By CNN Global Public Square
For more “What in the World,” watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS" on Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET
Silicon Valley has been a key driver of U.S. growth in the last two decades. Just look at the rise of Apple, Google, and Facebook, and all the jobs and opportunities and new communities they’ve created. But the “secret sauce” behind this success might be running out.
A new book caught my eye this week. It’s called The Immigrant Exodus by Vivek Wadhwa, a former tech entrepreneur who now studies and lectures on immigration. He has some fascinating findings. Wadhwa says between 1995 and 2005, more than a half of all Silicon Valley tech companies were founded by immigrants. But when Wadhwa updated his findings to 2012, he found the proportion of immigrant-founded companies had dropped by a sixth – from 52 percent to 44 percent.
Now, that might seem like a small drop, but it’s actually a ratio that should be rising, not dropping. You see, the tens of thousands of highly skilled immigrant engineers from the mid-1990s are now in prime position to found companies. According to the 2012 “Open for Business” study, immigrants are twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans. And yet Silicon Valley is seeing a decline in immigrant-founded companies.
Silicon Valley tends to be a harbinger of things to come in the national economy. Immigrant-founded companies nationwide accounted for the creation of nearly half a million jobs between 1995 and 2005.
So why are we seeing a “reverse brain drain”?
On the one hand, we’re now seeing a tangible impact of what I call the “rise of the rest.” The U.S. remains a pre-eminent power, with the best institutions of higher learning and research in the world. But increasingly, if you’re an immigrant from India, China, or Brazil, you can find competitive opportunities for growth at home, too. As these economies continue to develop, they will invest more in research and infrastructure, making businesses more attractive.
But another development – one which we control – is even more worrying. We’re losing our huge advantage in immigration, especially in skills-based immigration. Our system is broken. Wadhwa points out that we allocate 140,000 “green cards” (or permanent residency status) to people who are here on work visas. These green cards allow workers to jump ship from working for a company, to starting something on their own; to being entrepreneurs who create jobs.
But the law stipulates that no nationality can claim more than 7 percent of these cards. Now, given that half of the applicants are Indian and Chinese – the same communities that are dominant in Silicon Valley – we have a problem.
The irony is that for once, both President Obama and Governor Romney seem to agree we need to fix the problem. But even then, our politics are failing us. A bill last week to expand the number of green cards allotted to foreign students in the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – was voted down in Congress.
On a recent primetime special on CNN – “Fixing Immigration” – I pointed out that both Canada and Australia now have larger foreign-born populations than the United States. Both those countries revamped their immigration systems to attract and keep the best and brightest foreigners. But we’re closing the door to many of the smartest potential entrepreneurs in the world. If we want job creators, let’s stop kicking them out of the country.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Which of the following is the best way to combat a culture of socialism> A) Watching the 3 Stooges B) Riding a bicycle C) Consumerism D) Owning/training a pet
This is the first meaningful article Zakaria wrote, and some guy who watches 3 stooges jumped in before he read it.
The problem is, Zakaria didn't write it, it was "written" in 2009 by one of Vivek Wadhwa's interns. Here's the first time I saw this massively debunked tripe:
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/2009/10/oh-noes-indians-chinese-are-leaving.html
They keep trotting it out. Now they've turned up the volume (by putting it on CNN). Will anyone believe them now?
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
The Chi-Walla plagariser Fareed continues to spout liberal drivel.
@American -Hey Sahib, that's chai-wallah...man, some Americans just love to proclaim they be ingnant.
I doubt very much whether you read the article.
going to mcDonalds
I'm in desperate need of a job can you help me please
In theory the law, which stipulates that no nationality can claim more than 7 percent of these cards, is fair, in order to protect equality. But in practice, one has to be pragmatic and examine each case individually.
7% per nationality seems so weird to me. China and India have around 20% of the world's population each. Costa Rica is like 0.1% of the world. But apparently Costa Rica could theoretically have the same number of visas as China? Maybe the 7% limit is meant to stop some ethnic groups from becoming too numerous in America?
It's to block asians from being too numerous. We rather have dumb illegal mexicans than phd holders from asia
@truth...amigo you can buy fake phd in asia for a buck. Plus mexicans have big d!cks for the likes of you. comprende?
Gomez, did I struck a nerve? You mean all those illegal mexicans running across the river can do open brain surgery? Don't make me laugh.
I've always wonder why a person mention how big his penis is. Is it because in reality it's really small? Talking about it doesn't make it bigger
I think you hitt the nail right on the head.
@ truth -Well, judging by your lapses in syntax, I, for one, wouldn't want you performing brain surgery on my cat!
QuietAmerican, your grammar is putrid. Please learn how to write and come back.
Forget pragmatism, even reason seems to be lost the game of electoral politics. The two major political parties reach over each other to court a 12 million strong illegal, mostly uneducated group from Mexico. However, qualified Doctors and PhD from China and India are made to stand in the line for years or even a decade.
By preferring educated immigrants, Canada, Australia show the way here. The 7% works against US interests and needs to be changed. But hey, Canada and Australia are probably saner democracies with not as much polarization that it actually harms them.
Typo – Please read as :
the 7% rule
Typo – Please read as :
"... over 25 million strong illegal, mostly uneducated group from Mexico."
