[hiram112]

No.

I lived and worked for one of the big offshoring companies in Karnataka and also the US in my 20s. I'm glad I had the experience to do so, and, as an American, I was never treated so well in another country (I've also lived in the EU several times).

But the whole experience really showed me that it had nothing to do with diversity, cultural exchange, getting the 'best and brightest, nor all the other bullshit that executives and lobbyists use to push offshoring and unlimited visas for foreign workers. It is about wage arbitrage, screwing over US workers while enriching management and shareholders, and ignoring a company's responsibility to pay back the society which provides them the environment they use to create a profitable business.

It is very short-term thinking, and has probably had more to do with the growing inequality between the 0.1% and the rest of us than anything else.

The H1B and other visas, along with offshoring and 'global employees' is way more supported on HN than it would be on any other US based tech site, and that's because HN has way more wanna-be Zuckerburgs and Bezos, and less 50 year old System Admins who've had the unfortunate experience of training their own replacements from India on H1b visas, right before being fired themselves.

[codegeek]

"has probably had more to do with the growing inequality between the 0.1% and the rest of us than anything else."

I disagree. The growing wage inequality between the rich and poor has many other factors. Tech companies are just one small part of it. Before 2004, most of these big techs did not even exist. But wage gap has been increasing for almost last 45 years or so in the US if you look at the data. Take Walmart for example. They employ plenty of Americans but look at the shit wages they pay. They can still get away with it because our politicians have tipped the scale heavily in favor of large corporations. Visa or not, large corporations can get away with almost anything because they are "too big to fail".

"ignoring a company's responsibility to pay back the society"

I agree with you on moral grounds but that is not how capitalism works. A private corporation's highest priority is to serve its shareholders and executives, period. It does not care about paying back to society. Should they care ? Yes I think so. But by definition of capitalism, they are not obligated to. Unless we change the thinking and mindset, it won't happen. Offshoring/tech visas are again a small portion of it and gets blamed way more than it should.

[hiram112]

> I disagree. The growing wage inequality between the rich and poor has many other factors.

I didn't mean just one specific visa, e.g. H1B or any other. I mean that globalization has allowed large companies to play all sorts of games like moving their manufacturing and service centers to the lowest wages countries, their headquarters to tax shelters like Ireland or the Caymans, and lobbied laws to ensure a never-ending supply of foreign workers and recently immigrated citizens to push wages for the jobs that can't be moved.

Meanwhile, employees can't just move to some country to take advantage of lower COL, or declare their 'official' residence in a tax shelter. We can't even import drugs from Canada or pay the same price for digital goods like Steam games offered to low wage nations.

> I agree with you on moral grounds but that is not how capitalism works.

There is no strict rule that says capitalist economies can't enforce equal playing fields for capital and labor. If the US or any other high wage country weren't beholden to the wealthy, they could easily pass laws that forced companies to pay tariffs for any goods and services developed in countries without similar labor laws, environmental protections, and even tax rates.