The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing) • Hacker News Board

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#211

Post by lostmsu » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 12:54 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #122

lumost wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this over-estimates the amount required to live a luxurious life in perpetuity. Consider the case of someone wishing to live a luxury lifestyle in the trendy lower east side neighborhood of manhattan. We'll use a 1300 sqft 3 bedroom condo as a baseline. https://www.redfin.com/NY/New-York/455-FDR-Dr-10002/unit-B30... This condo will cost 8k/month with a 20% downpayment at todays interest rates, leaving our hyp…

If anyone wants an extremely simplified "when can I retire given x expenses and y income" calculator, I threw together one here: https://html.non.io/simple-retirement-calculator/ Screenshot with op's scenario: https://image.non.io/7865a80e-d1e7-4437-b983-9101ed023024.we... (assumes a 4% safe withdrawal rate, I suspect op is using 3%).

> 1,830 monthly HOA fee

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#212

Post by jedberg » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:02 AM UTC

lex-lightning wrote: post #206

jedberg wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make widgets. I work 8 hours and make 8 widgets. In my spare time I make a machine to make widgets for me. I've finished my machine, and it can make 16 widgets in 8 hours as long as I turn the crank. So I sit and turn the crank for 8 hours a day and make 16 widgets. Am I immoral yet? I just doubled my productivity for the same amount of work. Now I pay someone to turn the crank for me. They work 8 hours and I give…

In the first case no, in the second yes. Great that you reduced the need to work. You are a hero to society. Not great to use that as a reason to control others.

How am I controlling others? They are willingly turning the crank. They still get 8 widgets and they do less work than if they built the widgets themselves.

Everyone is doing better in this scenario than when I was building the widgets alone.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#213

Post by danbruc » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

lex-lightning wrote: post #168

danbruc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, you work for one hour, you get to consume stuff that requires one hour of work to produce. I don't care if you work your ass off for some time and then retire early or if you work very little or very much as long as your consume at most a proportional amount.

What about different working conditions? Is one hour in a coal mine the same as one hour as an actor? What if a person has a debilitating illness that prevents them from working but is also expensive to take care of?

Come on, people have written thousands of pages about economy over centuries, I wrote a few sentences here. Of course there are differences between working conditions, individual abilities, and whatnot, that is why I wrote to a first approximation. You are not really expecting that I say something about every possible aspect and edge case in the comments here?

Let us justify why some high ranking managers deserve to retire wealthy after a couple of years while their employees at the factory floor have to work for the rest of their lives while never coming close to the wealth of their higher management.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#214

Post by danbruc » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:20 AM UTC

rangestransform wrote: post #202

danbruc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, you work for one hour, you get to consume stuff that requires one hour of work to produce. I don't care if you work your ass off for some time and then retire early or if you work very little or very much as long as your consume at most a proportional amount.

Nice, the labour theory of value and the lump of labour fallacy lumped into one

I might be wrong, but is the labour theory of work not supposed to explain how value works in the economy and is criticised for not making the right predictions? I am not saying that this is how the economy works, I am saying that this is how it should work, that it would be fair to exchange an hour of work for an hour of work. Whether this is actually realizable, is another question, because there is more to prices than the amount of work spent.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#215

Post by lex-lightning » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:25 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #213

lex-lightning wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about different working conditions? Is one hour in a coal mine the same as one hour as an actor? What if a person has a debilitating illness that prevents them from working but is also expensive to take care of?

Come on, people have written thousands of pages about economy over centuries, I wrote a few sentences here. Of course there are differences between working conditions, individual abilities, and whatnot, that is why I wrote to a first approximation. You are not really expecting that I say something about every possible aspect and edge case in the comments here? Let us justify why some high ranking managers deserve to…

[flagged]

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#216

Post by danbruc » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:27 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #212

lex-lightning wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the first case no, in the second yes. Great that you reduced the need to work. You are a hero to society. Not great to use that as a reason to control others.