That never-changing "12 million" figure needs to go the way of the dodo.
This is not even subtle anymore. Two indians (Zakaria and Wadhwa) are saying we need more of them poorly educated Indian H1B workers.
No, they are not going to create AMERICAN jobs. They are only going to import more of the same kind.
This madness needs to stop.
Even a Stanford Graduated PHD Indian can hold H-1B, stop generalizing and demonizing H-1B's.
i know of a few indians who came on work permit and they know nothing about their jobs
If you think people with poor English/accent are poorly educated(indian or otherwise), you have very serious problem with judgement of their education & talent. Just saying...
Pot meet kettle.
most of indiand learn after they join jobs in USA
BODDA BING BODDA BOOM
We are Hindus from India,
And we like to put on the Bindiya,
We are mostly Haris,
But we like to put on the Saris,
Sadly, we are nothing but Bhikaris,
Sadly, we are nothing but Bhikaris,
Hey "Sanjeev",
Here's a lil joke for you – do share it with your pakistani dad:
Two families move from Pakistan to Canada. When they arrive, the fathers make each other a bet–in a year's time, whichever family has become more Canadian will win.
A year later when they meet again, the first guy says, "My son's playing hockey, I had Tim Horton's for breakfast and I'm on my way to pick up a two-four for tonight. How about you, eh?"
The second guy says, "F#!% you, Pakkie."
What actually is your definition of AMERICAN, from what i believe a bunch of FOREIGNERS went to a different continent and slaughtered the original people for their land and i'm talking about NORTH,CENTRAL, and SOUTH
I dislike the idea of using immigration as a kind of business investment, where the "best and brightest" are given visas and citizenship, while the others are kicked out or stopped from entering altogether. In my opinion, America should be a beacon of freedom for people. As long as you don't hurt anyone, or demand excessive public services or subsidies, you should be allowed to become an American.
Imagine if American citizens constantly had to meet some economic/business profit criteria in order to keep their citizenship. Lots of law-abiding, but poor, citizens could get deported. Some Americans actually like this idea, I bet, but to me it's immoral.
USA being the largest country of the industrialized world, if we allow immigration to all, we will be over-whelmed in a few years and become like the developing world. What we need is to stay a beacon of freedom we are, but only allow people who add in a meaningful way to the growth of this country or those who are oppressed, like the blind activist from China or Ang Suu Ki from Myanmar. If you can only take so much of that is there would you choose the best out there or just randomly hoard anything that you get?
No doubt, the best and the brightest entering the country will not impede the rest from coming to the United States. It just makes sense to keep college graduates who can only help drive the economy in the future. These people do not take jobs, but ulitmately are the ones who are the business owners that create jobs. We should be doing everything we can to keep them in the country. I have three friends, for instance, who entered this country at the same time. Two are physicians who entered legally, and joined a residency program. They ultimately got jobs working in "underserving" areas as physiicans, and have paid a combined 25K in fees in order to gain work visas. They still do not have their green cards after eight years. My other friend also entered legally at about the sam etime, and overstayed his visa. He just recently was able to clear up his record and gain a green card, though he paid a few thousand to do so. How does this make sense? This is our messed up immigration laws we have so far.
Even if we finally come around to providing more green cards to MS/PhD educated aliens, we will not be able to reverse the brain drain from US perspective or brain gain from the perspective of India, China etc. It is not only the BRICS countries, other countries such as Turkey etc are presenting opportunities to their respective citizens. Most US companies (Intel,IBM etc) have research and design centers overseas, so the foreigner who might have ended up in Silicon Valley if the visa regime was better might end up working for the same US company's design center in Bangalore,India or Shenzen,China. We still have the best schools (graduate/post-graduate) in the world and will continue attract the best in the world to study here but even if we staple green cards to their diplomas, we will not be able to make them stay here if greener pastures await in their home countries. The best foreign aid we could ever give!
Osama bin Laden excepted, of course.
Well said Fareed, you're absolutely right.
Fareed, Point well taken. I agree with you, but it is too late to do anything. The rise of China, India and Brazil will only continue to attract even more because of all the great benefits provided by those government for starting new ventures. The problem in US is the costs, inflation is taking its toll on this country. Prices have risen so much that for anyone to start a venture requires a large capital which is ok but the operating costs are even higher Therefore, I must tell you that we sat on this problem for too long and now we need to do more than just immigration.
It's never too late. In this case, it's not even late. Inflation in US is much lower than the inflation ind BRICS. Inflation in China hovered over 10% for much of this year and close to 10% in India. Brazil too is facing these challenges. We are not even close to those levels of inflation, we have some of the best learning centers in the world and we already have the infrastructure. If we can still attract the best talent in the world (like we did before the world wars and during the cold war), who knows some of those in the immigration line may turn out to be an Einstein or Tesla of this century.
You have vision, DG. Unfortunately, no one in our Congress does, and they are making the rules. They are reflexively reacting to the xenophobia running rampant in this country and feeding on the idea that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans instead of creating them. Our ignorance of our own history is killing this country.
