patrick.net

Why the bail-out for the big 3 in Detroit? The govenment should buy all their inventory and then sell them to us at half-off, I'll take a Corvette off their lot.

If someone is here on a work visa, are they free to work where ever they choose or is always for a certain company?

"is it"

During the tech downturn I worked with a company with a huge H1-B population, they worked them real hard because of the green card. For example, some INS rules required the company to file certain applications within 180 days, our company usually filed them at 179 day so that the H1-Bs are stretched out to the max. Then they asked us to work weekends and most H1B's will obliged, after a while, nobody gave a sh*t since China and India were booming and many of them didn't care anymore.

My favorite one was the guy from India who got his tax refund withheld by his agency. The guy was making $60K for Target as a project manager, I can't believe a 60K project management job demand such specialized skills that no Americans can fill. These big corporations lobby hard to get the visa quotas and Carly Fiornia said our engineers suck.

Richmond - Most of the H1Bs and L1 (let us not forget L1, the evil twin of H1B) come through Indian Consulting (a PC word for bodyshopping) Companies. The victims are then shown the Green Card Carrot and are forced to lie on the resumes and fake their experience. Dumb companies do end up bringing these guys onboard and think that they are paying 80 bucks an hour to them, while the poor souls make about 30. The "consulting company" keeps 50. This carries on, and the longer it takes for the green card, the worse these guys get. In order to get out of this trap, they need to find an H1B transfer, or L1 to H1 change which again is mastered by Indian bodyshops. So its like going from hell 1 to hell 2. A very few of them actually manage to transfer to the real company/the client and achieve nirvana. I do blame them for screwing the job market, but it is the bodyshops who are more to blame than those. Eventually the H1B/L1s get their greencards, start their own bodyshop and the cycle continues. Unfortunately this a huge underground business which is created by the H1/L1 loopholes.

If someone is here on a work visa, are they free to work where ever they choose or is always for a certain company?

Technically they have to work for a certain company (usually for 3 years at a time, total limit is 6 years). You can switch job mid-way but the new company has to be willing to apply for the visa for you then your remaining eligibility is subtracted from the 6 year limits.

Except for carpet-begging Canadians :) They can come on a Free-trade visas which has no total limits and renewable yearly. Although Americans can also work in Canada under similar rules.

Holy shit! I had no idea.

Thanks for the crash course, guys.

cb - whats the free trade visa about? Almost all the indians I asked came here on F1(student waiting to become a slave)/L1/H1(actual slave).

coretexity is right, one time I was on a project and my boss asked me to sort of manage this H1-B who work for the agency. My boss said we are paying them lots of $$ so he should be working hard, but the guy worked for a body shop so he wasn't seeing most of the money we paid him and he actually quit halfway and went to Sony who hired him on a H-1B without the middleman. I have to pick up the entire project and worked extra hours and worse yet, I was an exempt employee just like other code monkeys.

Free Trade Visa are TC-1 (Treaty Canadian) , later TN-1 (forgot what it stands for) . They were enacted around the late 80's and bascially allow American and Canadian to work in each country easily (not sure about Mexico). You would need to have a college degree, a letter of employment stating salary, etc. There is no 6 year limit and is renewable yearly.

A lot of companies do end up hiring them as FTEs if they're bright. This saves the companies lot of $$$ plus it ends up becoming a huge raise to the guy. However, this means restarting the GC process. That is why the H1B/L1 have to stick to their consultant and basically do whatever they want. If the H1B is a java guy and the consultant can fit him at a mainframe client and make more money, they'd fake his resume/experience to get him in. The java guy will underperform, the client will pay a fortune and at the end, the only entity making money in this story is the bodyshopper.

cb - I apologize. I misread 'canadians' as 'chindians' where you mentioned the free trade visa :(

In your guys' line of work the government promotes exploitation. In mine, they ignore it. And in both, it's all about the money. Man!

A lot of companies do end up hiring them as FTEs if they’re bright. This saves the companies lot of $$$ plus it ends up becoming a huge raise to the guy

A lot of the good engineers at our company (mostly Americans) quit and went on to get their MBA's since they had just missed the tech boom. Most of them got jobs at i-banks on Wall Street after graduation. I guess they got burned twice.

A breakthrough on the bailout is reached.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26884523/

Now the country can return to watching football, NASCAR, and don't forget the baseball pennant races.

The plan calls for the Treasury Department to buy deeply distressed mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts held by banks and other investors. The money should help troubled lenders make new loans and keep credit lines open. The government would later try to sell the discounted loan packages at the best possible price.

So bye, bye, Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry...

Dear FuzzyMath:

Thank you for your letter expressing concern about Congress' consideration of a plan to meet our Nation's credit crisis with financial help from the Federal Government. This is a difficult situation for which there are no perfect solutions, and I would like to share my thoughts and concerns about this issue with you.

On September 19, 2008, Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr. announced a legislative proposal to use $700 billion to purchase illiquid mortgage-related assets from ailing financial institutions. Secretary Paulson's three-page proposal was a non-starter, and without critical changes it has no chance of approval from Congress.

This proposal would have given a blank check to an economic czar who would have been empowered to spend it without administrative oversight, legal requirements, or legislative review. Decisions made by the Treasury Secretary would be non-reviewable by any court, agency, or Congress. The proposal also lacked a requirement for regular reports to Congress on the status of the program. This was simply untenable.

Since this announcement, my offices have received thousands of comments from Californians like you concerned about how this action will affect them. Yet, I believe prudent action must be taken. The bill should include the following principles: a phase-in of funding; oversight, accountability and transparency; a mechanism allowing the Secretary of the Treasury to modify mortgages to prevent additional foreclosures; and a precise cap on executive compensation.

