i wonder though if theres a viable policy that would keep out the 'bad' immigrants who are more likely to be welfare/free emergency medical care..little income tax payers...from the 'good' skilled workers.

I'm playing devils advocate though-i basically agree with Cato

Bill Gates whines that we don't have enough kids studying to be engineers or computer science types. Yet my classmates got to see those jobs off-shored and now they want to import more folks from other countries.

I, on the other hand, had the brains to go into a profession in which I make transactions more complex, don't add all that much value and get to throw competitors outside the guild in prison. I love the law.

So tell, me, Ilya, what's your position on the Bar? I've always been amused by "libertarians" or the "libertarianish" who rail against restrictions in other protections but defend attorneys' position as Teamsters with suits.

i wonder though if theres a viable policy that would keep out the 'bad' immigrants who are more likely to be welfare/free emergency medical care..little income tax payers...from the 'good' skilled workers.

Did you read the article? The H1-B program is actually specifically designed (at least the functional bits) to screen for highly skilled workers in industries that have difficulty filling open positions.

I think an important point is that the greatest failure of the program is not its failure to allow more skilled workers into the states but its failure to allow workers to STAY in the states. In my firm alone we've had a dozen of our best senior associates have to return to their home countries because of the administrative delay in the H1-B program. It essentially amount to the forced exportation of skilled labor.

Even worse is that fact that these firms have spent three years training and investing in these employees who are then forced to return home an apply their newfound expertise at foreign firms. Not only do we lose the skill here but we enrich our foreign competitors.

one reason the gov may be limiting the H1-B's is precisely because some claim that the process is ineffective at screening out the 'bad' immigrants.

From the article: "H-1Bs allow employers to hire foreign workers in certain professional occupations."

The program is only for skilled professionals. The problem is that an unfortunate number of Americans, and lawyers for that matter, don't understand that there are rules in the current immigration system that provide more visas for skilled workers while trying to keep out the "bad" immigrants that you refer to. Again quoting the article:

"Unless Congress and the White House do something to fundamentally reshape immigration rules with respect to skilled workers — setting aside for the moment the gardeners and construction workers who get all the news coverage — things will only get worse."

or maybe some Americans don't trust the ability of the program to screen-even if the program says it screens

I don't get any screening argument here. As I understand it, the holder of an H1b has a guaranteed job waiting and is in deep trouble if they lose that job. Reference the indentured servitude comments above.

continued-

it seems more likely that people get other people to tell ICE that they are holding a special job open for them..so that they can get the h1b-so that they can then get into the us-and then hopefully stay illegally

the vast majority of illegals in the US didn't cross the boarder illegally-they overstayed their visa

Thank you for noting the article, but like so many articles about H1-Bs, the article completely misses the simple (and well known) problems with H1-Bs that causes most of the competition and shortages with H1B visas.

Many of the companies that go after thousands of H1-Bs are not US companies, and the biggest of those are Indian outsourcing firms. Somewhere over 70% of all H1-B visas go to Indian outsourcing shops, who usually bring workers to the US to be trained in jobs currently held by US employees, to eventually replace those US employees with outsource jobs in India when the now-trained people go back. The outsourcing companies often even create phantom jobs to apply for the visas, and then go shopping for real contract jobs at companies looking to outsource/offshore before actually bringing workers over. All of this is illegal, but almost never enforced (and if the US companies are a little clever, hard to enforce).

Raising the limits without fixing the problems (or simply enforcing the existing H1-B law) will simply increase those abuses while probably continuing to give "legitimate" H1-B applicants a small portion of the new H1-B applications.

The H1-B program is so broken in meeting its public goals, before increasing limits it either needs fixing or replacing. If it isn’t fixed or replaced, it should be simply shut down as a bad law – simply raising the cap on regular immigrants if they have engineering/science/medical degrees would be far better than the current train wreck (and I agree with Mohamed above, any fix should include an easier way to convert an H1-B into a greencard).

NicholasV

So it's like Catch-22? Anyone who applies for an H1-B, who obviously knows that it's going to take a long time, therefore can't possibly be a valid applicant for an H1-B because it makes no sense to keep a special position open for so long?

Sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to me.

hence the fundemental problem with the program

David - just to respond to your question "Why didn't your firm hire citizens or permanent residents in the first place?"

The reason for the hiring of H1-B based applicants is two-fold:

1) They were often more qualified/higher quality candidates for the position. There is in fact a shortage of highly qualified candidates in the United States. In other, the general quality of our workforce is higher than most but if you want to staff your firm with the cream-of-the-crop then you can't just pull from the US labor market.

