Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 19
"May 4, 1998 - 606 days to go." WRP75
(c) 1997, 1998 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and
reproduce this newsletter as long as this entire document is reproduced in
its entirety. You may optionally quote an individual article but you should
include this header down to the tearline. I do not grant permission to a
commercial publisher to reprint this in print media.
As seen in
USENET:comp.software.year-2000
http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/year2000/
http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html
--------------------tearline -----------------------------
Please fax or email copies of this to your geek pals, especially those
idiots who keep sending you lightbulb, blonde, or Bill Gates jokes,
and urban legends like the Arizona rocket car story.
If you have a Y2K webpage, feel free to host the Weather Reports.
Did you miss Geek Out?
Project Dumbass needs you.
In this issue:
1. Guest WRP (reprint of H1b piece)
2. Newsweek
3. Cheap
4. IF
5. Washington Post - Lawsuits
6. Washington Post - Levey
7. Y2K Story
8. CCCC
----------- Guest WRP ----------------
MJL posted this in c.s.y2k and in comp.lang.cobol. This is an important posting
and offers insight to more than foreign guest workers and H1b's. It explains
how the contracting game works and why 5 Guys COBOL Inc. is your chance to get
your fair share. MJL is responding to an H1b pimp's offer to sell his
indentured servants at cheap wage-busting rates....
-----------------
This post is offensive and stupid and omits a few relevant
facts.
It is offensive for all the reasons given above by Mr. Schaffel
and Mr. Hamasaki, because it openly states that foreign nationals
working in the USA on H1B visas are easy to exploit, and invites
others to indulge in this exploitation.
It is stupid because, there is presently a lot of discussion
going on in Congress and the Senate on extending the H1B visa program.
Fundamental to the lobbying being done by large corporations is their
position that the USA is currently in an extreme IT skills shortage
and therefore more visas are needed, and that furthermore, H1B
employees are paid at or above current rates for U.S. nationals.
Fortunately for us, Michael S. Duffy, of Ether Systems, was stupid
enough to sign his name and that of his company to this document. I
suggest everyone who reads it mails it to their representatives in
both houses, as a good example of the motivation of, and exploitation
planned by, U.S. corporations seeking an extension of the H1B visa
program.
And mail it quickly.
It omits a few relevant facts because while it is true that a
foreign national working on a H1B cannot work for another employer, it
is also true and not well known that it is relatively easy for the
foreign national to change that employer.
Let us assume you are a new arrival to the USA on the H1B visa
program. You have just arrived at the airport. On hand to greet you,
complete with $2K suit and shiny new $50K BMW is your new employer.
He is very happy to see you. He is happy to see you because he is
going to pay you around $50K a year, or about $25 per hour, but he is
going to on sell you to his client company for around $100K a year, or
about $50 per hour. He intends doing this for the duration of your
visa, 3 years. This will get him $150K in profit. H1B visas are
renewable for another 3 years. If you stay his profit rises to $300K.
If you are still there when this visa nears expiration he will
probably offer you a green card. This will take at least 2 years, and
means another $100K in profit. If the green card arrives he doesn't
care if you leave the next day because you have already earned him
about $400K, for about a $5K outlay in advertising, air fares and
legal fees.
Now you understand why the smile on his face is so warm and
inviting. He is relying on your ignorance of your rights and business
practice in the USA, plus the theoretical hold he thinks the visa
gives him over you, to make you a passive little drone for the next
6-8 years. If you do not start making him money pretty soon you will
be fired pretty quickly, contract or no contract. For the next year
you will probably see him only once. He will arrive at the client
site one day to take you to lunch. This is the second time this year
you get a ride in the BMW you paid for. Over lunch, he will tell you
the company has had a great year, that he likes to think his company
is 'different from the other brokers', and that he 'really cares about
you as a person'. You can believe this if you are stupid.
In the local vernacular, your employer is known as a ‘pimp’.
If you are reading this and are not a native English speaker, then a
pimp is defined as ‘a person, usually a man, who solicits clients for
a prostitute’. Of late the usage of the word has expanded to include
anyone who profits unfairly from the labor of others.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to try to
transfer all the profits, that $400K, from his pocket into yours.