The current credit crisis affects all Americans. If action is not taken to stem the crisis, Americans risk losing their homes, jobs, personal savings, life insurance and more. Banks will cease to lend to businesses and homeowners, and credit will be increasingly difficult to come by for average Americans. I strongly believe that the consequences of failing to act now would be greater than not acting at all.

Attached please find a statement I recently made on the floor of the Senate expressing my feelings on this issue. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind as this situation unfolds.

Once again, thank you for writing. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
Floor Statement on the Economic
Rescue Proposal
September 26, 2008

It's this line that I'm talking about...

"Since this announcement, my offices have received thousands of comments from Californians like you concerned about how this action will affect them. Yet, I believe prudent action must be taken."

They think they are smarter than all americans. They think we don't know that we're going to have economic problems.

They don't understand that americans actually DO want change. Not a skin color change, but a REAL FUCKING CHANGE.

They're shepherding us straight off a cliff.

Henry Paulson: Well, Well, Well....... Fuzzymath why are you being unamerican? You should be thankful that I am willing to take your money and stop the correction due to the excesses of three decades. I am doing you a favor by taking your money!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26884523/

Why are they all smiling? They just reached a deal on spending 700 billions of taxpayers money. It's like celebrating a touchdown when you are down 63 points. Pathetic bunch of losers.

Poor Lehman, I guess they were small enough to fail.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080928/as_hong_kong_lehman_protest.html

keepitcleaneconomics@blogspot.com

Look at the only guy not smiling. I wonder what is making Barney so unhappy.

Remember that picture. It will be a cornerstone image 50 years from now when people look back at the destruction of America.

from Fuzzy's Dianne Fienstein letter:

If action is not taken......
credit will be increasingly difficult to come by for average Americans.

"Difficult" credit would be a good thing, you bought off idiot. True affordability returns when one need not compete with Joe Howmuchamonth for every big ticket item.

Then again, saving of any sort must be discouraged by the likes of social1sts like Dianne F. After all, a nation of savers who would be less dependent on government.

its funny that they think people are buying this bullshit.

"They" could not care less that no one buys this bullshit. Do you think they will get voted out? Do you really believe that the executive pay will be limited? Do you really think the gov will buy the assets at true market value, and not an inflated price?

The Congress republicans should have stopped this deal in its tracks. Bush should have never proposed it in the first place. Unfortunately, lobbyists speak louder than either ideology or voters.

TOB - They "hope" that someday the securities will "come back". I think they'd buy that crap at a much higher rate (like 40c to a dollar instead of 10c) so that'd end up spending more, buying less and never turn a dime of profit as they'd overpay upfront anyway. If the banks were looking to sell this shit for 10c, they'd have never done this to begin with. They'd fool the govt (again!) and sell this shit for 2x or 3x the mark to market. In other words, they got what they wanted - now GS can go back to 160 and leave us alone.

"Hope" is not an investment strategy - I wish the people smiling in the photo understand that.

Thank you coretexity for your response.

I have few more questions.

1) Is $85 billion from the govt enough to cover all of insurance obligatons of AIG? If not, what is going to happen?

2) What would prevent any other insurers, other than AIG, of mortgage backed securities form going bankrupt?

It's great they posted the wall street give away bill on the web. Here is what you get when you go to www.financialservices.house.gov/

"The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings. "

GREAT, TERRIFIC!!!

Paul - I cannot reach it either. In a way it is good because it means that a lot of people are interested in finding out the details instead of watching ESPN and playing XBox.

indianguy -

1) The $85B is not to cover the obligations, it is to provide liquidity so that AIG can meet the new reserve requirements which need more $$ because of LEH bankruptcy and overall downgrade of financial companies' bonds by Moodys/S&P. There is no freakin amount that can cover their obligations :)

2) They played at a huge leverage (1:30) so again, they'd go bankrupt now or later if the situation stays same or deteriorates. What can prevent the lights out is the mortgages that are bundled go up in value (to the 2006 levels) which seems impossbile to me. However, this 700B bailout and short sale ban seemed impossible to me too, but look what happened.

Here is the Bill in PDF form.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/ayo08c04_xml.pdf

All you've got to do is get a margin account at Golden Sacks, and then leverage into GS stock.

Not investment advice.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/ayo08c04_xml.pdf

This doesn't work either.

Wow, the discretion left to Paulson (aka. The Secretary of the Treasury) is staggering. There are holes in that document that you can sail a aircraft carrier and two battleships through.

Now I'm REALLY frightened.

For example (page 32 lines 10-22),

if (auction-based purchases) AND (the total is above $300M)

EVEN THEN

only entering into NEW golden parachute agreements is forbidden

AND

there is a 2-month window for making new golden parachutes anyway, because the secretary is not required to issue the order until 2 months after the transaction closes.

This is INSANE.

(I'm worried the indentation will not survive when I hit submit, but what else can I do).

CORRECTED:

For example (page 32 lines 10-22),

if (auction-based purchases) AND (the total is above $300M)

EVEN THEN

only entering into NEW golden parachute agreements is forbidden

AND

there is a 2-month window for making new golden parachutes anyway, because the secretary is not required to issue the order until 2 months after the law is enacted, and such law shall be effective upon issuance .

(I’m worried the indentation will not survive when I hit submit, but what else can I do).

Did you guys see the Ads by Google?

Learn To Be Rich

Gain Profits from Real Estate. Train in in San Francisco. Oct 14-16

They never learn.

justme, we all know that those executives will be spared. There is no question about that. The bailout is outrageous.

As I have said before, capitalism without failures is the worst form of socialism.

God help us.