2) International experience is also a major issue. At a minimum foreign candidates bring with them language skills which make marketing/collaborating with other international firms easier. Many also bring with them a network of contact from new/emerging markets. Of course, this is less of an issue with technical firms and more useful to service firms.

NicholasV - actually the whole reason there is H1-B's is because these positions remain unfilled, so it is not uncommon for a company to hold a position open for a significant period of time until it finds a suitable candidate, especially in highly technical fields. Remember, if the job is not there then the H1-B visa CANNOT be issued.

dew - spot on, I agree this is a huge problem but there is at least some political attention being focused upon it already. More info here.

For employers to hire people under this program there's supposed to be an attempt made to first find qualified local people.

Here's a great youtube video of a Pittsburgh immigration law firm that teaches companies how to meet the legal requirements of the program while ensuring they do not find 'qualified' local applicants, thus allowing them to bring in people from overseas at a much cheaper rate.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

I'm not an economist, so please forgive me if this question is an ignorant one, but what is the difference in economic terms (i.e. setting aside possible national security issues, etc.) between restricting US employers in the hiring of foreign workers and, say, farm subsidies, steel tariffs, etc.? David Chesler makes the point above that US firms are hiring Indian employees primarily because they will do the same work for a lower wage. Indeed. Why would any employer want to pay someone more than they have to for a given skill set? That they often do not do so shows that the extra costs are far from trivial.

David Chesler makes the point above that US firms are hiring Indian employees primarily because they will do the same work for a lower wage.

I generally support more immigration for people with professional backgrounds, even though many directly compete with me for jobs (more than half of my immediate group is foreign born, and I expect most of those folks began as H1Bs).

But to be fair, your comment is the whole point of many H1B visas, even when everything works properly as expected under the law. My company uses some H1Bs, but if we had used headhunters and at the same time beefed the salary ranges for those jobs well above the industry norms, I expect we would have been able to fill the jobs with experienced local talent fairly quickly.

I agree that a straight immigration path would be vastly preferrable by the majority of current H1B holders to the abomination that the H1B program has become. Back in 1995 when I got my H1B it was a relative novelty, presumably introduced to speed up the paperwork when green card cycle stretched into years from the original 6 months or less. The assumption was that the second LCA is filed at the time the new employee is hired and the 3 (or, worst case, up to 6) years on H1B serve simply as a buffer. Well, look where it got everybody now.

As to the laughable myth about engineers coming out of woodwork if the greedy capitalist knocks another $10K/yr on top of salaries across the board... well, I can laugh too. When skills of a business administrator, salesman or, yes, a lawyer are, on average, rewarded higher than those of an engineer -- and time and effort investment to become a great engineer is higher than that required for the professions I mentioned before (possibly excepting lawyers) -- bright people would not pick technical careers. Immigrants, even those that may have gone to college here, have cultural, social and linguistical bareers that make those more lucrative professions relatively harder to enter. I honestly don't see where the complaints come from: it appears to be the best possible deal for everybody, except the other countries that lose their best and brightest. And those have only themselves to blaim.

"There is in fact a shortage of highly qualified candidates in the United States."

That is simply baloney.

Not true. There is a shortage -- just look at the candidates showing up for the interviews where the salary range is not set ahead of time :( I do agree that the bulk of H1Bs is no better, but they aren't "preempting" anyone. As long as the corporate management bozos will insist on having huge IT departments staffed (or is it stuffed?) with warm bodies -- instead of productive engineering teams -- they will get those bodies, and won't pay them too much either. What, you want to push more Americans bright enough to be making real money elsewhere into THAT environment?

As to removing the clock, I'm with you. Why not simply give a green card to anyone who pays enough taxes year after year and let him take the oath of citizenship after five?

No, there is no shortage of computer programmers or any other workers where H-1Bs are filling jobs. Most of the H-1Bs are for Indian outsourcing, and they are hired simply because they are cheaper than Americans. Most of the jobs could be filled by recent graduates with no special skills.

dew --
"...if we had used headhunters and at the same time beefed the salary ranges for those jobs well above the industry norms..."

Unnecessary. Simply remove the hidden clock time the H1's put in.

I must confess, I don't understand at all what you mean here. What "hidden clock time?"

