Correct. Furthermore when you have gutted the demand side of the economy what emerges are phenomena like Walmart where lower consumer prices are achieved through a monopsony (the private sector form of the "single payer" holy grail socialized medicine seeks for the same reason) that not only pays its suppliers less, but also its employees less because as the jobs market contracts, there is nowhere else to work ultimately. Walmart also knows EXACTLY what it is doing when it trains its employees in the art of extracting government benefits from a decreasing government revenue stream.

All of this wouldn't be so bad if the tax base were on net assets rather than economic activity as at least then the companies engaging in corrupt hiring practices --such as I witnessed during the huge ramp up in H-1b circa 2000 when I was told I could hire all the programmers from India for HP but not the single US-citizen specialist in the field that I needed -- will be dumped because the companies doing them will be put out of business by a more level playing field in the free market.

silfen confesses "Yes, H-1B workers are at the bottom of the pay scale for the simple reason that H-1B visas are for people just starting out."

Ah I see. So the violation of the H-1B statute is so pervasive now that people are under the impression that it is for people who are just starting out.

My mistake.

Mark et al should simply be thrown in jail for fraud and since this has gotten so far out of hand as to permit responses like silfen's to have the remotest credibility, the jail time should be mandatory without parole.

Its tragic that Mark et al are being forced to put up with just sort of OK US workers.

You know one step that Mark et al could take that would grease the skids on their immigration reforms?

Pay the geniuses they want to import what they're worth. See The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers.

In fact, Mark et al should either pay back salaries to all of the H-1b workers they've ever employed or Mark et al should be thrown in prison for fraudulent abuse of the H-1B guest worker provision.

Interesting. Is the geometry of that so-called "development vehicle" representative of the production vehicle's?

Don't forget authors and actors, who have to pay agents to intermediate, or they don't get contracts.

You are not them. They've little or no choice. Overpopulation has consequences, one of which is reducing labor to negative cost.

Back in 1981-1983 when I was local support team leader for Space Studies Institute in Miami, FL promoting the idea of space colonies among the locals, one of the slides we showed was of this artist's conception of a Single Stage to Orbit Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing system proposed by Boeing to loft solar power satellites into LEO. This vehicle also appeared in Gerard O'Neill's original edition of "The High Frontier" that Jeff Bezos probably read while he was becoming the valedictorian of his high school class.

Looking at Bezos's New Shepherd Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing vehicle you might think that somewhere along the line Jeff caught a glimpse of Boeing's old design.

there's a difference when a private company does it and the government does it. " no. There is not.

Well DONE. People trust tech so much it doesn't occur to them that data can be faked, if you can access the system backdoors.

Privacy an illusion? This is too easy. What's your name? Address? Children's names, sex ages, pics, and current locations?
How much do you make? What's your car plate ID? I'm sure you won't mind sharing.

Add more cameras, track all cars, put cameras in cars, and there is no place to be alone. Prison with mortgage and car payments.

So, we hide in boxes until we die, or live in prison.
False dilemma. We have other choices. Like, NO cameras.

Try it on a plane. Then reflect that they will do the same if you blind their ground cameras. Expect a felony charge. And a club to your groin.

The law is whatever the conga line of cops caving in your ribs say it is. That's reality. Dont give monkeys the keys to the banana plantation.

You assume tomorrow will be just like today. This is not a static situation. The recognition systems will get better, then become nearly perfect. And they have other ways of cross checking the ID. This is not a game, and they are smarter than you.