Go Lean Commentary
Imagine the negotiation with an alternate party; they declare:
Let’s make a deal …
I want to take everything and give you nothing.
How eager are you to forge a bond with this negotiating party?
Unlikely?!
Yet, for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, this is the exact negotiating stance with the United States of America.
Their motive, in offering opportunities for your students to matriculate in their universities have ulterior motives:
They want to keep the good students, not return them.
This was conveyed in a recent news article in the US; see this excerpted key phase here about a post-matriculation On-the-Job Training program called Optional Practical Training (OPT):
Talk of suspending OPT has pitted business interests against immigration hard-liners …
…the program has been rife with abuses, particularly by Chinese students whom they accuse of getting American educations and then returning to China….
Why is this a problem? The US business interests have no altruistic motives – they want the best-of-the-best students to stay.
There is Big Money involved. The US officials are NOT investing in the education of the foreign students; but rather the student’s homelands must do so – at great costs. See this further excerpt:
International students contribute nearly $41 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Our campuses and our communities benefit from the contributions international students make to education and research,” Schmid said. “This move does nothing to ensure the health of U.S. citizens during the COVID crisis. As with Trump’s Muslim ban, this is just bigotry posing as concern for national security.
There you have it; you now know what the underlying intent is of the American invitation for “our” students to matriculate in their country. This reveals the true motives of any negotiations with America.
Do you still want to engage these people?!
See the full news article and related VIDEO here:
Title: Trump admin weighs suspending foreign students program, prompting backlash from business, tech
WASHINGTON — At the direction of the White House, the Department of Homeland Security has sent recommendations for further restricting legal immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to one former and two current administration officials.
Among the recommendations expected to be considered is the suspension of a program for foreign students to stay in the U.S. to get one or two years of occupational training between secondary education and full-time employment, a move many in the business and university communities are fighting.
The program, known as Optional Practical Training, or OPT, is an incentive for foreign students to come to U.S. universities, as it provides some cushion between school and employment. Talk of suspending OPT has pitted business interests against immigration hard-liners like President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller, the officials said.
Miller, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have all said the program has been rife with abuses, particularly by Chinese students whom they accuse of getting American educations and then returning to China. Data from the Congressional Research Service, however, shows otherwise.
“Suspending or ending OPT makes no practical sense — it solves no problem, it reduces the quality of America’s higher education system, and it threatens the international exchange of ideas so vital to academic freedom,” said Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors.
“International students contribute nearly $41 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Our campuses and our communities benefit from the contributions international students make to education and research,” Schmid said. “This move does nothing to ensure the health of U.S. citizens during the COVID crisis. As with Trump’s Muslim ban, this is just bigotry posing as concern for national security.”
The new guidelines, expected to be announced in an executive order this month, would expand curbs on legal migration announced by the White House in April. The administration is expected to frame the move as economic protection for Americans faced with staggering unemployment rates.
Representatives of the White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
A U.S. official familiar with the matter said, “While we won’t comment on internal administrative policy discussions one way or the other, millions of Americans have been forced out of work by the pandemic and they ought to be first in line for jobs — not lower-paid imported labor. Polling shows Democrats, Republicans and Independents agree.”
Critics of the proposals say Miller and other immigration hawks are using the pandemic to accomplish a goal they have had since Trump took office: bringing down the overall number of legal immigrants.
When Miller served on the staff of then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., he helped draft a bill that would have eliminated OPT. Now, four Republican senators have asked the White House to take the issue of curbing OPT and other legal migration programs into their own hands.
“We urge you to continue to suspend new nonimmigrant guest workers for one year or until our new national unemployment figures return to normal levels whichever comes first,” Cotton and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri said in a letter to the White House on May 7. The letter said OPT, along with H-1B visas for highly skilled workers and H-2B visas for non-agricultural seasonal workers, should be suspended.
Todd Schulte, president of FWD.US, a pro-immigration reform group of business and tech leaders that counts Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg among its founders, said the plan is too similar to previous proposals to be framed as a legitimate response to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19.
“Three years ago, when unemployment was at 4 percent, the signatories who were in the Senate at the time tried to slash legal immigration by more than 50 percent. … Today, as unemployment has skyrocketed, these senators now say we need to slash legal immigration in response to the COVID-19 crisis,” Schulte said.
An official familiar with discussions at the White House said the influence of the business community, often communicated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, could sink plans to suspend OPT.
But Rosemary Jenks, executive vice president of NumbersUSA, which shares Miller’s goal of decreasing overall immigration, said it would be a mistake to keep the program open. Jenks noted that OPT is a regulatory program not protected by statute.
“At a time when millions of Americans and lawful permanent residents are graduating from college with severely limited job opportunities due to COVID-19, it makes absolutely no sense for the administration to continue a regulatory program that allows foreign graduates to take jobs Americans need,” she said.
Source: Posted May 10, 2020; retrieved May 15, 2020 from: https://news.yahoo.com/trump-admin-weighs-suspending-foreign-090056680.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
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VIDEO – Fake Companies Exploiting Federal Student Visa Program | NBC Nightly News – https://youtu.be/JiVKPpmSlCM
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Study at home! There are many regional options. This has been the urging from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. Otherwise, we continue to suffer as a parasite of the American hegemony. It is undisputed that the American college education is a bad investment for our Caribbean communities.
