Bill Gates Praised as a Savior
Bill Gates Praised as a Savior
Date: Thursday, April 28, 2005 9:15 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
April 28, 2005 No. 1245
The Indian press considers Bill Gates as a savior for aspriring H-1Bs.
They are praising his recent Washington D.C. lobbying trip to eliminate
limits on the number of H-1B visas that can be issued. This quote from
the Hinustan Times says it all:
Indian techies, aspiring for H1B visas, have a saviour in the
United States. Microsoft's chairman and chief software
architect Bill Gates.
Perhaps more disturbing is that the president of Princeton Univeristy
was one of the panelists, and she supported Gates' contention that
Americans no longer have the skills or the desire to take high-tech
jobs:
Tilghman cited a "failing K through 12 education system" in the
United States as a reason for fewer students being interested
in the sciences.
"Too often, by the time [American students] come to
[universities],
they are math-phobic or science-phobic," Tilghman said.
"So we rely upon attracting students from abroad who come here
and ... do extraordinarily well."
It's quite interesting that the only person who dissented from the
mugging of American workers was Phillip Bond, Under Secretary for
Technology at the Department of Commerce. In the previous newsletter on
Gates he actually disputed whether there was a shortage of workers.
Bond must have been viewed by the rest of the panelists as a heretic.
The Princeton publication below describes another disagreement, this
time between Tilghman and Bond.
Bill Gates claims that not giving enough visas to corporations is
tantamount to communism. Perhaps if Bill Gates would have ever finished
his college education and earned a real diploma he would understand
that when governments manipulate the supply of commodities such as
labor, they are engaging in socialist style central planning. In 2002,
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman characterized H-1B visas
as a government subsidy program, but of course the only thing Gates
understands about economics is that cheap labor makes him richer.
Gates' comments verged on sarcastic. He said that "it's almost an
issue of a centrally-controlled economy versus" and then trailed
off. "I'd certainly get rid of the H-1B visa caps," he added when
asked what he would do if he could write U.S. laws. "That's one of
the easiest decisions."
Gates made it clear why he wants unlimited visas. He says it doesn't
make sense to limit the number of smart people that can immigrate to
the U.S. His implication that the U.S. has a shortage of smart people
is a cruel insult to those Americans that made his company what it is
today.
Gates said visa restrictions are keeping too many bright,
educated people from working in the United States.
"A policy that limits too many smart people coming to the
United States is questionable,"
Gates said. "The visa issue doesn't make sense."
We now have the names of panel participants. All of them are ardent
supporters of H-1B, except perhaps for some minor dissent from Phillip
Bond.
Bill Gates - King of the USA
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.)
Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick Rashid
Shirley Tilghman - President of Princeton
Phillip Bond, Under Secretary for Technology at the Department of
Commerce.
Articles Used for this Newsletter
http://www.hindustantimes.com/2005/Apr/28/181_1340060,0002.htm
Bill Gates in aid of Indian techies
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1091188.cms
Gates urges US to end tech visa curbs
http://indicthreads.com/content/view/199/49/
Bill Gates against US visa caps
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/04/28/news/12782.shtml
Tilghman talks technology
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/121113.html
Gates wants to scrap H-1B visa restrictions
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22866
King Billy Gates wants more foreign engineers
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.hindustantimes.com/2005/Apr/28/181_1340060,0002.htm
Bill Gates in aid of Indian techies
HindustanTimes.com
New Delhi, April 28, 2005
Indian techies, aspiring for H1B visas, have a saviour in the United
States. Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates.
The software giant, which accounts for the largest number of visas
under the country's H1B visa programme, is finding it difficult to hire
skilled labour within the US and it's boss "certainly wants to get rid
of the H1B cap".
"You can't imagine how tough it is to plan as a company where we say,
'let's have this engineering group and staff it.' You get a few and
then you go through these periods where nobody can come in," Gates
said.
Single largest importer
What Gates has to say
You can't imagine how tough it is to plan as a company where we
say,'let's have this engineering group and staff it
The whole idea of the H1B thing is don't let too many smart people
come into the country. Basically, it doesn't make sense
If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all? It's almost a
question of a centrally controlled economy
For over a decade, Microsoft has been the single largest importer in
the United States of talented engineers and professionals.