This article is nonsense. Immigrants only started pouring into Silicon Valley in the mid to late 90's to get a piece of the pie. Silicon Valley goes back 60 years and all of the major companies to come out of it are American. The number of immigrant business startups has dropped off lately because venture capitalists really don't trust them because they are outsiders and really don't have the culture. Hate to say it but this article is a feel good pat yourself on the back article from an immigrant who really doesn't understand the statistics and history of what he is writing about.
I agree with you Mike. Most of these guys just want the opportunity with no intention of staying anyhow see it everyday.
The one thing your comment does not recognize is that into the late 80's and early 90's the U.S. still had an abundant supply of well educated americans to fill positions in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, our educational system is not turning out people with the knowledge, skills and drive needed to grow Silicon Valley and like places at the pace needed. This country has been underfunding public education, tolerating poor standards among teachers and students, and clinging to outmoded teaching methods for too long. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to rededicate themselves to education in this country. We need to reward the best teachers, support growth among the good teachers, and drop the poor teachers. Our students need to knuckle down and study, stop cheating and focus on learning more than partying. Our parents need to see that their kids go to school and that they go prepared. They need to encourage and enforce good study habits and make sure their children are using their computers to do more than play video games, tweet and play around on Facebook. We need to fund schools so that they have modern, attractive, well equipped facilities, with computers and up-to-date top of the line teaching materials. Schools need to be clean, comfortable, safe and attractive environments instead of the dilapidated, crumbling, dirty, cramped disgraces that so many have become if we hope to keep children in school and decrease the alarming dropout rate in this country. Until we grow a sufficient supply of educated, innovative and driven workers, we should encourage immigrants to come and stay.
That's a lie H1-B proponents keep pushing. Yawn. Yup, too many dumb Americans. Develop a cogent argument sometime.
Yes the schools need to do more, the parents and all of that. but also I'd like to add is that the immigrant is hungry and yearning to achieve. By the time the third generation comes around the kids don't want to work like a dog for the grades. We have kids in schools working hard not smart. The parents want them to get sports scholarships so there is more emphasis on that. Lastly, these computer companies are NOT creators of huge employment for Americans: think of the factories in China that makes Apple computers. A lot of those dot com hire a handful of people thats it. Lets get back to manufacturing in US thats where we hire a lot of people.
I wonder if Mr. Zakaria is doing the work of his own effort or just the same cut and past journalism.
"Mr. Zakaria" must have run out of content or been paid to push this PR package for India, Inc. Actually their frontman, Vivek Wadhwa, known in some circles as 'Fraudwa" has been pushing this agenda for awhile. Only Zakaria would give him a national audience:
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/2009/12/vivek-wadhwa-immigrants-is-us-brain.html
This has to be Zakaria's second major mistake since the "plagiarism" incident. I hope the patrons of this PR package (most likely Kauffman Foundation and/or NASSCOM) are paying CNN and him well.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
This guy doesn't have a clue. Like most of our so called 'leaders', he doesn't even know the question.
One and only one thing creates jobs. That is customers. Customers with plenty of money to spend. That is workers with money to spend.
As long as the exploitive employers are allowed to use H1B's, illegal immigration, and free trade to drive down wages and benefits for American workers, there will be no return to prosperity in America.
Your point is extremely well taken. How is it that we are printing money – Billions per month _ and not having huge inflation ? Answer. We are sending 40 to 50 billion out of the country each month. Inflation happens when the working people have discretionary money to spend. The inflation we do have is do to the rising costs of materials where supply and demand are raising the price. Businesses start when entreprenuers find a product or service that people want to buy. When people do not have discretionary funds new businesses do not do well.
India must cease financing the terrorists and address the Kashmir genocide issue. Otherwise we should stop ALL visa categories for Indians
India is not a financier of terrorism. I would ask for evidence of that. Pakistan and Afghanistan harbor terrorists. Kashmir is a separate issue, and India could do better on settling the dispute. However, India, Israel, and the US are natural allies in the war on terrorism. I don't understand your stance.
Crawl out of your cave Charlie and smell the air and see daylight!
Yes, let's stop all Indian visas to leave more space in America for Paki jihadis like Charlie.
Hey Thomas,
Your absolutely right , our friend here "Charile Muse" is trying to point out some nonsense of kasmiri muslims being killed, where in actuality there was a genocide in Kashmir, It was the Kashmiri Hindus who have been nearly wiped out of their homelands by Pakistani supported terrorists. Then when the Indian Army came in to protect the Kashmiri Hindus from annihilation .The Muslims cried fowl and said they were actual victims. It so funny because the evilness of certain religion is so evident and the levels they will go to be evil and blame the victim is beyond comprehension and sanity. Read about THE SECRETE GENOCIDE OF THE KASHMIRI HINDUS , and please DON'T GOOGLE IMAGE IT BECAUSE THEY ARE PICTURES OF DEAD KASHMIRI HINDU CHILDREN!!!!!!
I am a business owner with interests in San Jose CA. I will question Mr. Zakaria's claim. Right now, home sellers are accepting offers within days of listing, and deals are closing in week with cash purchases. Most of this money is coming from China. Wealthy Chinese are bailing out to San Jose where they can actually own a piece of land and can pass this land down to their children, and where the schools are superior.
