Who could have predicted this? Oh, wait.
UBS will pay a fine it has been declared, no one goes to jail or prison, and they will continue to operate their business as if nothing happened. Until they commit another crime, they will lobby the DOJ and regulators, no one goes to jail or loses a job (at least at the top bankster levels, pay a fine, rinse and repeat). And the fines, well, of course those will just be passed on to customers in the form of higher fees. And if they can't bleed clients or customers enough, they can always threaten to collapse and take the world with them (like good parasites, they apparently will sacrifice the host to survive) and then demand taxpayer $ for free like TARP from which to pay any fines and also megasalaries and bonuses. UBS, Barclays, and everyone else will go on as if nothing happened. I guess the people that paid and lost billions and trillions in the aggregate over all these years for paying way too much for $ will just have to suck it up. How's that for fairness or justice or capitalism or equality before the law? What a fantastic "free market" where a tiny group of people can rig a system to steal money and get away with it. I wonder, which book is this system praised in? Ayn Rand's? Is this the Utopian capitalism? Socialism? Communism? Anarchy? A piece of crap?

Compare what would happen if a small business or a group of regular citizens decided to pay bribes, commit wire or mail fraud daily involving thousands, or millions, or billions of dollars internationally involving individuals all the way up to national governments and multinationals, fix prices, etc. with tens of thousands of documents and witnesses proving easily they broke dozens of laws. Who would they lobby at the local DA's office to avoid culpability? Would the DOJ return their phone calls and meet them for lunch until a sweet deal was hammered out? Would their local city council members meet them, let alone Senators and Reps.? No, it's a quick indictment, a quick press conference by local authorities, 20+ years in prison for them even if they acted as a business, massive fines and forfeitures that would destroy them and their families and businesses. But that matters not in the United States and Global World of Banksterism. Break the law, step on other people, cry poverty and unfairness when someone calls you out and ask that criminals please, please not make $40 million/year. Damn it pays to be a bankster (literally and figuratively). Rules, morals, we don't need no stinkin' rules and morals.

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References used for the statistics are mostly linked above. USCIS H-1B info is in separate reports to Congress, bi-annual, titled "Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Workers" for Fiscal years, the last being FY11. Here is FY 2011, which has the data in tables sprinkled through the report.

The Economic Populist is officially the media. We're a news source and often are cited by much larger organizations. Hopefully others will stop publishing spin and dig out these statistics, the same as I just did.

I've seen some ridiculous pieces that are beyond belief statistical spin, not only in the press, but those same lobbyist talking points come out of the mouths of Congressional representatives on their sites and on the House and Senate floor. Sad, which goes to show how the American scientific community is overall going downhill. Spin is presented as fact and the ethical code of "thou shalt not spin thy statistics" clearly isn't being followed. Downright immoral.

The reality is most STEM jobs require a BS only, although they usually want some sort of work experience, such as internships and co-ops as well as mastery. There are some jobs where a MS is listed on the job requirements, but it must be a U.S. MS, which is 30 credit hours past the 120 STEM credit hours at the better schools. Still, many employers consider those with BS degrees in those jobs due to excellence and previous experience.

Obviously Academia jobs often require a PhD, yet tenure track have disappeared and Post Docs are covered under the J-1 Visa as well as Academia has unlimited H-1B Visas, they are exempt. Teaching positions, including Academia, universities, are not included in these BLS occupational categories utilized for this article.

Many other countries MS is really a MSc, which can be 120 credit hours (the same as a U.S. BS degree) to only 90 credit hours. Additionally there is much less design and labs requirements in other nations. To make it more confusing some schools abroad are matching the U.S. BS and MS requirements while other schools in that nation do not.

There also are some advanced research jobs which require a PhD. Still, even BS degreed people work in research labs, but again, it's talent and experience dependent quite often.

That said, very obviously one doesn't necessarily need even a BS degree to innovate, as evidenced by our now labor arbitraging Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Google search was developed by two PhD students who did complete their MS but got their idea while thinking about PhD dissertations. I should also mention Sergey Brin was brought over to the U.S. as a child, which clearly isn't the same thing as coming over to the states as labor arbitrage cannon fodder in terms of opportunities to innovate.

