Mike Tyson Tattoos

Possibly.

However; there are many things that uscis asks for that they are hinging on the grayest of gray areas to get at other things.

Examples:

You don't need to submit tax returns with 485. However, they ask in RFE sometimes. Why do they do that?

USCIS asks for photos of office in h-1b rfe's. There is nothing in the law/regulations stating they are supposed to ask for it.

There is many examples where uscis/dos ask for things that are not required in the law/regulations. However; a lot of these types of evidence they ask for is for "intent", looking for inconsistencies, trying to look at the resonability of information...

Long back when I used to just read memos/laws; it looked pretty straightforward. However; uscis uses the grayest of gray areas to their benefit, not your's.

Department of state for every visa except h and L assume by default that a person has intention of immigrating. The onus is on us to show that we are not going to do that. Unfortunately, uscis is turning the same way in adjudicating of benefits. They seem to think that everyone is playing with the system and they in turn are becoming very difficult.
I agree...with UN..however ...their laggardness in turn is also playing with the system...unfortunately...there is no one to take them to task...
Only when they managed something like July VB fiasco ...did it raise eyebrows.

Lobbying is like bribery - but legalized here in US....the smart people here didnt want to get caught....so legislators can make lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and ilk - scapegoats.....

http://immigrationvoice.org/media/forums/iv/temp/forum_attach/temporaryjob140denial.pdf

The above link is one of those 35 straight denial decisions due to temporary job issue in 140.

It was from california service center. I do know of another pretty large company which same thing happened to.

However; this issue was confined to california service center and I have not seen it since.

it is not just america losing - the person who has bought the house would lose his downpayment / equity too -not to speak of the mighty credit score - am I right ??
depends on yr situation and your priorities and more important the place where you are planning to buy. is it in florida, mich, Ohio, california or nevada (I guess no - else you would not have asked this question). if you think of a house as investment and you dont want to take a loss - then wait. if you need the space desperately and you are o.k with the prospect of yr house depreciating for couple of years - then go ahead and buy. BTW there was another thread where this was discussed in detail
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17986

I live in NJ close to the cherry hill area and i am looking to buy only in Burlington county. I have been living here for about 9 years now and so far haven't thought of investing here. I invested in india and the investment appreciated 4 times or more so i am happy about the decision. I actually needed a bigger place now and i am not seeing that as a investment but if it turns out that way that's fine with me. I just wanted to find out what are people's experiences with the house escpecially for those who are under H1/EAD.

What if you had to buy American? (http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/what-if-you-had-to-buy-american.aspx) By Katherine Reynolds Lewis | MSN Money

Legions of patriotic Americans look for "made in USA" stickers before buying products, out of a desire to support the country's economy.

But what if we all were restricted to purchasing only those goods that were made in America?

Our homes would be stripped virtually bare of telephones, televisions, toasters and other electronics, and many of our favorite foods and toys would be gone, too. Say goodbye to your coffee or tea, and forget about slicing bananas into your breakfast cereal -- all three would become prohibitively expensive if we relied on only Hawaii to grow tropical crops.

We'd have to trash our beloved Apple products because the iPod, iPad and MacBook aren't made in the U.S. Gasoline would double or triple in price, given that we now import more than 60% of our oil. And you couldn't propose to your true love with a diamond ring: There are no working diamond mines in the U.S.

Moreover, a complete end to imports would actually hurt the U.S. economy, because consumers and domestic companies would lose access to cheap goods. Trade protections, whether through tariffs or quotas, cost the economy roughly $2 for every $1 in additional profit for domestic producers, said Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

"If we restricted trade to just the 50 states, what would happen immediately -- and would increase over time -- would be a huge reduction in our standard of living, because we wouldn't have access to the cheap goods we get from other countries," Perry said. "We also wouldn't have any export markets, so companies like Caterpillar and Microsoft would have a huge reduction in sales and workforce."

So what do we make of heartfelt pleas to save U.S. manufacturing by buying American, or the many websites (see one here) that catalog U.S. sources for an array of products? Or the Buy American Act, which curbs government purchases of products that are made overseas?

Do such efforts actually hurt the country they're trying to help?

The argument for buying American

Marc Kruskol, 53, a publicist based in Palmdale, Calif., goes out of his way to purchase products that are made in the U.S. because of his concern over the decline in manufacturing employment.

