[Wilduck]

A few ways:

1. An American company benefited from their labor

2. American consumers benefited from the goods / services they contributed to providing

3. American citizens benefited from the services provided by the taxes they pay

4. Other American businesses benefited from their patronage

[varispeed]

You are missing alternative costs of the fact that more people compete for the same resources, Americans get much lower ROI for their education, it hollows domestic expertise. Companies become dependent on foreign workers. Local jobs pay less, people have less money to pay for products and services.

Short term - shareholders win, long term - everyone loses except the country of origin, where they can bring the knowledge back and develop their economy.

It's like outsourcing, just the foreign workers are onshore.

[carlosjobim]

Seems like you forgot the American worker in the equation?

People who are purely consumers (usually living of real estate gains or entitlements) are of course a huge part of the population, and benefit from everything brining consumer prices down - including cheap labour.

And many people are both consumers and workers, so they are benefitted from lower prices at the same time as they're disadvantaged by lower salaries. If they've already got real estate and the biggest expenses in life paid, they are more interested in lower consumer prices.

Then you have the people who have a much bigger interest in higher salaries than in cheaper consumer goods. Primarily young workers who need to get a foothold in life. For them it is of utmost importance that salaries increase, even though consumer goods get more expensive, because without a foothold in life they have nothing to live for.

[jrexilius]

This is such an important distinction that gets lost so often...

[ericmay]

That doesn't seem to be specific to H1B visa issuance does it? This seems to me to be more of a general argument in favor of immigration in general to spur economic activity, which as far as I'm aware is "correct", provided you have to also show your math with things like a potential rise in housing costs/rent, strains on services, perhaps some folks don't actually pay taxes, etc. Some of those items might be short term or temporary, some may not. I don't know.

But if we were to take your argument at face value and I generally do because that's what the economists say and makes sense to me, why don't other countries encourage this specific type of immigration? China, for example, or perhaps Japan or Korea? What about New Zealand or Switzerland?

[dahinds]

All the countries you mention offer temporary work visas for skilled workers, of varying similarity to an H1B.

[bootsmann]

> What about New Zealand or Switzerland?

This is already the case. About 30% of Switzerlands population are immigrants (one of the highest percentages in the developed world) and it has a freedom of movement treaty with the EU.

[harimau777]

That doesn't seem to play out in practice for average Americans.

The companies profits primarily go to the capitalists not to average people.

That seems to apply to, for lack of a better term, consumerist goods and services like TVs and clothing. Which isn't nothing. However, it doesn't seem to apply to things like housing.

America's social safety net is already very weak and only getting weaker.

Same as the first point. The benefits of business success primarily goes to capitalists not workers.