pani_6
07-14 08:13 PM
Oh yes...today there are people who applied in early 2001(EB2-RIR) ...and waited untill end of 01 to get a NOD from DOL and then re-applied again in mid of 02 without retaining thier original PD of 01(EB3 Non RIR)..do you know?..most of you are from PERM that's why you are finding it odd ..!..DOL while sending back these cases did not let them retain thier PD's..
we were qualified to apply in eb-2 and RIR and the economy and the WTC attacks made things worse..
:)
That's exactly what I was wondering about! Did anybody get a rejection letter from *DOL* advising them to apply in EB3 instead? It's hard for me to believe DOL was ever that helpful!
And if they did not hear it from DOL and did this on their attorney's/employer's advise sending out this letter may spell trouble for the sender. You are basically sending out a signed letter stating that you tried to get labor approved for one category, failed and then applied in a lower category for exactly same job to work your way around the rejection. I'm not sure on how solid legal ground we will be if this be the case. Job requirements are supposed to be what they are and not what is "approvable". Remember recent Fragomen audit?
Now before labeling this as yet another FUD from EB2 please understand that I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't send out the letter. Just that we should consult someone qualified in immigration law to make sure we are not inviting more troubles than what we are already in.
we were qualified to apply in eb-2 and RIR and the economy and the WTC attacks made things worse..
:)
That's exactly what I was wondering about! Did anybody get a rejection letter from *DOL* advising them to apply in EB3 instead? It's hard for me to believe DOL was ever that helpful!
And if they did not hear it from DOL and did this on their attorney's/employer's advise sending out this letter may spell trouble for the sender. You are basically sending out a signed letter stating that you tried to get labor approved for one category, failed and then applied in a lower category for exactly same job to work your way around the rejection. I'm not sure on how solid legal ground we will be if this be the case. Job requirements are supposed to be what they are and not what is "approvable". Remember recent Fragomen audit?
Now before labeling this as yet another FUD from EB2 please understand that I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't send out the letter. Just that we should consult someone qualified in immigration law to make sure we are not inviting more troubles than what we are already in.
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jnraajan
06-05 02:25 PM
It is December 1st not November 30th.
http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/2009/faq.php
Actually, It has to before Dec Ist, so technically, you should have closed the house at least on Nov 30th.
http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/2009/faq.php
Actually, It has to before Dec Ist, so technically, you should have closed the house at least on Nov 30th.
seattleGC
05-16 05:18 PM
That's called pandering. To unions like IEEE and hispanic vote base. These ppl don't have any interest in America's competitiveness or interests of people at large rather work in the interests of their party and their re-election.
But I am suprised at the attitudes of some forums members who want to screw the ppl behind us.
Anyway I agree, we should be worried about delays to i-485 processing if 11 million ppl are added to USCIS queue.
I know where Senator Durbin stands on illegal immigration issue , he is totally for amnesty/legalization of illegal/undocumented people in the country. According to him its ok if someone is totally undocumented and stays here but its not ok if someone does consulting and documented and pays taxes while working and waiting for the green card to be approved. Isn't it height of hypocrosy?
Where do people like mbdriver and senthil stand on the issue of legalization/amnesty for illegal/undocumented people in the country? If the legalization were to happen these are the kind of people who complain saying illegal aliens have slowed down our green card petetions. If legalization were to happen processing of every petetion at USCIS will slow down considerably. I will not surprised if 485 takes 4.85 years or 48.5 years or 485 years ...:)
Which one is a bigger problem 12 to 15 million people totally undocumented or perceived misuse of visa petetions by few bad apples.
But I am suprised at the attitudes of some forums members who want to screw the ppl behind us.
Anyway I agree, we should be worried about delays to i-485 processing if 11 million ppl are added to USCIS queue.
I know where Senator Durbin stands on illegal immigration issue , he is totally for amnesty/legalization of illegal/undocumented people in the country. According to him its ok if someone is totally undocumented and stays here but its not ok if someone does consulting and documented and pays taxes while working and waiting for the green card to be approved. Isn't it height of hypocrosy?
Where do people like mbdriver and senthil stand on the issue of legalization/amnesty for illegal/undocumented people in the country? If the legalization were to happen these are the kind of people who complain saying illegal aliens have slowed down our green card petetions. If legalization were to happen processing of every petetion at USCIS will slow down considerably. I will not surprised if 485 takes 4.85 years or 48.5 years or 485 years ...:)
Which one is a bigger problem 12 to 15 million people totally undocumented or perceived misuse of visa petetions by few bad apples.
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GCNaseeb
08-02 04:00 PM
Welcome back and Thanks very much for your valuable suggestions.
I have an important question for you and would request your suggestion:
Here's my situation: I am working for my current employer from last 6 years. My I-485 has been filed last week through my employer's attorney. My EB3 I-140 approved and I am on 9th year of h1-B. My H1-B expires in January next year. I have 3 other dependants on H4.
Now my current employer is trying to either fire me off or reduce my work hours to about 8 hrs / week.
What would be my best option to take decision?
1. Should I :
a. Stay home untill the expiry of 6 months and invoke AC21 after that? or
b. transfer my H1-B to some other employer and start working on H1-B and just wait for 6 months to invoke AC21?
2. Can my current employer reduce my hours legally? Meaning if they have to alter my H1-B to 8 hrs per week what will happen to my H1-B? Can i still able to transfer my H1-B to new emploer to work for 40Hrs/week if I want to?
The problem is- if they can't reduce my hours legally, I may be fired. And, if I get fired, they will revoke my H1-B on the same day but won't revoke my I-140 untill 6 months.
What do you suggest to help both me and my employer?
Thanks a lot for your valuabale suggestion and helping me out.
I have an important question for you and would request your suggestion:
Here's my situation: I am working for my current employer from last 6 years. My I-485 has been filed last week through my employer's attorney. My EB3 I-140 approved and I am on 9th year of h1-B. My H1-B expires in January next year. I have 3 other dependants on H4.
Now my current employer is trying to either fire me off or reduce my work hours to about 8 hrs / week.
What would be my best option to take decision?
1. Should I :
a. Stay home untill the expiry of 6 months and invoke AC21 after that? or
b. transfer my H1-B to some other employer and start working on H1-B and just wait for 6 months to invoke AC21?
2. Can my current employer reduce my hours legally? Meaning if they have to alter my H1-B to 8 hrs per week what will happen to my H1-B? Can i still able to transfer my H1-B to new emploer to work for 40Hrs/week if I want to?
The problem is- if they can't reduce my hours legally, I may be fired. And, if I get fired, they will revoke my H1-B on the same day but won't revoke my I-140 untill 6 months.
What do you suggest to help both me and my employer?
