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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

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  • GCInThisLife
    07-19 02:40 PM
    UN,
    I understand what you are saying. My question is.. is there anything I/my wife can do at this point? If she goes to out of country (India) and try getting either H1B stamped or H4 and re-file I485 (hoping my PD would be current as it is so far back) if it gets denied?

    Looks like we are mentally preparing for the worst.. After 10 years of stay in the US..:(

    first i'll tell a brief story.

    I am a chain smoker. my brother is a ph.d who researches cancer. He told me I would die one day of cancer (thanked him for that advice). I told him that you gotta die one day.

    he is the only person who had this comeback. He said that is what everyone says until they are on their death bed.

    now; why is this story relevant? How comfortable are you in arguing this. I remember a long time ago a person had this query; and he responded that he was on medical leave. USCIS came back and asked for verification with medical records. Others tried to get letters from their employers saying they had extended absences, etc. but employers won't give the letters because they think they will be on hook for payment of wages to you if they give such a letter.

    It is not an easy thing to overcome or argue as one may think.





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  • Macaca
    12-29 07:36 PM
    Free Trade, Drugs and India
    Attacking the means of funding pharmaceutical breakthroughs is a strange way to pursue global health. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703581204576033291893219786.html)
    Wall Street Journal Editorial

    This month protesters clad in white coats and "HIV Positive" breadboards gathered outside the EU-India summit in Brussels under a banner that read "Europe! Hands Off Our Medicine." Doctors Without Borders, which leads the "Hands Off" campaign, held similar demonstrations in Delhi, Nairobi, Bangkok and Jakarta.

    Their aim is to derail a free-trade deal that India and Europe have been negotiating for four years. Brussels says it hopes to have an agreement by early next year, and it predicts the pact would boost European investment in India by 27%. The talks have been held up by many of the familiar bugaboos: European agricultural tariffs, Indian levies on alcohol, and a provision that would make it easier for Indians to get temporary work visas in the EU.

    But the issue that most excites activists and dominates Indian headlines is that of intellectual property rights�specifically those of pharmaceutical companies. Today India is the world's leading producer of cheap generic drugs, supplying 80% of the medicines that groups like Doctors Without Borders administer in poor countries. The U.N. estimates that 93% of the anti-retrovirals going to Third World HIV patients were made in India.

    These drugs may be cheap to copy, but they cost billions to develop, and Indian law currently gives regulators broad scope to block drug-patent applications and allow knock-off production. Delhi has denied Indian patents for Novartis's cancer drug Glivec and Gilead's HIV treatment Tenofovir, among others.

    Europe is now gunning for a trade agreement that would ensure a period of exclusive access to pharmaceutical companies' research data. World Trade Organization rules allow India to grant its own drug makers licenses to replicate certain products even without the inventor's consent. But unless copycats can use pharmaceutical companies' original data to show that the drug is safe and effective, they'd have to conduct their own trials.

    So the question is how long data exclusivity would be protected in India under a free-trade deal. EU law protects most pharmaceutical patents for 20 years and secures companies' data exclusivity for 11 years. The EU doesn't expect India to impose European-style intellectual property rights overnight, but it has asked India to meet it part of the way.

    This has led to protests among Western activists that Europe wants to shut down India's generic-drug industry and drive up the price of HIV drugs in Africa. The U.N.'s special rapporteur on the Right to Health, Anand Grover, decided to chime in earlier this month, slamming the free-trade deal and warning that Europe's "demands are only meant to further line the pockets of multinational companies."

    Attacking drug makers' means of funding future breakthroughs seems a strange way to pursue global health. And while Indian officials might think they're doing the home team a favor by keeping it easy to rip off expensive medicines, they're doing nothing to incentivize domestic creators. The next blockbuster drug could well come from an Indian lab. Delhi could make that prospect all the more likely by defending the fruits of everyone's labors on the subcontinent.



