Trading Financial Risks and Jobs & Crossing Borders - Essay Example

the US government must relax its rules on immigration and welcome more foreign skills into our land because these immigrant skilled workers create jobs in America and even for Americans. It is a very interesting idea, indeed. The aforementioned proposition was the theme of the two articles which are the subject of rhetorical analysis in this paper. The first article is Thomas L. Friedman: The open-door bailout, written by Thomas L. Friedman in Bangalore, India and published by the New York Times on November 1, 2009.

The second article is Bill Gates: Testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, a transcript of the testimony given by the Chairman of Microsoft before the US Congress on March 12, 2008 and published in the Microsoft website. After a thorough evaluation of the two articles, the formal and technical arguments made by Bill Gates proved to be more convincing and more effective than the conversational and layman line of reasoning presented by Thomas Friedman.

Both authors addressed their papers to the US government because the solution that they are proposing involves a shift in US immigration policies from that of protectionism to free access to foreign skilled labor. If indeed the US government decides to relax its stringent rules on immigration and issues more of H-1B visas, Bill Gates would have the better right to claim credit for the change in policy than Friedman. Gates would be in a better position to assert that his voice was heard and seriously considered by the government’s policy-makers.

Gates can validly declare that his presentation have influenced, in whatever degree, the decision-making in US immigration policies. Foremost, Gates was invited by and was directly addressing the US Congress. The Committee on Science and Technology was interested in what Gates had to say. As a matter of fact, after his speech, the members of the committee took turns in asking questions and Gates had the