How H1B visas enable the government, universities and industry to supress PHDs/skilled workers -Eric Weinstein @ Thiel Capital

"There is a suspicion that international postdocs are in many cases a form of slave labor within the American research establishment. ...

There are some very touchy issues surrounding the question of international postdoctoral students. We can certainly identify some advantages to having these students on our campuses....international postdoctoral students provide a good deal of low-cost talent for our universities. They often serve as teachers in our research laboratories by supervising both doctoral and masters students."
- Steven B. Sample, President, University of Southern California, "Postdoctoral Education in America", a Speech to the AAU, September 23, 1993

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/h…

I've been listening to both Eric and his brother discuss politics lately and think they both bring up interesting points that allude to greater conspiracies about big industry, the university system and the federal government. This particular paper stood out to me because prior to studying finance I originally wanted to go down the PHD track in STEM, and after reading it I feel even better about my decision to abandon that path. I would love to hear the thoughts of people who made similar switches, know someone who is going through the struggles described in the paper and some of the older and wiser folks in industry who were around when these acts were initially passed back in the 90s.

 

Trump is right to crack down on H1-B visas, as it has been abused by companies to deliberately undercut American workers to import cheaper foreigners. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the vast majority of H1-B visa holders are lower skilled workers in areas such as IT, NOT STEM geniuses who work in super technical cutting-edge fields.

 
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Right, but I don't think that's hugely important by comparison. Think about the value produced by even 100 low-level IT professionals vs the research that can be done by 1 high-level STEM PHD. The point is that by deliberately handicapping the development of US-born STEM PHDs with this policy trick in order to lower the costs to colleges and corporations, the government has by extension cut down on the US' own leading edge in innovation. What sense does it make to continuously dedicate resources and time to educate people who we then send back to their countries to be competitive against US businesses after we've gotten some years of cheap work out of them? The US is basically selling out its long term human capital and educational advantage for short term gains.

 

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