Uh... you don't know what you're talking about. The [small] company I work for has flexible working day, on-call is unknown

I am glad you have flexible hours and no on-call, but that is not typical of the industry. If you can't find qualified candidates then you are not trying. Thanks for the soda straw view.

an H-1B cannot lead to a green card

Not true. A H-1B is allowed to simultaneously apply for a green card, and many of them do.

damaging both pocketbooks and heartstrings from Silicon Valley to the Bay of Bengal.

Every H-1B in Silicon Valley puts an American engineer out of work. Google complains that it cannot hire enough H-1Bs, but the typical H-1B only makes $50k per year. There is no shortage of Americans who want to work for Google.

There are a shortage of Eithiopian chefs. See, I really like the food, but I can't get it easily, and I'm not willing to you know, hire a chef at market value, so "there's a shortage."

As for the CS/CE guys who are unhappy, just be glad I'm not president. The way I see it, the government is subsidizing you by not letting in the thousands of (non-terrorist disease free) Indians who want to work here and can't get H1Bs.

Buy libertarian brand soap. Their boxes are the best stands.

Why would forcing American companies to hire only American workers (and paying them more) help Americans? The cost would be passed onto the consumers right? Is this something like the price of drugs, where Americans pay higher prices domestically but can sneak the same less expensive drugs in from Canada or overseas, except replace "drugs" with "workers"? Faced with similar products, why pay more?

Why would forcing American companies to hire only American workers (and paying them more) help Americans? The cost would be passed onto the consumers right?

Sure, just like if farmers stopped hiring illegals to pick their crops, the price of broccoli would go up ten cents a pound. In fact, the short term need for cheap intellectual labor suggests that the US should develop an analog to the old Bracero program. Call it the "Cerebro" program.

Is this something like the price of drugs, where Americans pay higher prices domestically but can sneak the same less expensive drugs in from Canada or overseas, except replace "drugs" with "workers"?

Drug companies use the American market to recover most of their development costs. Whatever profit foreign countries supply is gravy. Similarly American engineering textbook publishers recover most of their publishing costs from American students, while authorizing identical editions in such "underdeveloped" countries like Singapore or Argentina for 15% of the US price. (The third-world editions are in trade paperback format; they don't have the cheesy hardback bindings of the US editions.)

One of the reasons people in developing countries make less money is that the infrastructure there is less developed. There are problems with roads, electricity supply, and so on that limit what people there can produce and market, even though they may be as smart and qualified as people in developed countries.

If one worker from a developing country moves to a developed country, he or she is no longer limited by the poor infrastructure at home. He or she can produce as much as anyone else in the new location, so there is no reason that he or she should be paid less.

Except for bargaining power and lack of equivalent options, which mean that he or she will probably be induced to accept less.

This isn't a catastrophe for the people in the developed country as a whole -- yet -- but it becomes a problem when there is a lot of it happening in one industry or area. Wages go down for everyone, so people who might have been stable, home-owing taxpayers in a previous era are unstable temp workers in the new one. If a whole industry goes that way, no one will spend four (or more) years and loads of tuition money to get the skills that the industry demands. Human capital erodes. (Cf. England.) If a whole city or region goes that way, the tax base gets wonky and the infrastructure erodes. Either way, the US loses something it had.

I'd rather see the jobs go overseas to the cheaper workers than see them done here with immigrant labor at below the going rate. Companies operating in India are trying to improve the infrastructure there so that they can become more productive. This will increase what Indians can earn in India, and over time will close the wage gap by moving Indian wages and conditions up rather than by moving US wages and conditions down. I don't know which other countries have similar projects underway, but it seems like an obvious move for any country that wants to undertake economic growth in a serious way. It's not like the size of the economic pie is fixed, after all. It can be made larger as well as smaller, and India has amazing consumer potential.*

That strikes me as the right solution for the overwhelming majority of people in other countries, most of whom will never leave home. Driving US wages down strikes me as the wrong one, in that it harms current US workers and only benefits a small group of others.


* Maybe we should be sending more Americans over there to learn the languages and figure out how to do business in that environment. No need for a one-way street here.

“ … even though they may be as smart and qualified as people in developed countries.”

That’s true for India and China, or at least the urban regions of those countries. But on the whole, the inhabitants of third world countries have lower average IQs than the developed world. Perhaps that’s why they’re less developed. Of course you can recruit from the smartest and most qualified anywhere, and we’ve always done that. We were bringing in the “best and the brightest” 50 years ago. We’ve always had a special visa for this. On the other hand, the H1-B program has nothing to do with bringing in “best and the brightest.” All you need is any old BS degree to qualify.

