In the 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump promised to reform the H-1B work visa program. That should have been the least controversial of his plans, as the visa has long been recognized by both major parties as having major problems. Almost all the major candidates in 2016 — Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Clinton and Sanders — were critical of the program.
As I reported here the other day, the White House has endorsed an immigration reform bill by Sens. Cotton and Perdue, known as the RAISE Act. The bill seems to be already drawing both support and fierce opposition. CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta was so upset about the Trump administration’s endorsement of the bill that he picked a fight with Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller during the latter’s press conference.
Two key parts of the Trump administration have now announced something of a get-tough policy on H-1B employers. Today USCIS released a memo announcing the policy, and DOJ released a similar statement. To my knowledge, this is the first time that American STEM workers have been given a voice.
According to official US economic data, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has expanded for 22 quarters, raising real GDP 12.1% above its high prior to the 2008-09 economic contraction. Yet, US manufacturing output and US industrial production have not recovered to their pre-contraction high. So what is driving the real GDP growth? In my opinion, the rise in real GDP is an illusion produced by the under-measurement of inflation.
Figuratively speaking, a ginormous asteroid is hurtling to a cataclysmic rendezvous with earth, but we are not supposed to notice. The asteroid is the rising threat from environmental degradation. Evidence is accumulating that environmental degradation is becoming global.
I hesitated before using my posting title above, because anyone who reads this post one day late will think it’s about whatever new controversy Trump’s has stirred up on that particular day, not the one that was raging today.
ForclosureGate (circa 2010 forward): Widespread mortgage fraud as a result of an unregulated, rigged housing market guaranteed to create a collapse and waves of foreclosures, all of which leads to major hardship for homeowners and their families.
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