Here is how...
The first thing you need to do is find a discount broker.
These exist all over the place, but they do not advertise, so you will
need to ask around. Word of mouth recommendation is best. Unlike the
pimp who employed you, who drives a $50K BMW and wears $2K suits,
these guys are probably family men who work in a cubicle, live in the
suburbs and look at lot like you. Whereas the pimp is a product man
who believes in sales and marketing, the discount broker is probably a
programmer like you, who worked as a one man company and then started
doing favors for friends.
Discount brokers exist because not every contract employee in
the USA is an incorporated company or is working on a H1B visa. U.S.
citizens and green card holders, who are not slaves to one and only
one pimp, are unwilling to pay a pimp $25 per hour just for invoicing
the client company and producing a salary check minus state and
federal taxes. The discount broker will run you through his company
for about $2-00 per hour plus expenses. So of the $50-00 per hour the
pimp is currently getting for your work, you will end of with around
$46-00 an hour, minus taxes.
A few years ago client companies were trying to discourage this
kind of arrangement. For simple accounting convenience, they would
rather deal with one or two large brokers, than a large number of
smaller companies. Now, because the market has tightened a little,
this is no longer the case. Look at jobs on web sites like
‘headhunter.net’ or ‘selectjobs.com’. Every position that states
'1099 or independent OK' is a job you can get through your discount
broker. The corporation set up by the discount broker also meets all
the requirements of the client company, that of providing the IRS a
legal entity to distance the client company from you, the contractor.
What is in all this for the discount broker? Well, you cost
him nothing, and he gets $2-00 per hour, or $4000 per year for doing
very little. In addition passing your $100K a year through his
company increases his turnover, and makes his company look a lot
bigger than it really is. And who knows, if a sufficient number of
contractors defect to his corporation, he might start making some real
money?
Once you have your discount broker, the next thing you need is
an immigration lawyer. Look in the yellow pages. If there is one
thing the USA has in abundance, it is lawyers. For about $800-00 you
should be able to transfer yourself from the pimp who got you here, to
your new discount broker. This will be the best $800-00 you ever
spent, and is a guaranteed winner for these two reasons.
First, what you are really doing is 'renewing' an existing
visa.
The original pimp has already done the hard work convincing the
INS that you are a competent professional hire of good character. For
obvious reasons, the INS is not going to subject your second
application to the same scrutiny it gave the first. Quite possibly
when you got your first visa you also got a packet of documentation
from the INS or the pimp's immigration lawyer. This will describe you
in glowing prose, and forms an excellent basis for the second
application. Save this documentation and simply change the letter
head to your new discount broker’s corporation for the second
application. Minor wording changes will assist the disguise.
The second reason is that it is perfectly legal to have an 2
visa's current with two companies. That is to say, the second visa
does not invalidate the first. The INS will not inform pimp 1of the
second application. You do not need to tell pimp 1 about the deal
with the second discount broker. It is perfectly legal to have two
H1B visas with 2 companies, working say half a day with one company
and half a day with the other.
Processing your second visa application will take a couple of
months. While this is going on you can start looking for another job.
Your discount broker will only give you minimum assistance here. What
do you expect for $2-00? But it will be a lot easier for you to find
a second position, because you can interview with many more local
companies.
When your second visa comes through you simply resign. Tell
pimp 1 that you have had a change of heart, that you miss your mother
or old girl/boy friend, and so must return to the ancestral rice
paddy. Pimp 1 will be heart broken as $375,000-00 walks out the door,
but cannot do anything about you resigning. Of course, in the
unlikely event that you cannot find a new position, you still get to
stay with your original pimp.
Around now you may be presented with some FUD (Fear Uncertainty
and Doubt) surrounding contractual obligations to pimp 1. But as Mr.
Schaeffel has pointed out, this is all nonsense in the USA...
" Wanna sue. Not in any right to work State. Your contract no
matter how worded can be broken by any kid six months out of Law
School."
