> American companies are not a welfare state. A corporation can only expend so much time and money in the search for good workers. So you can't expect the companies to actively go out to every little town in Iowa and see if there are workers willing to relocate at a reasonable pay (more on the reasonableness of pay later).

I agree. That's why I support the abolition of the H1-B visa program, at least in the form it currently takes. As long as it exists, companies will abuse it. Part of the problem is to some extent, the government has been captured by corporate interests.

> Many (not all, of course) workers are extremely unwilling to move, and may even be really unhappy about moving away from the social structures that they are comfortable with.

This is absolutely true. It's also true that programmers, especially, can work remotely or in cheap satellite offices, and that this is probably preferable to them moving all around. Strengthening social structures for American workers should be a priority of the government. It makes for happier, healthier, better-adjusted people. It makes for people less prone to mental illnesses like depression and drug addiction, less likely to become homeless, and more likely to be deeply involved in their community and local politics. (Something I have been considering for a while now is the flagrant corruption in local US politics that is becoming increasingly enabled by transient populations who haven't lived in the same place for decades, and therefore lack deep knowledge and experience of local issues and local politicians, and who aren't much interested because they don't expect themselves, their children, or their grandchildren to remain in the area.) It also often has the side-effect of making life a lot cheaper. If your retired grandparents are willing to watch your kids while you're at work, that's a lot cheaper than paying for daycare.

> A lot of people seem to think that if you can't find employee at salary A, you just need to increase the salary and employees will magically appear. This is just not the way the market works. If American workers become too expensive, it becomes more cost effective to open a satellite office in another country and the jobs move overseas.

If you can't afford the labor costs, then your business doesn't get to exist. That's the way the market works. If I could hire people for ten cents an hour, I could start a great software business. I can't. Too bad for me.

Your statement in general is representative of the race-to-the-bottom thinking I referenced in my earlier post - the idea that we have to do this, or the jobs will go elsewhere, where labor is cheaper. Well, that's how you get savage cuts to labor protections, stagnant wages, and massive corporate welfare in the form of tax cuts and subsidies. What's the endgame, here? Essentially, a global, common market with freedom of movement, a world where democratic governments are entirely subordinate to large corporate interests, a world where wages start plummeting because someone, somewhere, is perfectly willing to program for 5k/year and live in a one-bedroom apartment with five other people, all the while the company involved is getting massive tax breaks lest they start move somewhere else even cheaper.

No thanks.

The reality is that American workers are highly educated and there's a huge amount of social capital and financial capital that will keep businesses operating in the US. If they really wanted to, it's already cheaper open foreign offices and hire locals elsewhere - there's more than just immediate financial considerations already in effect. In a future with more expensive American labor, brilliant US programmers will still be starting their companies in the US, because they already live here. They will hire their friends and alumni from their college in the US. They will hire people those people give references for. They will hire people who live near them.

Most businesses will not leave the US in the near-term, H1-Bs or no H1-Bs. If they choose to go elsewhere to evade American labor prices and American labor protections, there is a simple solution. They can be forbidden from selling their products and services here. Access to the American market can be predicated on worker wages and benefits. I don't see any other solution that prevents a global corporate oligarchy.