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Comment by mc-lovin | Hacker News Reader

While you are correct that H-1B visa's benefit employers of tech workers, and harm American tech workers, you are wrong to claim that this means it is a matter of billionaires vs "workers".

Most of these companies are public, and therefore pay money to shareholders, and also pay taxes. The distribution of wealth is a separate issue, that could be dealt with by changes to the tax system.

Both sides on the H-1B debate come up with bad arguments for their cause, but the economics is very simple: labor is like any other commodity, and free trade is optimal, ignoring externalities. In this case the main externality is having a bunch of foreigners living in the US, and possibly staying: it's up to Americans how costly (or beneficial) they think this is.

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I realize it sounds hyperbolic to call some of your terminology Orwellian, especially since it is so commonplace in the US media, but it's kind of amusing how corporations took a look at citizen-voted, government-financed public broadcasting, public libraries, public schools, public transportation, public works etc. and decided to try to grab that adjective for themselves.

That the median blue collar worker in the US can buy a token stock of a company means nothing. The last survey by the Federal Reserve of wealth distribution that I'm aware of, the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances, shows that the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 42.2% of the stock market, the wealthiest 90%-99% own the exact same same amount - 42.2%, and the other 90% of the country owns only 15.6% of the stock market, and most of that at the top. Almost all studies indicate this disparity has increased, even credible conservative/liberatarian studies don't dispute the disparity. The stock market is a rich man's game, your talk about being public and shareholders is part of that.

So what exactly was Orwellian about my terminology? I missed the point where you said that.

You have basically dodged my argument about taxes an economic efficiency. By your logic, a policy that destroys $1 worth of real goods in a randomly selected company, and provides 10c of wealth to a "worker", would be justified. This in spite of the fact that the taxation system could accomplish a much more efficient redistribution of wealth.

Why are you arguing about H-1B visas when you really should be arguing for higher taxes (for the top 10% of income earners).

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