Broadly stated, you cannot sign away your right to work for any
employer in the USA, though some people might try and convince you
otherwise. I have seen H1B employees working for major U.S.
corporations switch pimps while working the same contract at the same
client site. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do to in this
country to prevent you from moving to a better job at a higher rate of
pay.
You can now go to work for the discount broker for twice your
previous rate.
Now, we all understand that this is a huge potential worry for
you. This job in the USA is maybe your first really big break and you
need a little insurance. Ideally, because you have lied to pimp 1
about your true intentions, you have not burnt your bridges with pimp
1, so you can return if anything goes wrong with the discount broker.
If your chosen discount broker does disappoint you, simply phone pimp
1 again and say you want to come back. He will love you again, as
much as he did before.
Another risk mitigator ought to be the potential financial
reward. With one 6 month contract for your discount broker, you can
make a years pay with your old pimp. Now, all you need to do is work
six months per year for the same reward? Feel like half year
vacations? No problem.
At the end of the day for about $800-00 (about 2 days pay at
your new rate), you have gotten a free flight to the USA and a job and
freedom of employment in the largest free market in the world for 6
years.
A word of caution. One thing pimp 1 will offer you that the
cut price broker will not is payment while you are not working. Your
new guy will not be able to do this because of his tight margin, $2-00
per hour. You will also need to spend more time finding jobs for
yourself, but with Internet resources available, like 'headhunter.net'
and 'selectjobs.com' this will not present a problem. Right now in the
USA any half way competent programmer can earn $50-00 an hour, and
will continue to do so for the remainder of your visa.
Moving back to H1B’s in general, like Cory I believe..."It's
reprehensible that billionaires and multi-millionaires like Bill Gates
and T.J. Rodgers (Cypress Semiconductors) are lobbying Congress for
expanded H1b's when there are lots of U.S. citizens who still don't
earn their fair share. "
IM not so HO, what we are seeing here is another structural
failure in the U.S. democratic process. Specifically, the lack of
campaign finance reform. More specifically, all those silicon valley
billionaires will get their own way in this, because they will pay
enough in bribes... err, sorry, make a sufficient number of campaign
contributions to pass whatever legislation they require. Politicians
will weigh offending a million or so geeks against the 259 million
people they can seduce with all this money, and conclude their chances
for re-election are greater if they take the money.
According to the SFO Examiner "the Senate Judiciary Committee
two weeks ago passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich,
that would push the current visa cap from 65,000 to 95,000...". See
www.examiner.com/workers.
But that does not mean all is lost. I plan on cross posting
this info to the COBOL ng. I have previously admitted to being
ethically challenged. If Mr Duffy can boast about the exploitation of
foreign workers, then I see nothing wrong with showing the potential
victims of exploitation how they might exploit the exploiters. In
this case I would contend that two wrongs do make a right. Perhaps
other readers in this and other ng's have some ideas. Would you like
to liberate a slave today? And benefit from your good deed? Perhaps
you know an honest cut rate broker who would not mind being named
here? If yes, please post, anonymously if necessary. I know 2 or 3
excellent discount brokers in the SFO/Bay Area if anyone is
interested.
From my perspective this information benefits the foreign
worker. It benefits all existing U.S. residents because, even though
the foreign nationals still come here, they can compete more
effectively in the job market and will probably then have a less
depressing effect on rates for us all. The only people who will
suffer are billionaires and people like Mr Michael S Duffy for whom I
have little sympathy.
Quite obviously we cannot bribe politicians as well as the
local billionaires. The top 1% of the population in the USA presently
control 49% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% get to fight over 8%.
This is H1B visa program is a good example of how the rich get richer
while you and I stay poor. But perhaps in order to foil the exploiters
we can make a modified version of this post an H1B visa busting FAQ,
and post it here and in other ng's once every few weeks? It is in all
our best interest to make sure that people who do the work are the
ones who end up with the money.
Equally obvious, U.S. corporations supporting the H1B visa
program do so only because it supplies them with indentured laborers.
If a sufficient number of foreign workers can be shown how to defect
from their indentured servitude, then maybe the visa program will
fail?
