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Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

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Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#201
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the issue with the idea of the market sorting out public servants is that schools, police departments, fire departments and other public agencies can not simply charge what the market will bear to raise revenue for higher salaries. They don't have control over their revenue stream and that is by design, because their incentives can be quite difficult to manage.

Teachers at least can control the revenue stream fairly effectively by going out on strike next time their contract is up for renegotiation. If the schools shut down then local governments will find a way to raise the funds. Unfortunately that hurts the students but the only way to effect real change is to force the issue.

Unfortunately, striking as a public servant is a double-edged sword. Specifically, back-to-work legislature can force you back on the job, with no new contract.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying so that the other person pleading for skepticism in this thread, and myself, can be seen near the top. This non-profit is not vetted, has a very basic website, has no proof of the students, this persons account is 24 days old. Please be mindful that while this all sounds like a great idea and I hope it really exists, this also could be a scam as there is no evidence or any 3rd party that this is a real nonpr…

Thanks for reminding people be aware. Fundraising wasn't the point of my original comment, so I took out the donation link. My focus primarily has been to teach students, so I haven't had time to update any of the social media or the landing page. I lost the pw to my original account on HN, but here's my username: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=songzme

Here is a link to your previous post about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16043552

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#203
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think gardening is a pretty lucrative business right now in the bay area. Atleast by the rates that many are asking. And I've seen many of my neighbors asking each other if they know of any reliable services. All one needs to be is reliable, communicate well and do a decent job.

But gardening is a skilled job requiring a couple of years or more apprenticeship to learn - not much easier than going into tech. Hence being lucrative.

Gardening is an unskilled job in the main.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From article - > low and middle income jobs, such as teachers and firefighters or nannies and cooks, are key to the local economy. Someone else commented in this thread how all these jobs (meaning every non-tech, middle-class job) will begin to pay more once they're more in demand. The assumption is that programming/tech is highly paid because it's so in demand, and every other job isn't because vice versa. Let's jus…

If teachers makes 100k / year and good ones make 200k / year, there would be alot of people going into teaching. Personally, I don't think that teachers should be making less than an entry level software engineer. I'm also not advocating everyone learn to become a software engineer. I think its unfair for people to become stuck in their low income jobs because of financial responsibilities. The goal of my nonprofit i…

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Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers work more than 9 months, but even if they didn't, compare the top teachers with the top programmers. Glassdoor reports teachers teachers average $68k, Software engineers $137k. https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-teacher-s... https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-software-...

Teacher salaries are public information. You don't have to rely on glassdoor.

Compare apples to apples

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#206
Zoning law and housing code were enacted across the nation in response to the crowded, unsanitary, and unsafe tenements of the industrial revolution. But, we’ve gone too far and allowed too much local control of housing. Now in 21st century American boomtowns, you can’t convert your single family into a duplex or small apartment building, you can’t convert the first floor of your building into a small business, you can’t have organic growth in your city the way cities had grown up until the early 20th century. Far from just outlawing tenements, we’ve outlawed our cities from adapting to change, which is why we see such absurdities as in the bay areas cost of living.

For decades now we’ve been surviving off technical debt. Cars and roads allow us to survive even when our cities are absurdly inefficiently organized. But as the nation changes more and more, our top cities’ roads and street layouts don’t adapt to the change, so we have unbearable traffic in every major city. On top of that, we continue to ignore the needs of a more efficient method of organizing ourselves - relaxing zoning to allow organic growth in the city, and construction of mass transit between the dense regions that develop under this system.

That’s how we developed cities before we started relying on cars, and what we need to do to continue scaling American cities. Or we can just accept as every house in the Bay Area reaches multimillion dollar price tag.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the jobs that are mentioned in the article that are being hit the hardest are teachers, firefighters, caretakers and so forth. How many of those have been automated away? It seems that tech workers in the valley have found their own analog to blaming immigrants for downward wage pressure, their particular boogeyman seems to be the robots. No, the answer is much more trivial. As the article points out, the huge influx…

> It seems that tech workers in the valley have found their own analog to blaming immigrants for downward wage pressure, their particular boogeyman seems to be the robots. While you'll no doubt continue telling the deplorables that they're racist and xenophobic for failing to welcome their currency and cost-of-living arbitraging foreign-replacements with open arms, could you at least refrain from pretending that the…

Yes and SV is famously flooded with immigrants.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If teachers makes 100k / year and good ones make 200k / year, there would be alot of people going into teaching. Personally, I don't think that teachers should be making less than an entry level software engineer. I'm also not advocating everyone learn to become a software engineer. I think its unfair for people to become stuck in their low income jobs because of financial responsibilities. The goal of my nonprofit i…

Teachers can make more than 100k: http://www.mvla.net/files/user/776/file/Certificated%20Salar...

Only takes 19 years of experience to get that salary in Cupertino.

https://www.cusdk8.org/cms/lib/CA02218495/Centricity/Domain/...

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#209
post #34

I started a nonprofit 2 years ago (garagescript.org) that hires low income people in San Jose and their full time job is to learn how to code and teach new students. Our nonprofit started off with 20 students, most were making about 25k/year and had no coding experience. I paid each of them 2k / month to quit their jobs and focus on coding full time. From the original 20 students, 6 are left. The other 14 are all ful…

This is awesome. I grew up in a low income household/poor and always try to push getting into tech to people looking to make a change in their life.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No crony capitalism is not a feature of capitalism. Yes, it's a feature of the real world system for which the term capitalism was coined by it's 19th Century critics, and it's been a prominent feature of every real example (including, to a varying extent, the modern mixed economies that have completely replaced the original system named “capitalism”, but retain significant elements of its structure, and are often…

> Yes, it's a feature of the real world system for which the term capitalism was coined by it's 19th Century critics, and it's been a prominent feature of every real example (including, to a varying extent, the modern mixed economies that have completely replaced the original system named “capitalism”, but retain significant elements of its structure, and are often referred to as “capitalism”.) Capitalism isn't reall…

> I am not really wanting to get into a debate about Marxism. However the ideas that have spawed from Marxism probably killed 100 million people last century. So I don't really give much credence to them and you aren't going to convince me otherwise.

I don't believe anyone mentioned Marxism or Communism anywhere in this thread. But no matter...

I'd love to hear an analysis of all deaths that capitalism has caused. And yes, I'm counting wars over resources, starvation, lack of medical care.. You know, the same way capitalists count against communists. Lets compare apples to apples.

And for a statement: I don't believe communism is a way forward. It's a 200 year old idea, that when it was implemented multiple times, has ugly failure modes. And.. the citizens end up trading one master (capitalist) for another (communist overseer).

The rest of this "Crony" vs "Corporate" seems like a word definition war. How about some good definitions before we move on.

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