    In 2010, Bollywood gets a lesson in math (http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-53822120101228) By Shilpa Jamkhandikar | Reuters
    India Citibank employee 'steals millions of dollars' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12088085) BBC
    Looking back, looking ahead (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Looking-back-looking-ahead/articleshow/7186182.cms) By
    Sudipto Mundle | Times of India





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  • Arjun
    07-14 08:35 PM
    I dont understand your argument, may be I misunderstood. Who will benefit from EB1 to EB3 spill over ROW or retrogressed countries. It likely EB3 ROW. So why EB3 Indian writing the letter? May be things should be more clear about what you want to achieve.

    The way it is working for EB2, it is going to work exactly for EB3.





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  • gcisadawg
    12-22 06:23 PM
    So tomorrow if I loose a job and kill someone considering responsible for it is justifiable? Where is the gray area?

    Dude, if you havent heard about it, it is already happening.
    http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/15/a-sad-day-in-silicon-valley/

    One the serious note, you didn't get the crux of my post. Read my previous reply to another poster.



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  • apt29
    07-29 03:36 PM
    I regret the day when Obama became the president, he is just another politician who does not give a damn about EB2,EB3....he is just worried about "re-uniting families" (aka supporter of illegal immigration)


    I am no supporter of either party. To be fair, the economy could have collapsed without him and most of us could have been back home by now.





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  • i_have_a_dream
    08-09 04:33 PM
    UN, thanks for the time you spend giving us your educated advice.

    I would greatly appreciate a response on my situation.

    I currently work in a big IT consulting firm (company A) thru H1. My uncle owns a very small (less than 100 ppl) consulting shop (company B). I want to join his company, but i dont want to transfer my h1 since B is small and there is lot more job stability in company A. S i want to go through the route of future employment.

    I will be joining company B in the same job desc as im working in company A. As it looks right now, I might have to take a small cut in salary to join company B, however im sure that salary difference will be a lot more once it gets to the 485 stages.

    What do you think are the risks as compared to having a GC sponsored through a company where u already hold a H1? I understand that my intention to join might become an issue because of the salary issue, but wouldn't that be the case even if i filed for Company A, since company A would file a LC based on current wage and by the time of 485, I will be making a lot more.



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  • mrajatish
    04-09 11:53 AM
    There is a difference between displacing an American and hiring the best talent - if I have a job opening, I interview 10 candidates and I want to select the best.

    Given the current bill, I have to wait for months to hire this candidate if this candidate happens to lack GC/citizenship. This affects my business and group productivity. Every time I wait for months to get a candidate, it affects my business.

    So, what this bill is trying to imply - "hey, do not bother hiring the best talent - why don't you hire Joe, a GC holder, he can do the job fairly well even though he is not as bright as Mary, the person you really want to hire"

    I feel a sense of disrespect in your voice for folks who do not have higher education (e.g., MS/PhD) - I have a M.S. but I know of a bunch of folks who are much brighter than me and have a bachelors degree. Infact, if I am not mistaken, Bill Gates still does not have a degree, so in your eyes, is he not useful/accomplished?





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  • waitnwatch
    06-01 09:16 AM
    jkays

    my comment was all tongue in cheek. My only point is that Lou comes off as more conservative than Shaun Hannity and isn't that something.

    Even then, in his previous avatar, wasn't Lou licking the boots of the corporates! How come he has gone off in a diametrically opposite direction.



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  • unitednations
    07-08 05:31 PM
    united nations,

    welcome back. it would be interesting to hear your views on the whole July VB fiasco and it's aftermath. thanks!


    I along with everyone was pretty surprised that they moved the dates in the june bulletin; let alone the july bulletin.

    The ombudsmen report had nothing new in it; he has been saying the same thing for a few years now.

    Go back to June 2005 when the bulletin for July 2005 came out and it made eb3 unavailable. Any time a total category goes unavailable that means that the oversubscribed countries should not have gotten more then 7%. ROW cannot be sacrificied under the current law for the oversubscribed countries.

    Back in 2005; row was sacrificied. Next time october bulletin came about; they learned their lesson and followed the law exactly the way it was supposed to be; more cases pending then approvable per quarter then hard country quota of 7%. The statistics that came out for fiscal year ended September 2006 was directly correlated to how the law is written.