"I truly believe that we could go a long way towards fixing the economy if we would just put people to work making things in this country that are made in other places," said Kruskol, who spends hours scouring made-in-America websites or visiting brick-and-mortar stores in search of U.S. products.

He recently spent $10 on a pair of salad tongs made in America, which he tracked down in a restaurant supply store, after rejecting 99-cent foreign-made tongs. And he was happy to spend $650 on a domestically produced barbecue grill rather than a $450 imported one, just to support his countrymen.

But financial experts say that it's best for America if you buy the cheapest product you can find without sacrificing quality. Their explanation rests on the concept of efficient manufacturing. An efficient producer creates the most valuable goods with the least possible expense, selling those items at lower prices than competitors who are less efficient. A country benefits when its manufacturers become more efficient.

When you spend more on an equivalent product simply because it's made in the U.S., you're wasting your money -- and supporting an inefficient manufacturer that, by rights, should become more efficient or go out of business. Moreover, the additional $9.01 or $200 that Kruskol had spent on an inefficient U.S. producer could have been spent on something else, helping the economy further. Or it could have stayed in his savings account and been funneled by his bank into the financial system, which in theory allocates capital to the most efficient producers.

"He gave effectively $9 to an inefficient producer to motivate them to keep producing inefficiently," said Ken Fisher, the founder and CEO of Fisher Investments in Woodside, Calif., and the author of "Debunkery." "I understand the well-intentioned view. Doing that would be terrible for America."

The most efficient producers are best-positioned to create more jobs and return profits to their investors, and to the government in the form of tax revenue. "We make the country better by allocating resources towards the ones that can use them best," Fisher said.

The complex manufacturing question

At the heart of the issue are the interconnected global economy and the changes in the manufacturing sector.

There's no question that U.S. manufacturers employ far fewer people now -- about 11.7 million in April -- than when the sector peaked at 19.6 million workers in 1979. But the decline in jobs is largely due to technological advances that have reduced the number of workers needed to run factories, Perry and Fisher pointed out. The average worker today is responsible for $180,000 of manufacturing output, triple the inflation-adjusted $60,000 of 1972, Perry said.

Despite that increase in productivity, a March report by IHS Global Insight put China's manufacturing output ahead of the U.S. for the first time ever, at $2 trillion in 2010, compared with $1.95 trillion for the U.S. That's up from $1.69 trillion for China and $1.733 trillion for the U.S. in 2009, based on U.S. and Chinese government data.

But Perry argued that exchange-rate fluctuations and differences in data sources caused the IHS Global report to skew the comparison between the U.S. and China. Based on U.N. data for 2009, the most recent available, the United States' manufacturing output was 14% ahead of China's, he said.

Moreover, as manufacturing has declined as a share of the U.S. economy while the service sector has grown, most of the world has followed the same trend. The proportion has held steady in China.

"We've left the Machine Age, and we're in a new Information Age. It makes sense that manufacturing would be less important," Perry said, noting that as other countries have taken over clothing and other low-end manufacturing, the U.S. has become more competitive in producing pharmaceuticals, software, aerospace technology, industrial machinery and medical equipment. "We're still world leaders and at the cutting edge of those higher-skilled, higher-valued-added areas."

Not convinced yet? The other conundrum in trying to buy only U.S.-made products lies in what that really means.

Do you accept products that are assembled in America but contain components from all over the globe? For example, U.S. companies in February imported $58 billion worth of industrial supplies, such as petroleum and plastics, and $40 billion in capital goods, from computers to engines and laboratory equipment.

What about products that are assembled in China yet include parts from U.S. suppliers and were designed by American engineers? Every time you purchase such an item, the money will flow back to those American engineers and suppliers.

Cars.com's American-Made Index illustrates U.S. industries' complex trade relationships. The website ranks vehicles built and purchased in the U.S. based on sales, the origin of the cars' parts and whether assembly was in the U.S. The top two cars -- Toyota Camry and Honda Accord -- are produced by Japanese companies through their U.S. subsidiaries.

"On the surface, it seems like it might be plausible to have these 'made in the USA' campaigns," Perry said. "It all gets real tricky in a global economy with parts."

When buying American helps

That's not to say you should ignore the origins of the goods you buy.

When comparing two products of equivalent price and quality, feel free to choose the U.S.-made one out of domestic pride. It may make sense to buy a U.S.-made product if the quality or safety is superior.

