AA post on X from Chris Ramthun is throwing around dollar figures — Goldman, Google, Meta, Wells Fargo — claiming they bought H-1B influence.
BI saw it. The numbers look like a donor list, not a smoking gun.
ARight. I checked, and those specific donation amounts and lobbying claims? Couldn't confirm them anywhere.
BBut here's what is real. Senate Judiciary leaders Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin are investigating big tech and banks over H-1B hiring after U.S. layoffs.
AThey sent letters to ten major employers — Google, Meta, JPMorgan, Amazon, Apple, Deloitte.
BThe senators cite approvals from the last fiscal year. Google had four thousand one hundred eighty-one.
AMeta had five thousand one hundred twenty-three. JPMorgan Chase, two thousand four hundred forty.
BAll while American tech workers were getting laid off. That looks terrible.
AIt does. The senators basically say with talent on the sidelines, these firms can't find qualified Americans?
BThe Trump administration's answer is a hundred thousand dollars per H-1B visa.
AJamie Dimon reportedly said that caught everyone off guard. A hundred grand per visa is a serious new cost.
BIt's meant to force companies to hire Americans first.
ABut if the worker is truly needed, the company just pays the fee and moves on. It doesn't create jobs.
BOh, come on. You're telling me Google can't find qualified American tech workers after thousands of layoffs?
AThey can find some, but not always the exact specialist. The real abuse is in the green-card process.
BProPublica says employers often hire H-1B workers first and only later run required recruitment. That's backwards.
ASo the fix is to enforce the rules we already have, not just tax every visa.
BThe rules are the problem. ProPublica calls the labor certification process nonsensical and highly vulnerable to abuse.
AThen fix the process. But don't pretend every H-1B hire is a stolen American job.
BI didn't say stolen. I said it looks bad when layoffs and foreign hiring happen at the same time.
AThat's fair. The senators are asking the right question: show us the justification.
BThe senators' phrase was perfect: "homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines."
AThat's the whole case. And the approval numbers back it up.
BBut the H-1B program isn't supposed to be cheap foreign labor. Workers have to be paid the prevailing wage.
AIn theory. In practice, critics say companies use it to hold down wages.
BCompanies say they can't find the skills at any price. That's the core fight.
ABut you can't deny the timing. Layoffs in one quarter, H-1B filings the next.
BCompanies can do both. One project dies while another needs a specialist.
AThen why not retrain the laid-off workers?
BRetraining a networking engineer to be an AI researcher takes years. Some gaps need outside talent now.
AThat's the same excuse every time. Meanwhile American tech workers sit.
BSo your answer is what? Shut down H-1B entirely?
ANo, but the hundred-thousand-dollar fee makes companies think twice before defaulting to foreign hires.
BOr it pushes the work to India and Canada. That's not helping American workers.
AIt might. If the job can be offshored, it will be offshored anyway.
BThat's a fair risk. But the Senate inquiry is exactly the right first step: force companies to explain.
ABut the post's receipts? Still not verified. The anger is real, the dollar amounts are not.
BRight. Real Senate scrutiny, not a social media donor list.
ADifferent world entirely. Cas Piancey posted on Bluesky that NFTs are the opposite of Bitcoin.
BHe's right by definition. Every Bitcoin is fungible; one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin.
AAnd an NFT is non-fungible. It's in the name. One NFT does not equal another.
BSo calling them opposite is exactly correct. One is an interchangeable unit, the other is unique.
AI'd say they're both digital assets. "Opposite" is a little strong when they both live on blockchains.
BThat's like saying a dollar bill and a one-of-one painting are both paper. Technically true, useless point.
ABut Cas was replying to a Bluesky post about an email where the red flag was involving Bitcoin at all.
BRight, and he was making the distinction. Scam emails love Bitcoin because it's fungible and hard to reverse.
ANFTs are worse for that kind of scam because each one is unique and harder to move.
BSo the "opposite" framing is actually a security point, not just vocabulary.
AFine, I'll give him the definition. But "opposite" still sounds like clickbait.
BWelcome to social media.