[jldugger]

Basking in future billionaires could mean taxing them to fix US education systems (or a lifetime supply of mojitos, I don't care) so it's not all bad.

But there's a knock on effect -- if you go to the effort of sponsoring an H1-B with the intention of underpaying them, then changing the rules to allow visa holders to leave you for a job that pays job (or better work-life balance or has a mojito bar) would leave you holding all the processing expense and none of the profit from underpaying people.

[pm90]

I think this is a rather pessimistic view of the benefits of hiring intelligent and hard working people to work for your country's companies. Its most certainly not in the disparity of pay; more because they provide more value, due to said intelligence and proclivity to work hard.

[jldugger]

I don't see it as a pessimistic view. Any employer committed to rewarding people for their value shouldn't need to rely on an omnipresent threat of deportation. I see myself as optimistic that such employers do exist, and should be happy to both recruit such foreign workers to US shores, and happy to poach them from other US firms.

Free movement between employers would likely free up only places like Wipro, Tata and the like, whose business models appear to rely on disparity of pay.

[grigjd3]

Boy do you like mojitos!