In the longer term though, I think we will fail. Ultimately,
if U.S. business cannot bring people to computers they will send the
computers to the people. Just as U.S. manufacturing industry has been
hollowed out, so U.S. IT will be hollowed out. But perhaps this will
not happen for at least 10 years. Lucky for us, the two prime
candidates, India and China, are still too corrupt and politically
unstable for any major U.S. corporation to risk migrating most of
their mission critical computer systems. And any other country that
is stable and honest enough to be worthy of consideration, the
European Union, Canada, Australia or maybe Japan, is probably so close
to the USA cost wise there is no net advantage to leaving.
MJL
----------
Listen up slaves, the work you do is very valuable. You should be paid well.
$50K/year is chump change. There is no reason why a technical specialist
shouldn't earn $100K/year, $200K/year, or more.
MJL has spelled out a way for anyone, H1b, citizen, anyone to cash in. You have
to stand up and ask for what is yours. Don't let them cheat you out of your
fair share.
I don't think the IT industry can move the software business overseas.
There are talented programmers all around the world, the Internet allows low
cost communications.
But the proponents of offshoring don't do software. Software is different. It
embodies the spirit, feel, laws, the way things are done. I've seen
software projects flounder because the client is 15 miles away from the
engineering location. The programmers, testers, users, should be
housed in the same facility, work closely. Sure, they need to retreat
to their offices for some quiet time, to think, plan, do the deep work
but they also must have close interaction.
So please, offshore'ing has cheap going for it... ...rather it has high
profit for the front company. H1b has high profit for the pimp but
neither offers a real benefit to the company fighting for its
survival in Y2K.
I didn't know about discount brokers. Are they out there? Could you
guys raise your hands?
------------ Newsweek ---------------
Newsweek gave Y2K, DCY2K, a full page in last week's issue, the
one with the planets on the cover. I voted in the poll, weighted in at
7 on the DC 1-10 scale. Bruce will be hosting the poll and his white
paper on the web.
I hope that denial is over. Perhaps a few USENET trolls are still in
denial, you know them, you see them in cheap restaurants complaining
about the other political party, pontificating about computers,
grumbling about people on welfare, other countries -hey wait a minute,
isn't that me??? oops!-
--------- Cheap -----------
The denial-heads are different. There is no question that the
remediation has failed. We are 607 days from the event and only a very
few organizations have taken this seriously. I have inside information
on a few companies and public information on a few more, based on this
limited sample, my odd ability to assess the mess, guess my best, be a
pest... it looks like one company in 10 will be ready. But the denial
is still raging.
To the extent possible, I have shared the information. But even looking
at the public info... Look at what the FAA is doing... They have a
public trust, are a key to modern commerce and the future, so much rests
on their success but it's business as usual at the agency that fails
over and over again.
Are they as evil and dumb as they appear? Perhaps a few of them are
but perhaps it's the federal system of lowest bidder wins. I'm basicly
a cheap person so I appreciate 'lowest bidder' but I also know that my
last two TV sets were the more expensive in their price class, both
Sonys, a 5 inch active matrix LCD and a 19 inch Trinitron stereo. My
ham HF multi-mode transceiver is an ICOM, it's a few models back level
but when I bought it, it was ICOM's finest. In each case, I could have
paid 60% of the price of the best and gotten similar but not as nice.
The car analogy isn't a good one because most cars are pretty good but
given a choice between a Neon and an Acura, I'd take the Acura. In
government procurement, the Neon and Acura are both small cars and
you'll never see Acura win a GSA procurement.
Forgetting the domestic v. import issue, why shouldn't the feds use
Acuras for running errands, isn't safety, comfort, performance, and
reliability as important to a federal worker on U.S. Government business
as it is for you and me? An Acura with 4 wheel disk brakes and ABS,
better handling and power has a safety and reliability advantage over
the Neon.
Why should there only be 'beaters' in an agency motor pool? Why is
it always rejects from 'Rent a wreck'? It's this junkers-only way of
thinking that got us in this mess. I've heard feds say that they're
afraid to drive motor pool cars.