    This year; everything was moving the same way. the unused from ROW should be spilled over in the fourt quarter for use by oversubscribed countries. This is not my opinion but the actual law says this.

    Now; when department of state moved the visa bulletin for june; eb3 row still wasn't current; which means hard country quota of 7% and no spillover from eb1 row or eb2 row until July. This can't be done on a whim; regardless of whether this may cause unused visas; it is the law plain and simple.

    Now; what department of state and uscis did to correct the mistake is a great piece of americana and how the system works here. that is; we didn't expect you to make the dates current; we will lose a lot of revenue; so how can we correct the situation; to correct the situation; they need to approve enough cases to take up enough visas to go unavailable. This is what they were proabably instructed and did their best to get there.

    If they didn't use up the visas then that is where the lawsuit would be won.

    A big part of this lawsuit during discovery or Q&A would be how the whole visa allocation is done. If it is determined as a side issue that the spillover happened way too early and they broke the law by giving more then 7% of the visas to the oversubscribed countries then that is definitely a death blow to the people who are really being overzealous right now in the criticisms of dos/uscis.

    If this does come out and i can't see why it wouldn't come out then what is uscis to do? rescind approvals? and re-allocate to rest of the world?

    The unused visas is a big problem in AC21; in that it can only happen in fourth quarter and there isn't enough time to approve cases and let them go to waste.

    This might be a catalyst to change the spillover and carryover of greencards from one year to the next.

    ----------------------------------------------------

    I am of the opinion that what happened in june 2007 actually helped greatly the oversubscribed countries in probably advancing the dates for next fiscal year as many people got approved who probably shouldn't have.

    However; it reamins to be seen whether uscis/dos will go to strictly following the country caps and spillover like they did in October 2005 to September 2006. If this is the case then it could be a very long road indeed for people with 2005-2007 priority dates.





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  • unseenguy
    06-26 06:04 PM
    A lot of bickering going on in this thread is because many of us (including yours truely) find it very difficult to understand/calculate
    1. Time Value of money (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money)).
    2. Cash Flow (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_flow))
    3. Risk, not the english term - but the quantifiable aspects of it (Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk))
    4. Leverage (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(finance)))

    I have worked on many of these concepts for > 2 years at work (I am a techie - but have also worked as a BA and part time quant for some time). I still personally find it very difficult to intuitively understand many of those concepts.

    A proper conclusion of whether buying is better or renting is would involve each and every one of these concepts - and a lot of assumptions (what will be rate of inflation, how will the home prices behave etc). Since there would be so many assumptions - I doubt it will be at all possible to arrive at any definitive conclusion. Your best bet would probably be a monte carlo analysis and see which one is more probably the superior one.

    So surprise of surprises - there is no "right answer"!!

    That said - I personally follow the a modified model of "dynamic programming" that my college taught me in the 2nd year of bachelors. You CAN NOT estimate future variables with ANY accuracy. So optimize your present steps based on some cost function.

    Applying that to the present problem - you CAN NOT estimate how the home prices will behave in future or how will the rent be or how will the inflation (or - horror of horrors - deflation) behave. The only thing you can optimize is your cash flow TODAY and the Present Value of any investment you hold. Present value = market value of your equity (even if the price is 40% lower than when you bought). Your "cost function" (maybe we should rename it to "wealth function") that you are trying to optimize is your net worth.

    The result of the "dynamic programming" approach if probably not going to be the most optimal - but it will be the best that I know of. :-)

    Best of luck guys.

    Hi Puddon head :

    Thanks for putting this all together. I support mathematical approaches. Monte carlo analysis is a good approach and it will always present the most pessimistic scenario.

    For optimistic analysis you can use, 3 or 6 point analysis like, (P + O + 4*ML)/6. Although ML in this situation is a tricky part.

    I agree that you are going to end up with a range rather than any specific number. I also agree that it is crucial to get the Most likely range with acceptable standard deviation :)

    You can use six sigma approach also :) ;) (just kidding on this last one).



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  • dixie
    11-14 10:01 PM
    His news telecast was an inspirational force for numbersusa who were behind killing SKIL.

