Yeah, i guess jumping ship isn't THAT hard as is. IDK how it is at the bodyshops, but at normal companies people are also tied down by the promise of or an active greencard application (until I-140 approved + 180 days, i guess)

The whole system is freakin' depressing imo for everyone involved it's really high stakes bureaucracy for employers, and non-citizen employees. kind of annoying for US employees from a labor competition pov.

  Lawyers get paid nicely to fill out some paperwork though...

setting aside my many thoughts about what schools could do better,

the US education system on average produces excellent results according to PISA tests.

this is about 2022 results but it's been true at least back to 2009

https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/...

And even the NAEP results that set off this recent panic have been pretty stable since the late 90s both in absolute performance and gaps between groups. Yes there was a bit of a Covid dip but nothing to write home about on the large scale.

So overall... yeah we could do things better, but also the sky isn't falling.

(and as another crosscheck, if you look at functional literacy for adults the US scores better than like UK and France on average )

iirc i played like 100 hours and was still only like 1/2 done through the main story (but it was Ultimate edition so maybe had DLCs too, but i don't even know if i got to them)

to clarify, people prob will apply for H-1B jobs as soon as possible in case they don't make the lottery that year, rather than wait after using up all 3 years of OPT (unless i guess they really know they want to get a masters (?) ) but haven't dealt w/ a lot of OPT people / don't know the strats.

What's you may be thinking of is more the O-1 "genius" visas... which don't really require a genius but a published PhD level.

H-1Bs are mixed. many are definitely foreign trained, but also many start out as foreign students in US universities. I haven't checked the split ,but most foreign STEM graduates of us BS or MS programs certainly try to get H-1B jobs and many succeed.

For school they're here on F1 visa and automatically get 1 year of work permission after graduation under OPT (Optional Practical Training) as long as its in their field of study.
For STEM students specifically they can extend it to 3 years.
And then H-1B for 3 years w/ a 3 year extension.

Also instead of those H-1Bs you can get a Master's degree which would give you another year (or three) of OPT. and then do the H-1Bs.

(Technically you could do the same thing with a PhD too which would get you another 1 (or 3) years, OPT, but also i think PhDs from US programs can apply for greencards directly, w/o going through the H-1B program )

100% there were abuses in the past. But this has been cracked down and the bodyshops account for a pretty small % of the H1-B hires.

Bloomberg says it's at least half bodyshops in the 2020s (haven't checked their methodology)

https://economictimes.indiatim...

I'd argue that you saw the company try the same dynamic but they got caught / punished, which i think is the exception rather than the rule. Thanks for sharing, i'd actually never heard (i think) of any company facing repercussions.

oh and another estimated 10%-20% get married to us citizens and go that route.

this is the path attempted by all who i've known.

chatGPT sez:

(and seems reasonable after some poking at it)

The vast majority DON'T become employers in terms of founding companies obviously, and that issue you point at with managers definitely happens. (but once it reaches a tipping point of density ... you wouldn't want to work in that group / department / company anyway) so it's not that what you mention doesn't happen, but also:

"Most Billion-Dollar Startups In The U.S. Founded By Immigrants"

(2022 article
https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... )

I think more likely they'll nip this in the bud with extreme prejudice.

(and of course they're already in love with "remote work" when the "remote" is some significantly lower cost area, like India, Eastern Europe, or Texas... and they set up an office there or outsource to there. And yes i understand the argument is that you're co-locating teams and the sharding is at a higher level, but in practice it often ends up with even teams being spread over multiple timezones, let alone that a lot of communication is inter-team anyway)

Ugh. right sentiment, but all these raised fees by the government is crap. it's just more taxation.

Just enforce the f'in rules already on the books about market wages and actually investigate kickback schemes and it would be FINE. (but wouldn't get the headline).

I've known many intelligent and capable H1-B people contributing as W-2s in engineering and product roles at market prices at mainstream tech companies and they were an asset to the industry and the country. Of course due to the reality of supply / demand they lowered market rate a little presumably, but overall (without a full financial model) i think the country is clearly better for having them.

And then there's that bulk of humanity at the contract and staffing houses where... idk. I mean mostly they're also fine enough humans also, but they're distorting the market by being rented out at sub-market rates, AND also many areexploited by some of those same houses by being underpaid or through outright kickbacks.

So i want something that will protect the former but prohibit the later.
and i think some enforcement of current laws would achieve at least some of that...

Actually one thing that WOULD probably work is just getting rid of the employer tie once an H1-B is hired! i.e. if one employer proves they can't find that talent, that means it's not unique to them. SO once someone's in... then , maybe after a year or something , allow them to freely change jobs!
That would be a market solution to this problem! (prove me wrong! (ok i only thought about it just now so... idk if it'll hold up) )

Whether you call it a design flaw or not is in the eye of the beholder. Like TFA points out the A320's Neo engine seals wear out a lot faster so it leaks a lot more and it's not "slightly worse" it's a multiple worse. So it's like a car model that bursts into flames 5x as often as others of its type. It's still generally speaking a safe car but in modern production goods... that's considered a "design flaw".

Also what can be done on existing planes is to retrofit an air sensor and filter system it wouldn't be _cheap_ but also not prohibitive either on the scale of airline costs aviation costs. Maybe less than $250K (*) / airframe assuming the development and STC certification cost is spread out over the whole fleet to install it and then some thousands to replace filters every year or so.

*) estimates based on arguments with chat-gpt 5 (it claims ~$100k / airframe but i'm bumping it up 'cause it "feels" too low.)

main problem is that "dodgy" is subject to constant and retroactive reinterpretation.

imagine in 10 years some hyper environmentalists come to power and they decide to fine or cancel people they deem responsible for global warming. So they look wherever they can. Flight records are one place.

ridiculous ?

for decades IRS records were off limits to law enforcement of any sort (afaik) and certainly for immigration enforcement.
come 2025 Now suddenly at the snap of a a finger all that is being used for ICE enforcement.

sadly, government access to data is just an invitation to wrongdoing.

TFA is excellent and worth a full read.
it addresses a lot of the knee jerk concerns voiced above about Airbus vs Boeing.

This is a real problem where the industry has downplayed the issue for decades.

(and that Mentour Pilot YT video covers a particular disastrous failure mode that TFA doesn't get into, but TFA is great on the chronic issue)