OK, so I'm jerking your chain about a fleet of Federal Acuras but why
doesn't GSA manage their fleet like Avis, new mid-priced and economy
cars and sell them off at 30,000 miles so they don't have expensive
repairs? Why do Federal ball point pens leak and skip and their paper
tablets (when they have them in their supply room) are cheaper than
anything at Office Depot? Would it be so horrible to spend fifty bucks
a year for good pens and tablets?
Speaking of paper, do you know the dark secret of cases of paper? You
can't break that plastic strap... where's the scissors. You can't get
the reams of paper out, except for the first two. How inconvenient!
Well, the cases of paper were designed by geniuses. You're opening
them wrong.
Turn the unopened case over so the lid is on the bottom. You're
looking at the join in the plastic strap. Twist the join over, the
inside of the strap has a pull-strip. Pull it. The strap will separate
with an easy finger tug. Grab the case and lift. The lid forms a tray
for the reams of paper.
It's been like that for at least 10 years but most people don't know how
to open a case of paper. Maybe they should have printed instructions;
maybe they should print the labels and ship the boxes upside down. Maybe
the FAA would run better if their cars had less than 50,000 miles and
they spent $5.00/month for pens and tablets per person.
Sometimes, cheap is not good.
---------- IF --------------
and your obligation... There was a recent thread on probabilities and
your obligation to fix the systems. Sure, to some of us, it's raining
hard, the river is rising, and we're filling sandbags. Whoa, hold on,
that's the reality.
Most people have the delusion that it's sunny and the Y2K collapse is
hypothetical. There's no urgency... they can't see the systems
failing, they don't know how much of civilization is based upon the
correct and timely processing of information.
So what do you do? Sound an alarm that they don't want to hear. Make a
pest of yourself. Ask to be paid for a job that they don't realize
needs to be done? Or just be quiet, settle down, do your job as the
clueless define it... ...and spend every spare minute learning survival
skills, stocking up on canned food, practicing grinding grain, planting
fruit trees... if you plant a tree this spring, it will produce its
first crop in the summer of 2000, next year will be too late.
My survivalist nut-case pal and I put a dozen fruit trees in this
spring. This is in addition to the peach and plum tree that we already
had. We didn't put in apples, a good choice for the middle Atlantic,
because nearby farms have thousands of apple trees.
So what's your real obligation. Sound the alarm... nah, Y2K has been on
the cover of national news magazines and on the front pages of all the
major papers. Pester your company's management? Forget it, they don't
want to hear from you. Warn your relatives, friends, and neighbors?
Maybe, make the information available but if they aren't interested, let
them go down. Make your own preparations? Bingo. Water, food, medicine,
shelter, heat, light, electricity, money, and a way to restart after
Y2K. Somewhere in that hiearchy is personal security. The survivalist
gun-nuts rate personal security through superior firepower very high
but noone is going to bother someone with a few rounds of .22 after the first
-pop-.
Sure, a .22 wheelgun is pretty useless against a commando team, say a
half dozen burly Shmuels. But a few cowardly opportunists, they'll
run like rabbits.
--------- Washington Post Goes Y2K Nutz ---------
Remember I predicted that Y2K would be in the news every day, on TV after
sports and before the weather... well, the Washington Post has hit the 100%
mark. Hit their search engine at http://www.washington.com
----------------
Year 2000 Bug Could Bring Flood of Lawsuits
Litigation May Top Costs of Fixing Glitch
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 3, 1998; Page A01
The year 2000 is still 20 months away, but the legal blame game
already has begun. At issue: who should pay the costs of the
"millennium bug," a glitch that has left computers all over the world
unable to recognize dates after Dec. 31, 1999.
...
The suits are the first in what legal specialists predict could be a wave
of litigation that eventually could prove more expensive and
time-consuming than the worldwide effort to fix the glitch in the first
place. The cost of hiring programmers and buying new computers is
forecast by industry analysts to be $300 billion to $600 billion. The
price tag for lawyers' fees and compensating people for any failures
that occur, though no one knows how many there will be, could reach
$1 trillion, according to some new estimates.