    As far as I know, almost every telecast of his has some representative of FAIR, numbersUSA or some other crony organisation like the programmers guild as his guest. And he presents their "research" as if they are winners of the nobel prize in economics.

    And who told you SKIL is killed or that numbersUSA killed it ? In fact they are quaking in their boots at the thought of congress passing some large scale immigration relief measure like SKIL during the lame duck session. Take a look at their site for the latest "action item". Sad part is many of their friends in congress have either lost their job or are busy licking their wounds.





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  • gc_chahiye
    08-03 02:05 PM
    ... going from consulting companies to "permanent jobs"; .... all of these things add a lot of complexities.

    huh? another shocker (atleast for me): what is the issue with using AC21 to go from a consulting job to a permanent one? As long as title and duties say the same. If I am consulting at a client site, cant I use AC21 to join them fulltime 6 months down the line? My duties etc remain exactly the same.



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  • nojoke
    04-06 04:00 PM
    It was crazy till last year. Things started going south from this year begining. I am seeing foreclosures and auctions here in bay area. There are price reductions of 100K in the mls listings. This is just starting. It is a matter of time. Some more quotes...
    -----------------------------------
    “Bay Area home sales have plummeted to their lowest level in two decades, making the wait between commission checks unbearable for many agents. Bonnie Stevens, an agent in Pleasanton, began her real estate career in 1995, at the end of the market’s last down cycle.”

    “‘This is actually worse than 1995. There are agents in my office who have been in the business for 30 years telling me that this is the worst they’ve seen,’ she said.”

    “During her 13 years as an agent, a good year for Stevens has meant selling 15 to 18 homes. So far this year, she’s sold only one.”





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  • validIV
    06-23 03:25 PM
    Yea your calculation is a little off. 400,000 financed @ 5% 30 year fixed is $2,148. Factor in your taxes and insurance in escrow thats a total of (approximately, im guessing for your area) $2,500 total. Plus your HOA of $250/month thats 2750 which sounds about right with gapala's calculation. Your closing costs, give or take should also be factored, approx. 10-30k.

    So that comes to 33k/yoy in expenses. That may not be bad when your making six figure incomes or combined household incoming is 150K+, since 20k+ of interest is deductible yoy, but imo i wouldnt buy a 500k+ property unless there is some sort of income to bring down my monthly cost, like a rental unit.

    Townhouses here in NY are very similar to condos so I'm assuming that its the same there. I personally would not pay 500k for something similar to a condo unless its in Manhattan. Just curious why not buy a house instead of a townhouse? Unless thats the norm in that area. I would prefer to take care of the house myself than pay maintenance and HoA dues. You learn a lot more and grow as a homeowner.


    Here is one calculation that might give you one more reason to buy...

    This is taking into consideration bay area good school district ....


    say you are currently in a 2 bedroom paying around $1900 rent (say cupertino school district)

    you buy a townhome for around $500k putting down 20%
    so loan amount is 400k
    @ 5% instrest your annual intrest is $ 20k.
    Say 3k HOA anually...
    Property tax....as a rule of thumb, I believe (and have heard from others) whatever poperty tax you pay comes back as your mortgage intrest and property tax is deductable.
    So not taking property tax into account....your annual expense is 23k.

    now here is the nice part....
    you get 8k (or is it 7.5k ?) from FED for buying a house (first time buyer)

    If you get a real estate agent who is ready to give you 50% back on the comission you can get back around 7.5k (assuming the agent gets 3% comission)...I know those kind of agent exist for sure !!

    There is something I have heard about CA also giving you 10k for buying new homes...but I am not sure of this so will leave it out of the calculations...

    so total amount u get back....8k+ 7.5k = 15k approx..

    1st year expense = 23k
    1st year actual expense = 23-15 = 8 k

    which mean monthly rent = 8k/12 = $666 per month (it is like paying $666 rent for a 2 bedroom in cupertino school district)

    Will the property value go up ? I do not know (I wish I knew)...

    Is there a risk ? I would think yes....