This was the consideration in a previous blog-commentary back in April 30, 2018; it is only apropos to glean this lesson now:
Title: ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Undermining College Enrollment
Inappropriate talk can undermine societal engines … and economic engines.
Universities, even not-for-profit ones, need to preserve their economic engines. They must have an influx of new students to replace the ones that graduate every year. Where do these students come from?
The economics of universities are simple, especially state-sponsored universities:
- In-state students pay a per-credit fee for tuition, since state taxes subsidize schools
- Out-of-state students pay a higher per-credit fee, sometimes double the in-state rate
- Foreign students must pay out-of-state tuition every year; there is no in-state option for them
- More revenues – and no financial aid or discounts – are associated with foreign students.
For many American universities, the appeal to lure international students is a “hen that lays golden eggs”. It will be unbecoming to compromise this business arrangement. Enter …
Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States
As reported in that previous blog-commentary, the “United States is suffering the dire consequence of ‘loose lips sinking ships’ right now. The new President – Donald Trump – has made disparaging remarks about certain foreign groups, and then introduced policies that reinforce his disdain for these foreigners”.
As a result, more and more foreign students are refusing to come to the US to matriculate. …
In addition, since April 2018, we had examined a few other angles of this subject – College education in the US for Caribbean students – with these additional commentaries; (this is only a sample):
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19694 | Title: Keep the Change – Making e-Learning Work e-Learning may be the answer for all the ills in the Caribbean education landscape. This industry can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade. Thanks to the Coronavirus – COVID-19 crisis, the world is coming to the e-Learning party. e-Learning options are now real and viable. We can “hedge our bets” and mitigate the risks of studying abroad, by doubling-down on e-Learning. This changed environment has been forced on us – uninvited – by the Coronavirus; but we can Keep the Change and invite these new tools and techniques to stay for good. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19213 | Title: Brain Drain – Geeks and Freaks: Ultimate Revenge Many times, the people that are the most accomplished academically, are characterized more as Nerds, “Geeks and Freaks”. Yet, these are the ones best suited for accomplishment and excellence. In the Caribbean, we have had 60 years of futility with our best-and-brightest leaving us, abandoning the Caribbean homeland. We must now be “On Guard” against bullying and other threats – domestic or foreign. We must do the heavy-lifting to retain our people; we must protect all vulnerable, weak and innocent people in society, even from “leaving home”. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18371 | Title: Unequal Justice – Student Loans Could Dictate Justice America is one – but not the only one – community experiencing dysfunction and economic injustice due to the College eco-system and Student Loans. We have a lot of dysfunctions in the Caribbean too. For example: many islands have atrocious default rates (> 75%) with their student loans for ex-students that left to study abroad. There is a demand now for this money, but not just the principal; we need the interest, too. What’s more, student loans are supposed to be investments in the young people of the community. So those loans have been a fallacy: Where is the return on these investments for us? |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992 | Title: What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest Caribbean communities are all suffering from a bad case of societal abandonment; everyone knows someone that has left. In fact, whenever there is a skilled and competent colleague, we are disappointed if they have not left the region and remained in the homeland. Losing our best, means we have to nation-build with the rest (lesser; D Average)! |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882 | Title: Exploring Medical School Opportunities … as Economic Engines Medical Schools average over $300,000 in tuition for a 4-year education; ($60,000/yr). Imagine the economic engine of having 3,000 students on a Caribbean campus; that would amount to $180 million annually added to GDP, just for tuition; (more from room-and-board, extra-curricular activities and spending by visitors/family/students). Since Economics = the supply and demand dynamics; we know that there is the demand for many “minority” students to study medicine. They should feel “at home” here in any Caribbean community. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14973 | Title: Graduation Speakers – Say ‘Something Nice’ or Nothing At All The new Minister of Education, Jeffrey Lloyd gave his first Commencement address and vocalized this bad policy: “Go out and see the world … visit them all, and even work in them all, but come back home and build your country”. The Education Minister here seems to be doubling-down on failure, as good students rarely return after matriculation; we get no R.O.I.. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14834 | Title: Counter-culture: Monetizing the Change Many financial and economic changes emerged as a result of the 1960’s counter-culture movement; subsequently a more independent spirit emerged for planning retirement, education and healthcare. Consider: * Education / College Planning – A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged savings plan designed to encourage saving for future college costs. 529 plans, legally known as “qualified tuition plans,” are sponsored by states, state agencies, or educational institutions and are authorized by Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code (Source: SEC.gov). |
We need to do better retaining our people here in the Caribbean homeland.
Sending the best-of-the-best of our students to study abroad – in the US – would be foolish, knowing that it is their intent to keep them from returning. This is like “giving aid to the enemy during time of war” – a treasonous act.
Yes, we need to always dissuade our own people from abandoning the homeland, for whatever reasons. We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is will allow us to make our homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂
About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):
x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety. ….
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.