... <lots of deletions.>
------------
A very nice article about how the evil, greedy lawyers are gonna sue everyone
in sight. Too long to quote and you've read it all before.
----------------
The Good Things About the Year 2000
By Bob Levey
Monday, May 4, 1998; Page D20
They call it "Y2K," my pal Powers confided. I figured he must be
talking about a robot in a Spielberg movie, some spiritual descendant
of R2D2. But no. Powers said that Y2K is Geek Speak for The Year
2000.
As I'm sure you've heard, the world is supposed to end as the new
millennium begins, because computers aren't going to be able to "flip"
from 1999 to 2000. On Dec. 31, 1999, we are advised to copy all our
files onto disks, convert all our brokerage accounts into pennies and
never get out of bed.
I, for one, am not prepared to run up the white flag. For one thing, I'm
going to have a column due on 1/1/2000, and if I don't write it,
nothing -- not even a Spielberg movie -- is going to save me.
Still, faces are getting long over this problem. So are speeches.
When Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.) was recently invited to give the
Republican response to President Clinton's weekly radio address, she
could have devoted her 20 minutes to truly serious stuff -- world
hunger, literacy, the pitching problems of the Seattle Mariners. She
chose instead to discuss the computer disaster that will supposedly
crash on the beach less than 20 months from now.
You'll forgive me if I'm unconvinced. Why is this such a big deal?
And why is it so hard to prevent? If those who build computers are so
brilliant, can't they create some sort of technological shunt around the
problem?
Please don't ask me for details. I'm just using that 20th-century
weapon: common sense. If they can bypass bad arteries, why not bad
software?
In any case, I refuse to treat Y2K as the end of the world or the end of
a century. I plan to treat it as the end of yet another month -- one more
time when I owe the mortgage and don't have the scratch to cover it.
In the meantime, I offer up this quaint thought: All the drumbeating
about the coming computer crash misses a key point. The cyberglass is
half full. Good things will happen on the evening of Dec. 31, 1999.
But what will they be?
I invite you readers to dust off your crystal balls and tell me. I'll
publish the best of what you send.
Your visions can be serious or fanciful, guesses or certainties, hopes
or prayers -- anything at all. Nor do they have to be accurate. I assume
and hope that the funniest notions will be spoofs, parodies and deeply
demented dissertations. The only condition I attach is that your
submissions somehow concern computers and the crash that many
claim is inevitable.
My mailing address is Bob Levey, The Washington Post, Washington,
D.C. 20071. My fax number is 202-334-5150. My e-mail address is
leveyb@washpost.com. Many thanks in advance.
---------------
Here it is gang, Bob Levey wants to hear from you! Bob writes a column in the
comic section of the Post. Levey will print anything, lame, clueless, he
doesn't care.
Help straighten out Bob, he doesn't have to be this clueless. Fax him, email
him, send him letters.
------------ Y2K Man 4, a story -------------------
Y2K + 4, April 19, afternoon.
The failure of UN, US oversight, allowed several smoldering regions to
erupt in open warfare; fortunately only the India, Pakistan, China
front went nuclear and only for a few days. There was enough of the
U.S. and Russia still intact that a joint message convinced them to keep
their dispute to conventional weapons. Within a year, India, Pakistan,
and China had devolved to the point that war meant marching troops
across a thousand miles of wasteland so they lost interest. World War Y2K
ended due to a lack of interest.
-to be continued...
------------ CCCC --------------
606 days now... I'm getting worried. C.s.y2k has a new infestation of denial
heads, more dangerous than before. How is it possible? Are they just trolls or
can they have deluded themselves?
Oh and did you see the Y2K comic on Saturday, On the Fastrack, Bill Holbrook.
The monitor says, "Hey, What's this sticky stuff".
"I can't move. I'm trapped!".
The person looking at the screen says, "The Year 2000 bug motel."
The monitor says, "Hellllllp."
Yeah, it could be better. Email Bill, give him some ideas, rtholbrook@compuserve.com.
I have a huge backlog of email and I'm slooooowly working my way through it. I
also have a couple jobs, a business to run, and clients begging for my time.
cory hamasaki 606 days, 14,549 hours.