    Percentage of risk ? I would think keeping in mind current prices the risk is low...

    I am not telling that you should buy or not buy....just provided one piece of the calculation....-;)

    All the best !



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  • kuhelica2000
    12-18 05:38 PM
    For your kind information, Bangladesh is not an Islamic Republic. Nor is Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia. These are muslim majority countries but not islamic republics. These countries don't even have sharriah law; ironically india has sarriah law.

    [QUOTE=addsf345;306838]by your explanation, what should hindus in india do? they were attacked, temples destroyed, forcefully converted, killed, lost land to islamic republics like pakistand and bangladesh??? Please read this on wikipedia...Thankfully not whole world thinks like you do.





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  • SunnySurya
    08-05 10:32 AM
    Why should they?
    Just self-interest and what works for them.

    No wonder many people, after getting GC, do not visit this forum and support any immigration reforms.

    *



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  • sanju
    04-08 06:24 PM
    Bill Preskal (I am not sure about the spelling of his name) is going to introduce a semilar bill in the house within the next few weeks. Seems like there is a well oiled machine which is stream rolling this.

    Hi pitha,

    Thanks for posting this info. Could you please share the source of this information?

    None of us should take this bill lightly. There is a saying - "one should never watch sausage or law being made". The guys who vote on the bills, in most instances, don't actually know what they are voting on. Most lawmakers may vote in favor of this bill as the anti-lobby is warpping this bill around a message "this bill is to enhance protections for American workers, so are you going to vote against American workers?" As such most lawmakers could vote in favor of this bill. The current environment is very dangerous where most people watch news in the sound-bites and half of the Senate is running for President. In such an environment, if you ask Obama, Hilary, Dodd, McCain etc., they are all likely to vote in favor of this bill, without going into the nuances and actual implications of this bill. None of these guys would want to be headlines saying something like �Obama is against American Works�. No one will actually care to look at the long term implication of such a bill whereby most of the IT jobs will be outsourced.

    From tomorrow, we should all email and inform everybody that we can, including our employers. What is the direction from IV core? We are all waiting for the matching orders��.





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  • gcisadawg
    12-26 11:16 PM
    to clean our bottom. I agree. We have to do it ourselves.However, attacking terror camps in Pak by India is not going to solve the problem.

    We are dealing with mad , fanatic , fundemantalistic army with weak democratic government.I think majority of Pak citizens are like us.They don't want war. The ideal way is squeeze that country by economic sanctions, international seperation etc.

    If we attack even the so called terror camps, the Laskar e Toiba people will be gone long time ago. May be we have to satisfy by killing the some innocent Pak citizens by those surgical attacks.

    World policeman America did the similar cleaning business by arming the fanatics in Afganistan to oust Soviet army from Afganistan. The devil nourished by America with support of Saitan ISI is biting back US now.

    Israel is not sleeping peacefully. OK they won the six days war by preemptive strike of Egypt. What happened now ? Stupid palestinan Hamas fire two rockets killing two isralies inturn killing of twenty innocent paletinaian by brutal isral army. Is the middle east problem solved by preemptive attack or postemptive attack? It will be solved by mutual giving and taking not by war.


    You don't want to get tore away your front and back by fighting with lunatic Pak military. You may destroy the Pakistan, but you will be without front to
    --- and back to ----.You means not you. Our brave Indian soldiers.You will be sitting in your airconditioned room , watching the live relay in CNN of Indo-Pak war and happy with mutual assured destruction the war will bring on both poor countries.

    So, let US army to attack the so called camps .They are already doing in the Afgan-Pak border. Let them tilt their gun little bit more so that the camps on POK also get hit.

    It is foolish to get killed.Let the other man do the job for you.Let the world policeman do what it preaches. " War on terror ".

    Amma,

    I agree with you. We can start the war. But what next? How to end it? US is struggling to end the war in Iraq. And India is not US and Pakistan is not Iraq. It would be a closely fought battle although we have some edge.

