study finds H-1B visa fraud rate of 27%
- Site offering information on how H-1B hurts US Workers
- Interesting perspective on H-1B visas
- More IT Vendors Make Scam List
- This only partially tells the story as so many of corporations bring H-1B workers into their workplace thru 3rd party consulting firms; the company I was just at has beaucoups of H-1B workers, but does not show up on this list for that reason.
- VHP wants India to ban American products over H1B visa issue
- Four Indian Firms Hogged 10,000 H1B Visas
- I am not wild about the H-1B program, but if it was about individual Indians I could almost be a fan; however the program is about corporate greed here and in India.
- Programmers Guild Calls for a U.S. Job Preservation Fee of $60,000 per H-1B visa
- Microsoft refuses to favour US workers in any job cuts (article expired)
- H 1B visa racket busted in US, 11 Indians arrested
Why high-tech firms bring in foreigners
See link to blog below. But I can answer this question with one word, greed.
And contary to the report’s opinion, they do promote and put H1-B workers into advance position.
And what irratates me to no end, is that most of the recruiting companines for contract programmers seem to have fallen into the hands of folks from India. Add to that the fact they do not pay these workers the prevailing wages like the law dictates, and you have another screwing of the American worker.
Why high-tech firms bring in foreigners — Link removed
How the Middle Class lost the Globalization War
I’m not the only that thinks our leaders have let corporations sell us down the river for quick profits. I’m not for protectionism, but if we are going to have “fair trade”, let make it really fair and equitiable.
There is a vast concentration of wealth with a very small group in this country. They do not care what happens to the rest of us as long as they maintain and grow thier greedy portion of our communal wealth.
My argument was and remains that I do not care if you have more than one piece of pie as long as every has at least one. That is not happening. These folks have 90% of the pie and 95% of us are fighting over the remaining 10%.
How the Middle Class has become Globalizations designated losers (They no longer have the article up at the Philadelphia Examiner)