RLL 132

You're listening to Radio Looks. Listen, I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 132. The title of this episode is MAGA's Big H -1B Visa Blow-up. So what on earth am I talking about?

Christmas Greetings, Time Off, and the Coming New Year

Well, we'll get that in a minute. But before we do all that, I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everybody. A belated Merry Christmas. I'd wanted to get a Christmas podcast out, maybe a Christmas Eve podcast or something earlier in the week.

I was hoping maybe to do that on maybe on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day, but things turned out that just didn't work out that way. So that's just the way that is. Sometimes that happens. And it's funny, I actually had the opportunity to be off work this whole past week.

And I think I've said this before, but sometimes when I have an opportunity to take time off, I've got this whole stack of stuff that I'm going to do. And man, I'm going to just knock all this stuff out.

It's going to be awesome. I'm going to get so much done. And I find I usually get to maybe if I'm doing well, maybe I get to about a quarter of it. Maybe. Sometimes not even that. I did get some good stuff done this week.

It's not like I just sat around and did nothing. Although I did a little bit of doing nothing. But actually, I really did work during the week, but I had a little bit of fun too. So anyway, as I said, I hope everybody had a good Christmas.

And of course, we've got an upcoming New Year. It's really weird having Christmas and New Year's on a Wednesday. It just kind of creates awkward situations. Like for me, my company was closed. The whole company was closed, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

So I had those two days off, but I only had three days left to take three PTO days, I should say, in order to be able to be off. So I took Monday and Thursday and Friday. So I had the whole week, but I ran out of bullets after that.

So I didn't have the opportunity to say, take Monday and Tuesday off, which would have been really nice. And I had Wednesday off and then maybe go back to work on Thursday. It didn't quite work out that way.

So anyway, yeah, I got to go back in. Next week is really weird for me. I got to go and I work Monday and Tuesday. I'm off Wednesday and I go back and work Thursday and Friday. So anyway. Oh, and then the other thing I got to complain about too, as far as work-wise goes, we're getting really close to the busy season for my job.

I work in, I've mentioned this before, I do retirement plan administration, mostly 401k plans. And we're a little bit like accountants. The first quarter of the year is always the busiest quarter because what you're doing is you're crunching everybody's numbers and getting taxes prepared for the prior year.

So the first quarter of 2025, you're always working on taxes for 2024. And it's the same kind of thing with us. We don't do taxes for 401k plans, but there's all this testing that needs to be done on these plans and it has to get done in the first quarter for the most part.

And so there's always this big push in the first quarter of the year. And typically it starts around the middle of January. That's when companies start giving us all the data that we need to be able to do the work.

And yeah, that can get a little bit out of hand. It's something you just get used to. You got to deal with it every year. Thankfully, in my company, it's actually better than other places I've been at where you almost like disappear from the face of the earth for two months from the middle of January to the middle of March.

It's actually a little bit better where I currently am. But yeah, it gets exciting nonetheless. But well, by God's grace, we'll get through it. And I've made it through 16 years so far, so I think I could probably do a 17th.

But it takes a little bit of prayer for patience when you're in the middle of that. Sometimes it's like good grief. Is this ever going to end? So anyway, that's what I get to look forward to. You know, I always love a Christmas holiday and take time off and that and try to recharge.

And well, you know, you got to get ready to hit it here in the new year. And I hope, Lord willing, I plan on doing another podcast. We'll see if it works out. I wanted to do Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

I'm going to either go for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. I tend to think I'm probably going to be doing something on New Year's Day would be more likely, just because I'm going to end up having to work on New Year's Eve.

I probably just don't want to do anything that evening. So anyway, that's kind of the plan right now. But we will see, and hopefully we'll have a New Year's program. Maybe we can take a look ahead at the coming up in 2025.

