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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#331

Post by konjin »

cercatrova wrote: post #324
konjin wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not how you count if you made it. I made as much as OP at that age (and am now a few years older) and I'm very far from making it. Millions don't go as far as they used to when everyone around you is even richer.

With all due respect, your comment suggests that you were spending beyond your means, or keeping up with the Joneses. Millions go very far if invested properly and drawn down properly so that the principal is never touched. If you're spending the millions instead, then yeah, that's definitely not gonna go far.

There's a huge trough in what you can do with what you can buy when you earn between $80k a year and ~$8m.

It's the same shit just better.

Your shitty commuter house 3 hours out of town is now a mansion 20 min outside of town. Your shitty 1990 ford fiesta is a very nice 2020 BMW. Your shitty healthcare plan is a great healthcare plan, but the main difference is how nice the plants at the doctors office are. If you want to get a divorce your new partner looks a lot better than your old one. Your furniture isn't chipboard from Ikea, it's hand made ethically sourced mahogany. Your flights aren't economy class, they are business+/first class. You don't have to run your washing machine, you pay someone to do it.

If you want anything interesting, like say a nuclear reactor in your basement, or a jet two seater Canard, you can't afford it because no one makes it. Unless you have the connections to start a company to make them, or have literal billions lying around, you don't have the resources to do anything but live middle class+.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#332

Post by war1025 »

Guthur wrote: post #310
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Just as an aside i think dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive. As anecdotal evidence; with the ban on international travel local dentists are apparently very busy as people can no longer fly abroad for more cost effective care.

> dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive

I read somewhere that dental issues are universal enough that you don't get nearly the same cost averaging that you can get for other medical problems.

When I looked into it, dental insurance basically amounted to "a payment plan for dental expenses you would pay anyway"

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#333

Post by ryanbrunner »

wolco5 wrote: post #301
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

I think the waiting lists can be exaggerated sometimes. There are definitely waiting periods, but if something is a priority, things can move pretty fast.

As well, I'm basing this off not a lot of evidence other than doctor shows (which I recognize are probably ridiculously inaccurate), but I get the impression that (for those who have the right insurance) in the U.S. that testing and imaging is overprescribed, and doctors will often order an MRI when an ultrasound or a CT scan would be perfectly fine. So even if MRIs have a relatively longer waiting period, it's overall rarer that you'll need to get one in the first place (and CTs can usually be ordered fairly quickly - I had one today that was booked within a week for relatively minor symptoms)

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#334

Post by war1025 »

callmeed wrote: post #280
philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

> insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with families who want to be self-employed or contractors.

That cost doesn't go away for people who are regular employees, it just gets absorbed by the employer. That's a big part of the reason you need to make more as a contractor than as an employee. Lots of costs get covered for you pre-paycheck as an employee that you have to pay post-paycheck as an independent contractor.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#335

Post by markdown »

wolco5 wrote: post #301
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

> In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

Are there no private MRI machines in Canada? In many countries with free healthcare, you can still "just walk in" to any private hospital/clinic and get an MRI done.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#336

Post by novok »

war1025 wrote: post #332
Guthur wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as an aside i think dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive. As anecdotal evidence; with the ban on international travel local dentists are apparently very busy as people can no longer fly abroad for more cost effective care.

> dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive I read somewhere that dental issues are universal enough that you don't get nearly the same cost averaging that you can get for other medical problems. When I looked into it, dental insurance basically amounted to "a payment plan for dental expenses you would pay anyway"

It lets the rich pay for the dental problems of the poor. It's also a form of income redistribution.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#337

Post by tharkun__ »

callmeed wrote: post #280
philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

Replying to this directly because I'd otherwise have to reply to so many other sibling replies individually with overlapping versions of this :)

Just for comparison.

Disclosure: I no longer live in Germany _but_: In Germany, 90% of people are insured via the mandatory public health insurance system (do a Google translate on https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/gkv.html, which is the official federal health ministry website). That's 70 million people out of ~83 million in an estimate of 2019 according to Wikipedia. There's still a bunch of different companies that provide coverage under this public system. I remember ~15%+ depending on which company you went with for health insurance. And that's the _public_ system.

You can play around here if you want: https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/. I plugged in 70.000EUR per year (which is reasonable for a senior dev depending on city (i.e. this is way more than I was paid in Frankfurt 10 years ago but we're talking different level and 10 years ago ...) but you'll get less even as a senior today probably if you're in some "flyover state" equivalent of Germany.

Where it says "Rentenversicherung" that's your pension. Where it says "Arbeitslosenversicherung" that's your EI. Where it says "Krankenversicherung" that's your health insurance. Remember, this is the public system, which has been going way down hill since I was working in Germany. Nowadays you gotta have a separate insurance for certain things in dental care for example, that were just covered for me, when I was there.

So for my EUR 70.000 / year example health insurance is ~4.5000EUR or about 6%. You gotta remember in that that the employee and the employer share this 50/50, meaning the ~4.500EUR is for the employee only. The employer pays another ~4.500EUR (officially the public health insurance system rate is like 15% and there's all sorts of rules about what extra percentage a public health insurance can charge and different companies charge different extra rate to try and 'compete' with each other.

So with all this in mind and percentages already given (and please do look up the German "progressive tax system" as opposed to the tax bracket system in the US and Canada), 70.000 EUR is about 86.000 USD or 4.500 EUR being about 5.500 USD.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#338

Post by rattray »

wolco5 wrote: post #301
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

waiting lists "can be long" – it's time to stop parroting these misleading statements. They can be, if your test/operation isn't urgent. Urgent things are treated right away.

Frankly, as an American, I think we have shit quality of health service, based on the insurance cos' red tape and restrictions and paperwork alone. Getting healthcare in this country is a bureaucratic nightmare. Maybe the docs and meds and tests are good, but the overall service is bad.

(Disclaimer that I insist on Kaiser, an HMO – I would not live in a US area without it – which is pretty good, but helping family through health issues who had "gold standard" normal PPO was... different).

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#339

Post by RA_Fisher »

war1025 wrote: post #332
Guthur wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as an aside i think dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive. As anecdotal evidence; with the ban on international travel local dentists are apparently very busy as people can no longer fly abroad for more cost effective care.

> dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive I read somewhere that dental issues are universal enough that you don't get nearly the same cost averaging that you can get for other medical problems. When I looked into it, dental insurance basically amounted to "a payment plan for dental expenses you would pay anyway"

That’s because most dental care is predictable: prophylaxis. Insuring against it is just adding an admin fee. Insurance is good for unpredictable things.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#340

Post by AS37 »

markdown wrote: post #335
wolco5 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

> In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US. Are there no private MRI machines in Canada? In many countries with free healthcare, you can still "just walk in" to any private hospital/clinic and get an MRI done.

There are private MRI businesses, but not many. When a friend of mine had some hard to diagnose brain malfunction his family drove to NY to get one.
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