1. Unlike many nurse recruitment agencies, PTSI does not charge placement fees and works actively with family in the U.S. who have relatives who are nurses abroad, especially those who have already passed the CGFNS.

2. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, goes more ballistic than Paul when he hears stories of exploitation, blackmail, or other abusive situations involving foreign workers in the United States.

In fact, Paul often comes to me with information regarding tales of employee abuse and asks what "we" can do about it, and I have to remind him that I am not in the business of prosecuting folks!

In any event, Paul sent me an article written by Adam M. Zarstsky. Paul forwarded the article based on some prior conversations, but the article was actually written in 1997 and appeared in a publication called The Regional Economist. I won't go into great detail because it is a nine-pager, but the essence of the argument that Mr. Zaretsky presents is this. In the most basic labor market scenario, where all workers are producing only one good (i.e. one "service"), this increase -- when nothing else changes -- means "a lower market wage for all workers, if all workers are the same, but all workers are not the same."

Essentially, Mr. Zaretsky's analysis is based upon what I would characterize as skill differentiation, the fundamental understanding that human productivity varies dramatically based upon a number of different factors and that immigrant workforces can be complementary to, instead of contradictory with, domestic workforces.

In his example, the author theorizes that if immigrants arrive with skills that do not substitute native work skills, immigration can be beneficial to an economy. He cites an example where immigrants are arriving with less than high school educations in a nation where the majority of all natives have higher than high school education. That would permit the arriving workforce to take lower paid jobs; conversely, in a nation of low education standards, an arriving workforce with higher education levels can take a leadership role in improving the quality of life of the general population by filling the need for complex jobs. But I know what many of our readers are saying: such is not the case today, where, in the most glaring example, information technology, the influx of workers from nations such as India, Pakistan, and some Far East nations is, indeed, in conflict with the domestic U.S. workforce of IT workers who have been laid off en masse due to the changing economic situation in the U.S.

Mr. Zaretsky, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, does not address this issue. My personal belief is that the author's analysis will not satisfy the individuals affected in an economy such as the one we are living in at this time, notwithstanding things such as labor statistics, economic ebb and flow, etc. My feeling is that when Americans are laid off, it is an invariable and inevitable human response for the vast majority of those affected to point their fingers to the non-Americans working in the U.S. and simply say: "It's your fault!"

So what do we do about it? I see only several options:

1. De-politicize the immigration process. That is, create a politics-free, long-term immigration policy that would be protected from political maneuvering by subsequent Administrations, and make sure that it took into consideration the long-term needs of the United States. This could only be done by some sort of national referendum, such as a constitutional amendment, which is impossible given that your average American doesn't care a whole lot about immigration, except when he/she gets laid off. This would be the wisest step in that it would "constitutionalize" our heritage as a nation of immigrants and create an embedded philosophical approach toward the handling of immigrant issues, as opposed to the yo-yo policies we have witnessed in the past decades, where immigrant numbers are traded like so many fruit and vegetable quotas between trade partners. Perhaps something which would allow folks to fully understand what the U.S. really wants in terms of its immigration policy.

2. Barring the above (which I sincerely believe is impossible in our nation), we need to create a system of absolute and firm "grandfathering" where the guest workers and immigrants who enter this country are guaranteed by the U.S. government that the rules that are in place when they first set foot here will be the rules that are followed throughout the time that they are in the United States. It is absolutely unfair for the U.S. government to change policies, regulations, visa numbers continuously throughout the time of an alien's presence in the United States. It makes it impossible for a family to plan school time, house purchases, etc.... it makes peace of mind an impossibility. Rather than having every legal change affect every non-immigrant and immigrant in the United States, there should be a single rubber stamp applied the day a person acquires employment/student/whatever status in the United States, and that date of acquired status should be the benchmark through which his/her future non-immigrant and immigrant status is determined, for the rest of his/her life. The rules which were in effect on that day should apply for that individual, forever. Think of the thousands of principal aliens and dependents whose lives would have been spared nightmarish hell (not to mention tens of millions in legal fees wrangling contorted changes in laws) if this simple policy was codified.