"The whole idea of the H1B thing is don't let too many smart people
come into the country. Basically, it doesn't make sense," Gates said.
Gates was speaking at a Library of Congress panel discussion with Sen.
Patrick Leahy, Rep. David Drier, Princeton University President
Shirley Tilghman and Phillip Bond, under secretary of commerce for
technology on the Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
H1B visa
An H1B visa is a non-immigrant classification used by foreigners who
are sponsored and employed in specialty fields such as technology.
The current H1B ceiling is 65,000 workers per year following caps as
high 195,000 employees in the early 1990s.
Restrictions
The cap on H1B visas, prompted by national security concerns and
protectionist lawmakers who think the jobs should go to Americans, have
been a longstanding sore point for the technology industry.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1091188.cms
Gates urges US to end tech visa curbs
REUTERS[ THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2005 09:00:55 AM]
Sign into earnIndiatimes points
WASHINGTON: The United States should remove visa limits to allow more
skilled foreign citizens to work at US companies if it wants to remain
a leader in technology, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on
Wednesday.
Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the
United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only
making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the
Library of Congress.
"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart
people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense,"
Gates said.
Gates echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders who
warn that the United States must improve science education and boost
spending on research and development to avoid falling behind India,
China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.
But he reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he
called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy."
"If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?" he said.
Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled
professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase
border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the
high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003.
The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the
fiscal year last October by U.S. employers anxious to recruit
foreigners for jobs in medicine, engineering, education, research and
programming, among other fields.
While increasing the number of H-1B visas is important, "we can't be so
naive to believe that there is not a very serious border-security
problem that we need to deal with," said California Republican Rep.
David Dreier, who heads the House Rules Committee.
Undersecretary of Commerce Phil Bond, a top Bush administration
technology official, pointed out that the unemployment rate for
engineers is above the national average.
But Gates said his company was hiring at all levels, from recent
college graduates to those with more advanced skills. "Anybody who's
got a good computer-security education, they're not out there
unemployed," he said. "We're just not seeing an available labor pool."
Even with the labor shortage, Microsoft plans to keep most of its
operations in the United States, Gates said. While the company just
opened a research office in Beijing, "our development's going to stay
in the United States," he said.
The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled
foreign citizens to work at US companies if it wants to remain a leader
in technology, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday.
Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the
United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only
making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the
Library of Congress.
"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart
people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense,"
Gates said.
Gates echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders who
warn that the United States must improve science education and boost
spending on research and development to avoid falling behind India,
China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.
But he reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he
called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy."
"If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?" he said.
Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled
professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase
border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the
high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003.
The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the
fiscal year last October by U.S. employers anxious to recruit
foreigners for jobs in medicine, engineering, education, research and
programming, among other fields.
While increasing the number of H-1B visas is important, "we can't be so
naive to believe that there is not a very serious border-security
problem that we need to deal with," said California Republican Rep.
David Dreier, who heads the House Rules Committee.
Undersecretary of Commerce Phil Bond, a top Bush administration
technology official, pointed out that the unemployment rate for
engineers is above the national average.
But Gates said his company was hiring at all levels, from recent
college graduates to those with more advanced skills. "Anybody who's
got a good computer-security education, they're not out there
unemployed," he said. "We're just not seeing an available labor pool."
Even with the labor shortage, Microsoft plans to keep most of its
operations in the United States, Gates said. While the company just
opened a research office in Beijing, "our development's going to stay
in the United States," he said.
The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled
foreign citizens to work at US companies if it wants to remain a leader
in technology, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday.
Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the
United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only
making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the
Library of Congress.
"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart
people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense,"
Gates said.
Gates echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders who
warn that the United States must improve science education and boost
spending on research and development to avoid falling behind India,
China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.
But he reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he
called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy."
"If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?" he said.
Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled
professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase
border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the
high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003.
The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the
fiscal year last October by U.S. employers anxious to recruit
foreigners for jobs in medicine, engineering, education, research and
programming, among other fields.