Thanks a lot for your valuabale suggestion and helping me out.
more...
gapala
06-05 07:12 PM
Guys... Do not just look at individual rent vs. own comparision, have a bigger picture on the situation that we are in. I am tired of broker's "location..location...location" thing as well.. These things are way off the reality in this country..
Historically, we all have seen that markets goes up and some times bubbles up, and goes down for a correction, some times south into recession.. .This is quiet natural to happen.. be it housing market or money market. We all know that Housing market needs a correction from those days where prices went up by $20,000 a month for several months without any control driven by easy credit, 0 down and stupid stated income policies.. Sure enough.. market started to correct itself after the credit become tight and lot of folks who jumped on to buy house at the top of peak went under water due to drop in the value of their homes... Here comes the obama housing rescue plan.. what are they trying to do here? trying to maintiain the bubble by encouraging more credit and spending.. working against natural correction of home prices towards south.
Now lets look at whats happening around us and see if we will have returns on house as an investment.. (For those who are without GC, this becomes important).
The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) of US, a basic measure of an economy's economic performance, is about $13 Trillion per year as widely reported and boasted. Of that amount, approximately half, or $6.5 Trillion, is directly or indirectly related to government spending on the Federal, State, and Local levels.. :)
Think about that for a second, about half of US current GDP is government spending? Does it sounds like developing nation? and due to job loss, loss of interest income, strained consumer keeps cutting back..the economy will contract further and eventually the goverment spending will be a major portion.
US does not produce any consumer goods, its all China..if you don't produce you don't sell and if you don't sell you don't make an income, and if you don't make an income you don't pay taxes...plain and simple. So, what do we do, Borrow and spend.. but remember, the interest obligations will grow to suck the dollars away from goods and services that it purchases. (Folks are in China now :D)
Due to a struggling economy, primarily driven by consumers credit crunch, lower sales means, less revenue for government and they must borrow more money to keep the government machine spending and the economy rolling despite lower tax revenues.
It was all good when Consumers and Government borrowed, as long as they could find someone to lend and collectively could spend. During the bubble, banks lent to consumers freely and foreigners lent to Government until banks and foreigners realized we simply borrowed too much slowed lending as it became much more difficult to service the debt. Now banks are not lending to consumers with less than best rating and the government is forcing banks to lend to consumers by loaning banks TAXPAYER money at 1/4% and the banks loan it right back to us at 4.5 yo 5.5% now. How about that? :D:D
Due to lack of credit for non-government sector, of US economy...private sector is becoming much poorer much faster creating an imbalance in the society. Mathematically private sector going south will continue due to the very high leverage on the Private Side as more and more dwindling dollars are simply allocated to paying interest due to less revenues. With time a greater and greater percentage of a troubled economy will be directly consumed by rising interest payments resulting in less
government spending which might lead us to an inflation, wages will never keep up with exploding commodity prices. Then only option remains Tax increases on those who earn :)
Because, Right now a huge portion of government spending is feeding the poor, housing assistance, and providing medical care to the poor and elderly. Once the government bailout dry up, fewer and fewer will be able to borrow, work on and pay taxes in private sector, fewer and fewer will be able to pay taxes and the burden will rest on the shoulders of those that have something to offer...all what they have will not be enough to sustain a $13 Trillion dollar economy.
With such a scenario, house prices cannot stay up at more than 4 times the desposible income of majority (middle class) population which remains at less than mere USD 30000. You can imagine now, what is going to happen if home prices does not correct itself due to government interfearance.
Its an individual perspective to decide to buy home.. Do comment and throw out your ideas..
You can find my analysis of housing market on link below (india vs. US) http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?p=285966#post285966
Historically, we all have seen that markets goes up and some times bubbles up, and goes down for a correction, some times south into recession.. .This is quiet natural to happen.. be it housing market or money market. We all know that Housing market needs a correction from those days where prices went up by $20,000 a month for several months without any control driven by easy credit, 0 down and stupid stated income policies.. Sure enough.. market started to correct itself after the credit become tight and lot of folks who jumped on to buy house at the top of peak went under water due to drop in the value of their homes... Here comes the obama housing rescue plan.. what are they trying to do here? trying to maintiain the bubble by encouraging more credit and spending.. working against natural correction of home prices towards south.
Now lets look at whats happening around us and see if we will have returns on house as an investment.. (For those who are without GC, this becomes important).
The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) of US, a basic measure of an economy's economic performance, is about $13 Trillion per year as widely reported and boasted. Of that amount, approximately half, or $6.5 Trillion, is directly or indirectly related to government spending on the Federal, State, and Local levels.. :)
Think about that for a second, about half of US current GDP is government spending? Does it sounds like developing nation? and due to job loss, loss of interest income, strained consumer keeps cutting back..the economy will contract further and eventually the goverment spending will be a major portion.
US does not produce any consumer goods, its all China..if you don't produce you don't sell and if you don't sell you don't make an income, and if you don't make an income you don't pay taxes...plain and simple. So, what do we do, Borrow and spend.. but remember, the interest obligations will grow to suck the dollars away from goods and services that it purchases. (Folks are in China now :D)
Due to a struggling economy, primarily driven by consumers credit crunch, lower sales means, less revenue for government and they must borrow more money to keep the government machine spending and the economy rolling despite lower tax revenues.
It was all good when Consumers and Government borrowed, as long as they could find someone to lend and collectively could spend. During the bubble, banks lent to consumers freely and foreigners lent to Government until banks and foreigners realized we simply borrowed too much slowed lending as it became much more difficult to service the debt. Now banks are not lending to consumers with less than best rating and the government is forcing banks to lend to consumers by loaning banks TAXPAYER money at 1/4% and the banks loan it right back to us at 4.5 yo 5.5% now. How about that? :D:D
Due to lack of credit for non-government sector, of US economy...private sector is becoming much poorer much faster creating an imbalance in the society. Mathematically private sector going south will continue due to the very high leverage on the Private Side as more and more dwindling dollars are simply allocated to paying interest due to less revenues. With time a greater and greater percentage of a troubled economy will be directly consumed by rising interest payments resulting in less
government spending which might lead us to an inflation, wages will never keep up with exploding commodity prices. Then only option remains Tax increases on those who earn :)
Because, Right now a huge portion of government spending is feeding the poor, housing assistance, and providing medical care to the poor and elderly. Once the government bailout dry up, fewer and fewer will be able to borrow, work on and pay taxes in private sector, fewer and fewer will be able to pay taxes and the burden will rest on the shoulders of those that have something to offer...all what they have will not be enough to sustain a $13 Trillion dollar economy.
With such a scenario, house prices cannot stay up at more than 4 times the desposible income of majority (middle class) population which remains at less than mere USD 30000. You can imagine now, what is going to happen if home prices does not correct itself due to government interfearance.
Its an individual perspective to decide to buy home.. Do comment and throw out your ideas..