And there's going to be a lot of interesting things happen, I really think. And, you know, if you follow some of the financial guys that I follow, who I consider credible, I consider to be good analysts, a lot of them have talked, and there's kind of a little bit of a preview here for next week, but a lot of them have talked about the strong possibility of a recession coming up in 2025.

And there's some good reasons for that. I'll spare you the details from now. We'll talk about that next week when I do the New Year's program. But yeah, that's something to certainly think about. Of course, there's threats of war.

The Biden regime seems to hell-bent on ginning up as much war as possible. So I mean, that's certainly a threat. And we're going to have to watch out for that. Of course, we got, you know, the inauguration of Donald Trump is coming up in just a few weeks.

What is that? I can't remember. I know I've read about that. Was it the 20th or the 21st of January? Something like that. So that's only, you know, what, three, a little bit over three weeks away. So that's coming up pretty fast as well.

And that'll be a good thing for the most part. Yeah, I mean, I support Donald Trump. I agree with him on everything. But I'm glad that he won. It certainly is a better thing than the alternative. We could have had Kamala Harris.

And I think that would have been a, really been a disaster for the United States of America. You know, and that reminds me too, you know, there was an article that I saw. I wasn't actually even going to talk about this.

But there was an article that I saw someplace. And of course, I probably can't find it now. But anyway, this particular article, it was talking about Barack Obama and how, of course, he apparently really hurt his reputation with a lot of Democrats by his backing of Kamala Harris.

And, you know, I mean, it was always, there's this, there's almost a sort of mystique about Barack Obama. You know, it was this, it was almost he could do no wrong. He was a very iconic president for the Democrats.

And there are a lot of people now that are really kind of upset with Barack Obama and are sort of seeing him as the scapegoat for the defeat of Kamala Harris and for the Democrats generally in the election in 2024, a couple months ago.

Yeah, it's hard to believe it's been almost two months since then. But yeah, so, you know, Barack Obama definitely hurt his reputation. Let me see if I can actually find that article. I know I've got it here.

I think I sent it to my folks here earlier today. And let's take a look. Yeah, I don't see it there. You know, it's always funny if you don't save an article or, you know, do something to make sure that you can access an article.

If you don't do that right away, what ends up happening is you end up never being able to go find it again, no matter how hard you look. Well, anyway, it doesn't look like I've got it here handy. Let's try one more thing here.

Oh, here we go. Yeah, the magic is gone. I'm going to go ahead and resend this to myself here. This is what happens when you don't prepare adequately for a live stream. I thought I had done preparation.

You know, it's kind of funny. Sometimes I always think, oh, I'm going to be able to sit down and just blow through this, you know, and get everything. And then I start looking at my notes and articles that I've saved through the week, and I realize, oh, you know, I forgot to do this, or I didn't save that, or whatever.

I always think I do a better job than what I actually do of keeping track of my stuff. So let's take a look here and see what this article has to say about Barack Obama. You know what? I get too many emails.

You know, it's funny. A few years ago, I got a Gmail account, and I did okay with not getting overwhelmed for a while. And then over time, you know, you get on various email lists, and then at some point, you find all of a sudden that you've got like five, I got like 5 ,000, over 5 ,000 emails just on that account just in the last day, the past month, which is kind of ridiculous.

Let's see here. All right. We got that, and now we're going to do a little bit of this, and that's not exactly what I wanted to do. Okay. Well, we're just going to roll with this. So let's take a look at it.

And let's do a little screen share here. I'm going to show you this article. Here we go. And this is from the Gateway Pundit, which I think usually runs some pretty interesting articles. It's an alternate website, but it's a conservative website.

But the headline in this particular article, it's, The Magic is Gone. Is the Era of Obama Finally Over? And it's by, let's see, Mike Lachance, it says here. So if you read through the article here, it says, Obama was one of the biggest losers of the 2024 election.

Both he and his wife stuck their necks out politically for Kamala Harris, and she lost big time. What does that say about the influencing power of the former president? Black voters in Pennsylvania did not respond well to being scolded by Obama for not showing up enough to support, showing enough support for Harris.