How am I controlling others? They are willingly turning the crank. They still get 8 widgets and they do less work than if they built the widgets themselves. Everyone is doing better in this scenario than when I was building the widgets alone.

Sure, everyone [1] is better off, but that just sets the bar too low. You and the other guy each turn the crank for four hours, that is the fair outcome. If you insist, you get a couple of extra widgets for inventing and building the machine.

You spend a week building the machine, time worth 40 widgets, but you want - ignoring your finite lifetime - infinite compensation for that, free widgets forever for a 40 widget investment.

[1] A bit nitpicking, in the exact case you presented, the other guy might not actually be notably better off. Instead of manually making eight widgets for himself - assuming he is as skilled as you - per day, he now spends four hours making his widgets and then four more hours making your widgets. This can of course easily be tuned to actually make him better of or that might already be the case if turning the crank also improves the working conditions over the manual process.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#217

Post by jedberg » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:31 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #216

jedberg wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How am I controlling others? They are willingly turning the crank. They still get 8 widgets and they do less work than if they built the widgets themselves. Everyone is doing better in this scenario than when I was building the widgets alone.

Sure, everyone [1] is better off, but that just sets the bar too low. You and the other guy each turn the crank for four hours, that is the fair outcome. If you insist, you get a couple of extra widgets for inventing and building the machine. You spend a week building the machine, time worth 40 widgets, but you want - ignoring your finite lifetime - infinite compensation for that, free widgets forever for a 40 widget…

Wouldn't my time be better spent inventing more widget making machines to improve the lives of everyone around me?

Why is both of us turning the crank for four hours the ideal and fair outcome?

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#218

Post by lex-lightning » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 1:46 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #217

danbruc wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, everyone [1] is better off, but that just sets the bar too low. You and the other guy each turn the crank for four hours, that is the fair outcome. If you insist, you get a couple of extra widgets for inventing and building the machine. You spend a week building the machine, time worth 40 widgets, but you want - ignoring your finite lifetime - infinite compensation for that, free widgets forever for a 40 widget…

Wouldn't my time be better spent inventing more widget making machines to improve the lives of everyone around me? Why is both of us turning the crank for four hours the ideal and fair outcome?

Are you better at inventing than the worker is?

Are your subsequent inventions better than the art they create?

Do we really need double the widgets?

I mean, the top post on this site yesterday was a self-balancing cube someone invented. This is precisely the community that should understand that inventions for inventions’ sake aren’t necessarily improving anything.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#219

Post by danbruc » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 2:07 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #217

danbruc wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, everyone [1] is better off, but that just sets the bar too low. You and the other guy each turn the crank for four hours, that is the fair outcome. If you insist, you get a couple of extra widgets for inventing and building the machine. You spend a week building the machine, time worth 40 widgets, but you want - ignoring your finite lifetime - infinite compensation for that, free widgets forever for a 40 widget…

Wouldn't my time be better spent inventing more widget making machines to improve the lives of everyone around me? Why is both of us turning the crank for four hours the ideal and fair outcome?

What then is a more fair outcome in your original scenario where producing widgets was the only activity?

If you keep working, making other inventions, that is a completely different scenario. That you should do your share of crank turning only applies to the scenario where turning the crank is the only work that needs to be done.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#220

Post by jedberg » Tue, Feb 13, 2024, 2:14 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #219

jedberg wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't my time be better spent inventing more widget making machines to improve the lives of everyone around me? Why is both of us turning the crank for four hours the ideal and fair outcome?

What then is a more fair outcome in your original scenario where producing widgets was the only activity? If you keep working, making other inventions, that is a completely different scenario. That you should do your share of crank turning only applies to the scenario where turning the crank is the only work that needs to be done.

Clearly crank turning isn't the only job, since machine inventing must exist as another possible job.

But even if the machine is the only invention that will ever be made, it's still not fair that we each crank the handle the same amount of time, because I invented the machine. I built the machine and presumably spent my widget money on making the machine. My contribution was amassing the capital and resources to make the machine. I should get some benefit from that.