You can find my analysis of housing market on link below (india vs. US) http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?p=285966#post285966
delax
07-14 03:28 PM
I hope not. We dont seem to be open to another point of view. All of a sudden when the shoe is now on the other foot there is a lot of heart burn. Look up the March 2008 visa bulletin.
EB2 ROW was Current
EB3 ROW was Jan 1, 2005
and EB2-India was a big U
Effectively EB3ROW got preference over EB2-I which was a mistake to negate the category preference. This has been corrected now and I welcome the change.
Where was all this heart burn at that time. All of a sudden when EB2-I moves ahead I hear voices of 'injustice', fair play and demands for visa number handovers. Sorry aint gonna happen.
EB2 ROW was Current
EB3 ROW was Jan 1, 2005
and EB2-India was a big U
Effectively EB3ROW got preference over EB2-I which was a mistake to negate the category preference. This has been corrected now and I welcome the change.
Where was all this heart burn at that time. All of a sudden when EB2-I moves ahead I hear voices of 'injustice', fair play and demands for visa number handovers. Sorry aint gonna happen.
more...
damialok
03-26 01:43 PM
I agree that credit crunch is worst we have ever seen and the worst is still about 9-12 months away. A lot of investment banks are going to be in trouble. I work for a big financial services comp and even though they say they are not affected, I know that their 'high-yeild low-risk' funds lost around $30billion. Who pays for this? investors? hmm China/Japan.. maybe. But Ben Bernanke is keen on doing whatever it takes to jumstart the economy. So he is printing dollars and reducing interest rates to historic lows(considering 60 year cycles). When I bought my first home in 2001, the rate was 8.5%. Whats it now 5.5%?
So my view is that inflation is a bigger problem that Ben B does not want to tackle in the near future(3-4 months). Well in times of inflation your savings/investment is better in real-estate than anything else. But definitely NOT cash.
So although we might be near the bottom of real estate market, we can never guesstimate the bottom until it has passed. My advice is, negotiate hard(buyers market) and get into a deal now. As a safety net, you can ask for a long escrow(around 180 days). That way you can backout of the deal if things head south. You've only lost the deposit(subject to arbitration at least in California).
Someone pointed out that Visa Status is a smaller issue, the big issue is if you can hold onto your investment for atleast 5 years, you are golden.
I believe that having a job(well paid) in recession is an investors dream as everything is on SALE.
So my view is that inflation is a bigger problem that Ben B does not want to tackle in the near future(3-4 months). Well in times of inflation your savings/investment is better in real-estate than anything else. But definitely NOT cash.
So although we might be near the bottom of real estate market, we can never guesstimate the bottom until it has passed. My advice is, negotiate hard(buyers market) and get into a deal now. As a safety net, you can ask for a long escrow(around 180 days). That way you can backout of the deal if things head south. You've only lost the deposit(subject to arbitration at least in California).
Someone pointed out that Visa Status is a smaller issue, the big issue is if you can hold onto your investment for atleast 5 years, you are golden.
I believe that having a job(well paid) in recession is an investors dream as everything is on SALE.
2010 -fleur-neck-tattoo-03
Macaca
12-28 07:23 PM
In India, a struggle for moderation as a young Muslim woman quietly battles extremism (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/27/AR2010122704519.html) By Emily Wax | Washington Post
Rubina Sandhi had settled in for a night of homework when panic swept through the narrow, congested alleys of her neighborhood.
It was Sept. 11, 2001. Television sets in the mosques, tea shops and market were beaming images of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames in New York. Five months later, Rubina's house was burning as Hindu mobs torched Muslim areas of her city, leaving thousands of people homeless. She remembers smoke hovering over Ahmedabad just as it had over New York.
With their few remaining possessions, Rubina's family members took refuge in a squalid relief camp and, several weeks later, moved into ramshackle housing on the edge of the city - where only Muslims lived and worked. "We felt like ghosts," recalled Rubina, who was then 12.
The rioting was among India's worst sectarian violence in decades, hardening divisions between the Hindu majority and the country's 140 million Muslims as hard-liners on both sides sought to exploit the tensions. Soon after the rioting, many young Muslims in Rubina's neighborhood started following stricter forms of Islam as imams fanned out into the region's poorest Muslim areas, some bringing with them Wahhabism, the fundamentalist form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
Some Indian Muslims even sought training in Pakistan to carry out acts of revenge in India, their version of violent jihad. For her part, Rubina chose a different struggle, determined to be a good Muslim and daughter as the community around her became more radicalized. She fought for the right to make decisions for herself, and she tried to find a way to voice her beliefs as a woman, as others around her were being silenced.
Her decisions would mirror those of many other young Muslim women in her city who entered adulthood in the aftermath of religious violence and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She would be asked to compromise her dreams, and her commitment to Islam would be questioned.
Ahmedabad, a 600-year-old city in the state of Gujarat, has long been a vibrant historical center where religions aspired to coexist. It was the headquarters for Mahatma Gandhi's ashram and his peaceful freedom struggle and is celebrated for its Indo-Islamic architecture. Of the city's 5 million people, 11 percent are Muslim.
Before the riots, many Muslims in Rubina's neighborhood celebrated Hindu traditions. Yet tensions between Hindus and Muslims here often rose to the surface.
The violence in 2002 erupted after 59 Hindus were burned to death on a train as they were returning home from a pilgrimage site. Muslim extremists were blamed for the blaze, but the cause of the fire remains in dispute. In 2004, a government-appointed panel ruled that the train fire was an accident and not caused by Muslims.
Soon after the anti-Muslim riots, extremist imams started to gain more clout. Among them was a firebrand televangelist named Zakir Naik, whose weekly sermons are broadcast from Mumbai and Saudi Arabia. Thousands of young Muslims have been drawn to his powerful slogans, including his declaration that to defend Islam, "every Muslim should be a terrorist."
This more conservative brand of Islam became more acceptable, and it seemed to empower Muslim men in India. But it had the opposite effect on Muslim women. The imams and mullahs warned young women to stay indoors, to forgo higher education and to become dutiful mothers of as many children as God would give them. The children, they said, would replace the Muslims killed during the riots.
"The Hindu mobs who attacked us called us all terrorists. Then the mullahs wanted to take away our freedoms," Rubina said, adding: "Everyone felt confused."
A pervasive fear
Rubina's father, Mohammed Sandhi, had an eighth-grade education and a job selling incense sticks to Hindu temples. When he was a young boy, his grandparents had told him haunting stories about Muslim-Hindu tensions in the 1930s and rioting in the southern city of Hyderabad that forced the family to migrate to Ahmedabad.
Mohammed believed in the aspirations of a rising India. He had saved for years to move the family into a comfortable two-room home, and he hoped that his two children - Rubina and her older brother, Irfan - would be the first in their family to attend college.