Additionally, the United States has an unlimited Visa, the "O" Visa for true excellence, although those achievements had to be accomplished before entry into the U.S.

Honestly, this was so easy to examine this statistics, even though I look at economic and labor statistics daily, I really was shocked as I researched this article to see how obvious it was not only is there no worker shortage, STEM occupations are not even really growing by size!

A final note, most H-1Bs are BS degreed but unfortunately the USCIS does not require proof or U.S. equivalent degrees listed. Therefore those BS degrees could be a BSc which is more like trade school in many countries, or at best community college here and I already discussed the issues with a "MS" as above. A PhD is usually a PhD, it's the terminal degree and it's merit is more the school, the adviser and most importantly the quality of the publications and research performed by the person holding the Doctorate.

So, to present this material to lawmakers one needs to write them, visit their offices and prepare your own documentation. I can tell you what corporate lobbyists do (beyond give millions in campaign donations and high paying jobs to friends and family members).

Corporate lobbyists put together media packages, which #1 consist of a 1 page flier with "talking points" they want to be "known". Now those talking points are very often fiction, spun with some biased paper or research by some propped up person posing as a research "group" or think tank and so on. That said, they always give 1 page flier talking points to Congressional staff with their other 1 page agenda. Then, they "repeat the lie" over and over until the "lie becomes truth". Lobbyists also actually write legislation they want "introduced" by a Congressional representative (and you thought Congress wrote their own bills, ha ha).

What regular people need to do is "repeat the truth until it becomes truth again" for corporate lobbyists have been spoon feeding politicians pure bunk (along with their money) for over 30 years in order to labor arbitrage U.S. STEM.

The other thing lobbyists do is divide and conquer. While this is clearly a labor issue they use the phrase "racist xenophobe" to divide people and confuse the issues in order to get their agenda through. In other words, if you want your career secured, well, then, you must be a card carrying KKK member. This technique divides various political fractions who normally would join forces on labor issues.

So, even as an individual, you need to make an appointment, put together a 1 page flier of talking points, then print out your back up research papers and there are many, from the GAO to Urban Institute to many other groups which are statistically valid and walk in and let it be known. Then the only thing that really can move Congress past corporate lobbyists and agendas is to shut down Congress by protests. That's voice, phone, sit ins, fax and general raising of hell (legally). It seems one can have the entire country in outright revolt but all Congress as well as this administration listens to are lobbyists, their campaign donors and uber-rich class.

I'd say again it does seem the most active union is the AFL-CIO DPE and maybe one can start a STEM, not workplace affiliated branch. One thing is very obvious, U.S. STEM really needs some labor representation, power to organize and thus protect U.S. STEM career (labor) interests.

There are a few leftist historians out there who have observed that the US was designed and intended from the start to be an aristocracy with two classes of people: those with important wealth and those without, the latter subdivided into free and slave. Those with skin in the game got an official say in the workings of Federal government; those who don't, didn't.

One lesson of the past 100 years or so is that the extension of the voting franchise to a larger segment of the population has not significantly opened up access to the levers of power or increased the influence which the median citizen can exert on policy. Those standing for national election, or appointed to offices, have generally been of the aristocracy, though we have had the good fortune that some of them have not forgotten _noblesse oblige_. Merely opening the vote has not actually opened the boundaries of political discussion much, because the group of constituencies with effective veto power over a candidate has expanded and strengthened. In particular, the importance of money as a veto point has increased drastically, as public election financing has fallen out of favor and statutory limits on private financing have been constrained by a Supreme Court that favors money as speech. Without a commitment to making affordable and available other social goods, such as health care or transit or post-secondary education or a fair share in productivity gains or a sustainable natural environment or the ability to run for public office on a reasonably even footing with anyone, how can one vote *against* wealth in a first-past-the-post voting regime?