Some people are starting to say that the Obama era is over and that the election proves it. And then it goes on to quote, for some reason here, this thing keeps adjusting my size of my screen. I don't know why it's doing that.

But anyway, it quotes Victor Davis Hanson here. This is just reading from Hanson's article. This is, quote, Former President Barack Obama had long been rumored as a catalyst for the 2020 Joe Biden nomination, and thereafter played the whispering puppeteer behind the subsequent lost Biden administration years.

Yeah, there's a lot of people that thought that Barack Obama was sort of pulling the strings behind the scenes. And I think there's some evidence for that. I suspect that that is true. Hanson continues, he says, quote, Many Democrats believe that he might have done just as well had Biden stayed on the ticket, even in his vastly diminished state.

So yeah, that's one of the things that has kind of been a whisper campaign, it seems like, about that. And that was very interesting. If you read some of the discussion of how Biden was forced out, and this goes back to early July when he was forced out and endorsed Kamala Harris.

Apparently, and this is what has been reported by people that claim to be in the know, that, I think it was on a telephone call that Nancy Pelosi was very much involved in forcing Biden out. And she told him something along these lines, Joe, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

And I guess the easy way was him voluntarily stepping down. And I guess the hard way was probably going after him in some sort of legal fashion. I mean, of course, there's tons of dirt out there. So it's not like the, I don't think it would have been hard for the Democrats to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

I think the man's about as dirty as dirty gets. But yeah, Nancy Pelosi told him we all we can do this the easy way or the hard way. And there, the relations between Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi has visibly cooled to the point where it almost seems like, like he won't speak to her anymore.

And apparently, they've been longtime friends. But that came to an end back in the summer of 2024. So Hansen continues, he says, the Obamas were further blasted for nullifying the wishes of 14 million primary voters by forcing Biden off the ticket.

Ironically, in the same backroom, anti-democratic manner, they had cleared the way for him in 2020. Yeah, now that's one of the other things I think is really interesting about some of the charges that they like to keep bringing against Donald Trump.

They say, he's a threat to our democracy. Well, you know, there's really nothing more anti-democratic than Democrat Party. You know, they rigged it in. Well, I mean, they actually rigged Hillary in in 2016.

I think if they had had a fair primary fight, I think Bernie Sanders would have won. But they rigged Hillary in. And then they rigged Joe Biden in in 2020. And then they rigged Kamala Harrison in 2024.

You know, and there's only so much rigging you can do. And, you know, Hillary Clinton didn't, you know, was a terrible candidate. Joe Biden was a terrible candidate, but they brought out the extra super duper heavy artillery to make sure he won.

That was, that was a clearly fraudulent election, in my opinion. And then here in 2024, you know, it really kind of seemed like they stood down. It's like they really didn't do as much, do the kind of rigging that I thought that they were going to do in advance.

And I think that a lot of us thought they were going to do. It seems like they stood down. And you can debate why that is. But, but yeah, you know, Kamala Harris, I mean, she got a, she got thumped pretty good.

It seemed more like the Democrats in 2024, like they were going after the, the congressional elections. And I think they did do some monkey business in the congressional elections, particularly seems like in the House elections.

Let's see here. So this is again, going back to Victor Davis, Davis Hanson's comments. And he says the 2024 anemic Democrat, Democratic campaign and the Trump electoral college and popular vote victories combined with record defections of Hispanic and African-American voters from the Democratic party to Trump proved a resounding rejection of the Obama legacy and his surrogate's left-wing visions.

Yeah, it kind of did. And of course, you know, Barack Obama was right in there pushing for all of this. So it doesn't really look all that good for Barack Obama. Now it seems like maybe he's out of touch.

And I think that some of the, some of the Democrats at least seem to be reaching that conclusion. And it says here to move forward Democrats must oust Obama. And this is Hanson continuing. He, and he writes this, he says the historic political comeback of Donald Trump has left Democrats largely unable and unwilling to process what they've done to themselves.

