Why does CNBC allow someone to come on and spew nonsense? That is the case of the below video clip.
What is the issue? Stopping the corporate practice of firing Americans and replacing those U.S. workers with cheaper foreign guest workers. There is a fundamental divide where the issue is not immigration but simply a global cheap labor supply. That divide in immigration of any kind is when new workers are not in addition to but in place of.
It’s clear from this rant Wadhwa doesn’t want that differentiation to be even realized. Vivek Wadhwa literally comes on this segment, with incredible fear mongering, mis-categorizes temporary foreign guest worker Visas as immigrants and also implies all of America are a bunch of xenophobes. Literally! This is the most idiotic rhetoric we’ve heard to date.
Fortunately Dr. Ron Hira was the other guest. Hira patiently tries to present the facts of H-1B abuses as well as the methods to displace U.S. workers in the midst of such inane comments. Hira manages to get a few facts out onto the airwaves and God bless him, the man is sticking to his Academia integrity and professional expertise.
Vivek Wadhwa also misrepresents the TARP H-1B Dependent employer law itself. All the provision says is these companies, using U.S. taxpayer dollars, must consider qualified Americans first before hiring foreign H-1B Guest workers.
Even worse, Wadhwa has his own racist assumptions against Dr. Ron Hira in this video clip. He assumes that Hira is not a U.S. citizen and would be the first to go under such laws. That is quite the insult!
Wadhwa, what spin is this crap and why insult an offshore outsourcing expert? Firstly, U.S. citizenship, members of this nation are not one ethnicity or background. What kind of assumption is this that U.S. workers are all white people? What kind of racism is that to be even allowed on television?
U.S. workers are of Indian ethnicity, Hispanic ethnicity, Chinese ethnicity, African ethnicity and by God, over 50% of them are also female! Even more frightening is many U.S. workers are over the age of 35! So, all of these hard working Americans are now racist xenophobes because they do not wish to expose the U.S. work force to global labor arbitrage?
Wadhwa completely discounts Dr. Hira’s national origin, which is the United States, his objective professional expertise (i.e. the facts!), or how Americans are first and foremost….U.S. citizens. What kind of secret agenda and discriminatory assumptions are behind this rhetoric? Even worse, what kind of value does Wadhwa even put on U.S. citizenship? Does he view it as simply an additional business accomplishment, a feather, something to put on the resume so one can promote the interests of another country on American T.V.?
Perhaps it’s time to offshore outsource Wadhwa. Why anyone can spew name calling nonsense per the request of other nations as well as multinational corporations and their strong desire to control the world’s labor supplies….couldn’t we get this skill for $8.95/hr. if we simply use a H-1B guest worker or a L-1?
CNBC is actively trying to promote people as something to trade, as if global labor arbitrage is OK. No, it’s not a good thing, even for a national economy. CNBC spins putting U.S. workers first for jobs in their own country is un-American (putting your own countrymen first is un-American?). CNBC completely misstates Senator Grassley by claiming he demands foreign born workers should be fired first. That is not what Sen. Grassley is saying! He is referring to temporary guest workers, these are H-1B and L-1 guest workers which is not the “foreign born”. CNBC get your facts straight and stop the fear mongering! Putting a national workforce first in it’s own domestic economy is a national principle that should not even be debated. Putting U.S. citizens as first in line for jobs in their own country is critical to stop the displacement of U.S. workers with cheaper foreign labor. I believe the world decided trading people was morally wrong a long time ago. Displacing U.S. workers for cheaper labor, facilitating age discrimination, encouraging offshore outsourcing of U.S. jobs, as well as giving away skills and training via U.S. workers, is not only morally wrong against citizens of this nation, but also is the race to the bottom for labor. Considering where the nation is economically and how the entire United States middle class has been decimated and this very decimation is now destroying the national economy….one would think a financial network would figure this out.
I agree with Hira, Wadhwa has taken a total departure from much of his past writing.
I don’t think that CNBC, had any idea how powerful Hira’s description of the facts about H-1B dependent employers would be.
Calm, cool and collected is the way to win this policy debate.
For this abysmal and mean spirited performance I nominate Vivek Wadhwa as a candidate for “Jerk of the year, 2009 Award”!
I’m one of the Pfizer employees that had to train my replacement! Grrr this guy makes me mad! Vivek needs to get his head out of his azz, the H1B program is a total sham. Best and the brightest had NOTHING to do with it, it is all about cheaper labor.
The Indians are lazy, NOT the Americans - they can’t develop their own country, they are depending on the US.
UGH!
Nice post, and I am putting this blog on my blogroll.
Here is what I emailed Wadhwa after he wrote some more propaganda in the Wash. Post:
“I have 15 years in the programming business, with top skills, and I have seen my wages decline every year — it is occupational apartheid at the hands of mostly upper-caste Hindus. Call me politically incorrect, just don’t call me a coward. It is the truth, and for over ten years 200,000 American programmers have suffered the humiliation of being displaced by low-skill, low-wage H-1B imports, almost exclusively from India.
The monopoly of the IT profession by the mostly Indian H[indu]-1B lobby must stop. So few of those imports can communicate in English, much less code. And their phony “CVs”!!!! What a riot. 24-yr olds with 10 years of experience!!! And the idiot American I.T. managers drool over these guys, because they are docile, humble, and meek — unlike the skilled U.S. developer, who maybe cocky yet talented and creative.
There is no “programmer shortage” — just a shortage of American I.T. executives with integrity and gonads. And their sycophant, eat-their-young capitalists are helping to eliminate the American programmer from the industry. And you aren’t helping matters by promoting this myth, along with the stereotype that Americans can’t be engineers, programmers and scientists. I have a daughter and know that she will have a hard time becoming a software developer if the industry continues to monopolized by nepotistic and misogynist Indian males.
In addition, you are supporting a program that results in the exploitation of many Indian immigrants. They come here, get their passports confiscated, and then are forced to live in squalor while they work as indentured servants for corporate America. You should be ashamed of yourself for being a propagandist for this corrupt and abused program.”
I doubt I will get a response. And to think that this guy teaches at Duke! Americans, hide your children from the curry-scented pod-people.
Welcome to the insurgency.
Did nobody pick up on CNBC’s own crew using the term “Foreign born?” There is a world of difference between someone who is “foreign born” and someone who is an alien. The use of the term is deliberately misleading SPIN. The bill they are discussing doesn’t address the “foreign born,” it addresses ALIENS. A citizen is a citizen whether (s)he is decended from the Mayflowerites or received naturalization papers yesterday. CNBC’s spin deliberately misleads by making it sound as though the bill is designed to discriminate based on national origin, and then attacks the bill with the help of Whadwa on that basis. It’s a total sham, and Hira didn’t even pick up on it. Pretty lame.
CNBC spun this from the word go by their use of the term “foreign born.” Being foreign born has nothing to do with it. Tunnel Rat is “foreign born” for pete’s sake, but he’s a long time US CITIZEN. CNBC used the term “foreign born” so that people who didn’t know would think that the bill was about national origin, and Ron Hira didn’t even pick up on that. It has nothing to do with national origin, it has to do with citizenship. That’s a night and day difference.
Hira just OWNED Fraudwha with these 3 little words: “We’re training them”. Love it.
Title 8, Section 1235 - Improper Entry by Alien
“Any citizen of any country other than the United States who: Enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers; or Eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers; or Attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States *** by a willfully false or misleading representation *** or the willful concealment of a material fact; has committed a federal crime.”
– “Title 8, Section 1235 of the U.S. Code, Improper Entry by Alien