Oh yeah please we definitely need more poorly educated, non-creative-thinking candidates in the pool. More noise to sift through while looking for actual talent. Awesome.
I am in silicon valley and I do see the trend. India is not a threat at the moment still because of poor post graduate research and education in thier Universities. But China is coming up fast. Also you could see this trend, when a chinese become a director, in few years you would see 90% of engineers under him would be chinese. And in next few years you could see part of Jobs shipped to China. So one thing US Govt should do is, stop issuing student Visas to chinese, middle eastern countries and Indians and try to keep the chinese and indian immigrants who are already in US. Lets educate our US citizen and make the current immigrants, as job creators and make them part of US.
At the same time we are shutting the door on educated foreigners, we are destroying our public education system and producing an under-educated work force. Sounds like a recipe for economic disaster. We have been shooting ourselves in the foot economically for so long that you'd think we'd be out of bullets by now. Apparently not.
US is investing its money in foreign students. Look at Most US schools. A well educated genius and bright white professor would be spending most of his time in educating a chinese, indian or middle eastern students. Later if these students are not part US or contribute to China, then ultimately US looses.
While most of your comments make sense, you got it wrong when you said US is spending on educating Asians. You know they pay twice (sometimes more) the tuition an American would pay. Another important thing is that money is coming from another country, which is good (but bad for our economy when they start working here and send money back home).
@DG–You are correct that immigrant workers remove a lot of money from the U.S. economy each year when they send money home. They send about $126 billion (or roughly the equivalent of the GDP of Iowa) home each year.
It seems to me that the optimal solution is not to import more immigrant/entrepreneurs from India or China but to teach entrepreneurship to native-born Americans, to encourage new ideas in the workplace, to encourage networking with venture capital firms & potential business partners, to improve our educational system by emphasizing creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. After all, aren't native-born Americans capable of bold innovation, too?
Hey, that doesn't fit Fareed's 'dumb Americans' agenda.
Ofcourse Americans are dumb; most of them cannot even point to or locate America on the map; and we all know now that the reason for that is "because Osama Americans can't...........)
LOL
Cheers dumb a$$es after all don't you guys elect the people who rule; these people being from the Dumbo Party on the right and the Jack A$$ party on the left – so saynora Dumb Jack A$$es.
I'm an American Engineer. I've tried to mentor few of my associates/subordinates. They do get it. But are very slow learner and don't think out the box/cube/whatever... I see one lady right now, Trying to troubleshoot a simple program for the last 3 days. I know If I had given the same problem to a skilled Indian worker, He'd have finished that within an hour.And would have probably suggested me some fancy solutions...
Call about brain drain and enterprenuership to me now....LOL
Nice try my friend, but your English is so poor it is easy to tell you are not a US Engineer as you claim.
liar liar pants on fire.
The US immigration system for highly skilled immigrants is broken. It is not just about Chinese and Indian immigrants. I am from a European country. I hold a PhD in computer science from a top US university (Carnegie Mellon). After CMU, I did a post-doc at MIT. I love US and wanted to stay, but the US immigration system nearly succeeded in ejecting me from the country during my MIT post-doc. At some point, I was one phone call away from taking a job in Switzerland. This was in 2009 just before the recession hit hard when the annual quota of H1B visas was too low. All of those visas were gone in a few weeks after April 1, many of them by lottery. My CMU/MIT degrees mattered nothing. I could have gotten a MS degree from a community college and would have been treated the same. Actually, somewhat ironically, most of those H1B visas were taken by Indian firms who were placing their consultants in the US. There is a special quota set aside for MS/PhD holders from American universities, and that quota filled up too.
My experience has been that Americans don't want to listen to these problems. They shrug it aside, as in, yes, immigration is tough. But then, in my case, I have been in US for 8 years when I ran into these problems. I knew US well, I liked it, I wanted to stay here. Only to discover that US does not really care.
To fix these problems, one must study the details of the current law. There is a myriad of rules, exceptions, random dates that one has to not miss, quotas at various levels. The details take more than 30 seconds to explain, so most people don't have the patience to listen, and just assume that the current laws must be OK, and it is just me whining. Nothing ever changes.
I am sure many of my peers WERE successfully ejected from US in 2009 and other years. I survived due to a combination of sheer luck and perseverance. I now have a green card - but the whole experience has certainly tainted US for me. I do feel less welcome here as a result, and I am happy to share my entire immigration experience (both good and bad) with other foreign engineers that are considering US as a potential career.
Bottom line: US needs to fix this, and fast, or else we will continue ejecting highly skilled talent, at random, out of the country. This has and will cause permanent damage to the economy.
Great comment. I have seen more than one educated foreigner who came here legally and wished to pursue the legal path to stay here pushed out of this country while others who came here illegally manage to stay. You are right, our immigration policies need to be revamped so that the best, the brightest, the hardest working and law abiding immigrants can come and stay and make the invaluable contribution that immigrants have always made to this country.
There is no shortage of highly intelligent people here in America but you sound as if your country of origin could use your talents to improve your homeland,if you are tainted by the immigration system here then just quit whining and pack your bags and go help your own people , we have no shortages of smart people here and we wont miss ya.