Yes, they whine and cry and emote like wounded adolescent narcissists because that's all they can do. What if cold eyed analysis might compel them to make difficult choices and save what remains of their party?

No, they're afraid that is beyond them. Now they're locked into their doom loop and granting Trump the white house through an electoral college landslide and popular vote. American voters also made it clear that they were fed up with leftist ideology to win in the future.

The Democrats must tear down Obama just as Trump tore down the Bushes. Yeah. You know, Trump really, yeah, he, he pretty well, pretty well ended the Bush political dynasty in what he did to Jeb. You know, that was one of the things that was interesting to me too about the 2016 campaign is I remember when it started off, you know, I was, was kind of excited about, about Rand Paul.

And I thought that Rand Paul might be, be somebody who could, who could win and, and bring a more constitutional view to the, to the white house. But what he, he declared fairly early, and he was kind of one of the early front runners.

But I remember when Jeb got in the race, I mean, it was like the, the heavens opened up and there were, you know, heavenly choirs of angels singing glory to God in the highest or something like this. I mean, it was, it was really, I mean, that, that was the way the press treated Jeb Bush.

And I mean, it was the way they, they framed it in the press is that Jeb Bush, he was just gonna, gonna roll to primary victory. And he was, he was essentially had all but already received his rightful nomination as the, as the Republican 2016 nominee.

And it was going to be Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush. And, and Hillary was probably going to win, you know, Jeb Bush, you know, would, would, would play the, the gracious loser. And, you know, and maybe in, in, in eight years he would be able to run again and, you know, who knows, you know, win the presidency or something.

I, I don't know. But, but anyway, Jeb Bush was, was certainly put forth as, you know, he was, he was the golden boy. You know, he was the guy that was going to win it all. And, and it was, he actually declared fairly early on in the process.

I think he declared before Donald Trump, I think. I'm kind of going by memory here, so maybe I'm wrong about that. But, but of course, you know, Donald Trump stole the show. And, and Donald Trump really embarrassed Jeb Bush.

Donald Trump was, was really on his game. And Jeb Bush, you know, he, he thought it was a coronation. He didn't think it was, it was a primary fight. And all of a sudden he found himself in the, in the, the fight of his life.

It kind of reminded me a little bit of, if you remember the original Rocky, I'm going way back here, I'm dating myself. This goes back to 1976 in the original Rocky. And, and if you remember the plot of that movie, you know, Sylvester Stallone, you know, he played the part of Rocky Balboa.

And Rocky Balboa, he was kind of a two-bit, he was kind of a, a local neighborhood punk, kind of a thug, you know, kind of a leg breaker, sort of worked for the, you know, the, the seedy kind of mafioso type people.

You know, he'd go out and beat up people that, you know, didn't pay their debts or whatever. And, and he was also a sort of kind of wannabe amateur boxer, you know, who, who never really hit him out of the much.

And I don't remember the, how it is, but there, there was some kind of a, it was almost like a, like just a, oh, I don't know. It was almost like a, like a show fight that was arranged between Rocky Balboa and, and Apollo Creed, you know, Apollo Creed, you know, he was the heavyweight champion, you know, and this was just some kind of a, you know, like almost like a demonstration, you know, and, you know, and he was supposed to fight Rocky and, you know, he'd kind of play around with Rocky for a few rounds, I guess that was the plan, and then knock Rocky out.

And, you know, Rocky could say, hey, I fought the heavyweight, I fought for the heavyweight title and, and Apollo Creed would get an easy victory. Well, it didn't quite work out that way. And it was kind of interesting when you watch the movie, because, you know, the movie kind of portrayed Apollo Creed as sort of this guy that, you know, he was a little bit too sure of himself, didn't take the fight seriously.