Alex Kaplan, 41, the owner of Celebrity Laser Spa in Los Angeles, recently bought a pair of ottomans online for $120, only to find them cracked and cheaply made. After returning the made-in-China set, he found a craftsman through Etsy who made similar ottomans for $160 but allowed customers to choose the fabrics.

"It's much more satisfying," said Kaplan, whose blog chronicles his attempts to find products made in the U.S. "The most important thing when it comes to buying American is being aware and asking yourself, 'Where is this made?'"


Is College a Rotten Investment?
Why student loans are not like subprime mortgages. (http://www.slate.com/id/2293766/)
By Annie Lowrey | Slate

.

Interesting to watch this video. How CNN and Lou is propagating false information and not airing how H1B system works. They think viewers are idiot. It may be true that USCIS might have approved more than mandated numbers. It does not matter. Even they can approve 1 million H1B petition. But everyone has forget one thing. One must verify how many actual new H1B visas are issued by the consulates (DOS) based on approved petitions and how many adjusted to H1B status from other non-immigration status in US. There are so many H1B visas denied by the consulates. CNN do not air that.

Furthermore, there are so many cases in which more than 1 employer might have applied H1B visa for same person. It is legal. Finally the guy come to US thro one employer. Other approved petions are wasted in this case. They can not do labor subsitution in H1B like in GC.

CNN is smartly hiding the actual facts.

We've been trying to save money because the mortgage payments ...

... were pretty tough to work with. I don't reckon I drink too much beer, maybe a carton on weekends with the boys, but she told me we couldn't afford beer anymore. Well, it was tough, but I quit.

Then the credit card statement came in, with $150 spent on cosmetics. So I asked how come I had to give up stuff but she didn't. She said she needed the make-up to look pretty for me.

I told her that was what the beer was for.

I don't think she's coming back.

So what do you advise, is it right time to refinance or wait it out and why?
Unfortunately, there are no simple answers. Mortgage rates are tied to 10 year bond rate, so they generally are not affected much by short term fed rate. With credit crunch, bond market is in real bad shape.
Fed is trying to supply short term funds to ease this crunch. I don't know how low Fed will go for this. What I am seeing is mortgage rates being stable or going down a little in near term bcoz of Fed easing. For long term, I believe rates will go up as bonds have to become attractive to get new investors.This may not be the best ( absolute bottom) but definitely very good time to refinance if it makes sense for your conditions.
For first time buyers like me, there are a lot of parameters to be considered. In my opinion the parameters are tilted towards faster house price drop . Hence I am waiting at least for a year. I will not do anything till next spring.

Don't worry guys, this is just a time pass while people are waiting for Nebraska to issue some green cards..;)

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

Mortgage of $95 dollars in California ????? man, even I would have purchased a house there ..once the honeymoon is over (100 dollar rent), even a kid can guess where this house will end up (and she wants help from govt ???) ..wonder how many such loans were bundled ..and how many houses will end up in foreclosure ?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aQ_ZgC75Zfyw

--------------
Will the coming wave of OptionARM mortgage resets look like the wave of subprime defaults?

This Bloomberg piece paints a sobering picture of where things are at, and it's clear right off the bat why the resets are going to kill a number of buyers:

Shirley Breitmaier’s mortgage payment started out at $98 when she refinanced her three-bedroom home in Galt, California, in 2007. The 73-year-old widow may see it jump to $3,500 a month in two years.

Breitmaier took out a payment-option adjustable rate mortgage, a loan popular during the housing boom for its low minimum payments before resetting at higher costs later.

We're not sure what the housing market is like in Galt, California, but if we had to guess, Ms. Breitmaier is pretty under water right now, and a refi is probably out of the picture. Now this might not kill the banks -- after all, the chart below is well known and we're guessing that much of their portfolio has been slammed accordingly. But in terms of flooding the market with foreclosed home, slamming prices, it's too early to believe that it's all priced in.

And generally, the effect that will have on the economy and consumer confidence will be brutal:

The delinquency rate for payment-option ARMs originated in 2006 and bundled into securities is soaring, according to a May 5 report from Deutsche Bank AG. Over the past year, payments 60 days late or more on option ARMs originated in 2006 have almost doubled to 42.44 percent from 23.26 percent, Deutsche Bank said. For 2007 loans, the rate has climbed from 10.1 percent to 35.25 percent.

