281–290 of 583 posts
At the same time, regular people have had their salaries continuously diluted and are now losing jobs by the millions. I think it's not good to brag about ones' income when it is based on the theft of others'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the effective marginal tax rate at 67% for regular income in Sweden, excluding VAT and other point taxes, the only real possible method is to start a company.
So just doing some cursory research - and I admit, I'm not Swedish - 67% seems to be on the high side as far as EMTR estimates go. So I think you'd need to make a pretty hefty amount of money in Sweden to pay that much. Wikipedia, for instance, claims that the EMTR for an income of over 675 000 SEK is only 60%; Glassdoor tells me the average software engineer in Stockholm makes ~500 000 SEK (though Glassdoor estimate…
What is important to the remember which most Swedes tend to forget is the payroll tax at 31.42% on the employer side.
To see how it evolves across incomes see this page (in Swedish)
https://www.ekonomifakta.se/fakta/skatter/skatt-pa-arbete/ma...
Here's 2 questions for the "FIRE" crowd. 1) To stop working when you hit a certain number seems to me to be falling into the faulty logic illustrated in Freakonomics -- when a taxi driver works every day towards a certain $ figure, he suffers on crappy days (keeps on driving to little benefit) when fares are just not coming, and cuts off his earnings on great days where business is pouring in like crazy. Instead, you…
Those questions reflect your life more than OP's. Is your life so meaningless and boring outside work that you'd have nothing to do when you retire? If the answer is yes you should seriously re-evaluate your approach to life. At least get some hobbies!
So, what do I gain when I stop working? My friends still will work, and I'm just going to have 8 hours in a day when there's no one to do fun stuff.
> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I’ve been very privileged, especially in the educational opportunities I’ve had. This might sound reasonable from a US-centric perspective, but to me it reads like utter nonsense. The main privilege here is access to the US labor market and tax policy. There are no stories like this one where I live (in Sweden). Absolutely none.
I do not understand why articles like these consistently score poorly on HN? Of course it’s all based on luck, but that doesn’t make it an uninteresting read. I admire the diligence of the author, and how well they played the lucky cards they were given. I am frequently in awe when reading technical articles on HN, with people advancing the state of the art in some technology. Those people also are incredibly lucky,…
The reason why I think these articles score poorly is because I think my reaction is like most reactions (not all, but most). I read the article, saw the salary table, did an eyeroll, and then skimmed the rest. The article can be summed up as "get a high paying job in a career that requires technical skills, save more than you spend, and invest what you save". Did I miss anything in that summarization?
For example he talks about interviewing every 3 years, and keeping your interview skills sharp. Specifically he says Practicing your interview skills is the best financial investment you can make
This IMO is the best way to grow your compensation, the way companies structure their compensation is often at odds with inflation and market conditions. If you're not regularly checking your market value via interviews, you will become underpaid.
Again I didn't learn anything I didn't know already, but I think this does a good job of giving tactical advice to someone unfamiliar with the concept of a achieving financial independence via high tech.
Here's 2 questions for the "FIRE" crowd. 1) To stop working when you hit a certain number seems to me to be falling into the faulty logic illustrated in Freakonomics -- when a taxi driver works every day towards a certain $ figure, he suffers on crappy days (keeps on driving to little benefit) when fares are just not coming, and cuts off his earnings on great days where business is pouring in like crazy. Instead, you…
Sees initial salary in 2009 (peak recession) was $100,000 Sees last salary was $625,000 Chuckles and closes the article about achieving financial independence
The article gives some general advice on how to manage your personal wealth. Probably the exact figures could have been expressed as percentage increases to give the article more appeal. However, for budding engineers in the early stage of their career it gives some idea of what is potentially achievable (in US).
If anything, some of the advice doesn't make any sense. Like, saving extremely on the low income. Whatever he has saved in the first six years of his career would be offset by just working one year more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find your comment incredibly pedantic (just my opinion, no offense). In my opinion, a practical matter is a single person (specifically, one of my peers in my home country complaining about my compensation without taking any action) deciding to make sacrifices to immigrate to the US. A non-practical matter is worrying about everyone in my home country deciding to do the same.
I don't see what's pedantic about it. Do you believe someone who were to try to take the same path as you could have the same financial outcome today? How would it change if they couldn't get to the USA?
Yes, I do believe that, the odds of legally entering the US with a CS degree are still largely the same of when I entered a few years ago and are reasonably attainable with enough perseverance over a few years, there are different academic and worker visas that can all be used to get a foot in the door. Also, the job demand is significantly higher today than it used to be a few years ago. New grads can make $200k+ compensation, my comp as a new grad was like $35k and I still did fine.
Naturally going down this path will require significant sacrifices, as per my original comment. You need to be willing to be very frugal and likely move away from parents, friends and family, and not knowing for many years what your final immigration status will be (as you move from temporary visas to permanent visas to green card etc.). In my case, it also means no kids, no car, etc. (similar life as the author, I assume).
My whole point, let’s please not forget, is that on average people are not willing to make the above sacrifices but they still like to loudly complain when folks share articles like this one.
> How would it change if they couldn't get to the USA?
The odds are good they will, in my opinion. If they won’t, there are other options. Sampling my friends:
- if you are slightly more entrepreneurial, move to another tax-favorable country like Malta (similar tax rates as US) and contract with American companies, with financial outcomes largely similar to mine.
- if you just want a typical employee experience, Canada is also a really good option that many of my European friends who didn’t want to go through the US immigration gauntlet chose, and they are doing very well.
Once again, all these decisions take sacrifices but they are relatively attainable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The modern "progressive" thought-process is to feel guilty about having a good education. I went to private school in the UK and the only thing I feel is infinite gratitude to my parents for forking-out the money to send me there (they were not rich, they were both teachers).
> good education "Good" education alone is not a meaningful predictor of anything, in Europe at least. So the guilt is about receiving the correct credentials to be granted further access to jobs and opportunities. It seems in UK/USA, "good education" is used as a euphemism for "received privilege".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With that income? Sure, if kids came into the picture during the last day 3-4 years it would increase his expenses, but he’d presumably also have another income, at least for a few years? I don’t disagree that for middle income earners kids are a huge expense, but when you’re making $350,000+ each year, $30,000 for childcare isn’t a dramatic expense. Same with all the incidentals.
The biggest expense is college, at least in the U.S. If you retire before they apply, you may want to be conservative and set aside the cost of the most expensive college. MIT is $77k/year [1]. For two kids, that's $616k. And it increases faster than inflation, estimate 6%/yr. If you have enough money in the bank that you're financially independent, they won't qualify for need based aid, you'll have to pay the sticke…