Uh... you don't know what you're talking about. The [small] company I work for has flexible working day, on-call is unknown and their job postings do not specify target salary range -- compensation is discussed only after the interview.

The most obvious question here is "Did you overspecify the job requirements?"

The industry is notorious for this, sometimes even demanding people have experience in something for longer than it existed. Do the requirements say anything like "needs 5 years of experience on (specific brand of database) on (specific brand of machine) under (specific operating system)"?

Also, where are you located? I can imagine some places have shortages without there being a shortage in general in the US.

The industry is notorious for this, sometimes even demanding people have experience in something for longer than it existed

True. But when you have people showing up for an interview who obviously don't have a clue about things highlighted in their resume, job requirements are hard to blame.

And I am in the Dallas area. Not exactly a boomtown for the last 7 years, but not an IT ghosttown anymore either. And in fact I've heard sentiments echoing mine throughout the last recession: it's not that you don't get enough applicants to bury you under, it's WHO you get.

I'll venture a guess that there is a worldwide shortage of good software engineers (and I don't mean ONLY software engineers, just speaking about the niche I am familiar with). United States has a lot to attract them -- why throw away the advantage?

And no, you cannot separate wheat from the chaff with stricter LCA requirements. Sorry, lawyers who write them are even less qualified to judge engineering abilities than a median hiring manager is.

Hmmmmm

H1B visas have gone a long way to destroying the software industry here in the USA.

Example:
new college graduate with zero experience starting salary: $65k

experienced software developer with 10 years experience: $85k

Essentially income for software developers has completely stagnated. Which is why so many students, quite rationally, haven't bothered to go into the field.

new college graduate with zero experience starting salary: $65k

Where? I have heard of exactly one example like this here in Texas -- back in 1998 or 1999, when anyone with the body above room temperature was considered a programmer. Not since then. The college in question was UT at Austin -- not exactly a diploma mill.

experienced software developer with 10 years experience: $85k

A quick Dice search in my area reveals quite a few positions above $100K. I doubt 10+ years would be a requirement for most of them. Note that Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the least expensive large metro areas in the country.

what advantage is there for being an American citizen in America?

What did American citizens do to deserve an advantage? Or, conversely, what did foreigners do to deserve a disadvantage?


I guess I don't understand how/if the the following is supposed to generate sympathy:


...can't find a job (but not willing to relocate)...

...only a 30% (85k/65k - 1) increase in real wages after 10 years (that means average raises of inflation + 2.7%)...

Hey pa Joad, your farmland is drying up, move to California.

And a 2.7% annual increase in real wages is pretty good, relatively speaking, isn't it? I thought real wages (before benefits) were stagnating on average. Although I realize that this is the median real wage and doesn't account for changes in the workforce population (e.g., experienced baby boomers retiring).

“What did American citizens do to deserve an advantage? Or, conversely, what did foreigners do to deserve a disadvantage?”

The planted axiom in this question assumes nation states are not sovereign entities with citizens that have benefits and obligations that accrue that citizenship. If citizenship means nothing, then you no longer have a nation, you have a trading zone. If that’s the case then don’t ask me to put life and limb and risk because I protect nothing.

Dang. Ilya Shapiro, not Ilya Somen. Sorry.

Previously there was at least the principle that an American would be preferred for an American job, but that no longer applies. So really what advantage is there for being an American in America?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Indeed, there is great disadvantage. If you come here from Mexico and defraud the government of tax money for a decade you get citizenship as a reward. If a citizen does the same thing, they get ten years in a federal prison.

Emigrate. That's what I'm doing. Other governments aren't as stupid as the US's. Don't worry, while the effective taxation rate in other countries a bit higher, you also actually get services back. Vote with you feet! I'm taking my math doctorate somewhere else.

You've got a deal. I get my free trade uptopia and I won't draft you into the army.

This is why libertarians are stupid. Your dreamy anarchist-state is logically impossible. Without the state, you don't have your market; without the military you don't have your state. Duh.

But tell me this. Why would libertarians support the US government creating a private market for IT labor? Because they confuse capitalism with corporatism. Another reason libertarians are stupid.

Crypto-anarchism need not be taken seriously, except as a small political threat to sane candidates.