So, is the Constitution permanently fixable, even in theory, even if there were an informed, thoughtful, and willing electorate? Is there enough tar to patch all the holes of unearned privilege structurally conferred on the wealthy by the Constitution and a Supreme Court that has been tolerant at best of the rights of the underclass? Or would it be better to start over, with a charter that would make access to public goods, both enumerated and unenumerated, both tangible and not, a practical right?

I am a 2002 graduate of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from a top-20 university. Completed both my degrees in 4 years in the top quartile of my class. Sent out thousands of resumes to Silicon Valley tech firms and elsewhere, only to receive almost no response, or a response claiming the job requisition had been cancelled and that I should apply for other jobs. Meanwhile, employers who didn't need top calibre skills rejected me for being 'overqualified' for the few jobs they had available (not that it mattered, those jobs were receiving hundreds, sometimes thousands of resumes).

It breaks my heart every time I hear the Silicon Valley employers are claiming a labour shortage without even bothering to open their resume queues and find them filled with folks like me. I could accept the situation if the employers interviewed me, tested me, and found I was less qualified than a competitor. That's the merit principle in action. But to just ignore me while claiming a need for foreign guest workers strikes me as completely unnacceptable.

Robert, this is an excellent story. Thanks for your research and your excellent delivery. If I would have anything to add, I would discuss how the IEEE and the IEEE-USA, organizations that collect membership fees from disenfranchised US STEM workers, are leading the charge of betraying the US STEM worker.

While it took me a day to run all of these statistics, reporters have NO EXCUSE to not report the facts on STEM employment. One cannot even easily find the statistics used in this article, reporters have every responsibility to obtain accurate facts and figures and most do not! Google is front loaded with pure fiction, statistical lies, pumped in by lobbyists their 50¢ an hour SEO hires.

As I went through the statistics I was really disgusted for they are much worse than I originally thought.

You're not alone and folks, anyone, if you are not familiar with the requirements to obtain a U.S. BS in Mechanical engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, let us just tell you it's one big bitch!

These degrees are very hard to master, to obtain and one studies their ass off to get them. BS degrees are 120+ credit hours and some schools have no padding, no liberal arts, "easy A" courses to buffer with.

In other words, people work very hard, study hard, must be bright else they couldn't have graduated, spent hours, thousands of dollars obtaining their degrees to face global labor arbitrage and then age discrimination. One cannot labor arbitrage people who has this level of skill and expertise and expect anything but ....well....
what HP has become today, destroyed, a shell of the engineering company they used to be. Same with IBM if anyone is familiar with their very crappy work in a host of areas and of course....hmmmm, now about that Windows Phone, Surface, OS? Howz that going for ya labor arbitraging Microsoft? In other words, by displacing, churning, labor arbitraging U.S. technical workers, over the long term, these same companies are succumbing to the competition who do not practice such evil employee policies. Think S. Korea labor arbitrages their engineers? Not even close, it's S. Korean engineers preferred, every step of the way. This is way beyond their employee granted stock options being flat, plenty of other companies have none or are negative.

As a mechanical engineer who has spent much of his so-called career either unemployed or underemployed, I agree with everything you said.

There is no shortage of engineers. But no matter how many engineers are willing to grovel for crummy jobs, employers believe even more groveling is needed.

Just incredible the Waltons are subsidized by our tax money:

"Because Wal-Mart is very stingy with health benefits, it actively encourages employees to use hospital emergency rooms for their health needs. The result of this is that Wal-Mart employees are the single biggest users of Medicaid, which is health care for those in poverty. Also, Wal-Mart employees are the single biggest users of food stamps. On average, a Wal-Mart employee receives $1,000 a year of public aid from the federal government. Yet the children of Sam Walton – Christy, Jim, Alice, and Rob Walton – each of whom as mentioned inherited $26 billion after the death of their father – actively contribute to Republican politicians who want to cut back on Medicaid and food stamps because such services are used by poor people, whom they consider parasites on society."

Something is seriously wrong here. As this aristocracy regains control it will be more and more a nightmare for our citizens.

Good God yes and addition to that, remember when news wasn't parroting some pre-written lobbyist or political talking points that have no basis in reality?