Of all the catastrophic outcomes of this administration, what's happening at NASA is one of the saddest. The premier science and exploration institution, built over years by our most gifted, so much given back to society, gutted and disabled. And all for fucking what?

First let me say that I support the underlying intention of this piece of writing. However and this is crucial - it is based on a factually wrong premise which invalidates the entire hit piece. Unfortunately that also makes the surrounding discussion and angst misdirected.

I am urging you to go into the rest of this comment with an open mind.

H-1B visas require a “prevailing wage” which the foreign worker must be paid at or above in order to get a visa. Prevailing wages are made based on the area the worker will be in and their title, and are published on the DOL website: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/wages

Before being allowed to hire a foreign worker a company must advertise the position in the US. This could be improved as right now you can put the ad in the most obscure newspaper you can find or on TV at 3am. But you do have to do something.

The decision to grant or deny a visa is made by a consular officer - a trained human - who carefully considers all the foreign worker’s case materials (called a “petition”).

All this is to say, they thought of this “bringing in foreign workers depresses wages” problem way back when they created this program and invented prevailing wages to mitigate it. They thought of “bringing in foreign workers denies locals opportunities to apply for those roles” way back when they created the program and invented job ad requirements to mitigate it.

Don’t get me wrong the H-1B is definitely being exploited. Bodyshops are a thing. But it’s not at huge scale. It is a problem to be fixed with better enforcement and targeted reforms, not pitchforks.

Mr. Sanders’ argument needs to be backed up differently. As it stands he is misleading the public. It’s surprisingly out of character.

There is a principal in democracy that there Should Not Be strong institutions that prevent a majority of the population from harming itself with its choices. We balance that against a Supreme Court in the US, but that court is almost uniquely powerful & active in forming policy relative to its place in the rest of the world, and right now, most of it has been appointed by fascists; Ultimately the population will have its say in the long term.

Do you want an extra-democratic body who is capable of telling the population "No"?

I think such a body (which exists in some system) would obviously be nice right now, but I am a lot less convinced that it would be a net positive in general.

If we want to find our way out of this, I suspect a lot of people are going to need to feel directly harmed by this administration, and are going to need to basically erect a strong protest culture out of whole cloth. Something like 5% of the population in the streets can topple an authoritarian regime in the right circumstances, but not the 0.5% we might expect for a "large" protest.

If a very wealthy person passes by our products, the price will instantly double…

Neah, I am only daydreaming.

It would be politically impossible to implement, but I would like a daring economist to compute the exact amount that childless people should be paying as subsidies towards those with kids.

I mean, if someone's pension and social services after they retire depend on the positive externalities generated by somebody else, how much is that worth?

Incredible post, I really appreciate you taking the time to share.

Are there any resources that you have enjoyed over the years for learning Latin or engaging in material written in Latin?