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Actual is going open-source

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Re: Actual is going open-source

#321

Post by leaflets2 »

nine_k wrote: post #273
potatochup wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP but I'd love to do something that contributes to the local community in a more tangible way than my current $BIGTECH job. I'd love to start a dance studio, a cafe/bookstore, a makerspace. But it'd be a huge pay cut, assuming I could even make a successful business out of it.

Your paying higher taxes contributes likely more to the community than another store. Your paying a local charity usually does much more to the community than even running a gym. If you run a store or a cafe by just paying locals to work in it, using a part of your high wages, it's pretty helpful. But see the charity above; maybe it's better to support e.g. educators. In general, your community is never better off if…

Using the money to pay others to start more local schools, maybe a free coding bootcamp (with entrance tests), maybe maybe could be a high impact thing to do?

Or a charity yes (unless of course it's sth like a SPA for dogs)

Re: Actual is going open-source

#322

Post by xtracto »

leaflets2 wrote: post #320
dzikimarian wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in his country put food on family table without US-level software developer salary. It's hard to lower expectations of life quality, but let's not dramatize.

Isn't everyone nitpicking at the word "insurmountable" :-) What if it wasn't meant to be taken literally

Lol i came back to my comment and saw this thread... English is not my first language so you are right, I'm sorry my choice of word got people worked up.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#323

Post by xtracto »

cortesoft wrote: post #256
xtracto wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whitexican problems we call it here in Mexico: I'm in a similar position. 6 digit USD salary while living in Mexico. My problem is that I've been wanting to setup a business: real life like a gym, a store or similar. The issue is that there's no way I'll get as much money as what I'm earning now... and I know building the business will require insurmountable efforts. So I'm reduced to keep working in IT, wait until m…

I am curious… why do you want to start a business? It seems like so much work for less pay. Why is the option of working until you retire early a bad thing?

It's just because I've been working in Technology all my life. I've got a PhD in CompSci, I've grown the tech teams of 2 startups, I've worked in different areas... and I just dont really find it that fulfilling anymore. The pay is outrageously good... but at this point it's mainly just that. After 20 years of doing it, it just isnt the same.

Maybe it's just the "midlife crisis"

Re: Actual is going open-source

#324

Post by leaflets2 »

rglullis wrote: post #166
daenz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably a controversial thing to say, but based on your and other comments in this thread, it seems like the social safety nets aren't worth the lower salaries. Or are they? It seems like non-Americans in this thread are unhappy that their ceilings are lower.

The Welfare State is meant to be a stabilizing force to avoid social unrest and to guarantee that the elites can enjoy their power/status but at least not destroy the fabric of society completely. The Welfare State is not meant to be "worth it". You can not think of it as something that has a ROI, because it is not an investment. It is insurance. With that said: my net salary may be less than half of my American coun…

> The Welfare State is meant to be a stabilizing force to avoid social unrest and to guarantee that the elites can enjoy their power/status

Those are your beliefs, not facts.

The Welfare State exists because some politicians genuinely care about people and want to help those who fall ill or have a divorce and no where to live or lose their job etc.

Not all politicians are calculating sociopaths.

> You can not think of it as something that has a ROI,

Say that to the people in the US dying from cancer because they cannot afford the expensive treatments. Or a researcher 70+ years old, but who cannot retire (although he's 70+), because then he couldn't afford his medications.

Or youths without money to study at University.

Quite odd beliefs and ideas you've ended up with, from my perspective.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#325

Post by leaflets2 »

daenz wrote: post #162
maccard wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite a generally higher cost of living in Europe, salaries across the board are lower. A £100k salary in the UK puts you in the 96th percentile for example. It's not just engineers, it's everyone.

This is probably a controversial thing to say, but based on your and other comments in this thread, it seems like the social safety nets aren't worth the lower salaries. Or are they? It seems like non-Americans in this thread are unhappy that their ceilings are lower.

> seems like non-Americans in this thread are unhappy that their ceilings are lower.