“We’re already seeing much higher levels of delinquencies of these option ARM loans even before you reach the point of the recast,” said Paul Leonard, the California director of the non- profit Center for Responsible Lending.

The threat of soaring payments has counselors at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates busy.

“There’s a level of hopelessness to the phone calls now,” said Brown.

-----------
More than $750 billion of option ARMs were originated in the U.S. between 2004 and 2008, according to data from First American and Inside Mortgage Finance of Bethesda, Maryland. California accounted for 58 percent of option ARMs, according to a report by T2 Partners LLC, citing data from Amherst Securities and Loan Performance.

Shirley Breitmaier took out a $315,000 option ARM to refinance a previous loan on her house.

Her payments started at 3/8 of 1 percent, or less than $100 a month, according to Cameron Pannabecker, the owner of Cal-Pro Mortgage and the Mortgage Modification Center in Stockton, California, who is working with Breitmaier. The loan allowed her to forgo higher payments by adding the unpaid balance to the principal. She’ll be required to start paying principal and interest to amortize the debt when the loan reaches 145 percent of the original amount borrowed.

‘Pick a Pay’

Such terms aren’t typical for option ARMs, which were also known as “pick-a-pay” mortgages. Interest rates on many payment option ARMS are “typically very low in the first one to three months” and can be as little as 2 percent, according to Federal Reserve data.

Breitmaier, who has been in the home for 45 years and lives with her daughter, now fears she will lose the off-white stucco house that’s a hub for her family.

“I wish the government would bail us out like the banks and the car businesses,” she said. “I’d like to go from here to the grave next to my husband.”

Paul Financial LLC originated the loan and it was sold to GMAC, Pannabecker said.

“This loan is a perfect example front to back, bottom to top, of everything that has gone wrong over the last five to seven years,” Pannabecker said. “The consumer had a product pushed on them that they had no hope of understanding.”

Something to think about: "How To Save the Government $5 Million!"

A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year, lasting until he is 80 years old.

Assuming the next president lives to age 80:

Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension, as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president.

Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms, so would receive $4,973,800 in pension.

Therefore, it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November.

'The Other K Street' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050600892.html) In the Concrete Canyon of the Business Lobby, a Pocket of Liberal Activists Settles In, By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/jeffrey+h.+birnbaum/), Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, May 7, 2007

:p

I had no idea my two humble posts would stir up such a hornets' nest among the desi junta here. I certainly see more "bears" coming out of their hibernation now that spring is here :).

OK, I admit that I am also in the camp that really wants to buy a house and "settle down" in a good area with good schools for my kids. The mythical "nesting instinct" is alive and well here. I am obsessed with the real estate market, and am constantly watching real estate porn as my wife calls it, i.e., surfing on ziprealty.com and redfin.com trying to spot good deals.

However, the reality is that I am scared sh*tless of the market right now. I do not want to burn my hard earned equity in the form of a good 20% plus downpayment. If you are in the same situation as I am, then I would offer the following practical suggestions to help you cope with the situation:

1. Rent a house/townhouse/condo from private parties instead of an apartment complex to help you understand the responsibilities and expenses of homeownership.

2. If renting an apartment in an area with moderate schools, and have school age kids, instead of trying to chase the dream of building equity in a house in an area with good public schools, in the short run, consider sending your kids to a decent private school. The cost of added property taxes in case of home purchase would alone balance out the high monthly payments of private schooling, with probably better "return on investment" at a private school.

3. Feel good about renting an apartment: You should not succumb to peer pressure and try to keep up with the Janardhan's (OK, bad joke, "Joneses") and buy a house just because other people took the plunge at the wrong time. Your time will come. Just be patient. Not to be taken lightly is the fact that in the month of April we celebrate Earth Day - think positively about all the energy you are saving living in an apartment with shared utilities with other people living in the complex. A house is a big energy guzzler (although I am sure an enjoyable one!) in all respects - more heating and cooling costs, more water used (esp. in summer with lawn watering), more greenhouse gas emissions from your individual lawn mower, leaf blower, and snow blower (can you picture yourself mowing your lawn or riding the snow blower in your lungi :D- OK this joke is getting old)...