If you don't like it here, you probably should back to your home country. I never knew anyone who went back because they didn't like it here. Most went back because they had a good opportunity on a promotion and/or want to stay close to aging parents. Some felt job security in US on the whole is very poor and health care expenses very high in US.
In my opinion, (I have worked 30+ years in high tech in silicon valley), companies bend over backwards to accommodate immigrants and different ethnic groups. Even when we go out to eat or order in food, they ask whether there are any special orders required and set aside vegetarian dishes for the vegetarians and vegans. If you go to an engineering department of a networking company in silicon valley, you would see 70% will be Asians (Indians, people from China, Taiwan or Honk Kong). They work hard, shine in whatever they do and if they find good opportunity, they move. . Of course, the middle and upper management are mostly Caucasians.
The H1B cap in 2009 was not filled till december. Don't lie to people who don't follow the program.
It does not matter if immigrants or natural born citizens found companies. Simply because FEWER immigrants are founding them, does not mean fewer companies are being created. Additionally, the volume of companies created is also not nearly as important as the quality of the company and idea.
My area is doing just fine thank you.
Zakaria tends to f
orget how manycompanies shipped these jobs overseas over the last 20 years.How American companies laid off most people in any type of computer related industry in favor of Indian slaves and Chinese slaves and it has nothing to do with intelligence.If you believe they are smarter than Americans than I got this bridge for sale...
Exactly. I feel poor research is done for this article. I think Zakaria should go back to writing article on middle east issues.
Your argument would hold good if the article was about jobs. But this is about innovating and establishing new companies (which is not deterred by outsourcing). Outsourcing or offshoring hurts jobs in ESTABLISHED business, not new start-ups.
I understand that Americans are facinated by the prospect of Slavery but I suggest you not call the Indians and Chinese Slaves despite how much you may like for that to be true; beside please do remember that with your 16 Trillion dollar debt most of that owed to China the very opposite may be true i.e. Americans like yourself being slaves to the Chinese.
PS: Please do vote for Obama and the Democratic Pary, we love them so very much.
Repeated studies have shown that there is a greater incidence of child molestation and incest among southern white evangelical christians than in any other group that participated in the study. Living in cramped quarters (such as trailer parks) is one of the main causes of perverted behavior among christians. Those requiring further proof need only to take a casual drive south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The abundance of toothless christian cretins you will see are a direct result of generations of inbreeding. Historians have long theorized that the south lost the civil war because of the many mentally challenged soldiers in the Confederate army, also a result of this inbreeding.
Oddly enough, many of these christian misfits make their way north or west where they can be found working in gas stations and car washes. And yes, some do end up in Congress on the republican side of the aisle. And some end up in mainstream cinema, appearing in such classics as Deliverance, Smokey and The Bandit and the Dukes of Hazzard.
You are no better than those you decry.
Now now you are being unfair to the Democrats, there are quite a few such inbred prics among the democrats as well especially given that post the Civil war all the members of the KKK ended up joining the democratic party; I love those old KKK posters flaunting their representatives in the democratic party. You still get to see some of this like from our current vice president Mr Bigot Biden who really does a great Indian imitation especially when he talks to his inbred base about jobs being shipped overseas and having to talk to someone at customer service who has an Indian accent.
Please CNN fire this Zakaria POS, not only does he plagarize other people's work, he writes extremely biased and one-sided articles that are pro-immigrant and anti-american and overall generally baseless. I am so sick of seeing people listen to this demented idot's rhetoric. He lowers the quality of CNN. He should be sent back to the middle east to be closer to his Al Qaeda friends.
Oh my god the a member of the US media writes biased articles, now how could that even be possible. I do however have one small doubt, are you Native American Indian because that would be the only way you would find pro immigration to be anti american, otherwise pro immigration should be construed as pro american.
Silicon Valley is competing with Silicon Beach. Silicon Beach is a roughly 3-mile stretch of sand from Venice to Santa Monica, and is home to a host of young tech companies with an entertainment, celebrity or mobile edge. Cheaper rents than the Bay Area, better weather and proximity to the beach (most of the start-ups are within two blocks of the ocean) make Silicon Beach an attractive place to be. More than 500 tech start-ups have sprouted in sprawling Los Angeles and its environs, according to members of the L.A. tech scene who have compiled the list online as RepresentLA.com. But most of the action is at the beach.
Happi Beachi!
What Zakaria fails to mention or does not know is the following because he is not an insider and his information is second hand. I work with and have been working with engineers from India and China for the past 20+ years. There is lot of attraction for Indian engineers to go back:
(1) Poor job security in US because companies take jobs offshore and lay off people.
(2) When companies like Cisco and Juniper offshore jobs, they give the offer to local engineers to go to India and head those divisions and they look at it as a good opportunity because it is a quick promotion and they have family support in India.
(3) India is the biggest democracy in the world and the life style change for those who move back is very minimal with the exception of infra structure difficulties.
(4) The cutoff point is usually if children are below 14 because for kids above 14, to assimilate back into Indian lifestyle is difficult.
People from China and Taiwan don't go back because their freedom in their home countries is limited.
