Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Toemeesleather]

If we only had more people with the courage and intelligence of the Kennedys, we'd be soooo much better off.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke out against conservative media and Fox News yesterday on Huffington Post Live. He blasted Fox for having divided the country "in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War," and blamed it for enabling the rise of "Tea Party ideologues who control the Republican Party."

After noting that 22% of Americans say Fox is their primary news source, Kennedy said in the clip below:

"It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War, and its empowered large corporations to get certain kinds of politicians and ideologues who are in the United State Congress elected -- the Tea Party ideologues who control the Republican Party."



God bless RFK, Jr.

[hedge]

I wouldn't say FoxNews has divided the country, but they are a mouthpiece for the people that fuck this country up. People like you, for instance...

[puterbac]

Hmmm...

I expected quite a bit more posts about the shooting and guns etc.

[puterbac]

Scarlett Johansson Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison...

Is it just me or does 10 years seem pretty harsh for guessing someones retarded password for an email account?

Did he get this punishment cause it was Hollywood?

[crashcourse]

not enough airbrush

[hedge]

Link to the photos?

[hedge]

Hmmm...

I expected quite a bit more posts about the shooting and guns etc.

It's quite around here for pretty much the same reason we haven't heard much from the NRA or the politicians they support...

[10ac]

You're quite right. I know, let's make a law against murdering people.

[innocentbystander]

If you can't get around a labor law, then build a work facility that isn't bound by US labor law....

http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/blu ... sa-reform/

Isn't this great? Now corporations in San Francisco can get around that little free market problem they have with trained, technical, US citizens being too expensive to hire. Just import the trained, technical people from another country, and pay them a salary that they are willing to work for (a salary a US citizen is not willing to work for.) Fuck labor law, keep them offshore while working, don't even let them in the country.

[Jungle Rat]

More taxable income!

[Professor Tiger]

Hmmm...

I expected quite a bit more posts about the shooting and guns etc.

That massacre was so big it is hard to respond to, even for PNN.

[Toemeesleather]

Something known for years, just hard to find in the MSM....not good news for sustainable dem wonks.


Wind generation has been actively subsidized for 35 years, first under PURPA and the ETA, both enacted in 1978, and then through the PTC under the 1992 EPAct. After over three decades of increasing subsidies and increasingly stringent environmental mandates for fossil-fuel resources, it is past time for the well-established wind industry to stand on its own two feet. As such, the federal PTC subsidy should be allowed to expire under current law.
The PTC represents bad energy policy and bad economics for at least three reasons. First and foremost, wind generation’s production pattern not only is volatile and unpredictable, but even more significantly, is “economically backward”: producing the least amount of energy when loads are highest and electricity is most valuable. Second, subsidized wind generation also exacerbates artificially low electric prices, thus imposing economic harm on competitive generators that are needed to maintain system reliability. Third, the inability to forecast actual wind generation accurately increases system reliability costs, which are borne by all customers.
Given these demonstrated adverse characteristics of wind power, there is no economic or policy justification for its continued subsidization through the PTC.

http://www.continentalecon.com/publicat ... r-2012.pdf

[hedge]

Do you think it's also time for the oil industry to quit getting federal subsidies and, as they say, stand on its own two feet? Didn't think so...

[Toemeesleather]

What I've been saying all along.....


Climate models are known to poorly simulate clouds, and given clouds' very strong effect on the climate system—some types cooling the Earth either by shading it or by transporting heat up and cold down in thunderstorms, and others warming the Earth by blocking outgoing radiation—it remains highly plausible that there is no net positive feedback from water vapor.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop

[puterbac]

H1-B is nothing but a way to artificially increase the amount of labor to keep wages low. Companies want the best talent, but they want to pay as if it was avg talent or below. Its like that everywhere not just CA.

I would tell kids in school to pick a different profession than engineering. Biz or law.

