> Clinton accepted $675,000 from Goldman for 3 talks

Okay, I get it, Clinton bad etc. But Trump has appointed tons of people from Goldman to his administration[1] and filed an executive order against financial industry regulations[2] - you know the regulations put in place after the last Wall Street crash, to prevent a similar crash?

Can we stop pretending that Trump isn't bought off by Goldman now?

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-adds-goldman-...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presi... https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presi...

Not a Trump fan at all here, but technically I think it's more the other way around. Trump is buying up Goldman, rather than they buying him. I have yet to see a clear line of influence from Goldman to Trump personally. It seems more like he's hiring old buddies for potential future favors from them. Reverse lobbying! You heard it here first!

Corruption is by association, not direction. So Trump's involvement with Goldman at all is indication of a quid-pro-quo that stinks of corruption.

Trump may be right about H1Bs, but he's knee deep in corruptive patterns. The details will come out when those "old buddies" start doing their "former" businesses huge favors.

> but he's knee deep in corruptive patterns.

Well, you might be right, but it helps to cite evidence to your assertions.

I see allegations, but no true corruption. Could you please cite a specific example? Hiring a Goldman banker is no proof of corruption.

I said corruptive patterns, ie, things commonly associated with corruption, like hiring insiders from the very companies the agency is regulating.

Insiders tend to be knowledgeable

How is giving Goldman people government positions buying them if not by giving them the power to set rules as they like? It's not like they are in it for the cushy gov't benefits.

I am saying the causality here is backwards (I think). It is not the case that Goldman did something for Trump so now he has to make these appointments. It is that he is giving them these appointments so they return the favor in the future. I think he is doing this for future business needs after he is done being president, but I am sure it could be any number of other reasons.

These corporations are huge, with many many employees (over 30 thousand just at Goldman Sachs).

Just because you used to work for Goldman in the past, does not mean you are a current and future supporter of Goldman.

Nor does it mean that you are a bad person.

Trump is hiring people that know how these companies work from the inside-out. Which is the exact type of person you need to be able to deal with these companies head-on.

That has to be a self-delusion of the highest magnitude ever recorded. "Sure he's let the fox run the henhouse; but who knows better than a fox?"

Tom Wheeler had been a telecom CEO and lobbyist prior to running the FCC. He turned out OK, solidly reining in the industry he had worked for. He knew what to watch out for, and didn't need to rely on lobbyists to explain things to him.

So it works. Integrity and patriotism matter of course. Diversifying investments prior to taking office would help reduce temptation.

Assuming that anyone who works for GS, or banking in general, are homogenous in morals and ethics and ability is equally delusional.

These guys are not 'anyone'. That's just deliberately ignoring the point.

There is a big difference between selling out Americans to be replaced by foreigners whether H1-B as in Disney, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street or illegal immigrants replacing working class American jobs and depressing working class jobs and what Trump is doing now with Wall Street.

If Trump were truly bought off by Goldman, he certainly would not be behind legislation that fixes the broken H1-B Visa system. Goldman, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and other firms will have to start paying market wages instead of depressed wages because of the H1-B Visa reform.

It's possible that he's trying to stick it to Silicon Valley as payback.

Technology salaries are probably a drop in the bucket cost-wise compared to the profits that will be made from deregulation of the industry. So while Goldman might have to pay a few million more in salaries, it's offset by the billions more in profits that they will rake in (over the short-term, until they destroy the economy again, that is).

Tech companies aren't going to see a similar measure to increase their profits to offset the labor costs increases.

I don't think so (sticking it to SV). He was threatening to reform the H-1B visa program during his campaign.

Sure, but he was also blasting SV "elites" the entire time too. I mean, look at all the people that wrote this:

https://shift.newco.co/an-open-letter-from-technology-sector...

The SV elites were very much against him because he wanted to protect US STEM worker by fixing the broken H1-B program that stopped SV firms from hiring H1-B for depressed wages.

The "depressing wages" point is dumb. These engineers will still be part of the labor pool, they'll just be doing work for our foreign competitors. And HP can still hire them, do you want them to just open up more space in Bangalore, or would you rather those wages go to US based locations?

And it's not a zero sum game. One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company. Other H1B hires enabled a contracting firm I worked for to get a large contract that kept 7 other people employed.

Did you read the article? Many tech jobs can't be done effectively in India or overseas with low quality labor for any number of reasons. The 250 American workers for Disney had their jobs replaced in the US, not by overseas workers.