But after the riots, Mohammed began to believe that his ambitions were naive, at least for Indian Muslims. "We thought that was the past, over, just our history. But after the 2002 riots, we worry every day that the violence could happen again," he said.
In the street just outside the family's housing complex, 69 people, mostly Muslims, were burned alive during the riots, the first and largest single massacre during the crisis, a federal investigation later found.
From there, fighting spread. Over the next two months, more than 200 mosques and hundreds of Muslim shrines were burned down, and 17 ancient Hindu temples were attacked, according to police and human rights workers.
Everything in Rubina's home was destroyed: childhood photographs, birth certificates, school records and land deeds.
The family left behind the charred ruins of their home for a relief camp, one of more than 100 that housed 150,000 Muslims after the riots.
The city slowly calmed, but acts of violence on both sides continued and people remained fearful.
Watching their parents weep, Rubina and Irfan grew angrier and more confused. "We never thought this could happen here," said Rubina's mother, Mumtaz Sandhi. "We thought we are Muslims. But we are also Indians."
Silencing women's voices
After several weeks in the camps, Rubina's family settled in Juhapura, a poor area on the western outskirts of the city where many Muslims moved from Hindu-dominated localities.
The neighborhood has some middle-class areas but is largely poor, and activists have fought for basic government services, including paved roads, a sewage treatment system and garbage collection.
During her teenage years, Rubina started to notice that her brother, like many young Muslim men, was growing more observant of Islam, more conservative, introverted. They had always been close, and tragedy had strengthened their bond. But their paths began to diverge as Irfan sought comfort and sanctuary in the strictures of Islam.
Rubina, like other young Muslim women, feared she would lose her freedom under those strictures. She resisted calls from increasingly conservative imams to wear a traditional black garment that covers the body and sometimes the face.
In Gujarat, more and more women suddenly started dressing more conservatively, often as a show of Muslim pride but also to ward off sexual advances and potential sexual violence.
Rubina's mother began covering her hair, and Rubina said Irfan soon told her that he preferred to marry a woman who dressed conservatively.
Around this time, Rubina met a social worker named Jamila Khan at a meeting for Muslim women concerned about the living conditions in Juhapura and profiling of Muslim men as terrorists. But Khan also spoke out against Muslim leaders intent on reeling in Muslim women, curbing the liberties enshrined in India's secular constitution. She described herself as an "Islamic feminist."
"It doesn't matter what our women were wearing," Khan told Rubina and her friends. "What is important is still having a voice. Islamic rigidity is silencing our most dynamic Muslim female minds."
Many of Rubina's peers were giving up on having a career and were marrying and starting families earlier. Instead of going to college to study business or medicine, many were taking up courses at nearby mosques that taught them to be good Muslim wives.
But as Rubina entered young adulthood, she said, she became aware of the hypocrisy among many of the imams. Although they preached that Muslim women should be homemakers, they sent their daughters to private schools and universities in Britain, Canada and the United States.
During her first and only year at college, a Hindu extremist group circulating on campus began warning Hindus against having friendships or romantic relationships with Muslims. Rubina said some Hindu students started calling the places where Muslim students gathered "the Gaza Strip" or "Pakistan."
"But I am Indian, too," Rubina said she wanted to tell them. She felt ashamed. Betrayed. Silenced.
Rubina Sandhi had settled in for a night of homework when panic swept through the narrow, congested alleys of her neighborhood.
It was Sept. 11, 2001. Television sets in the mosques, tea shops and market were beaming images of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames in New York. Five months later, Rubina's house was burning as Hindu mobs torched Muslim areas of her city, leaving thousands of people homeless. She remembers smoke hovering over Ahmedabad just as it had over New York.
With their few remaining possessions, Rubina's family members took refuge in a squalid relief camp and, several weeks later, moved into ramshackle housing on the edge of the city - where only Muslims lived and worked. "We felt like ghosts," recalled Rubina, who was then 12.
The rioting was among India's worst sectarian violence in decades, hardening divisions between the Hindu majority and the country's 140 million Muslims as hard-liners on both sides sought to exploit the tensions. Soon after the rioting, many young Muslims in Rubina's neighborhood started following stricter forms of Islam as imams fanned out into the region's poorest Muslim areas, some bringing with them Wahhabism, the fundamentalist form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.
Some Indian Muslims even sought training in Pakistan to carry out acts of revenge in India, their version of violent jihad. For her part, Rubina chose a different struggle, determined to be a good Muslim and daughter as the community around her became more radicalized. She fought for the right to make decisions for herself, and she tried to find a way to voice her beliefs as a woman, as others around her were being silenced.
Her decisions would mirror those of many other young Muslim women in her city who entered adulthood in the aftermath of religious violence and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She would be asked to compromise her dreams, and her commitment to Islam would be questioned.
Ahmedabad, a 600-year-old city in the state of Gujarat, has long been a vibrant historical center where religions aspired to coexist. It was the headquarters for Mahatma Gandhi's ashram and his peaceful freedom struggle and is celebrated for its Indo-Islamic architecture. Of the city's 5 million people, 11 percent are Muslim.
Before the riots, many Muslims in Rubina's neighborhood celebrated Hindu traditions. Yet tensions between Hindus and Muslims here often rose to the surface.
The violence in 2002 erupted after 59 Hindus were burned to death on a train as they were returning home from a pilgrimage site. Muslim extremists were blamed for the blaze, but the cause of the fire remains in dispute. In 2004, a government-appointed panel ruled that the train fire was an accident and not caused by Muslims.
Soon after the anti-Muslim riots, extremist imams started to gain more clout. Among them was a firebrand televangelist named Zakir Naik, whose weekly sermons are broadcast from Mumbai and Saudi Arabia. Thousands of young Muslims have been drawn to his powerful slogans, including his declaration that to defend Islam, "every Muslim should be a terrorist."
This more conservative brand of Islam became more acceptable, and it seemed to empower Muslim men in India. But it had the opposite effect on Muslim women. The imams and mullahs warned young women to stay indoors, to forgo higher education and to become dutiful mothers of as many children as God would give them. The children, they said, would replace the Muslims killed during the riots.
"The Hindu mobs who attacked us called us all terrorists. Then the mullahs wanted to take away our freedoms," Rubina said, adding: "Everyone felt confused."
A pervasive fear
Rubina's father, Mohammed Sandhi, had an eighth-grade education and a job selling incense sticks to Hindu temples. When he was a young boy, his grandparents had told him haunting stories about Muslim-Hindu tensions in the 1930s and rioting in the southern city of Hyderabad that forced the family to migrate to Ahmedabad.
Mohammed believed in the aspirations of a rising India. He had saved for years to move the family into a comfortable two-room home, and he hoped that his two children - Rubina and her older brother, Irfan - would be the first in their family to attend college.
But after the riots, Mohammed began to believe that his ambitions were naive, at least for Indian Muslims. "We thought that was the past, over, just our history. But after the 2002 riots, we worry every day that the violence could happen again," he said.