4. More quality time spent at home with the kids - when you are not having to do chores around a big house. A house seems to take up a lot of maintenance time, not to mention time spent cleaning/vacuuming /dusting the entire 3000 sq ft area and otherwise maintaining the 1/4 acre yard. You could instead spend a lot of quality time with your kids doing projects/homework/art work with them and being a kid again yourself. In a house it is more likely that unless you have kids big enough to help you do those chores for some incentive, your kids will be watching Dora and Diego while you are cleaning up.

All in all, I think there are many positives to look forward to while you save money renting, and like I said before, when the time is nigh, you will have your turn. You will also by then, hopefully have your green cards in hand and may even be able to move to a more desirable city or other states looking for better work opportunities and where your downpayment savings will take you farther in getting you more for your buck.

Cheers!

"Real estate porn".... I just burst out laughing... Yeah I am a hardcore RE porn lover! I have been studying the market since 2004... I even got my GC in sept (although my wife is still stuck in name check... hopefully now that she is current again we might get the news!). So anywho, I completely agree with you junglee. Something tells me that you are an old timer who saw the 2001 crash unfold. I currently live in BA and I am shocked to see even desis spread so thin its really hard for me to fathom how they sleep at night. Many are just a few paychecks away from foreclosure... So did you invest in any of the inverse ETFs such as SRS, SKF, DXD, SDS?

Assuming your husband is here from 2000, they are asking for 7 years, i.e. 12 * 7 = 84 months of paystubs? This is ridiculous. How many people keep paystubs from 7 years ago? Infact in those days paystubs used to have their social security numbers on them, they should be shredded, atleast that's the common advice.

My pay stub still has SSN.

Its always good to keep all the paystubs / w2/ tax returns / employment verifications letter / what ever other evidences you have.. especially employment based GC applicants

Granted there are loose canons in every community, yet some evils are encouraged by doctrine in religion such as below:

http://living.oneindia.in/kamasutra/spheres-of-life/religious-prostitution-partii.html

.. and simply you are down in mud pool doesnt mean whole world is like you!

According to you A acquires skills over a period of time and so does a person who went for higher education and is EB2. You also say that if there was no porting, A has a PD of 2002 (in EB3) and B has a PD of 2005 (in EB2), then they are almost in the same position.

At this point both of us agree that A and B are equal, right?

If they both are EQUAL, then can you guarantee that both PDs will move at the same rate?. If A�s PD becomes unavailable and B�s become current. B will get GC faster than A even though both were equal (from your logic). Is this fair, then?

No one can guarantee that. and that is the whole concept of "preference categories" . So now its ok for A to jump to EB2 and leapfrog everyone with his/her 2002 PD? Does 5 years of work have that much value? He/She would be ahead of 2003 EB2 filers that may have been working on degrees since 1999. That's ok by you? The faster movement of EB2 makes up for the years of education. I say, by all means BS+5 shoudl file EB2, I just don't agree with the porting. That PD was for an entirely different skill set and job. I know its the law. I still disagree. Can do that last I knew :-)

For me its a very simple thing, print that damn thing of plastic and I will buy.

lol, can't blame you.

The ten Commandments of married life

Commandment 1: Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning.
Commandment 2: If you want your wife to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
Commandment 3: Marriage is grand -- and divorce is at least 100 grand.
Commandment 4: Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.
Commandment 5: When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife is.
Commandment 6: Marriage is when a man and woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
Commandment 7: Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something she said. After marriage, he will fall asleep before she finishes.
Commandment 8: Every man wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook. But the law allows only one wife.
Commandment 9: Marriage and love are purely a matter of chemistry. That's why the wife treats the husband like toxic waste.
Commandment 10: A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished....

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
HERE COMES THE BEST JOKE OF THIS THREAD

I got a RED dot for this post.

Comment - "Racist Joke".

Five Englishmen in an Audi Quattro arrived at an Irish border.

Checkpoint Paddy the officer stops them and tells them: "It is illegal to put 5 people in a Quattro, Quattro means four".

"Quattro is just the name of the automobile," the Englishmen retorts with disbelief "Look at the papers: This car is designed to carry five persons".

"You can not pull that one on me," replies Paddy "Quattro means four You have five people in your car and you are therefore breaking the law"

The Englishmen replies angrily, "You idiot! Call your supervisor over I want to speak to someone with more intelligence!".

"Sorry," responds Paddy, "Murphy is busy with 2 guys in a Fiat Uno"