> "These engineers will still be part of the labor pool, they'll just be doing work for our foreign competitors"

Well, let them work for Samsung instead of Apple then.

> "One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company."

The point of the H1-B visa is precisely for those cases where there are no Americans that can do the job, so your hire follows the law. But then if it such a hard to find job, then the scarcity implies the person should get a higher salary, especially if he/she created "20 high paid jobs for our company."

Letting them work for Samsung lowers our standard of living.

Please explain.

> One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company.

That type of thing was the original intention, and I think most people would be okay with that.

But a gigantic majority of H1Bs are not used to fill positions that require unique skills. If 99.9% of H1Bs are abusing the system to avoid paying market wages then the system is broken and it needs to be fixed.

> do you want them to just open up more space in Bangalore

Yes. We have higher wages for our higher standard of living. As you said, it's not a zero sum game and all things are not equal.

and someone like this smart person in your example would now be highly unlikely to get an h1b visa with the current lottery system. once you introduce a lottery, it's no longer about hard to find skills, it's about how can you churn out most applications to win most visas. i'll be looking for the elimination of the lottery system in any proposed fixes.

> One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company

Can you give details so it can be judged if this is true, and if so how common/relevant it is?

He was a japanese physicist, lost his job when Supercollider project canceled. Instead of going back to Japan, I was able to hire him as lead graphics engineer on a Macintosh imaging product, he was super creative in developing unique graphics effects and his product became our biggest and most profitable. The company grew to 140 employees, his team was 20, but it's reasonable to think about a quarter of the workforce was tied to it given it was about a quarter of our revenues.

Sounds like an excellent use of H1B; but I'm sure it's not a common one.

So how much were you paying him? (Last week?) there was an article about someone trying to double the H1B minimum wage to $140k; surely if this physicist is as important as you say he is, you were compensating him around that figure, no?

Was he making as much as an American? Also did he get huge bonus for the excellent work he did?

As someone who is solidly for this move, it is a bit silly to point out Clinton accepting money from Goldman for 3 talks when Trump literally puts wall street and others in his cabinet.

Broken clock is right twice a day...

> Clinton accepted $675,000 from Goldman for 3 talks.

So what? That is what people with her credentials are worth on the speaking circuit. God forbid someone get paid what they are worth, what do you think this is, a meritocracy?

> she could have donated the $675,000 for charity as President Obama did with his Nobel Peace Prize Award money

The Clinton's donated over $15MM to charity over the course of 2008-2015 and paid over 40% of their income as taxes. I'm pretty sure they've done more to help people than you (the average you, for all I know you're Bill Gates) or I ever will.

>> Clinton accepted $675,000 from Goldman for 3 talks.

> So what? That is what people with her credentials are worth on the speaking circuit. God forbid someone get paid what they are worth, what do you think this is, a meritocracy?

$675,000 for 3 talks to Goldman leaves many with the implication that Clinton was "bought" by Goldman, whether true or not (and how to prove that?). It gave both Sanders (who asked that Clinton dispose the contents of the 3 talks which she never did but which Wikileaks eventually did do) and Trump significant ammunition against Clinton in the campaign.

If you are running for President, esp as a Democrat, it is unwise to accept money like that from Goldman or Wall Street. She could have said when she accepted each payment from Goldman that she was donating that money to charity so as not to leave people, potential voters, with the impression that she was "bought." Perceptions matter and as someone who came from a family that ran multiple times for President (3 times prior to this election) she should have known better.

The mob boss who donates to the orphanage is still the mob boss.

I agree wages are depressed but how do you know Meg Whitman's true motivation?

Clinton proposed automatically giving H1Bs a green card, which would have removed them from indentured servitude. Your narrative ignores the actual policy.

> Clinton proposed automatically giving H1Bs a green card,

When? Her proposal, as reported in the media was, "'staple' green cards on STEM grads' diplomas". Was there other proposal she made specifically addressing H-1Bs?

> Her proposal, as reported in the media was, "'staple' green cards on STEM grads' diplomas".

Well, that's a terrible idea if she said that. She apparently wanted to depress STEM wages in the US and put Americans STEM workers, who worked very hard for their degrees and skill out of work. The green card, H1-B should only be given for STEM jobs for which there is no American.

So Clinton wanted to depress STEM wages and take STEM jobs away from Americans and Trump wanted STEM workers to be treated fairly.

It does the exact opposite by making employers pay at least as much for an H1B as for an equivalent local worker. You're suggesting that they not even be allowed into the country, which would incentivize American companies to set up their campuses in other countries that take a more liberal view to immigration.