There is no American technology worker shortage: I am a software QA worker with an advanced degree, certification, many years of experience and excellent references. 80% (my observation) of the jobs in my field have either been outsourced or are being filled by low-level immigrants here on H-1B/L1 visas. This week, I had a phone interview with a manager whose company is on a current list of employers who claim to not be able to fill the jobs. I had every skill they were looking for and the manager I interviewed with said as much. This is what he wanted: Software testing management experience, advanced project management experience, ability to write code, process improvement experience. At the end of the interview, I was told that he had a week's worth of phone interviews to do and then they would call in his best candidate and if they liked that candidate, they would offer him the job and that ideally, he hoped to find someone who had MORE coding experience that I. i.e., Even though this is a full menu of expectations for any worker, he had multiple candidates that fit the bill. Oh, and the job paid less than I was making five years ago and I have been out of work for so long, I was thrilled to actually get this far in the interview process. Does this sound like a worker shortage to you?

“You've got a deal. I get my free trade uptopia and I won't draft you into the army.”

What do you do when you can’t get enough volunteers to fight a war? Don’t you realize that we are living off our cultural capital? The reason we can get by with a volunteer army is the residual loyalty many people still feel for their country. Once you erode the nation state with its social cohesiveness, why would anyone volunteer for anything? Why should anyone even pay taxes to their government if it constantly works against them?

worth discouraging a generation of America's best, brightest and most apt from entering engineering at all

Again, I will argue that they are "discouraged" by the combination of a lower barrier to entry and higher earning potential available in other walks of life compared to tech. And it may well be unfixable -- short of restructuring the society radically. Now, what if skilled immigration was not available (e.g. because other developed countries became sufficiently like US to make emigration from there less worthwhile)? I have no idea... but for the moment, growing demand in engineers has been enlarging the niches for tech salesmen, managers and entrepreneurs just as fast.

You americans have no guts. You own government is humiliating you, flushing down the toilet taking all that you have earned by hard work. How many of you called you congressmen and inform them that you are against this H1B scam?
Why I, an immigrant have to stand up for you guys and send money to such organization like www.fairus.org and other.
Please wake up, call you sucking senators and tell them to stop that corruption.

Hmmmm.

@ Max

Again, I will argue that they are "discouraged" by the combination of a lower barrier to entry and higher earning potential available in other walks of life compared to tech.

Only problem though is that you cannot sell something unless you can build it. And if you have to rely on someone else to build it, then why do they need *you* to sell it?

The other question is this: In the 1990's our economy was going to be tech-based. This is an evolution from being manufacturing-based. So what precisely is our economy based on now? What do we sell to other countries?

Hmmmm

@ Max

True. Which means that cutting off skilled immigration will contract the economy. Simple, no?

Haven't you been reading *any* of the responses? There is no tech shortage whatsoever. Instead employers have been using H1B's as a means of depressing tech wages. Nothing else.

Seriously. What are you thinking?

Honestly, I don't see where all gloom and doom comes from.

Because the tech industry, like all high-tech industries, requires *experience*. Most of the junior positions are now in India. Which means that the following generations of programmers will be Indian. Period. Continue this and in 30 years there won't be an American tech industry.

And what use is it to cripple or destroy the American tech worker in order to import a foreign one? WTF kind of thinking is that?

Yes, tech is not nearly as hot as it was in pre-Y2K boom. Probably never will be again. It sucks -- for those of us (me included) who didn't IPO their startups at just the right time.

I'm not talking about "hot". I'm talking about American tech workers looking at the long term viability of tech in this country and figuring out that it's not worth it.

What advantage is it for this country to kill off it's domestic American tech industry in order to import a foreign one? How is that a good thing?

But if you increase the pressure on tech compared to the present situation, it won't get any bigger. Yeah, deporting all H1Bs in a bunch TODAY is going to free up positions and SOME OF THEM will get filled by marginal out-of-work engineers.

Who is talking about "marginal out-of-work engineers"?

Many of the people out of work are experienced.

But the tech will inevitably contract here, in this country, in response to such a change.

That is BS.

Right now, if you're an American-born peer of a recently immigrated engineer, you have a big career advantage over him: language, social networks and culture.

Here's a clue: In many areas of the country an English-only speaking American cannot get into construction because all of the local construction teams speak only Spanish. I.e. this supposed "advantage" only exists because of American dominance in the tech field.

Another example: In the field of forest firefighting there are any teams that only speak Spanish. Experienced veteran firefighting team leaders without Spanish skills were fired last year.

If however India becomes the dominant country then English will not necessarily be the dominant language used by tech workers and American culture will not necessarily be the dominant culture.

If the majority of veteran tech workers speak Hindu, then why program in English?

Well?

And if all new computer tech is done in Hindu, then where is this supposed advantage?