In the street just outside the family's housing complex, 69 people, mostly Muslims, were burned alive during the riots, the first and largest single massacre during the crisis, a federal investigation later found.
From there, fighting spread. Over the next two months, more than 200 mosques and hundreds of Muslim shrines were burned down, and 17 ancient Hindu temples were attacked, according to police and human rights workers.
Everything in Rubina's home was destroyed: childhood photographs, birth certificates, school records and land deeds.
The family left behind the charred ruins of their home for a relief camp, one of more than 100 that housed 150,000 Muslims after the riots.
The city slowly calmed, but acts of violence on both sides continued and people remained fearful.
Watching their parents weep, Rubina and Irfan grew angrier and more confused. "We never thought this could happen here," said Rubina's mother, Mumtaz Sandhi. "We thought we are Muslims. But we are also Indians."
Silencing women's voices
After several weeks in the camps, Rubina's family settled in Juhapura, a poor area on the western outskirts of the city where many Muslims moved from Hindu-dominated localities.
The neighborhood has some middle-class areas but is largely poor, and activists have fought for basic government services, including paved roads, a sewage treatment system and garbage collection.
During her teenage years, Rubina started to notice that her brother, like many young Muslim men, was growing more observant of Islam, more conservative, introverted. They had always been close, and tragedy had strengthened their bond. But their paths began to diverge as Irfan sought comfort and sanctuary in the strictures of Islam.
Rubina, like other young Muslim women, feared she would lose her freedom under those strictures. She resisted calls from increasingly conservative imams to wear a traditional black garment that covers the body and sometimes the face.
In Gujarat, more and more women suddenly started dressing more conservatively, often as a show of Muslim pride but also to ward off sexual advances and potential sexual violence.
Rubina's mother began covering her hair, and Rubina said Irfan soon told her that he preferred to marry a woman who dressed conservatively.
Around this time, Rubina met a social worker named Jamila Khan at a meeting for Muslim women concerned about the living conditions in Juhapura and profiling of Muslim men as terrorists. But Khan also spoke out against Muslim leaders intent on reeling in Muslim women, curbing the liberties enshrined in India's secular constitution. She described herself as an "Islamic feminist."
"It doesn't matter what our women were wearing," Khan told Rubina and her friends. "What is important is still having a voice. Islamic rigidity is silencing our most dynamic Muslim female minds."
Many of Rubina's peers were giving up on having a career and were marrying and starting families earlier. Instead of going to college to study business or medicine, many were taking up courses at nearby mosques that taught them to be good Muslim wives.
But as Rubina entered young adulthood, she said, she became aware of the hypocrisy among many of the imams. Although they preached that Muslim women should be homemakers, they sent their daughters to private schools and universities in Britain, Canada and the United States.
During her first and only year at college, a Hindu extremist group circulating on campus began warning Hindus against having friendships or romantic relationships with Muslims. Rubina said some Hindu students started calling the places where Muslim students gathered "the Gaza Strip" or "Pakistan."
"But I am Indian, too," Rubina said she wanted to tell them. She felt ashamed. Betrayed. Silenced.
more...
pbojja
07-15 10:25 AM
Can some one explain why do we want send the "WISH LIST" letters to DOL now ? Why not when a ROW GC applicant was getting a GC well a head of very well qualified Ind/Chi applicant ?
Fortunately they fixed the spill over ,Indian/Chinese EB2 applicants can get their GCs sooner now , are we trying to mess this up ? I know you are going to say we are not against EB2 . I m not against ROW applicants but can I get my GC before a ROW applicant by sending a letter to DOL stating that I m more qualified than the other applicant can you send my GC please?
Fortunately they fixed the spill over ,Indian/Chinese EB2 applicants can get their GCs sooner now , are we trying to mess this up ? I know you are going to say we are not against EB2 . I m not against ROW applicants but can I get my GC before a ROW applicant by sending a letter to DOL stating that I m more qualified than the other applicant can you send my GC please?
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unseenguy
06-20 04:10 PM
Hello Hiralal,
Indeed! But if the individual 'affordability' is such that you can pay the monthly payments even after moving out of US due to job loss/485 denial, and if the purchase lowers your tax bill, then it may make more sense to buy the house...
Personally, I've always had intentions of buying real estate in US, EU and India.... have it in India, considering it in US and exploring how to buy it in EU... :) Wish had much more 'cash'... :D
I would agree if rent = monthly payment, then buying would make sense. On the west coast ca/or/wa, the rent where i live is 1500 (2b 2b), however; when I buy a house , I want a 4br so that I am in for rest of my life. Those houses are 550K, with monthly payment of 2700 usd per month. Does not make sense to go for it at the moment
Indeed! But if the individual 'affordability' is such that you can pay the monthly payments even after moving out of US due to job loss/485 denial, and if the purchase lowers your tax bill, then it may make more sense to buy the house...
Personally, I've always had intentions of buying real estate in US, EU and India.... have it in India, considering it in US and exploring how to buy it in EU... :) Wish had much more 'cash'... :D
I would agree if rent = monthly payment, then buying would make sense. On the west coast ca/or/wa, the rent where i live is 1500 (2b 2b), however; when I buy a house , I want a 4br so that I am in for rest of my life. Those houses are 550K, with monthly payment of 2700 usd per month. Does not make sense to go for it at the moment
more...
unitednations
08-02 02:17 PM
Definitely so. The fundamental problems of visa numbers and national quota remain and I think the next few months are going to be hell because of this stupid decision to rescind the July bulletin and allow everybody to apply for the I-485. How does one travel in an emergency after the I-485 is filed for but the receipt has not been received?
Once 485 is filed you can leave and re-enter the country if you have H or L visa.
You don't need to wait for the actual receipt.
Problem occurs if you leave before august 17th; thinking that lawyer has sent the case when he really hasn't and you were out when ucis receives the package. Eventually; uscis would figure it out and could deny the case becuase of this.
Also, not wise to leave before august 17th; because if the package gets returned for whatever reason then you need to be here to send it in again and you would have to update with new passport pages with stamps and i-94 card and date of last entry, etc.
I understand that people have to go out on business but they are unnecessary complications that people are doing.
Once 485 is filed you can leave and re-enter the country if you have H or L visa.
You don't need to wait for the actual receipt.
Problem occurs if you leave before august 17th; thinking that lawyer has sent the case when he really hasn't and you were out when ucis receives the package. Eventually; uscis would figure it out and could deny the case becuase of this.
Also, not wise to leave before august 17th; because if the package gets returned for whatever reason then you need to be here to send it in again and you would have to update with new passport pages with stamps and i-94 card and date of last entry, etc.
I understand that people have to go out on business but they are unnecessary complications that people are doing.