Abuse of the H-1B Program Is Widespread

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/shoul ... widespread

By NORM MATLOFF , Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis
December 28, 2011

About Norm Matloff:
Dr. Norm Matloff is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis. He was formerly a statistics professor at that institution,…

The H-1B work visa program should be reduced in scope, not expanded, as the program is fundamentally about cheap labor. Gaping loopholes enable employers to hire tech workers at below-market wages, in full compliance with the law. This has been confirmed repeatedly in statistical studies done in government and academia.

Even Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Congress's most strident advocate of H-1B, admitted that the legally required wages for H-1Bs are well short of market levels. She even said, "We can't have people coming in and undercutting the American educated workforce." Unfortunately, the legislation she has introduced doesn't solve that problem, and unfairly scapegoats the Indian and Indian-American firms. Actually abuse of the program is widespread, including by the mainstream U.S. firms that hire foreign students from American universities. Think of the tax code, which also includes gaping loopholes that are exploited by all the big companies.

Even Vivek Wadhwa, a former tech CEO who advocates liberalization of employment-based green cards, has pointed out, "I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires. Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a 'prevailing wage,' but this mechanism is riddled with loopholes."

[Chamber of Commerce, Bloomberg Push Immigration Reform.]

The industry lobbyists claim H-1B is needed to remedy tech labor shortages, but studies by the Department of Commerce, a university science consortium known as the Computing Research Association, the Urban Institute, the National Research Council all failed to confirm the industry claim. Starting salaries for new computer science graduates are up only 3 percent from last year, according to the Natonal Association of Colleges and Employers, and the San Jose Mercury News found that wages for experienced workers in Silicon Valley are also up by only 3 percent. These small increases are certainly not indicative of a shortage.

Worse, Georgetown University researcher Tony Carnevale found that engineering has the slowest wage growth rate of any major occupation group. Not only does that refute the industry shortage claims, but also it shows the impact of the large foreign influx in terms of suppressing wage growth. The congressionally commissioned NRC study came to a similar conclusion.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan has actually lauded the wage-growth suppressing effect of H-1B. Even more outrageously, a 1989 National Science Foundation report called for bringing in large numbers of foreign students with the explicit goal of suppressing Ph.D. salary growth. The NSF equally explicitly forecast that the resulting stagnant salaries would drive U.S. citizen and permanent resident students away from doctoral study, which is exactly what has occurred.

[Tech Companies Want More Foreign STEM Workers.]

Much has been written about the number of businesses started by immigrant engineers. That is factual, but it should not surprise anyone—given the large number of immigrant engineers, there should be a lot of immigrant-founded businesses. Note also that many Indian-immigrant businesses are engaged in offshoring work out of the U.S., and that Berkeley's AnnaLee Saxenian found that 29 percent of Chinese-immigrant businesses are merely "PC wholesalers"; these businesses don't innovate or otherwise enhance U.S. tech prowess.

The H-1B program should be returned to the goal Congress had back when it created the predecessor H-1 visa—bringing in "the best and the brightest" from around the globe. But only a small fraction of H-1B workrs are in that league. On the contrary, Rutgers University professor Jenny Hunt's study found that immigrant tech workers are actually significantly less likely to innovate (via patents) than are comparable Americans. My own research has shown that the immigrant engineers are less likely to be doing R&D work than are their American peers.

[puterbac]

Cool high res pics of Everest:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapans/EBC_P ... _FLAT.html

[hedge]

DRUDGE REPORT @DRUDGE_REPORT
CHICAGOLAND: Brawl breaks out at CHUCK E CHEESE'S; moms mix it up, cops pepperspray parents as chairs fly... drudge.tw/SSAtbA
Retweeted by Bruce Clark

[innocentbystander]

H1-B is nothing but a way to artificially increase the amount of labor to keep wages low. Companies want the best talent, but they want to pay as if it was avg talent or below. Its like that everywhere not just CA.

I would tell kids in school to pick a different profession than engineering. Biz or law.

Abuse of the H-1B Program Is Widespread

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/shoul ... widespread

By NORM MATLOFF , Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis
December 28, 2011

About Norm Matloff:
Dr. Norm Matloff is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis. He was formerly a statistics professor at that institution,…

The H-1B work visa program should be reduced in scope, not expanded, as the program is fundamentally about cheap labor. Gaping loopholes enable employers to hire tech workers at below-market wages, in full compliance with the law. This has been confirmed repeatedly in statistical studies done in government and academia.

