On Dec 31 Obama Executive Action bypasses Congress, boosts foreign work permits

Discussion in 'Politics Discussion' started by baudwalk, Jan 1, 2016.

  1. baudwalk

    baudwalk Senior Investor

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    Executing the usual political ploy of hiding government actions considered to be unpopular with the citizenry, POTUS' executive action opens up the US job market by granting work permits to foreign college graduates. The hundreds of thousands permitted will undoubtedly compete with USA white collar workers working struggling to find appropriately paying jobs. The political implications of busting immigration quotas may well ignite a firestorm. But who reads a 181-page document published in the Federal Register very late on New Year's Eve before a 3-day weekend? Yep, I love Obama transformational politics. The opposition needs to step up and put a stop to such nonsense.

    With a very low labor participation rate of ~62%, our citizens should be encouraged to re-enter the work force. We shouldn't be bypassing immigration laws, rules and regulations. Will the MSM say anything? Nah...
     
  2. nytegeek

    nytegeek Well-Known Member

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    What you are referring to as "transformational politics" is hardly unique to Obama and the use of executive orders in this fashion is not new or surprising.
     
  3. petesede

    petesede Guest

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    It is oppressive, tyrannical and bending the laws..... but only if the party that is doing it is not the party you support. This type of thing, similar to judicial appointments is caused by the dysfunction in congress who refuses to do their jobs and vote on stuff. It is one thing if congress was actually brave enough to put their names on ´no´ votes, but they are too cowardly to do that, so instead of having to vote no, they simply do not vote and string this stuff along.

    Almost every Bush judicial appointment was done as a recess appointment for the exact same reason. And really, the opposition party is fine with it, this is working as intended. They know this stuff is going to be done, but it keeps their hands clean when they have to return to their districts.

    And please, you are naive if you think the ´news dump´ was created by Obama. It has been a tactic since before JFK that you announce news you don´t want to be widely covered on Friday afternoon. I would bet it is taught in Marketing 101 classes in college.
     
  4. Alex

    Alex Senior Investor

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    Unless you have been involved in the foreign work visa process, you won't know how complicated it actually is. The green card lottery allows people who are supposed to be skilled into the US from diverse countries, yet graduates that have studied and worked in the US are not allowed to stay in the US without a company paying a fortune for a visa to sponsor them.

    They do not take away jobs, because many Americans aren't qualified for them or are willing to relocate. I applied for a job and the place wanted me, but they couldn't have me because the visa issue was too complicated. The person I was replacing did such a bad job, but they kept her on until they could find someone who could do the job and was willing to do it (this was at Harvard) and there are jobs that many people aren't qualified for with either education or experience.
     
  5. ScooterBrandon

    ScooterBrandon Senior Investor

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    I am guessing Obama did this to fix labour shortages or skills gaps.
    But with Trump pushing his populist, anti-immigration agenda, the MSM would have been up in arms.

    I remember one time I was at a local watering-hole for wings and beer. This was at about 7pm and a drunk guy next to me was bitching about the TFW's used in the agri-sector, which is very common in my area of Canada. He said it starts with fruit then they will start to take all of our jobs. I asked him what he did for a living and he used to be an auto-parts worker but was laid off years ago and on Ontario Works (our version of welfare) and looking for work. I mentioned how Tim Horton's (Canadian quick-serve cfoffee chain) is always hiring, and that also a friend of mine just got a part time job at a local cannery. Well he told me in some language I can't type here that working for minimum wage or serving people was basically beneath him.
    The irony was just too much. Instead of working low-end jobs, he would rather collect welfare and get day drunk in dive bars and complain about immigrants taking the jobs that he refused to do...

    When you think how many people have this mentality, can you blame leaders for sneaking this type of legislation through?
     
  6. baudwalk

    baudwalk Senior Investor

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    In my way of thinking, bypassing Congress to supercede immigration quotas is part of his continuing transformation efforts as the author writes the following.
    And note that I did not use the term "new or surprising" to describe the executive action. Rather, I chose the adjective "usual" to describe the political ploy. The art of hiding such notices has been, in my opinion, been taken to a higher art form level by this administration.

    Judicial appointments by recess appointments are powers granted to the president. Congress may be dysfunctional, as is Obama, but it has authority in immigration and wirk permits. Immigration quotas are set by Congress and the President with an annual limit of 675,000 persons. The current annual cap, as set by Congress, on the H-1B category is 65,000.

    Please don't put words in my mouth to suggest that the Friday afternoon "news dump" was created by Obama. I don't need history lessons. The words deliberately chosen were "usual political ploy" that, in my opinion, Obama and his czars have taken to a new art form. By the way, the ploy is not taught in marketing and advertising classes. Take the PolySci courses and see for yourself.

    Sorry you didn't get the job you sought -- I don't know what you define as a "bad job but HR departments and job benefits often include continuing education components -- but immigration visa and work permit quotas are in place for reasons. Wages can be surpressed, as exemplified a few months ago when Disney was in the news. The game was on with a firestorm in June. The US labor market stats suggest an acceptable 5% unemployment level, but the very low labor participation rate belies that statistic and the LBR is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media outlets. The under-employed numbers are too low. The USA employment funds are already over stressed.

    Perhaps the shortages wouldn't exist if the under-employed in the LBR numbers were sought out and the regressive repatriation tax was corrected to bring capex stateside.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2016
  7. JR Ewing

    JR Ewing Super Moderator Staff Member

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    We've seen a record number of executive memos/orders under Obama. He's proven time and time again that he will do anything and everything in his power to "fundamentally transform America", Constitution be damned.

    If more high skill workers are needed than are currently available, there are ways to go about doing these things. Mainly via clean bills passed through congress. But of course how often do they get a bill introduced from one of Obama's flunkies in congress that isn't a thousand or more pages, and doesn't have all sorts of other pork sneaked into it?
     
  8. JR Ewing

    JR Ewing Super Moderator Staff Member

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    BTW, it looks like executive action on gun control is imminent. I wonder if the inaccurate and apparently highly arbitrary no-fly list will also become the no-gun list?
     
  9. petesede

    petesede Guest

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    Yeah, something is coming at the state of the union address as far as guns. I do not think it will involve the no-fly list unless there is some type of judicial process involved before you are put on the list. Right now, Bush´s department of Homeland Security can basically add anyone to the no-fly list, and then you as an individual have to fight to have your name removed. That process will never work for gun ownership.

    I personally think he is going to outflank the Republicans, get gun-rights people all fired up and then announce something sane. Gun rights is not a winning issue for democrats. By being tough on guns, they really do not motivate their people to vote nearly as much as they motivate Republicans to come out and vote against them. I think whatever he says will have little teeth and will probably be more centered on mental health and education than anything to do with cool-down times.
     
  10. turt

    turt Guest

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    It's well known that every president has done the same.

    The real problem with our skills shortage is that the government is doing nothing to educate Americans in these fields. The government gives money to everyone that wants to go to college, even if it's a useless degree. The government should be concentrating money where we need education and let the others pay for their useless degree out of pocket. This would actually give back the money invested to tax payers over time.

    The second problem is that our high schools are not preparing students for high skill jobs. Engineering, computer science etc. in school NO! Let's have 10 different types of history and social classes instead. So when students go into college for their dream job in a high skill area, they get weeded out because they are too far behind to catch up. And let's not forget that schools pay teachers the same regardless of what they teach. So the gym teacher is making the same as the computer science teacher; the computer science teacher's skills are usually going to be lacking since he/she could make over $100,000 in the field if they are good.
     

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