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Macaca
12-30 06:57 PM
A Bridge to a Love for Democracy (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30iht-letter30.html) By RICHARD BERNSTEIN | New York Times
I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.
Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.
It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.
There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.
I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.
But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.
The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.
Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.
Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.
There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.
And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.
And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.
Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.
This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.
The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.
That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.
I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.
Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.
It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.
There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.
I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.
But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.
The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.
Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.
Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.
There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.
And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.
And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.
Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.
This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.
The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.
That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.
more...
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Refugee_New
01-06 12:57 PM
And look at what India is going thru. Each and every year, bomb blasts in multiple cities.
There are hundreds of polls taken in Indian cities and a majority of the people living in cities say that they are terrified. They are constantly living under the fear of the next terrorist attack.
I am not justifying anything, I am just saying that Israel does not love to go and kill innocent people, they are not the Stalin or the Nazi clansmen.
Or are you saying that they love killing people?
If they do not love to go and kill innocent people, then what are you seeing in the world? Are you blind to see the massacre commited against people or you are so afraid to speak the truth?
There are hundreds of polls taken in Indian cities and a majority of the people living in cities say that they are terrified. They are constantly living under the fear of the next terrorist attack.
I am not justifying anything, I am just saying that Israel does not love to go and kill innocent people, they are not the Stalin or the Nazi clansmen.
Or are you saying that they love killing people?
If they do not love to go and kill innocent people, then what are you seeing in the world? Are you blind to see the massacre commited against people or you are so afraid to speak the truth?
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validIV
06-05 11:43 AM
Sorry but no matter how you spin it, owning a home is better than renting. Renting is not smart. period. your money is gone every month. You are not getting that money back.
When you own a home, the money goes towards a mortgage, and although most of it goes to interest at first, all interest paid is tax deductible which is a huge chunk of change every year. I get more money back as an owner than a renter and in the long run I save more AND own the home.
30 year renter vs 30 year home owner? That is not rocket science.
here is a good point about long term housing prospects. I for one am glad that GC delay saved me from buying a house.
this is from an article
------------------------------------
Why do I think housing is in the tank for the long term?
First, I listen to people smarter than I am - a key to success from investing to recreation league baseball. When my rec team had its first losing season - after twelve consecutive great seasons (two per year) I did the logical and hired a professional coach. They were winners the next season. Ditto for analyzing stuff - and I follow Ivy Zelman and Whitney Tilson. They have been dead on about the mortgage meltdown - and see a larger one coming.
Listening to them, reading data and being objective has led me to see the key to a rebound in housing is clearing inventory - too much supply and too little demand, and since lower than five percent interest rates have not spurred buying, supply is the issue. Supply comes from the sale of existing homes, the sale of new homes, and the sale of foreclosed homes.
* Typically ten to fifteen percent of Americans sell or want to sell their home in a given year. Recent survey data shows the number is now 30%. Keep that in mind.
* New home sales are incredibly low. Market wisdom said home building stocks would rise once the new housing start rate hit a million and inventory became tight. New home starts are roughly half of that and there ain't no rebound. As the poet said, times, they be a changing.
* People are not selling, and builders are not building, not just because people are not buying - it is because prices are low and going lower and the driver here is foreclosures. Data can be found here, there and everywhere but the salient data points are a) banks are accelerating foreclosures, b) the next wave of resets of mortgages, the cause of most foreclosures, does not peak until the summer of 2011, c) banks are already sitting on more than half a million homes they have not listed for sale, and the whopper is d) the New York Times has reported that there are nineteen million empty housing units and only six million are listed for sale.
This last point, when combined with another couple of million foreclosed homes, then with desire for people wanting to sell their home as soon as they can, means excess inventory for as far as the eye can see. I originally projected housing prices would, nationally, bottom at the end of 2011 and prices would begin to pick up in mid 2012. I may have been premature. With resets peaking in mid defaults will probably peak in early Q4 2011; this means foreclosure listings will peak in mid-summer 2012, after the peak selling season, not good for managing down inventory. Assuming demand picks up - a near heroic assumption at this time as interest rates will be higher and unemployment could be the same or higher at that time - you will start to see inventory declining in a meaningful way until 2013 at the earliest.
I have focused on supply - was I too cavalier about demand? Well, that is more problematic - resets, defaults and foreclosures are fourth grade math and although the only thing I knew about housing was my own mortgage before this mess started, I can do fourth grade math and every forecast I have made about foreclosures and inventory has been right within a 30-45 day period.
Using fourth grade math as our primary tool does have value in estimating demand. Roughly 40% of demand in the peak year - 2006 - was sub-prime or near sub-prime - and these buyers are out of the market for a considerable period of time. And a very large percentage - some analysts estimate as high as a third - of all sales were for investment and second homes. Most of this demand is gone for the foreseeable future. Add tightening credit standards, recession ravaged incomes and personal balance sheets, and a new frugality and it is hard to see demand in 2013 or 2014 climbing past 50% of demand in 2006. Even if the FHA does not go bust - which it will, requiring another Treasury bailout.
When you own a home, the money goes towards a mortgage, and although most of it goes to interest at first, all interest paid is tax deductible which is a huge chunk of change every year. I get more money back as an owner than a renter and in the long run I save more AND own the home.
30 year renter vs 30 year home owner? That is not rocket science.
here is a good point about long term housing prospects. I for one am glad that GC delay saved me from buying a house.
this is from an article
------------------------------------
Why do I think housing is in the tank for the long term?
First, I listen to people smarter than I am - a key to success from investing to recreation league baseball. When my rec team had its first losing season - after twelve consecutive great seasons (two per year) I did the logical and hired a professional coach. They were winners the next season. Ditto for analyzing stuff - and I follow Ivy Zelman and Whitney Tilson. They have been dead on about the mortgage meltdown - and see a larger one coming.
Listening to them, reading data and being objective has led me to see the key to a rebound in housing is clearing inventory - too much supply and too little demand, and since lower than five percent interest rates have not spurred buying, supply is the issue. Supply comes from the sale of existing homes, the sale of new homes, and the sale of foreclosed homes.
* Typically ten to fifteen percent of Americans sell or want to sell their home in a given year. Recent survey data shows the number is now 30%. Keep that in mind.
* New home sales are incredibly low. Market wisdom said home building stocks would rise once the new housing start rate hit a million and inventory became tight. New home starts are roughly half of that and there ain't no rebound. As the poet said, times, they be a changing.
* People are not selling, and builders are not building, not just because people are not buying - it is because prices are low and going lower and the driver here is foreclosures. Data can be found here, there and everywhere but the salient data points are a) banks are accelerating foreclosures, b) the next wave of resets of mortgages, the cause of most foreclosures, does not peak until the summer of 2011, c) banks are already sitting on more than half a million homes they have not listed for sale, and the whopper is d) the New York Times has reported that there are nineteen million empty housing units and only six million are listed for sale.
