Globalization Immigration and Free Market Reforms

I find it odd that so many "free market" republicans are so strong in their opposition to one of the major inputs of a free market which is labor. Remember free access to land, labor and capital is what free market free. If we close the border or make it so hard for people to come to the United States we have a closed market and not a free one and a closed economy is less efficient than a free one.

In the age of the information economy where we are competing for the best brains in the world the United State in its infinite wisdom is restricting how many smart people can come into the United States. Right now the US allows only 65,000 h1b visas per year. H1b visa are for those who have Ph.d and Masters degrees. That is 65,000 individuals for all Universities think tanks Silicon Valley start ups Intel and Microsoft combined.

So what do they do when they can't get the talent these companies need? They establish R&D centers where the talent is Bangloor India and China. Individuals with Ph.d's and masters degrees from accredited in Universities will do one of 3 things they will fill a job create a job or leave. If we allowed every Ph.d and masters degree student from around the world we would drain the foreign outsourced R&D centers for their best talent. More jobs would be created in the United States instead of overseas and the surplus and make US companies more competitive.

One of the greatest challenges for our educational system is finding large amounts of educated labor that is willing to work for lower wages than other college graduates especially those trained in the Math and Sciences. When this demand is not met class sizes go up and the quality of education each child receives goes down. The solution is getting large amounts of highly educated labor from overseas. Very few college educated Americans are willing to work in the Bronx but many in New Delhi Mumbai or Beijing would jump at the chance to work there in the United States.

Series of Tubes

Washington DC doesn't make toasters or computer chips, but it makes one thing ... information. There is so much mail magazines fliers that come into this office on a daily basis. Every member of Congress gets just about every national magazine for free. So in our magazine rack there is everything from The Economist Wired Magazine Forbes Atlantic Monthly Sports Illustrated. We get the really obscure trade magazines like Pig Farmers Monthly. If its out there it seems to find a way to our door. I guess every magazine wants to whisper in Caesars ear.

One duty of any intern is to sort the mail and sadly Pig Farmers Monthly doesn't make the cut. Sorting the mail is like being a human spam filter. Mail here, is just like back home 80 percent is junk, but there are a few key things that float through.

The amazing part of the mail system is how many times it is handled before it gets to the end of the line. Since the anthrax scare of 2002 every piece of mail is opened in an undisclosed location taken out of its envelope stapled to the envelope and put into a color coded envelope. Then its loaded on to a truck and sent to the House or Senate office buildings then its inspected again and delivered to the Congressional Offices. Then it finds its way to my desk where I sort the mail and throw out .. i mean recycle much of it. I gets sorted into two main groups constituent mail and issue mail to the Legislative Assistants. Constituent mail has to be checked by zip code and then sent to the district office. If it doesn't have a zip code it gets tossed. Then the Legislative Assistants read the mail toss most of what i put in their box.

We probably get several hundred pieces of mail two to three times a day. Then times that by 435 Congressmen and 100 Senators and you will get a sense of how much mail comes through Capitol Hill.

Well lets say that you e-mail the Congressmen instead of mailing it to him. The fax machine/printer prints it out for a hard copy. Then it is mailed to the district office. Why can't the e-mails be forwarded to the district office? This place is definitely low tech. No wonder Congress thinks the "internets" is a series of tubes and is not a truck.

Wrong Turn

Well yesterday I was reading the Atlantic magazine article on the 100 most influential Americans Brigham Young and Joseph Smith made the top 100.

Well because I was reading the magazine instead of reading the signs I walked on the wrong train and I instantly knew it wasn't the right place. Washington DC is a very segregated city the African Americans mostly live in the eastern half of the city i.e. Columbia Heights Anacostia and the whites and many Asians live in the western half of the city i.e. Georgetown and Bethesda.

I took the east bound train instead of the west bound train. So instead of the trains passengers being 80 to 90 percent white its was 80-90 percent black. It was a your not in Kansas anymore moment.