And like, there's a, there's a scene there that where there was a, supposedly, you know, a news reporter, they were following this local, local boy made good, you know, Rocky Balboa, and it showed him training in a, like a meat locker, and he's punching this, these hanging sides of beef and slugging it, slugging it, slugging it.

And he, he's like, really super intense into this. And one of Apollo Creed's coaches is kind of like, looking at this TV report, and he's saying, you know, like, like, this guy thinks this is a real fight.

Well, you know, in 2016, it kind of an extended analogy, but in 2016, Donald Trump was kind of the, played the part of Rocky Balboa. You know, he was the, the plucky underdog that really wasn't supposed to win or go anywhere.

And, and Jeb Bush, you know, he was, he was the high-flying heavyweight champion. And, you know, and everybody knew that Jeb Bush was going to beat this, this punk, you know, Donald Trump. He didn't know anything.

Well, it turned out quite the, quite the opposite. You know, Donald Trump was on his game. I mean, he was focused, he was determined, and he flat knocked Jeb Bush out. And not just Jeb Bush alone, but I think he really put an end to the Bush political dynasty, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

I'm glad that he did that. You know, if Donald Trump did nothing else in his political life, I mean, the fact that he knocked Jeb Bush out and kind of really embarrassed him, that was a good thing because I'm glad that we, you know, that we would have just had another one of these, these out-of-touch entitled Republican presidents who really almost seems in some ways to dislike the American people.

You know, and that's one of the things I think why so many people identify with Donald Trump, because Donald Trump, you say whatever you want about him, and he certainly is someone who has his flaws. But I think one thing that attracts people to Donald Trump is that he seems to actually, he can talk to Americans.

He knows how to talk to Americans. And he actually genuinely seems to like the American people. He actually likes the people that he wants to represent. And I think that's really important. And so many times it seems like the people in positions of leadership in the United States really have sometimes a very overt, maybe covert, but sometimes overt, actually dislike for the American people.

And you can almost feel it come, you feel like radiating out of them. I mean, this fact that somehow they think they're better than you and that you're somehow a bad person who needs to be punished. And you get that out of political leaders, you get that out of people in the news media, you get that out of people in business.

H-1B Visas, Labor Subsidies, and the MAGA Split

And this actually gives me a, this is actually a way of transitioning into something else that I wanted to talk about here today. And let's see here, I'm going to get this here and let's see what's going on with my, something weird's going on with my screen share here.

I'm going to stop that screen share, try this again here. It really brings me to the title or title subject of my podcast here. That is MAGA's Big H -1B Visa Blowup. And of course, when I use the term MAGA, you know, M-A-G-A, that's just Make America Great Again.

That's one of the best known slogan of Donald Trump. And over the Christmas holiday, in fact, it was on Christmas, on X, you know, formerly Twitter, there is this great big blowup between Elon Musk, principally Elon Musk, and other Donald Trump supporters.

Because Elon Musk had come out defending the H -1B visa. So what on earth is the H -1B visa? Well, let's take a look. Here's an article from Newsweek that I think does a pretty good job laying this out.

The headline here says, Donald Trump shares view on H -1B visas amid MAGA civil war. And this is dated December 28th. So this is just here Saturday. Very recent article, hot off the presses. President-elect Donald Trump told the New York Post on Saturday that he supports H -1B visas, weighing in on a key issue that has caused a significant rift within his Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement.

Quote, I've always liked the visas. I've always been in favor of the visas. That's why we have them. End quote. Trump told the Post in a phone interview on Saturday. Quote, I have many H -1B visas on my properties.

I've been a believer in H -1B. I've used it many times. It's a great program. End quote, he said. Newsweek's reached out to Trump's transition team via email for comment on Saturday. Why it matters. The affirmative answer from the MAGA base's leader could potentially quell the online civil war that has erupted between those in business who believe skilled legal migration boosts the U .S. economy and those of his supporters who think it takes place at the expense of American workers.