While increasing the number of H-1B visas is important, "we can't be so
naive to believe that there is not a very serious border-security
problem that we need to deal with," said California Republican Rep.
David Dreier, who heads the House Rules Committee.
Undersecretary of Commerce Phil Bond, a top Bush administration
technology official, pointed out that the unemployment rate for
engineers is above the national average.
But Gates said his company was hiring at all levels, from recent
college graduates to those with more advanced skills. "Anybody who's
got a good computer-security education, they're not out there
unemployed," he said. "We're just not seeing an available labor pool."
Even with the labor shortage, Microsoft plans to keep most of its
operations in the United States, Gates said. While the company just
opened a research office in Beijing, "our development's going to stay
in the United States," he said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://indicthreads.com/content/view/199/49/
Bill Gates against US visa caps
Written by Content Team
An issue that affects all technology companies in countries like India,
Brazil, etc. is that of the US visa caps. Getting a visa is anyway a
tedious process and the caps make it even more difficult.
Bill Gates has openly come out against the US visa policy. Gates feels
that "The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many
smart people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make
sense,"
Gates also echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders
who warn that the United States must improve science education and
boost spending on research and development to avoid falling behind
India, China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.
According to Gates, the core of the problem rests with members in
Congress who want to step back to U.S. isolationism.
Earlier in the year, he had said "There has been a 35 per cent drop in
Asians coming to our computer science departments. It really is a very
bad thing for a very key area."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/04/28/news/12782.shtml
Thursday, April 28, 2005
SCI/TECH
Tilghman talks technology
Kavita Saini
Princetonian Staff Writer
Courtesy of John Jameson
(Expand Photo)
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (l. to r.), Bill Gates and President
Tilghman speak Wednesday at a panel in Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Tilghman joined Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates in a panel about the effects of increasing global
competition on higher education and scientific research in the United
States.
At the panel, held Wednesday in the Library of Congress, Gates said
the position of the United States as magnet for the "best people" from
around the world was "eroding," adding that he was "concerned that the
United States will lose its leading position in something that's
critical for the economy."
Most of the best universities in the world are in the United
States, Gates said, but universities abroad are conducting significant
research while America is experiencing "disinterest in the sciences"
and "declining funding for risky research."
Tilghman cited a "failing K through 12 education system" in the
United States as a reason for fewer students being interested in the
sciences.
"Too often, by the time [American students] come to [universities],
they are math-phobic or science-phobic," Tilghman said. "So we rely
upon attracting students from abroad who come here and ... do
extraordinarily well."
She noted that fewer foreign graduate students are applying to the
United States - a 25 percent decrease in applications last year and an
additional five percent decrease this year - because of better job
opportunities in their home countries and difficulty procuring visas
after Sept. 11, 2001.
Gates advocated getting rid of the current caps on the number of
H-1B visas - non-immigrant visas issued to professionals with
bachelor's degrees who are temporarily employed in highly specialized
areas such as engineering, physical sciences and medicine - saying it
is "really questionable" to justify a policy that assumes "there are
too many smart people coming [to the United States]."
Current U.S. law limits the number of H-1B visas issued per year to
65,000, down from 195,000 in previous years.
"In the long run, in the U.S., we'll always have a reliance on
letting smart people into the country - there has been no time in our
history when we haven't relied on this," Gates said.
In an interview with The Daily Princetonian following the panel
discussion, Tilghman said, "The gap between the achievements of science
in the U.S. and abroad is closing rapidly, and if it continues this
way, not only will they catch up with us, but they will surpass us in
these fields."
To further encourage international students to study in the United
States, Tilghman said, "We have to do what I did in the fall - that is,
have University delegations go to China, India and other countries and
say that we're dealing with the visa issues, as we slowly are, and that
the U.S. continues to be a place where such research exists."
The six-person panel also included Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Rep.
David Dreier (R-Calif.), Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick
Rashid and Phillip Bond, Under Secretary for Technology at the
Department of Commerce.
Leahy said there is "reluctance sometimes from members of Congress
from both parties to put funding into pure sciences."