Asia’s rampant cheating problem
Determined to get into U.S. colleges, more and more students turn to fake transcripts, essays and SAT scores
By Patrick Winn, GlobalPost
BANGKOK, Thailand — From sleep to social lives, there is little Asia’s most upwardly mobile students won’t sacrifice for education. Though they belong to the so-called “Asian Century,” American colleges remain the premier destination for the elite from Shanghai to Singapore to Seoul.
Global Post
The path to U.S. college acceptance, however, increasingly compels students to sacrifice their integrity. For the right price, unscrupulous college prep agencies offer ghostwritten essays in flawless English, fake awards, manipulated transcripts and even whiz kids for hire who’ll pose as the applicant for SAT exams.
“Oh my God, they can do everything for you,” said Nok, 17-year-old Thai senior in her final year at a private Bangkok high school. (She asked GlobalPost to alter her name for this article.) “They can take the SAT for you, no problem. Most students don’t really think it’s wrong.”
AND they are all going home because there's nothing left here to take: they've already cleaned it all out and sent it back to Asia.
I usually agree with him, but 30 seconds of critical thinking will tell you that Canada and Austrailia are not overpopulated like we are. There are too many people here already. We need to stop spoiling and coddling our youngsters and encourage them to study in these fields so we don't need to import people from another country. This "broken system" boils down to selfish, lazy parents that don't get involved in their children's education!
One of the rare moment that Fareed got wrong here was people tend to leave US once they get the citizenship of US. Otherwise they try to somewhat hangaround. Wadhwa could do more thorough analysis on this. People leave US when thier kids are relatively young ( before 6th grade ) so they could adapt back in thier home country easily. Once they pass 8th or 9th Grade the Parents Stick. Also when the Kids grow old enough, these new American citizens would like to go back to thier country and experiment some new Business. Make special laws to avoid those Job exporters.
From pure benefit for US point of view they have to categories carefully....
- The coaching/mentoring experience from US professors and research facilities in US are one of the most valuable in the world. Do we want to give those to Immigrants ? Yeah., may be with ratio of 1 immigrant to 3 American citizen ratio to get some of the best from the world.
- The immigrants who finish thier higher education here should be given a Long term Visa like Green Card immediately to utilise them. They earn, they would create Jobs, they would buy properties etc., etc.,
- If they leave to thier home country for more than 1 year, make it super hard for them to come back to USA.
- Dont give them the citizenship until thier Kids go to 8th or 9th Grade.
Sorry., I am sounding like making laws in China or some strict communist country. But it might be one of the best ways to integrate the best population to US.
More silliness. I guess because you make things up and have any opinion you want when you're writing about politics you think the same thing applies to science and engineering. Silicon Valley is more about the opportunity, infrastructure, culture and proximity of other tech companies than low level programmers.
Fareed Zakaria you are talking about Wadhwa's article, where is your creativity. Are you just porting articles written by Indians to American media or you are trying to read in between the lines where there is nothing to read. Come up with something original.
It turns out that folks like Zakaria & Wadhwa are la Cage aux Folle. Put their dissertations into a reading scale or plagiarism engine and get this:
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/2009/12/does-vivek-wadhwa-write-his-own-stuff.html
It turns out that the students that these guys use don't try very hard, especially if they won't get any credit. Try it yourselves, folks...
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
I've been writing about Vivek Wadhwa and his own little brand of lobbying plagarism for awhile now. He's bankrolled by both NASSCOM as well as the Kauffman Foundation.
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/search/label/fraudhwa
Enjoy "real news" in the morning....
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
Did you lose your job to an immigrant? aaaw I feel bad for you, no really I do!
Rather than continuously spouting off these hollow claims on how many new businesses have been started up in the U.S. by people here on visas, what I want to know is: how many people are they employing here in the U.S. and for how long; are the employees also here on visas; what is the average salary; what are their average profits; are they helping to reduce the U.S. trade imbalance – ??? – lets get some of those questions answered.
So what if someone comes here and rents a small office and then it goes belly up next year, OR if you create a head-hunter agency where all of the real work is offshored.
Rather than just mouth off hyped claims, lets have some facts. We can't base our policies on crap like "for every visa worker brought into the U.S., we hire 3 additional U.S. citizens...", yeah, that kind of nonsense.
Back up your b/s with some real stats why don't cha...I dare you...
"So why are we seeing a “reverse brain drain”?"
No. If you open up 99% of the INDIANS and CHINESE will leave their country.
Nowadays Zachariah writes only nonsense.
YET AGAIN our PLAGIARIST Islamic supporter Mr. Fareed Zakarai comes up with an article entirely based on someone else's book.
Also he uses that to FURTHER HIS OWN AGENDA of pushing for greater immigration of ALL TYPES, b'coz only as Mr. Zakaria knows too well, in the garb of allowing some bright young entrepreneurial Indians and Chinese, will come along HORDES OF UNEDUCATED INTOLERANT JIHADIST MINDED MUSLIMS intent on NOT growing America, but destroying it from within.
Had Mr. Zakaria argued to LIBERALISE IMMIGRATION ONLY for the best & brightest, surely every American would buy it. But what Americans rightfully fear & oppose is Mr. Zakaria’s COVERT efforts to sneak in his co-religionists riding on the same bandwagon!!!
