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1245 points mriguy | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.419s | source
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bhouston ◴[] No.45308820[source]
This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages.

H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing:

- https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-h1b-visa-middlemen-c...

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epistasis ◴[] No.45308920[source]
This is very short term thinking, in that it assumes a constant amount of work and ignores the global competition for labor.

If the US loses its massive lead in the network effects of a large labor pool, the amount of work in the US will shrink, both by moving to other countries and less overall innovation.

This is not a beneficial move for most software engineers.

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gnulinux996 ◴[] No.45309222[source]
> If the US loses its massive lead

By US you mean corporate America? What if they maintain that massive lead on the backs of the US citizens?

The exploitation of the US worker needs to end, if the company does not have 100K to bring in global talent then that company cannot "massively lead" in any domain and the "talent" is neither global nor talented.

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vasilipupkin ◴[] No.45309292[source]
and so who owns the shares of "corporate america"? Newflash: Teachers' and firefighters' and cops' pensions are all invested in "corporate america". As well as pensions of union workers. As well as 401ks of all the other middle class people. Come on.

"the exploitation of American worker" ? American workers have one of the richest standards of living in the world.

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1. AngryData ◴[] No.45310069[source]
To me that just reads like following the gamblers fallacy. Just because you already threw a bunch of money into the pot doesn't mean you have zero choice but to keep playing until you likely lose it all.
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2. vasilipupkin ◴[] No.45312181[source]
it's not a gambler's fallacy. "You threw money into the pot" and "you own a % of the pot" are two distinctly different things.