All we need to do, folks, is make it fair for everyone.

Oil Be Missing You I'm sorry...I couldn't resist...(; This one came from Bernard, and it was an article written by Manik Talwani of Canada's National Post. Let me tell you, my eyebrows shot straight up when I read this article, because it advanced some information which was truly new to me. According to Mr. Talwani, the two largest deposits of oil in the world are in Venezuela and Canada. The "catch," he says, is that they consist of bitumen, a form of "heavy oil," which is petroleum that is buried in sand deposits, making refining somewhat more complex and expensive. Unlike the large crude deposits available in West Africa, Russia, and the Middle East, the extraction process is more complex and difficult but, according to Talwani, the amounts are just plain staggering. Listen to these numbers: "Canada's deposits are even larger [than Venezuela's]: estimates range from 1.6 trillion to 2.5 trillion barrels of bitumen (which is also called 'oil sands' or 'tar sands'). About 9 percent of the deposits are relatively close to the surface and should have very high recovery rates -- at least 50 percent and probably up to 90 percent. Combining this with a very modest 5 percent recovery rate for the deeper bitumen, the country's total potential reserves can be estimated at 174 billion to 271 billion barrels." Now, listen carefully to this, folks. Understanding fully that the technology for cheaply processing this "bitumen" stuff may be a while a way, it is easy to see that North American self-reliance is right around the corner, at least within the perspective of a decade or two. The world is changing very quickly and, yet again, we see an even more pressing, even more selfish reason to look to our dear friends just north and ask ourselves why we continuously fail to understand the astounding relevance of our bilateral relationship.

I Knew It, I Knew It, I Knew It!!! When Tim sent me this, I cackled like a mad scientist because I have been telling everybody this for over 20 years, and I now have scientific proof. The British Journal of Opthamology has just issued a report entitled "The Effect of Tight Neckties on Intraocular Pressure." As many of our most loyal readers know (especially the clients who know me personally), I have ranted and raved for years about neckties, the fact that they are pure evil, and the fact that they block the flow of blood to the human brain. I have long theorized that the reason that most male attorneys are such obnoxious, aggressive, angry people is because of impeded blood flow to the brain, perpetual discomfort, giving them that bug-eyed, hostile look. All you have to do is see them in action in a courtroom, sweat beading on their forehead, and it's obvious: it's the damn necktie! What's the first thing a man does at the end of his workday? Loosen his necktie! What is it that men look forward to on Casual Fridays at the office? NO NECKTIES! So, it should not be a news flash to anyone that the good doctors from SUNY, the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, the Department of Opthamology of the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, the New York University School of Medicine, and the New York Medical College all came together to publish a scientific report evaluating the effect of a tight necktie of intraocular pressure, i.e. the pressure inside the human eyeball. In the study, 40 eyes of 20 normal subjects and 20 glaucoma patients -- all of them males -- were measured. The intraocular pressure -- essentially the pressure of the eyeball -- was compared with an open shirt collar, three minutes after placing a tight necktie, and three minutes after loosening it. All measurements were made by the same examiner. I won't read all of the numbers to you because they probably would bore you to tears, but the result was this: A tight necktie increases the intraocular pressure in both the normal subjects and glaucoma patients, and the good doctors concluded this: "Moreover, if the patient consistently were to wear a tight necktie as a normal preference in daily life, this could lead to a sustained increase in intraocular pressure and could predispose to the development of glaucomatis optic neuropathy, thereby rendering a tight necktie a risk factor..." There you have it, folks. A gazillion dollar study scientifically proving what I've known since I first put on a necktie for my first communion at St. Theresa, the Church of the Little Flower, and have known and attempted to guard against ever since...

Have a wonderful weekend until next time!

- Jose