I know from first hand experience: There are smart people everywhere. India produces tons of graduates, most of them cannot do basic engineering, having run a start up there I know. Even CEOs of Indian companies are complaining of lack of qualified workforce. Silicon valley goes back to the 50s and 60s when the defense companies and the space program spawned off a lot of companies....Fairchild's alumni are responsible for a lot of companies int he semiconductor space.
Yes Indians and other immigrants have also started companies that have done well, but there are a lot of sides to this story.
I was told by a good acquaintance to get contracts at Cisco, you give bribes to the people there (5%) in the wife's name in India or china. I personally know of cases where people have given bribes, some were offered to me by Indian services companies. Have seen this in action. Earlier generation of immigrants came here because there was very little opportunities in their countries for highly educated people. Recent immigrants are mostly economic migrants, they come from a culture which itself has degraded in their home countries... and bring it here with them.
At the same time, there are large problems in our system, all the jobs in the US have been outsourced in the high tech industry, google's and facebooks do not create employment or an economy. They do not employ a whole bunch people in the supply chain like a manufacturing industry does. And yes, our country's focus is not on MATH, SCIENCE and ENGINEERING it is on friends, X-factor and American Idol.
We are driven by short term memories and even shorter attention spans. We are driven by what the executives stock options due by Tuesday... no long term strategic planning ( Almost every new CEO in most companies lays off people as a first step to please wall street). So the problem is not just immigration but systemic.
One of the main problem with the scarcity of H1B quota is due to unfair practices of consultant companies. There are big Indian companies like Wipro, Infosys as well as some US based consultant companies applies for H1B visa even though they may not require them. These annual quota gets exhausted in the matter of days. Most of those people with H1B visa are not even in the regular payroll. And later when a real company in US needs to hire a qualified US educated students, there are no quota left.
One of the way to curb this practice would be to check if those H1B visa are used or not. Fine the company heavily and/or ban for future application if 90% of the H1B visa are not being used. Payslips can be used as one of the ways to check.
IMO if the available quotas are used honestly and effectively, the current quota is not that far off.
I like one of the forum member's idea of the company has to hire at two or three new US citizens employees for every H1B visa.
IF Mr.ZAKARIA IS NOT A PLAGIARIST WHAT ELSE IS HE?????
CHECK THIS OUT: How he skimmed of the report by a Russian author to CREATE his own story VERBATIM.
Just see how the stories start (read the first 2 paragraphs carefully)
"Would moving capital kick-start Russian economic reform?" CNN FZ-GPS may 29th 2012
By Fareed Zakaria
"A BOLD PROPOSAL RECENTLY CAUGHT MY EYE": One of Moscow's top academics says Russia should build a new capital city. This city would be far, far away from Moscow, 4,000 miles to be exact — in Vladivostok.
And compare that with the first 2 pargraphs above!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Immigration killed the tech sector. Intelligent kids saw what happened to the salaries. They lobbied congress to flood the market with excess workers in the late 90's. When the bubble burst, the companies kept the visas and layed off the Americans. Even with so many out of work they still kept issuing H1-B's.
Intelligent people aren't going to pick a field that is so vulnerable to manipulation. We saw the same thing in medicine. The employers abused the immigration system so much that the people intelligent enough to do the job choose other career paths.
Limburger cheese should be renamed Sarah Palin cheese.
Fareed's problem is that he doesn't really care about any of the issues. This guy is a careerist, pure and simple. He will do anything to ingratiate himself with the powers that be. He also has a serious inferiority complex and he gets a lot of issues wrong. I remember how he advocated for the disastrous war in Iraq and then switched gears when the war was not going well. He also says some really offensive stuff about the Arab and Muslim world. Also, what makes him an expert on every subject? I mean what does he know about Silicon Valley? Is he a computer scientist? No. Business mind? No. Decent writer? Well not anymore, since it's obvious he doesn't even take the time to write his own stuff anymore.
What we need is an education system that delivers qualified American students to our universities, not more immigrants to fil the gap on top of sending high tech jobs overseas. As an electrical engineer working in high tech for over 30 years, I can honestly say that America's youth are far far far behind those in countries like India.
IndianAmerican...I haven't heard the bribe thing before, but from personal experience in silicon valley I can confirm terribly discriminatory hiring practices that are not only not investigated, but are actually encouraged by both political parties in this country. IF YOU ARE AN AMERICAN DON"T STUDY ENGINEERING!!! You won't get hired...period. Your government only wants foreign born engineers. Companies allow foreign hiring managers to hire 100% from their own native districts. If you have a child that is born in this country you should be very afraid.
From scientific point, Information-mathematics is stuck, there is no big improvements anymore. Still, most of the best algorithms are from 40-50 or maybe 60 years before. Innovations over them are done, so innovation is also stuck anymore.
It's not about immigration.
And what he says is not the only ISSUE.... how many toys can you wear in one day?
Felix1877
From scientific point, Information-mathematics is stuck, there is no big improvements anymore. Still, most of the best algorithms are from 40-50 or maybe 60 years before. Innovations over them are done, so innovation is also stuck anymore.
It's not about immigration.
Or issue less H1B visas and make American students aware that there is one last productive well paid career path left in America.
