Friday
Mar062009
What Do Geeks Dream Of?
Friday, March 6, 2009 at 4:31PMCoffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News
TechAmerica is a trade union representing more than 1500 technology companies that have reached a consensus on priorities for their portion of the Recovery Act.
Christopher Hansen, CEO of TechAmerica, stressed repeatedly that his membership places their emphasis on investment in innovation, and on “Not just employment now, but companies which will benefit America for decades into the future.”
The association’s top priorities are:
Health: Computerized healthcare, from software to next generation broadband to electronic medical records. “America can still lead the world in medical technology innovation,” Hansen said.
Jobs, education, training,research and development: Hansen acknowledged that maximum benefits now require shorter-term investments, but that we also need to invest now in order to have the scientists and engineers to keep America in front of technology into the future. Josh Lamel, Senior V.P., Federal Government Affairs, added that $400 million had been set aside for high risk, high potential, basic research, “So we’ll be developing technologies that we aren’t even talking about yet.”
Government Management: Modernizing government via technology and technological expertise.
National/Homeland/Cyber security: New technologies for military, intelligence and security.
Green: The group has a strong focus on alternative energy development as a long-term investment.
Immigration: The thrust here was not to restrict but to facilitate immigration for highly skilled people, especially those who are trained in America but are not citizens. Lamel noted that H1B immigration visas have become more difficult to obtain under the new bill.
Broadband: Needs to be faster and more universally available as more and more businesses depend on it. Many jobs become possible in low employment areas if broadband is available.
Trade and patent policies need to encourage innovation, their position paper concludes.
Reader Comments (5)
The H-1B Visa guest workers program has “RESERVED” millions of
high-value jobs for citizens of foreign countries.
"Fake Job Ads” consistently and routinely DENY, DEPRIVE, EXCLUDE and DISCRIMINATE against United States Citizens during the hiring process…
Here is Cohen & Grigsby, a prominent immigration law firm,
displaying their Good Faith Efforts To Recruit American Workers...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
What Do You Think About Immigration Law Firms?
Who's To Blame For This Fiasco?
Has The EEOC done anything to protect
individuals whose National Origin is USA
and whose Age is over 40?
Does EEO data collected from companies track
National Origin ?
Over the last 40 years, how many Age Discrimination
cases has the EEOC decided to not allocate any
resources?
Why is EEOC routinely and consistently dismissing
Age Discrimination cases?
To redress past wrongs,
should Affirmation Action be implemented for
US Citizens over the Age of 40
to ensure Equal Employment Opportunity?
Colleen:
Read This...
Who’s To Blame For The Affirmative Action Fiasco?
by Hugh Murray
http://www.barnesreview.org/html/affirmative__action.html
"More difficult" is mere a token when it comes to H-1B visas. All they have to do is go through the motions of pretending to recruit in the USA, even when they have no intention to hire any US citizen or green card holder. The immigration lawyers association, Cohen and Grigsby, Fragomen et al., and Joel Stewart have made it plain that the provisions of the bill don't amount to much in reality.
What's most shocking in this piece, and in the legislation, is the federal government sticking its nose into personal private medical information that shouldn't even reach the doc's secretary, let alone some government bureaubum, IT workers, or crackers.