Prominent MAGA influencers such as podcaster Steve Bannon and far-right commentator Laura Loomer have come out strongly against the visas. And it continues here. It says the feud over the H -1B visa program started this week after conservative activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump's appointment of Indian-born entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan as the senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence.

Loomer noted Krishnan's previous support for making it easier for skilled foreigners to work in the U .S., which Loomer claimed on ex-formerly Twitter, was, quote, indirect opposition, end quote, to the Trump agenda.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, close Trump ally, has defended foreign-born workers as essential for meeting the needs of U .S. companies, citing a dearth of homegrown talent. Musk is a South African-born naturalized U .S. citizen.

At one point, the tech tycoon held an H -1B visa, and his company's Tesla and SpaceX employ H -1B visa workers. And biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who alongside Musk has set to head the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, echoed Musk's sentiments, writing on Ex on Thursday, quote, our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long, end quote.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the H -1B visa program. What on earth is an H -1B visa? Well, if you follow this program, you probably know, you know, I've talked a lot about immigration over the years.

I've written a lot about it on my blog as well. But the H -1B visa, I have addressed it from time to time, but it hasn't been the main focus of what I've discussed. But I think this is something that is definitely worth pausing and discussing a little bit.

The H -1B visa is a, it's a non-immigrant visa that allows foreign workers of different types to come to the United States and work. Now, one of the things that's very important to keep in mind about the H -1B visa program is that the H -1B visa recipient, his visa is tied to his job.

To give you an example, suppose, well, we use Elon Musk, we use Tesla, for example. Suppose Tesla, one of Musk's companies, or SpaceX, it doesn't matter. They want to bring over, say, some engineers, say, from India to work at the company.

What they do, they can bring these workers in on an H -1B visa. And again, it's a non-immigrant visa, so they don't get citizenship by doing this. And one of the things that I mentioned about the H -1B is that the worker is tied to his job.

So when you come over here as an H -1B visa employee, say, and you go to work for Tesla, you come over here from India, well, I'll use India as an example since that's the focus of the discussion. When an Indian engineer comes over here, goes to work for Tesla, he can't quit his job and go somewhere else.

So he can't say, okay, I'm working here at Tesla, but hey, I heard Google actually has a much better job, better working conditions, better pay, all this other stuff. I'm going to go over and work for Google.

No, no, he can't do that. He's stuck working for Tesla. If he doesn't work for Tesla on this H -1B visa, he has to turn around and go back to India and lose his... I'm sure he'd probably make him more money working for Tesla than he would in India.

So it'd be a big financial hit for him to do that. So what these people will do is they'll come over here and they will work for these companies. And since their employment is tied to a specific company, it allows these companies that use H -1B visa workers to pay these people less.

And really what the H -1B visa is, it's a giant subsidy for corporations to allow them to basically undercut American workers. It's a form of, I think you would probably call it labor arbitrage, where you can bring people in and you can pay them.

And I don't know exactly how much less you can pay an H -1B visa worker, but it's something less than what you would have to pay for an American engineer if the free market were in effect. And see, a lot of times these companies will kind of say, well, this is just a free market.

Well, it actually isn't. It's a government subsidy. It's a carveout that the government has created to allow these companies to import these employees and have really almost complete control of them because they can't just leave their job.

You know, you or me, if you're an American and you work at a company, you know, like I work in the retirement plan industry, if I don't like my company for some reason, I can go to another company that does the same sort of thing.

So I can change jobs. I can say, you know, this is a better offer at this other company. I'm going to go over there. You know, I can get better pay or I can get, you know, more promotions or maybe more vacation time or a better 401k plan or something like that.

If you're an H -1B visa engineer, say, from India or for some other country, it's not just India that sends H -1B visa employees here, you can't quit your job. You can't do that. Your presence in the United States of America is dependent on you keeping your job with that company.

And, you know, I think where Musk has gone wrong and where supporters of the H -1B visa program have gone wrong is that they don't see it as a subsidy, which in fact it is. There was an interesting comment.

