India demands visas for professionals, presses for WTO talks

[OhioChick]

Source: Economic Times India

22 Jun 2009, 1940 hrs IST, IANS

LONDON: India's new Trade and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said Monday rich countries must grant Indian professionals more visas as he pressed for a resumption of stalled global trade talks.

Sharma, who is in Britain for talks with his opposite number Peter Mandelson, told a gathering of prominent British and Indian businessmen the logjam in the so-called Doha Development Round of trade talks "must be broken".

But he accused rich countries of erecting new trade barriers in response to the global recession.

"I am talking about new subsidies being introduced which were given up by countries, trade distorting measures being taken, professionals being refused visas, measures being introduced which are incompatible with the WTO," Sharma told a meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

"Protectionism is also when you do not have Indian doctors coming in freely, Indian nurses coming in freely, Indian IT professionals moving," he said, voicing a long-standing Indian demand for greater flexibility in allowing the temporary movement of skilled professionals.

Sharma, who was in the US for talks last week, said India had suggested a resumption of the trade talks based on the two existing draft documents on agriculture and manufacturing.

"I am happy to say...that has found positive endorsement," he said.



Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Services/Travel/India-demands-visas-for-professionals-presses-for-WTO-talks/articleshow/4688724.cms

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"Demands?"

"rich countries must grant Indian professionals more visas"

In this recession/depression? :wtf:

[msongs]

1. India is a "rich" country - rich enough for massive military and nucelar weapons nt

[brentspeak]

2. More buffoonery from India

Like China, India has a tariff wall erected around itself as high as Mt. Everest.

[mule_train]

3. uhhh, note to India, USA is a sovereign country

so, we'll uh, pass whatever laws we please, without checking with you

start a trade war if you like, there's a trade imballance so we'll win if trade shuts down

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lindisfarne]

4. Hmm. He just talks about Indians getting visas. Why not everyone else? There are citizens of many

countries who would work for less than Indians are willing to work for. If we're going to undercut workers' wages in the developed countries, why not go for the lowest cost person?

[OhioChick]

5. Likely because Indians send money home...

"In India, these decisions have raised hackles. India's IT sector is
seen as a source of national pride - an area where Indians see
themselves as competing successfully on the global scene. Moreover,
the millions of Indians living overseas send back more than $30
billion a year in remittances, making up 3 per cent of the country's
GDP, according to estimates by the International Labor Organization."

http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/07bpo-worries-grow-about-obamas-outsourcing-policies.htm

[hayu_lol]

6. This is akin to the proverbial lead balloon...

going over. India does not have jobs for it's highly trained pros so must send them overseas.

I see them as overtrained SCABS.

Demands my a**.

[Romulox]

7. I agree with him. I think workers should move freely among any country we have "free trade" with

Otherwise, "free trade" means you set up a captive population to "compete" under circumstances that will never be fair. I could "compete" with an Indian IT professional if I paid what he paid for schooling and housing, for example.

I've never had a "free trader" (basically any mainstream Dem) explain to me how "free trade" of goods was an economic necessity in our globalized world, but it was fine to be protectionist as to services. To put it in concrete terms, you're free to buy a Japanese sedan; why shouldn't I be able to buy Indian IT? There's no real conceptual basis for this distinction whatever.

[blue97keet]

11. "free trade" in anything never was an economic necessity

without a physical excuse. Services do not need to be located where the dead dinosaurs (hydrocarbons) are buried.

[Romulox]

15. Please see my signature. Our President and ALL of his advisors all advocate for "free trade"

as almost a fundamental law of nature. But they limit their advocacy to the free trade of goods. This is bizarre and illogical, and would seem to put any service based economy at a severe disadvantage, given that we are told that any form of privileging domestic industry over foreign industry ("protectionism") is a cancerous lesion on the otherwise unsullied purity of the "free market".

Given all of this, it makes no sense to me that the provision of services shouldn't be similarly weighed down by protectionism. And what could be more protectionist than national barriers? Again, if you are free to buy a Japanese Sedan with little or no tariff, then why shouldn't I be able to buy Indian Professional Services under the same conditions? And, if you admit that consistency and logic demand this concession, then shouldn't the free market be allowed to physically allocate this more efficient labor wherever it is most economically advantageous? So the free movement of labor is demanded from an efficiency standpoint.

It's also demanded from a fairness standpoint. If an American IT professional can't compete with Indian IT professional (for example, because of the high cost of living in the US), why shouldn't the American IT person be allowed to move to India to take advantage of the low cost of living, for example?

Modern economics is all about "competition" after all, but at present, national boundaries--which most goods pass over virtually tariff free, but which "locks down" workers like a prison--stymies competition.

Now, I don't subscribe to the "free trade" ideology--but our President, ALL of his economic advisors, ALL of the Washington establishment, and I'd daresay over half of DU does. So let's be consistent and fair, and let labor cross national borders the same way products do!