Jobs simply said his last words; revenged the things he suffered and achieved his lifetime aim.. Thats all
Silicon Valley is NOT geared for Upcoming technologies in Nano Particles, Organic Semiconductors, WindPower. That is because Silicon Valley is good at productizing but does not have the patience needed for long gestation of core technologies. Silicon Valley directly imported Labor from countries where most engineers learned skill based education such Java Programming, using industry tools. The Market Driven Privatized education in these countries churns engineers who have very poor core mathamatics, engineering theory background. These folks when they landed in Silicon Valley in late 90s, the valley work culture changed to a Classic Factory Structure. The largely internet based products developed in 90s, early 2000's were feasible with Common Centric Programming Skills. That is not true for upcoming Robotic Electromechanical machines, next generation wind power etc. The Silicon Valley VC is too scared to risk in anything that requires analytical work. Math and experiment on a paycheck is considered risky. The VC prefers Facebook type ideas which were done in a college dorm for free for few years OR in some university science lab. All this contributes to the overall demise of Silicon Valley Culture, the core of it's innovation.
CORRECT- its about OVER for SMALLER MINDS EVERYWHERE
And what he says is not the only ISSUE.... how many toys can you wear in one day?
Felix1877
From scientific point, Information-mathematics is stuck, there is no big improvements anymore. Still, most of the best algorithms are from 40-50 or maybe 60 years before. Innovations over them are done, so innovation is also stuck anymore.
It's not about immigration.
More regulations in more of the wrong places = more outsourced jobs thx obama
Indian lobby is trying hard to get more H1-b visas and export more poorly trained engineers to the US. Fareed Zakaria and Vivek are both indians. This is a propaganda that America lacks higher education and somehow immigrants are smarter and have better training. BS. These are big companies plus foreign lobbies that their interests converge and they push for more immigrant visas. Big companies want cheap labor, hire them at much less pay and then they have controle over them as well. As a result , our jobs go either overseas or immigrants come here to take them. In both cases, american jobs go to non-Americans and they shift most of the wealth they earn here to their native countries.
Could someone ask Zakaria if he plans to send his children to college or grad school in India or China? I rest my case.
My employer prefers H1B engineers. Not because they are more talented than American engineers. It's because H1Bs have to keep working for our company or leave the United States. American engineers don't get kicked out of the country if our employer mistreats us. If American engineers don't like their pay, benefits, or work conditions we simply move on to a better company. Usually for more money. H1B visa is a form of entrapment or slavery.
Americans have lost so many jobs to outsourcing there is a big jump to work independently or start their own business. Although numbers have decreased for immigrants, have they increased for Americans? I bet they have. Most young and old alike want to do their own thing, they don't trust the corporate world anymore(Google, Facebook,etc..).
One of the few opinions by Zakaria outside of the Middle East. At least on his one point that Silicon Valley is loosing its luster. But not for the reasons he mentions (although they may be a side effect). I've worked extensively with Silicon Valley companies and their biggest problems are: 1) Their enormous ego (which causes them to under estimate others); and 2) The enormous cost of doing anything in Silicon Valley, including living. There are many places (Austin, NC, China, India, Israel, Boston) that have everything intellectually (except as yet as many patents and the degree of Vulture Capitalism, and such facts Silicon Valley will continue to gloat on) that start up companies can make at least as good a go if not better long term. That's fine, one reaps what one sows.
Hello, Farheed, where'd you read this - on a tech-oriented website about 5 years ago? Hello!
Indians are like snakes they pair up and always multiple. I have a neighbour who moved in with his hife and four kids in three bedroom house, a week later came his brother, his wife and four kids, a month later came the old parents, now his sister, her husband and three kids. We lost the count but all of them live a three bedroom house and it stinks with garlic and burning chillies smell. Enough of these people, lets hire Americans in America and kick these Stinkys out, Please.
In computer science in Silicon Valley now 80% indians and chineeses., including top managements .They are hiring mostly indians and making a lot of troubles for born- here white americans, forcing them to leave. Horrible massive situation.
So if an Indian or Chinese gets Costa Rican citizenship, he can get GreenCard faster than just applying as Indian or Chinese citizen? Never knew my country would have such strange laws.
Wouldn't it be better to improve the U.S. education system and use financial incentives to encourage U.S. citizens to begin startup techonlogical companies, rather than having to rely upon immigration?
No doubt, the best and the brightest entering the country will not impede the rest from coming to the United States. It just makes sense to keep college graduates who can only help drive the economy in the future. These people do not take jobs, but ulitmately are the ones who are the business owners that create jobs. We should be doing everything we can to keep them in the country. I have three friends, for instance, who entered this country at the same time. Two are physicians who entered legally, and joined a residency program. They ultimately got jobs working in "underserving" areas as physiicans, and have paid a combined 25K in fees in order to gain work visas. They still do not have their green cards after eight years. My other friend also entered legally at about the sam etime, and overstayed his visa. He just recently was able to clear up his record and gain a green card, though he paid a few thousand to do so. How does this make sense? This is our messed up immigration laws we have so far.
funny how he mentions india and brazil but not russia despite russia grows much much higher than both these countries, russias gdp is higher than india.
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