Maybe a few men here who would want to maximize their income, save for the future? Seems like a good idea,

Still, they're a bubble and not representative of people in general.

Have a look, happiest countries:

https://www.google.com/search?q=happiest+countries

Re: Actual is going open-source

#326

Post by r0rshrk »

mellosouls wrote: post #48
codegeek wrote: post #25

"I completely underestimated how much work it takes to build a business. There's so much overhead. I'm always figuring out why a build failed, taxes, how to triage issues, responding to support, designing UIs, responding to Apple's complaints, and more. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's no way a single person can possible do this alone, especially as a side project." This is the part that resona…

you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy Some of these claims seem to come from people living on a different planet to me. Yes you can make that, but only if you are in a tiny (and normally very privileged) set. The way it's breezily posted on this forum at times shows perhaps just a leeetle disconnect with the mainstream tech world

I come from a very poor part of the world, and know people worse off than me be able to reach this position via hard work. So, in my personal opinion, I'm inclined to believe GP in this instance.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#327

Post by rglullis »

leaflets2 wrote: post #324
rglullis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Welfare State is meant to be a stabilizing force to avoid social unrest and to guarantee that the elites can enjoy their power/status but at least not destroy the fabric of society completely. The Welfare State is not meant to be "worth it". You can not think of it as something that has a ROI, because it is not an investment. It is insurance. With that said: my net salary may be less than half of my American coun…

> The Welfare State is meant to be a stabilizing force to avoid social unrest and to guarantee that the elites can enjoy their power/status Those are your beliefs, not facts. The Welfare State exists because some politicians genuinely care about people and want to help those who fall ill or have a divorce and no where to live or lose their job etc. Not all politicians are calculating sociopaths. > You can not think o…

> help those who fall ill or have a divorce and no where to live or lose their job etc.

In other words: insurance.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#328

Post by [deleted] »

daenz wrote: post #313
junon wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the lady at Uber who was being paid 250k who used Edit>Copy/Paste to paste lines of Python from Notepad into a REPL and got confused with extraneous whitespace errors in order to prove to me that some python doesn't work (even though it did) with a position of "Staff Engineer 1" certainly deserved it more than almost literally everyone else I've worked with. Skillset has nothing to do with this problem.

I think I know what the problem is now.

[deleted]

Re: Actual is going open-source

#329

Post by setr »

xtracto wrote: post #323
cortesoft wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious… why do you want to start a business? It seems like so much work for less pay. Why is the option of working until you retire early a bad thing?

It's just because I've been working in Technology all my life. I've got a PhD in CompSci, I've grown the tech teams of 2 startups, I've worked in different areas... and I just dont really find it that fulfilling anymore. The pay is outrageously good... but at this point it's mainly just that. After 20 years of doing it, it just isnt the same. Maybe it's just the "midlife crisis"

I used to be told:

The first 25 years to improve yourself

The second 25 years to improve your family

The third 25 years to improve your community

The final 25 years to improve everyone

It sounds like you're just reaching the third stage of life :-)

Re: Actual is going open-source

#330

Post by blumomo »

klausa wrote: post #302
derhagen wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year." Oh boy, that's one of those misconceptions I'm really sick of. "The tax is so high, I pay almost half of my salary to the greedy state". No, you certainly don't! And if everyone please spent 5 minutes to understand the difference between the effective tax rate and the marginal tax rate , we'd finally get rid…

On the contrary, the OP has got it right (perhaps accidentally), and you're the one confusing things. You're correct that taxes, insurance, and pensions are different things, but in the context of "what amount of money arrives in your bank account at the end of the month", I find it a distinction without a difference. Plugging in a 100k brutto salary into https://www.bbx.de/brutto-netto-rechner/ , yields 57k of take…

I explicitly said “tax (including insurances)” to make it clear that for a simple calculations of the money that doesn’t reach your bank account. Now in Germany the percentage of income that goes to health insurance is dictated by government, currently around 15%. While insurance is not tax, i’d dictated by government how much to pay, makes no big difference to a tax either.
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