In fact, I found this on X. Okay, here we go. I'm going to read this to you. This is an older article. But, you know, let's see. Let's get back to this. There's an interview with Milton Friedman. Now, Milton Friedman, that may be a name that's familiar with you.

If you're kind of like me and you follow economics and things like this, you'd know the name Milton Friedman. He was a very famous Chicago School free market economist from back in the day. He I believe, yeah, he was a Nobel Prize winner.

And he was also a very public intellectual. I mean, he wrote a lot for the popular press. I know he did a show with his wife. It was called Free to Choose that basically supported free market economic principles.

And this is what Milton Friedman had to say. I'm just going to read this article to you. It says, this post here on X. It says, Paul Donnelly in Computer World on July 22, 2002, quote, Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel.

Quote, there's no doubt, he says, that the H -1B program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage. And to that extent, it is a subsidy. So, yeah, you know, these companies like Tesla, for example, or Microsoft or Facebook or Amazon or any of these other tech companies, when they bring these H -1B visa holders in, what they're doing is they're getting labor at sub-market rates.

You know, if they had to pay a market price for those engineers, they would have to pay more for them. But yet, when you listen to these tech entrepreneurs talking, and Elon Musk falls into this somewhat too, you know, he makes it sound like there's this shortage of engineers, and by golly, if we don't bring these people in, you know, America is going to collapse.

Well, no, no, it really won't. And really what these H -1B visas do is they undercut the American labor market, and they actually discourage Americans from going into those fields. They lower wages for the Americans that already are in those fields.

They end up actually replacing Americans in these jobs. I mean, part of this, it's a form of replacement migration via government subsidy. And it's a real problem. Anyway, there's a big war that blew up over this thing.

They say, oh, it started on Christmas and it's continued the last few days on X. And it's really pitted these tech entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley-type guys like Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as well, for example, against people who are more focused on really having a country that actually works for Americans.

And, you know, what these people will say is, well, you know, America first means Americans first. I agree with that. I mean, you know, this is our country, and we shouldn't be handing out immigration work visas that have the effect of displacing the American workers.

And a lot of these, you know, and again, Musk and some of these other guys, they'll make these arguments and say, well, we're just bringing over the absolute best and brightest mega super geniuses. But if you look into the H -1B visa program, that's not what they're doing.

I mean, they're bringing in people who really are no better than, in some cases, not as good as available Americans. It's just they can pay them less and they can have more control over them. And I think at bottom line, that's what it is.

You know, it is a subsidy, as Milton Friedman said, for these big tech firms. And, you know, the American people do not owe Tesla or SpaceX or Amazon or Facebook or Google or any of these other companies.

They do not owe them a subsidy. It's essentially corporate welfare. And I think that these things should be ended, that entire program. I think it's greatly abused. So anyway, that's kind of in a nutshell what's been going on.

It's been interesting to follow some of the back and forth on it. Moving on here. So let's see here. Oh, I wanted to get to an article. This is actually an article and this kind of leads into, I had some comments about our friends in the Roman Catholic Church here and Pope Francis.

But this kind of is a lead into that. Here's a story that my friend Carolyn sent to me. She's been a listener and supporter for the show for a long time. And she always sends me some good stuff. And here's an article that I had not seen before.

And it's an Associated Press, an AP article. It's got a headline. It says, Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain reopens after renovation work in time for the Jubilee Holy Year. So in case you hadn't heard, in 2025, Rome has declared this Jubilee year.

And it's where I, yeah, I actually need to study a little bit more about what that exactly means. But, you know, Jubilee is taken from the Old Testament. That was a time where forgiveness of debt and all sorts of things.

And one of the things that Rome does, excuse me, is they encourage mass pilgrimages to Rome. So they expect this huge influx of visitors into Rome next year. And apparently, the Trevi Fountain was renovated in advance of the 2025 Jubilee year.