This last point, when combined with another couple of million foreclosed homes, then with desire for people wanting to sell their home as soon as they can, means excess inventory for as far as the eye can see. I originally projected housing prices would, nationally, bottom at the end of 2011 and prices would begin to pick up in mid 2012. I may have been premature. With resets peaking in mid defaults will probably peak in early Q4 2011; this means foreclosure listings will peak in mid-summer 2012, after the peak selling season, not good for managing down inventory. Assuming demand picks up - a near heroic assumption at this time as interest rates will be higher and unemployment could be the same or higher at that time - you will start to see inventory declining in a meaningful way until 2013 at the earliest.
I have focused on supply - was I too cavalier about demand? Well, that is more problematic - resets, defaults and foreclosures are fourth grade math and although the only thing I knew about housing was my own mortgage before this mess started, I can do fourth grade math and every forecast I have made about foreclosures and inventory has been right within a 30-45 day period.
Using fourth grade math as our primary tool does have value in estimating demand. Roughly 40% of demand in the peak year - 2006 - was sub-prime or near sub-prime - and these buyers are out of the market for a considerable period of time. And a very large percentage - some analysts estimate as high as a third - of all sales were for investment and second homes. Most of this demand is gone for the foreseeable future. Add tightening credit standards, recession ravaged incomes and personal balance sheets, and a new frugality and it is hard to see demand in 2013 or 2014 climbing past 50% of demand in 2006. Even if the FHA does not go bust - which it will, requiring another Treasury bailout.
more...
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thepaew
09-29 04:58 PM
I am an Electrical Engineer by training and I manage and lead an R&D group at an American semiconductor company. We design computer-chips that enable about 50% of the world's cellular phones.
I will definitely be moving out of the US when the Dems get elected as I do not think that they are capable of making the politically tough but necessary decisions on immigration. They are beholden to too many populist groups and will make the immigration issue a class-based fight. I've had enough of paying taxes, creating $$ & jobs for US-based companies - I've been waiting since 1999.
I am of course thankful to the US taxpayer who has paid for my graduate school tuition and board, to the US-companies that have given me opportunities that are equal to native-born Americans, and to my American friends for their friendship and hospitality. But prudence demands that I hedge my bets and I will have to relocate to friendlier shores.
Thought I'd share my experience. Good Luck to All.
By the next Presidential Election I will have mostly gotten my green card. I know I won't be eligible to vote then, but I will still be eligible to donate to the election campaigns. I have decided right now that whatever may happen I will donate to that party which makes my journey to the green card easier and faster.
I also have a plan B if I don't get my green card in next 24 months. I am a chemical engineer by education and profession with a US graduate degree in chemical engineering and more than 7 years of work experience in a premium organization in the oil, gas & chemicals industry. Everyone is more than aware how good the oil, gas & chemicals industry is doing worldwide. I very well know that I am a hot commodity in the job market in the whole world. Those who have traveled on Singapore Airlines must have seen advertisements in the Singapore airport displaying that oil and gas is their largest (next to Singapore Airlines) revenue making industry and they need qualified and experienced personnel. Job advertisements in the airport? Wow! Think why Alberta is the hottest place these days. I got an invitation from Canadian Government to apply for Canadian green card, citing my occupation. Australian Government has declared Chemical Engineering as the occupation with the highest demand in Australia due to their conventional mining and metals business and now the newly found gas reserves in north and west parts of that continent. This is my plan B. I have already secured an Australian Permanent Residency and that too in 6 months time. Hats off to the highly efficient immigration department of the Australian Government. In addition I already have 3 job offers there - one each in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
I have 2 burning innovative ideas in my mind - one related to biogas and carbon credits and the other related to water desalination. I have kept both of them on hold right now until I get the US green card. I know I will work on them but not sure which country gets the benefit - USA or Australia.
Then why am I sticking around here in the US? 1. I have a US graduate degree, 2. Both my daughters are born here and are US citizens and 3. I can't deny that I have started to put down my roots here. 24 more months and will not hesitate to quit USA and settle in Australia. It will be tough, but can't help it being forced to do it.
P.S. Two of my friends with similar background as mine, have left for Australia for good in August this year. They have settled in Sydney. Another acquaintance with occupation related to oil & gas, has migrated to Perth.
I will definitely be moving out of the US when the Dems get elected as I do not think that they are capable of making the politically tough but necessary decisions on immigration. They are beholden to too many populist groups and will make the immigration issue a class-based fight. I've had enough of paying taxes, creating $$ & jobs for US-based companies - I've been waiting since 1999.
I am of course thankful to the US taxpayer who has paid for my graduate school tuition and board, to the US-companies that have given me opportunities that are equal to native-born Americans, and to my American friends for their friendship and hospitality. But prudence demands that I hedge my bets and I will have to relocate to friendlier shores.
Thought I'd share my experience. Good Luck to All.
By the next Presidential Election I will have mostly gotten my green card. I know I won't be eligible to vote then, but I will still be eligible to donate to the election campaigns. I have decided right now that whatever may happen I will donate to that party which makes my journey to the green card easier and faster.
I also have a plan B if I don't get my green card in next 24 months. I am a chemical engineer by education and profession with a US graduate degree in chemical engineering and more than 7 years of work experience in a premium organization in the oil, gas & chemicals industry. Everyone is more than aware how good the oil, gas & chemicals industry is doing worldwide. I very well know that I am a hot commodity in the job market in the whole world. Those who have traveled on Singapore Airlines must have seen advertisements in the Singapore airport displaying that oil and gas is their largest (next to Singapore Airlines) revenue making industry and they need qualified and experienced personnel. Job advertisements in the airport? Wow! Think why Alberta is the hottest place these days. I got an invitation from Canadian Government to apply for Canadian green card, citing my occupation. Australian Government has declared Chemical Engineering as the occupation with the highest demand in Australia due to their conventional mining and metals business and now the newly found gas reserves in north and west parts of that continent. This is my plan B. I have already secured an Australian Permanent Residency and that too in 6 months time. Hats off to the highly efficient immigration department of the Australian Government. In addition I already have 3 job offers there - one each in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
I have 2 burning innovative ideas in my mind - one related to biogas and carbon credits and the other related to water desalination. I have kept both of them on hold right now until I get the US green card. I know I will work on them but not sure which country gets the benefit - USA or Australia.
Then why am I sticking around here in the US? 1. I have a US graduate degree, 2. Both my daughters are born here and are US citizens and 3. I can't deny that I have started to put down my roots here. 24 more months and will not hesitate to quit USA and settle in Australia. It will be tough, but can't help it being forced to do it.
P.S. Two of my friends with similar background as mine, have left for Australia for good in August this year. They have settled in Sydney. Another acquaintance with occupation related to oil & gas, has migrated to Perth.