[superconnected]

13. Boy you really don't have a concept.

Basically all you said is fine providing tariffs are high enough to make up for the population of each country buying goods that were not produced in their country and didn't use their labor.

Europe is very strict on this where America fails. We fail because our law makers sold us out to the large corporations. Free trade ruins countries because the money is leaving their country and not being cycled back in - ala the labor to produce the product. But then, that would requre YOU to actually READ about it. I don't have time to be your teacher. Nader has written many books on Free trade, I suggest you start there.

Banks and Corporations have been richer than countries for almost two decades now because of Free Trade. It's unfairly balanced. He who has the money makes the rules. It's not likely to change until the bigger countries become so destroyed by it that they finally have to pull out of WTO(ie. America as the jobs of the populace are shipped over seas and there aren't new jobs and the people see that only the corporations are profiting. It's not actually nice to see that corporations and a few individuals are able to profit in historically unheard of profit margins now. Wonderful grossly unequal distribution of wealth! I figure the ignorant wouldn't see a problem with that, the direction it's going, or the way the scales always get tipped back - until the historically inevitable bloody revolution is upon them.

[Romulox]

16. "Reductio ad absurdum". nt

[superconnected]

23. Post pulled.

Rudeness wasn't called for. Okay, it actually never is.

[Romulox]

25. You don't understand my post above, so you resort to namecalling? Is that appropriate

or warranted? Do you even understand my position, because your response seems completely unmoored from it. Moreover, I speak no Latin: an argument "ad absurdum" has a very specific meaning, which is very much applicable here.

"And no, I didn't even have to look up how to call you a horses ass"

You would have done well to look up "reductio ad absurdum". :hi:

[superconnected]

28. I know exactly what you were saying - you said my argument led to a straw hat.

No, it doesn't. It's the basic concept of the war against free trade.

[Romulox]

30. LOL. No, that's not what I was saying at all. I too oppose free trade.

I apologize if I was being too oblique for some. :shrug:

[superconnected]

33. Okay, then I'm sorry. I didn't understand your use of the phrase.

I thought you were calling my argument a straw argument. Your post was after mine.

[superconnected]

27. Sua non-cogitas tuam argumentum absurdus est.

But hey, when you learn the basic concepts of the argument against free trade, I'll be happy to engage you. Vale!

[Romulox]

29. Hi. I OPPOSE free trade. Vehemently.

Almost the entirety of the Washington Establishment (and a large number of DUers) support "free trade". An argument "ad absurdum" attempts to show the absurdity of a premise by demonstrating the consequence of extrapolating that premise to its logical conclusion.

So I am trying to point out that it is illogical and unfair to believe we can keep highly paid service jobs in the US while gleefully outsourcing all manufacturing. Claro?

[pampango]

17. I bet European countries have free trade with more countries than the US does. There are 27

countries in the EU and there are no trade barriers between them. I believe the US has free trade with 17 countries.

[superconnected]

18. They have laws where corporations can't fire workers and then hire them in another country.

I know this first hand because I work for a German company and we are subjected to it. We can't fire 5000 workers in Germany and open the plant in India because German law will shut down the corporation completely in Germany and Tariffs for our products coming into Germany will sky rocket. However we've shut down many American plants and opened them up in India.

[Romulox]

19. You don't get it. If those laws make products too expensive, just buy the Chinese or Indian product

"Free trade" obviates worker regulations as to physical goods. We just need parity as to "service goods". Logic (not to mention fairness) demand it!

[superconnected]

31. I agree, service goods should be covered. But the phsical goods argument already

establishes labor as part of the equation when all talk on free trade take place. What happens is labor gets thrown out, or touted as some great opportunity for another country. The argument that the other country has a great opportunity because they provide cheaper labor also loses because it's well know that when corporations settle into an impoverished area for cheaper labor, the whole economic structure changes and eventually laws follow (this is whats happening to India right now), and eventually the labor isn't cheap anymore because said corporation now has to pay big taxes newly enacted for the good of the people they are using. (Indians now demand benefits). Then said corporation always leaves for a new country with cheaper labor and minimal taxes, and in their wake is a long line of towns and even countries devastated because they're social environment turned to factory labor, forgot what farming was, and no longer have jobs. Previous jobs got replaced by new ones supporting the new cash cow and those new jobs fail when the plant closes. Their old system they had for decades collapsed for the new one and doesn't auto-magically come back. Remember most took hundreds of years to establish and after a few decades of factory rule their old ways are gone.

Labor is the prime talk at the bargaining table of free trade. It is the hurdle WTO tries to overcome at every talk with a country trying to get them to sign on to the WTO agreements.

The only way so far, around this is to tax goods highly that come from out of your country, and that tax is exactly what WTO exists for - to circumvent. Free trade isn't free at all - as you can see. It means your countries money leaves the country and they don't really get it back. And this is why we have individuals with tens of billions now on the planet. It doesn't actually trickle back into the economy. It creates a huge inequity of wealth - not the kind where an honest business owner makes money, but the kind where a sleazy politics rapes countries to gain a few individuals/families mega wealth.