Bond argued that scientific research is a major priority for the
current administration, saying that research funding had increasing by
20 percent under President Bush.
Tilghman denied this, saying that some of the statistics quoted by
Bond were not directed at "research in any way that we understand it."
Instead, she said, this funding went toward developments in the
Department of Defense, rather than "fundamental research at
universities."
Calling for increased funding for "fundamental scientific
research," Tilghman said the single most powerful means of promoting
creativity or "genius" among students is to "give young people
independence ... and challenge them in the research center."
Tilghman added that funding for critical longterm issues, such as
the development of alternate energy sources, is as important as the
support of short-term ventures.
A country's perspective must be "long enough and vision-bold
enough," she said. "Otherwise we're going to be doing things for the
short term and then fall off a cliff."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/121113.html
Gates wants to scrap H-1B visa restrictions
Microsoft chairman comes to Washington to offer scathing critique of
immigration rules, says H-1B visa limits should disappear.
Declan McCullagh, April 28, 2005
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates slammed the federal government's strict
limits on temporary visas for technology workers, saying that if he had
his way, the system would be scrapped entirely.
"The theory behind the H-1B (visa)--that too many smart people are
coming--that's what's questionable," Gates said Wednesday during a
panel discussion at the Library of Congress. "It's very dangerous. You
can get this idea that the world is very scary; let's cut back on
travel...let's cut back on visas."
Federal quotas on H-1B visas, capped at 65,000 last year, have long
been a sore spot for Microsoft and other technology companies. But,
Gates said, the increased caliber of research institutions in China and
India means that curbs on immigration and guest-workers will pose a
greater threat to America's competitiveness than ever before.
Gates' comments verged on sarcastic. He said that "it's almost an issue
of a centrally-controlled economy versus" and then trailed off. "I'd
certainly get rid of the H-1B visa caps," he added when asked what he
would do if he could write U.S. laws. "That's one of the easiest
decisions."
Princeton University's president, Shirley Tilghman, also warned of
increased competition from abroad--and took aim at the federal
government's aggressive denials of visas to foreign students after the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Students are "not coming in the numbers they used to," Tilghman said.
The number of foreign students dropped in 2003 for the first time in
more than 30 years, the Institute of International Education estimated
last fall. It attributed the decline to increased competition from
foreign universities and far stricter visa rules.
"I think there was a post-9/11 effort to cut down on visas," added
Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "I think this was a mistake."
Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican, was left defending stricter
immigration rules. "We can't be so naive as to think there is not a
very serious problem" with terrorists entering the country, he said.
Microsoft Research head Rick Rashid gave the example of a Microsoft
employee in China who was barred by the U.S. government from attending
a meeting in the United States after she got married. Gates said even
Canadian employees have received similarly poor treatment: "It doesn't
make any sense. We'll have Canadians sitting on the border until some
bureaucratic thing happens."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22866
King Billy Gates wants more foreign engineers
Volish Royality in the Capitol
By: Nick Farrell Thursday 28 April 2005, 07:18
KING OF the Volehill, Sir William Gates III, has requested that the
Bush administration abolish its limits on allowing foreign engineers
into the country.
Not allowing his recent knighthood to go to his head, Gates told the
panel that "if he were king", and he would "probably will get himself
in trouble for putting it like that", he would want a more intensive
study of nuclear power, improvements to US schools and higher research
spending by government.
"I'd certainly get rid of the H1-B visa cap," Gates added. "That's one
of the easiest decisions."
Gates personally showed up to lobby for changes in federal policy,
which would eliminate the limit of 65,000 for overseas workers who can
be hired each year by American firms under "H1-B" visas.
Gates pointed out to an invitation only panel discussion at the Library
of Congress that the whole idea of the H1-B visa thing prevents too
many smart people getting into America, which doesnt make much
sense.
According to Internet News, here, Gates thinks that there is still a
shortage of IT engineers in the US. Something a lot of unemployed US IT
engineers might disagree with His Majesty about.
"Anybody who's got good computer science training, they are not out
there unemployed," Gates said. "We're just not seeing an available
labour pool."
Maybe they dont want to work for the Volish monarchy. 5
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