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TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

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Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#331

Post by benhurmarcel »

GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #237
benhurmarcel wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because a lot of experienced engineers move to Germany from France, Spain, Italy, the UK, etc to get better salaries. Engineering salaries in Germany are high compared to most of western Europe.

Is that true even if sum up higher taxes and cost of living in Germany? At least in Eastern Europe(specifically Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), average salary for mediocre software engineer is about 3k$ per month after taxes which is already comparable with German average SE salary. But cost of living in EE is a lot cheaper, apartments in Moscow are 3 times cheaper than in major German cities. Food, on average 2 times…

Cost of living in Germany isn’t significantly higher than other western European countries. And for engineers, after-tax income is easily 50% higher in Germany compared to the countries I mentioned.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#332

Post by blibble »

LatteLazy wrote: post #99
nbevans wrote: post #57

I find it surprising that they are choosing Germany - after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's Gigafactory there (embroiling it in so much red tape that Elon wishes he could pull out if it weren't for sunk cost). It seems that Germany has a very good ability to convince and lobby these mega-manufacturers to base themselves there, but a very poor ability to actually let them succeed after making that…

The uk is horrible political mess at the moment. God knows if we'll be able to import or export anything or keep the lights on next week. Not a great place to put a billion dollar global supply investment.

do you even live in the UK?

the political deadlock was completely resolved after the 2019 election... now the government has a huge majority and is rock solid politically (as is normally the case)

other than some toilet roll shortages in March last year, there have been no visible issues whatsoever

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#333

Post by TMWNN »

rattray wrote: post #328
oezi wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will at most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance per month in the universal insurance system. If you make higher salaries then you won't be affected.

Is that 750 EUR for an individual or a family? Sounds like a lot. For comparison in California, a 35-year-old SF resident earning $250k/yr living alone purchasing insurance through the public marketplace can get a Platinum-level Kaiser Permanente HMO plan for around $650/mo (but over $2000/mo for a family of four). YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high, and that plan comes with $0 annual deduc…

>YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high

Multiple studies have shown that Kaiser is more efficient and effective than the UK NHS for about the same cost.

Examples:

* https://www.bmj.com/content/324/7330/135

* https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7426/1257

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#334

Post by mercutio2 »

GoOnThenDoTell wrote: post #279
volta83 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are making 600k$ a big part of your compensation is stocks. There are lots of ways to pay fewer taxes in the US when holding stocks. Plus you have 401k, backdoor Roth, etc. retirement saving plans that are non-existent in Germany.

Backdoor Roth?

It’s a thing.

Mega backdoor Roth is an even bigger thing:

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Mega-backdoor_Roth

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#336

Post by flavius29663 »

sativallday wrote: post #335

This feel like corporate geopolitical diplomacy.

It sure does, the EU announces they're going to invest X tens of billions in chips, and the next thing you know, the largest backer and beneficiary of EU gets this new factory.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#337

Post by adventured »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #253
nicbou wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh the salaries are alright. It seems to me like the salaries are higher in America, while in Germany they're lower but include things American end up paying for: pensions, insurance, and education. If I were American, a part of my net income would still end up going to health insurance, student loans and other things. My employer might pay less benefits, but pay a higher salary to compensate for those costs. I think…

Americans have a government-provided pension (Social Security) that pays about the same as the German one, paid for by employment taxes.

US employees also commonly have health insurance, typically covered by the employer in the tech field (or any median+ full-time job). Somehow foreign posters on HN constantly fail to recognize this fact. One would think after more than a decade of it commonly popping up here, the false narrative would stop (and it's corrected in every thread where it comes up).

It usually goes like this:

US tech salaries are great, but you have no health insurance. Or: yeah but you have to pay $12,000 per year for your own health insurance, so you have to deduct that to get a fair accounting on salaries.

When the reality is: if you work in tech you're likely receiving good health insurance coverage from your employer, and you're simultaneously paying lower taxes than in Germany.

Which is another way of saying that US salaries would be even further beyond peers if one takes an accurate accounting of the health insurance benefit + taxes.

Once you go through the effort of pointing all of this out, then they'll revert to: yeah but the quality of life is still superior so there. Having watched that forever process here across more than a decade, I've learned that people - even intelligent, seemingly knowledgeable people - often just shoehorn whatever lies or false narratives they need to feel good about their context when they lay their head on the pillow at night. And that's why no matter how many times it's corrected, the false narrative in question will never end.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#338

Post by Hypocritelefty »

GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #195
bluGill wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you care about salaries, German engineers are cheap. If you are looking for the best engineers they are as cheap as India (India has a lot more bad engineers for cheap, but they have plenty of good ones that demand and get a good salary). The real downside of Germany is lead Engineer is a non-union position so you end up with the majority of your engineers refusing to lead the project (despite the higher sala…

Why you think that Germany has a lot of good and cheap engineers? I think the biggest problem that low salaries are causing there is that people with some(5+ years) experience are moving either to Switzerland/US or to freelance for Switzerland/US companies. So, there's big deficit of experienced engineers. German companies are trying to solve it by inviting Eastern European/Indian/Asian workers, that are cheaper, but…

Why would any Indian go to Germany? Why don't you back up your point with some numbers otherwise this is nothing but prejudice.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#339

Post by domsom »

rattray wrote: post #328
oezi wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will at most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance per month in the universal insurance system. If you make higher salaries then you won't be affected.

Is that 750 EUR for an individual or a family? Sounds like a lot. For comparison in California, a 35-year-old SF resident earning $250k/yr living alone purchasing insurance through the public marketplace can get a Platinum-level Kaiser Permanente HMO plan for around $650/mo (but over $2000/mo for a family of four). YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high, and that plan comes with $0 annual deduc…

It's 14.6 % of the gross income, capped around 58k income / year. Half of that (7.3 %) is paid by the employer, the other half by the employee (deducted from monthly wage payments).

For that, kids (no matter how many) are covered unless the other parent has a private insurance. Spouses are covered if they don't have their own insurance.

Based in Germany, I'd say the best part of it is that it's truly social: The healthy ones pay for the sick ones, all with the same tariff, no questions asked. That's especially true for people who become sick, old, or both: For them, private insurances tend to raise their tariffs exponentially, and there's no way to get an affordable insurance any longer.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#340

Post by adwn »

artemonster wrote: post #329
adwn wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Wow! Do you happen to remember their names?

one remember - "magma automation". they were sued to pieces and then bought out

Thanks!

According to their Wikipedia page, they paid 12.5 M$ to settle in 2007 and continued to operate for another 4 years before being bought for half a billion USD. Not exactly what I would consider "sued to pieces" ;-)

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