    Whenever talka bout war breaks out, Pakistan does nuclear sabre-rattling.
    Indian leadership should tell the world in no uncertain terms that if pakistan uses any unconventional weapons, then all pakistan's cities and towns would be wiped off. Yes, we may loose people but 'proud nation' of pakistan would disappear from the map. I'm against death of innocent but my point is to remove the threat of nuclear weapons.

    India should say that our options are not limited by presence of absence of nuclear weapons. If pakistan uses nuclear weapons, then the guy that pulls the trigger should know that there wont be pakistan anymore. We shud deploy some of the weapons in South and in Sea to give a fitting reply in case one is lobbed at us. This response should be the default option and ingrained into the psyche of Military leaders. And PM and all military chief should sign a declaration to that effect. Again, I'm against innocents but my point is to remove the threat of nuclear weapons.

    Having said that, we need to do a conventional warfare. But I guess that, it would be more of a dogfight that would bleed us economically. Meanwhile, we need to strengthen the laws but also ensure it is not abused ( corruption and bias are something that is prevalent among people with power..it wud be very hard but people with power shud be very disciplined). Diplomatically pressurize the failed nation of Pakistan and do undercover ops in Balochistan and NWFP. Collaborate with Sindhi Mujahirs and create a division between Urdu speaking Punjabis and Sindhi speaking Mujahirs and Pashutun groups.
    IK Gujral stopped the covert ops. It need to be restarted.

    We need to do all we could do to tell Pakistan that this wont be a free ride ANYMORE!!

    One of the Pakistani General remarked to Benazir saying "Madam, creating trouble in Kashmir using Jihadis is like maintaining an extra brigade with no cost to tax payers"

    We need to show that it comes with a COST. War is not an option.

    Typically, the media and Indians living abroad beat the drums of war a bit more than people actually living there now.

    If you have any Pakistani friends/neigbors/colleagues in USA, how many of you have talked to them about this situation? And what is the response?


    Peace,
    G





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  • CreatedToday
    01-08 03:18 PM
    I just copied and pasted the coward Refugee_New's msg to me. I'll be careful about 'quoting others' also!

    Did you consider banning him?

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From Forum Moderator
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    We are forced to caution you that any use of profanity on the public forums, including when quoting others, will result in immediate ban from this forum without any further warning.

    Thank you for your understanding,

    Administrator2


    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------





    perm2gc
    08-11 11:52 AM
    In February, Dobbs asked a guest on his show: "The fact is that we are seeing hundreds of jobs being outsourced on the basis purely of a corporation's interest in achieving the lowest possible price for labor. Does that make sense to you?" Later on the same show, he declared, "Corporate America and U.S. multinationals are shipping jobs for only one reason, not for greater productivity, not for efficiencies, those are purely code words for cheaper labor costs."


    Dobbs even asks viewers to send him the names of companies that outsource. He then posts the list (scroll down) on his CNN website, under the heading, "These are U.S. companies either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor, instead of American workers."


    "The results of this issue are crucial to the kind of country we live in," Dobbs told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in April.


    But there comes a time when Dobbs takes off his anti-outsourcing hat. That's when he switches from financial journalist to investment advisor-for-hire, peddling a monthly newsletter containing his investment recommendations. Pony up $398 and you receive Dobbs' investment tips for two years. You'll recognize some of the companies that Dobbs recommends. That's because they're on his list of firms that are "exporting America" by shutting down U.S. operations and opening overseas facilities.


    The Lou Dobbs Money Letter is published by Phillips International Inc., which is associated with Eagle Publishing, a leading publisher of conservative-themed books. In each issue, Dobbs singles out one favored company, in which he encourages subscribers to invest. He conducts an invariably softball interview with the firm's CEO, which allows both Dobbs and his guest to tout the company's prospects.


    Unlike most investment advisors, Dobbs goes beyond talking up the earning potential of these companies. He typically goes out of his way to praise them as good corporate citizens. The newsletter keeps a running tally of the companies profiled, under the heading, "The following companies have been featured in the Lou Dobbs Money Letter as those 'doing good business with good people.'" The appeal is alluring: You're not just buying a smart investment choice, you're buying a piece of good citizenship.