You'll be more mobile and shift into management easier (not universally true I know, but most companies are not predominantly staffed by immigrants from the same country, so American background tends to win).

Yeah 'cause middle management types are so hard to replace.

Here's a question for you:

If all the developers are Indian then why should they hire a American to manage them?

You know they outsource that stuff to. Don't you?

H1B is a path to immigration -- don't parse the legalese, look at the reality. So is F1 (student visa)

Another point where you're wrong.

You need 3+ continuous years of H1B to *apply* for a green card. That is to enter into the long and protracted process of getting a green card.

Most, if not all, companies will NOT employ you past 3 years if you're a contractor or a consultant. This is due to the Microsoft lawsuit. Due to the lawsuit companies regularly force contractors off the payroll at precisely the 3 year mark so they aren't liable for benefits.

So it's very routine to hire a contractor H1B for 3 years and then cut him loose. Then either the H1B gets another sponsoring company, for another 3 year run, or he gets to go home.

Ed: Only problem though is that you cannot sell something unless you can build it. And if you have to rely on someone else to build it, then why do they need *you* to sell it?

Max responds: True. Which means that cutting off skilled immigration will contract the economy. Simple, no?

Not that simple, because it's not the case, yet, that we have to rely on someone else to build it. There is a large reserve of unemployed and underemployed engineers.

Max: Honestly, I don't see where all gloom and doom comes from. Yes, tech is not nearly as hot as it was in pre-Y2K boom. Probably never will be again. It sucks -- for those of us (me included) who didn't IPO their startups at just the right time.

I wish I'd been a dot.com millionaire (just as I wish I'd gone in investment banking, or even law) but my plan was never to get rich, it was to have steady, skilled employment.

Max: But if you increase the pressure on tech compared to the present situation, it won't get any bigger. Yeah, deporting all H1Bs in a bunch TODAY is going to free up positions and SOME OF THEM will get filled by marginal out-of-work engineers.

There are plenty of good engineers who are also unemployed or underemployed. You've seen my resume and my salary expectations off-line.

Max: But the tech will inevitably contract here, in this country, in response to such a change.

This is where we strongly disagree.

If the current policies were truly inducing the world's best and brightest to become Americans, then it might be the case that we have more innovators and thus more jobs and more opportunities. That is not the case, as Ben said, though you've shut him off for not making the right arguments.

Some H1-B holders will go the Permanent Residency path. (I'm confused about your personal anecdote -- I thought H1-B as such dates only from 1990.) How many are actually becoming legal immigrants?

Most will go home and take their knowledge and experience with them.

In WWII, by agreement, the US build bombers, and the Great Britain built fighters. The infrastructure for building bombers can be used for building passenger jets. The infrastructure for building fighters can be used for building canoes. Is Great Britain better off because the rising tide, that raised all boats, allows them to travel in Boeing aircraft? Sure, but wouldn't they be even better off if they were building and selling the planes? Today the situation is reversed, where the US is laying the groundwork to destroy that productive domestic infrastructure, and move technology offshore.

I've seen the worst of "body shop" software -- this isn't innovation, this is almost mechanical mass customization, economically feasible only because of low labor costs.

You are correct that there is a relatively low barrier to entry in non-tech. (It depends which non-tech. A middle-aged engineer -- and that's where many of us are finding that it's a lot harder to get a new job, or continuing increased compensation -- isn't in a good position to do the same internships as a recent graduate. In my 10th month of unemployment, in early 2002, I spent a month getting certified to drive a school bus, because I figured that if things were going to go totally to crap I could support my family better as a trucker than as a burger flipper.)

The problem is the high barrier to entry to technology. If students don't put in the hard work for an engineering degree, if they don't put learn the general skills, habits, and conventions as junior engineers, then there won't be a pool of domestic tech workers nor will there be, from among them, the innovators who create brand new ideas.

The Bronx HS of Science gots its new building the year Sputnik was launched. There was significant support for domestic engineering during the Cold War. (One result is that we were better able to attract some of their best and brightest, who have gone on to do things like form blawgs, or argue the wrong sides of issues therein.) I don't think the way to revitalize the American tech industry is something else impractical but visible -- after bragging rights, the first order benefits of landing a man on the moon were Tang and Velcro :-) -- but certainly the massive support for engineering, basic engineering in the form of research and development, in those years helped the fuel the high tech boom that followed. (Setting aside that we're still smarting from the the bursting of the dot.com bubble, we've gotten a lot more technology over the course of a generation.)