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485Mbe4001
09-30 03:01 PM
He had proposed a very harsh H1b revamp and a total revamp of the L1 visa system.
for example companies hiring H1 would have had to certify and attest that multiple american candidates were interviewed for the poisition. The prevailing wage had to be the highest of three measures (i forget which 3). Transfers were limited or restricted. On the other hand the Dream act simply gave citizenship to any illegal attending high school. The Senator talks about humane immigration and i agree to a certain extent but it should be humane for legals too.
Yes, you are right, the recent 485 denials for people using AC-21 have nothing to do with Obama/Durbin immigtaion policy. But I kind of remember there were some harsh provisions for people using AC 21 in CIR 2007 version. I am trying to find out the details about it.
Correct me if I am wrong.
for example companies hiring H1 would have had to certify and attest that multiple american candidates were interviewed for the poisition. The prevailing wage had to be the highest of three measures (i forget which 3). Transfers were limited or restricted. On the other hand the Dream act simply gave citizenship to any illegal attending high school. The Senator talks about humane immigration and i agree to a certain extent but it should be humane for legals too.
Yes, you are right, the recent 485 denials for people using AC-21 have nothing to do with Obama/Durbin immigtaion policy. But I kind of remember there were some harsh provisions for people using AC 21 in CIR 2007 version. I am trying to find out the details about it.
Correct me if I am wrong.
more...
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Pagal
03-24 10:56 AM
Pagal did they ask you too for client contract letters ?
Nop, for me the questions were around tax returns, W-2 and current employment letter. The interview was focused on tax returns and explanation of passive income from a business.
But as I said, I wish this becomes a trend where USCIS starts calling up applicants to get the details they need to decide on the case rather than using paper mail.
Nop, for me the questions were around tax returns, W-2 and current employment letter. The interview was focused on tax returns and explanation of passive income from a business.
But as I said, I wish this becomes a trend where USCIS starts calling up applicants to get the details they need to decide on the case rather than using paper mail.
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pappu
04-07 05:35 AM
Guys,
There is going to be no difference whether you
1. Renew your H1 at the same company by filing an extension,
2. Transfer your H1 to another company by filing a transfer or
3. File a brand-new cap-subject H1 for someone who has never been on H1.
ALL OF THE 3 WILL BE AFFECTED.
For all 3, you have to file the same form I-129 and you get the same 2 forms in return from USCIS : I-797 (and I-94 too unless its an H1 for someone outside USA).
The first 2 ways are cap exempt, and the last one (brand new) H1 is cap subject.
But the process is the same. Paperwork is the same. You have to file LCA that shows the address/location of work, nature of work, title, salary etc. So even if you are working at same company, when you file for extension, you have to file a new LCA, that has all information and all that information will DISQUALIFY you if the new law passed and those rules of "consulting is illegal, outplacement at client site is illegal" apply.
So take this seriously and do not underestimate this.
And if you work perm-fulltime it will indirectly affect you. Projects are not done in isolation. Most projects have a mix of full-time employees and consultants who are sourced from vendors and H1B recruitors. Projects falter and fail when abruptly some consultants go back to their home countries because their H1s couldnt get extended. And that affects everyone. Job security depends on success of IT or other projects and if you are a part of failed project that was lost half way due to lack of skilled employees, then your job security also diminishes. If you are laid off, then the H1 transfer to a new company would be subject to the new rules under this law.
Infact, this affects everyone.
Students looking for new H1B
Students on OPT
H1Bs getting extensions
H4s transferring to H1Bs
and all H1Bs indirectly and directly
Because now ALL employers will be hesitant to hire an H1B in ANY field due to such tough laws and lot of paperwork and lot of restrictions.
There is going to be no difference whether you
1. Renew your H1 at the same company by filing an extension,
2. Transfer your H1 to another company by filing a transfer or
3. File a brand-new cap-subject H1 for someone who has never been on H1.
ALL OF THE 3 WILL BE AFFECTED.
For all 3, you have to file the same form I-129 and you get the same 2 forms in return from USCIS : I-797 (and I-94 too unless its an H1 for someone outside USA).
The first 2 ways are cap exempt, and the last one (brand new) H1 is cap subject.
But the process is the same. Paperwork is the same. You have to file LCA that shows the address/location of work, nature of work, title, salary etc. So even if you are working at same company, when you file for extension, you have to file a new LCA, that has all information and all that information will DISQUALIFY you if the new law passed and those rules of "consulting is illegal, outplacement at client site is illegal" apply.
So take this seriously and do not underestimate this.
And if you work perm-fulltime it will indirectly affect you. Projects are not done in isolation. Most projects have a mix of full-time employees and consultants who are sourced from vendors and H1B recruitors. Projects falter and fail when abruptly some consultants go back to their home countries because their H1s couldnt get extended. And that affects everyone. Job security depends on success of IT or other projects and if you are a part of failed project that was lost half way due to lack of skilled employees, then your job security also diminishes. If you are laid off, then the H1 transfer to a new company would be subject to the new rules under this law.
Infact, this affects everyone.
Students looking for new H1B
Students on OPT
H1Bs getting extensions
H4s transferring to H1Bs
and all H1Bs indirectly and directly
Because now ALL employers will be hesitant to hire an H1B in ANY field due to such tough laws and lot of paperwork and lot of restrictions.
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gapala
12-24 08:54 AM
Well said Sanju.
These are those age old arguments that they lay down to justify evil acts. its rediculous
These are those age old arguments that they lay down to justify evil acts. its rediculous
nogc_noproblem
08-06 06:28 PM
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?"
NO RED DOT (with comment - Racist Joke) FOR THIS JOKE PLEASE ;)
NO RED DOT (with comment - Racist Joke) FOR THIS JOKE PLEASE ;)
unitednations
03-24 11:55 AM
Can you please elaborate?
I may be understanding this incorrectly, but are they denying our right to be represented by a lawyer?
No; I am saying I am suspicious of original poster because when in local USCIS offices they swear you in that you are going to tell the truth and if you don't have a lawyer with you then they make you sign a statement that you are self representing yourself at the itnerview.
Because of these formalities; I have my doubts with a Phone call received from the local office and asking for documnets, questions on some very substantive matters without going through the formalities that local uscis office is supposed to do.
- I went to two local uscis office interviews; so I am pretty versed in their procedure.
I may be understanding this incorrectly, but are they denying our right to be represented by a lawyer?
No; I am saying I am suspicious of original poster because when in local USCIS offices they swear you in that you are going to tell the truth and if you don't have a lawyer with you then they make you sign a statement that you are self representing yourself at the itnerview.
Because of these formalities; I have my doubts with a Phone call received from the local office and asking for documnets, questions on some very substantive matters without going through the formalities that local uscis office is supposed to do.
- I went to two local uscis office interviews; so I am pretty versed in their procedure.
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