Even Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Congress's most strident advocate of H-1B, admitted that the legally required wages for H-1Bs are well short of market levels. She even said, "We can't have people coming in and undercutting the American educated workforce." Unfortunately, the legislation she has introduced doesn't solve that problem, and unfairly scapegoats the Indian and Indian-American firms. Actually abuse of the program is widespread, including by the mainstream U.S. firms that hire foreign students from American universities. Think of the tax code, which also includes gaping loopholes that are exploited by all the big companies.

Even Vivek Wadhwa, a former tech CEO who advocates liberalization of employment-based green cards, has pointed out, "I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires. Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a 'prevailing wage,' but this mechanism is riddled with loopholes."

[Chamber of Commerce, Bloomberg Push Immigration Reform.]

The industry lobbyists claim H-1B is needed to remedy tech labor shortages, but studies by the Department of Commerce, a university science consortium known as the Computing Research Association, the Urban Institute, the National Research Council all failed to confirm the industry claim. Starting salaries for new computer science graduates are up only 3 percent from last year, according to the Natonal Association of Colleges and Employers, and the San Jose Mercury News found that wages for experienced workers in Silicon Valley are also up by only 3 percent. These small increases are certainly not indicative of a shortage.

Worse, Georgetown University researcher Tony Carnevale found that engineering has the slowest wage growth rate of any major occupation group. Not only does that refute the industry shortage claims, but also it shows the impact of the large foreign influx in terms of suppressing wage growth. The congressionally commissioned NRC study came to a similar conclusion.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan has actually lauded the wage-growth suppressing effect of H-1B. Even more outrageously, a 1989 National Science Foundation report called for bringing in large numbers of foreign students with the explicit goal of suppressing Ph.D. salary growth. The NSF equally explicitly forecast that the resulting stagnant salaries would drive U.S. citizen and permanent resident students away from doctoral study, which is exactly what has occurred.

[Tech Companies Want More Foreign STEM Workers.]

Much has been written about the number of businesses started by immigrant engineers. That is factual, but it should not surprise anyone—given the large number of immigrant engineers, there should be a lot of immigrant-founded businesses. Note also that many Indian-immigrant businesses are engaged in offshoring work out of the U.S., and that Berkeley's AnnaLee Saxenian found that 29 percent of Chinese-immigrant businesses are merely "PC wholesalers"; these businesses don't innovate or otherwise enhance U.S. tech prowess.

The H-1B program should be returned to the goal Congress had back when it created the predecessor H-1 visa—bringing in "the best and the brightest" from around the globe. But only a small fraction of H-1B workrs are in that league. On the contrary, Rutgers University professor Jenny Hunt's study found that immigrant tech workers are actually significantly less likely to innovate (via patents) than are comparable Americans. My own research has shown that the immigrant engineers are less likely to be doing R&D work than are their American peers.

puter,

H1-B Visas is 50% wanting to reduce salary and 50% companies refusing the train people. I am not allowed to hire anyone for our department unless they already know exactly what we need them to do before we hire them. That only comes with experience. And for those STEM kids with education and training (and no experience) they really have to take it on the chin for the first year or two of their earnings and basically settle for about $35,000 or so. Because it will be at least six months before I would have them to anything productive.

This floating city outside of San Francisco is ENTIRELY about cutting wages, nothing else. They are doing that specifically because they CAN'T get the H1-B Visas. They are forced to get around US labor law by building a labor facility where the Federal Law can't be enforced. There is no other reason for it.

[hedge]

" Because it will be at least six months before I would have them to anything productive."

It has taken a lifetime to get anything productive out of you (including writing a legible sentence), and we're still waiting...

[innocentbystander]

http://ktar.com/22/1596561/Scottsdale-p ... dle-School

They just locked down Chaparral High School (infamous for educating one Stephanie Meyer.) Kids are tweeting, media hasn't picked that one up yet.