[superconnected]

38. Btw, what product did the chineses have that was competitive(not stolen(cheap rip off copy) of

products) before our factories opened there and sold what they were previously making in America?

I'm not remembering much besides tea and rice.

[mule_train]

21. worker mobility is great if you're nothing but a soul-less economic unit

slave in mind and body to the great world economy

[Romulox]

26. It's the logical corollary to the free movement of goods.

People who make physical goods lack "soul" in no greater proportion than do those who produce "service goods", after all.

[mule_train]

32. no it's not - goods are inanimate objects

economic climates that push mobility of workers value people's roots and communities as worthless

how does one build up your community, by tearing it down?

[Romulox]

41. So are services. In either case, it's the workers who make produce goods who have souls.

(Services are inanimate that is to say--they are probably not "objects")

So again, the distinction is bogus.

"how does one build up your community, by tearing it down?"

Globalism is a theory based on leveling wages amongst workers the world over. American wages can only grow under this regime once they have been equalized with the poorest countries on the earth.

[superconnected]

36. I'm pretty sure that person was calling the corporations souless, and not the workers.

[superconnected]

37. By the way, you may be against free trade, but it really sounds like you've drank their koolaide.

[Romulox]

42. Umm, I explained this to you over a half an hour before this post! NT

[boomerbust]

8. Bumper crop of mangos

Mango farmers need a little love too.:hi:

[blue97keet]

9. Did'nt Indian farmers take down the Doha round?

So some Indians (farmers) deserve credit for doing something sensible.

[mule_train]

12. yes they did - indian farmers actually have more pull than US citizens on our own laws

while i'm glad they did it, it really rubbed in how far down the totem pole we've (american workers) been pushed

[47of74]

10. I have only one thing to say to Mr. Sharma

[dipsydoodle]

14. I'd wondered if the second word might be

off.

[superconnected]

34. It's easier to say - "two words, not happy birthday"

for some reason, they always understand.

[Tab]

20. When things get tight for talent, we will

and if the only talent for a particular segment of the tech industry can be found in India, you can be sure companies will demand H1B's so they can get their work done.

At the moment, though, I don't get the impression that the lack of employees is what's holding things up.

[PaulRevere08]

24. Perhaps someone should remind Mr.Sharma of India's own protectionism.

From a WEF June 2008 report:

India has been ranked 71st in global enabling trade index (ETI) because of tariff barriers and corruption-ridden border administration that oversees flow of goods, according to the World Economic Forum's (WEF's) Global Enabling Trade Report 2008, which was released yesterday.

Unlike China, which is ranked 48th, India continues to have restrictive market access with tariff barriers "representing a more serious impediment that non-tariff barriers," says the report.

Consequently, India is ranked 105th in market access among the 118 countries surveyed in the report with tariff and non-tariff barriers pushing the country to the 112th place.

[superconnected]

35. Excellent post!

[undeterred]

39. We are not a rich country and we don't owe them any more jobs.

They should be happy enough with all the jobs our corporations have given away.

[Moral Compass]

40. Why Should Indian Professionals Get Preferential Treatment for Visas

I live in a very technology heavy area and have seen entire neighborhoods taken over by Indian and other foreign nationals that have come over to study at our universities and then have been able to get H1B visas.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that on the surface. But when our computer science professionals cannot find employment, when our newly minted MIS/CIS/Comp Sci grads cannot find employment what exactly is the purpose of the H1B visa program?

What is the national purpose that it serves? What is our national policy towards developing our next generations of engineers, software engineers, technical sales talent? Are we just to cede these occupations to the countries that DO have national policies?

At one time, during the technology heyday we were literally spinning straw into gold. Our minds were creating products, services, and hardware of immense world changing value. Where is that now? Where is the venture capital that funded all the start ups--most of which failed and failed miserably--in the hope that that one would revolutionize the world.

Irrational exuberance my ass! That was the money guys that didn't understand what was going on and wanted everything to be a blue chip. What they couldn't understand was that for every 9 catastrophic failures there was one success that was so huge that it eclipsed all the false starts.

Well, it's gone now and we are incentivizing foreign nationals to come over and become our engineers, technicians, and visionaries.

My feeling, and there is some xenophobic jingoism in it I'll admit, is that we should immediately shut down the H1B visa program.

Maybe then I can look at a young high school grad with a straight face and tell them to get into technology. Because technology is still creating new and wonderful things--it's just not happening here any longer. Technology is still the most relevant arena in business today. But we've outsourced that too. The money got sucked out into that sure thing the mortgage industry where each dollar made more dollars--until they started making pennies from dollars.

Where is our national industrial and technology policy? Why are we not making anything any more? And what are the national security implications of all this? Think about it.