    Dobbs devoted a column in the March issue to touting the prospects of the Minnesota-based Toro Company, which makes outdoor landscaping-maintenance equipment. He told subscribers that Toro was a "long-term wealth-builder," and praised Toro's "formal code of ethics, something I think is sorely needed at more of America's companies," and its "...exemplary corporate governance structure, which aligns the interests of shareholders, employees, and customers." He concluded his interview with Toro CEO Kendrick Melrose by frankly telling him, "I like the way you treat your shareholders, employees, and customers."


    One wonders whether Dobbs' admiration extends to Toro's 2002 decision to move 15% of its workforce -- about 800 jobs -- to Juarez, Mexico. Indeed, CEO Kendrick Melrose might be interested to know that Toro appears on Dobbs' own list of companies that are "exporting America."


    And Toro is not alone. Of the 14 companies Dobbs has highlighted for investors since starting his newsletter last year, eight appear on his CNN website as companies that outsource jobs.


    Greenpoint Financial is another company that's received conflicting treatment from Dobbs. CEO Tom Johnson enjoyed the Dobbs interview treatment in June 2003. Dobbs promised readers, "I think you'll find Tom's comments and the way he runs his business thought-provoking and insightful."


    Apparently one of the "thought-provoking and insightful" methods that Dobbs was referring to was not the 2002 decision by Greenpoint to export much of its mortgage and customer-service operations to Bangalore, India, a move that produced significant savings, but that cost 150 U.S. workers their jobs. Greenpoint Mortgage, a subsidiary of Greenpoint Financial, appears on Dobbs' list of outsourcers.


    When Dobbs features a company in his newsletter, he tends to stand by them, no matter what information subsequently comes to light. In December 2003, Boeing CEO Phil Condit was forced to resign amidst an ethics scandal. Dobbs had interviewed Condit for the newsletter back in June, and wrote at the time: "Boeing ranks Number 35 on Fortune's list of most admired companies. I think Phil has a lot to do with that."


    After Condit's resignation, Dobbs ran a "Special Boeing Update" in the December edition of the newsletter, in which he told subscribers: "In the face of adversity, the company is being up-front and honest abut its problems...Boeing has just proven that its priorities are in the right place."


    But according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Boeing has sent 5000 U.S. jobs overseas in recent years. And Dobbs' assurances that Boeing's priorities are in the right place don't seem to square with his inclusion of the company on the "exporting America" list.


    Similarly, in November 2003, Dobbs called Bank One chief Jamie Dimon "a conscientious CEO," who "runs a tight ship with solid corporate values."


    Late last year, Bank One announced plans to merge with JP Morgan-Chase and Co., which has a reputation for shipping jobs overseas. In another special update, Dobbs reassured his readers that, "[Dimon's] ability to orchestrate this merger and have it viewed as a positive move by investors...is a testament to the fact that Jamie did it for all the right reasons. As a numbers guy, Jamie knows what works and what doesn't. And I'm confident he's going to do some remarkable work in the coming months."


    Again, Dobbs neglected to tell readers that Bank One is on his "exporting America" list. According to a company spokesman, Bank One has outsourced two to three hundred jobs -- mostly in software development -- to India in the last few years.


    The list goes on. In May 2003 Dobbs talked up Washington Mutual to investors. According to the CWA, the banking services giant has sent 30 jobs overseas. Washington Mutual appears on Dobbs' CNN list of outsourcers.


    In August 2003, Dobbs promoted Office Depot, telling investors that, "[T]he company and CEO Bruce Nelson believe strongly in making Office Depot a 'compelling place to work, shop, and invest.'" Sure enough, Office Depot is on Dobb's list of companies that are "outsourcing America."





    yagw
    08-20 02:40 AM
    Little Johny's first day in pre-school, the teacher gave a little test. She asked the kids to close their eyes and stick the tongue out. She then put honey drops and asked them to guess what it is. When no one was able to, the teacher decided to give a hint.

    "children, its how your mom calls your dad.. well, most of the time anyways"

    On hearing this, Little Johny screamed, "SPIT IT OUT GUYS... ITS A** HOLE"



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