Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

There's an article talks about how two elite in technology, Jonathon Schwartz from Sun and Anne Mulcahy from Xerox, are new additions to call on the government to increase H1-B visas.  I'm not a huge proponent of offshoring due to the problem of cultural clash and the potential loss of local jobs.  However, I am for allowing foreigners to work within the country as it helps improve their understanding of American business, creates more cultural diversity in the workplace and gives people more opportunities.  Not to mention increasing the technical knowledge within the US as opposed to making it competitive against the US.

There are two opposing forces in this.  One is that large technology companies like Sun, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. require cutting edge tech, which apparently isn't being supplied by those in the US.  You often hear complaints about how the US trails behind as a first world nation in math and science.  And it's true really.  So it's hampering a lot of technology companies from getting that competitive edge locally.  Not to mention hiring people who can't perform in the first place.

On the other side of the barrel, you get people fearing for their jobs.  Truthfully, I think only major companies are doing the outsourcing.  There's still plenty of jobs locally from smaller offices because they simply cannot afford the whole H1-B visa process.  It's interesting to note that the article points to how politicians only look at the issue in terms of their ability to secure an office, rather than seeing the whole picture.  In particular, the article points to Detroit and Ohio, which are major auto manufacturing regions.  Nonetheless, I find the US auto manufacturers as being too lazy to upgrade their way of thinking, which is why countries like Japan and even Korea have been quick to catch up and even beat them at their game.

I had to step away and look at the whole picture to see what the core issues are.  It seems that the US poor quality of education in science and math is playing a huge role in this.  More kids are being pampered rather than forced to think competitively.  MTV, games, sports, etc. have pretty much diluted the importance of being studious and placed more emphasis on being a celebrity, making being a geek look perpetually uncool.  Also, the US isn't funding public education enough.  Some people say that the schools lack of resources are the problem.  I see a bigger problem in the low quality of teachers in the US.  Most are those who half-heartedly trudge out of a state college with little ambition or knowledge to become more than an elementary school teacher.  If the teachers would motivated to do well by giving them a significant increase in pay based on performance of their class, then maybe schools would perform better.

The other issue is simply laziness.  But it's not "good" laziness like Perl or programmer efficiency laziness.  The laziness is that Americans just don't want to do anything nor change.  That's my impression of Detroit and Ohio.  If you can twist a bolt into a car a certain way, hey, you've got a great job!   Bizzzzzzzzttt!  These companies need to innovative and force their employees to find something to improve the manufacturing processes, the energy consumption, the quality of people's cars to get people once again motivated to purchase cars in the states.  Just creating a bigger, fatter, gas guzzling SUV doesn't cut it with the stock meltdown and the oil crunch.

But America has got to start welcoming more people inside.  I mean, think about Toyota's new Hybrid Camry plant in Kentucky.  Who the fuck wants to live in Kentucky?  Well, if there's jobs available, maybe people would be motivated to live out there.  And perhaps the little town where the plant exist might improve the local conditions of living.  It's a natural process.  And hiring people out in Utah from other countries would hopefully create more diverse communities and vote the conservatives out of office.  I mean, the possibilities are endless!

The other thing that I think about in all of this is just fairness.  I have a number of friends who want to work in the US for the opportunities and lifestyle.  I think by preventing these people from coming in, the US is essentially saying that they are a highly xenophobic country and want to protect a monotheistic belief system rather than following their hypocritical doctrine of accepting anyone into the country.  It really says a lot about the perception of the American lifestyle when you meet people from other countries who really want to partake in the American culture.  It's not that people should fear for their jobs, but embrace other cultures to help teach them and grow.