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Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

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Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#71

Post by xyzzy123 »

LPisGood wrote: post #41
xyzzy123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this complaint hard to square when US developers earn "moon money" compared to both: a) fields requiring similar levels of expertise like EE or Mech-E and b) international developers in similar roles. Plus, equity. [GIF of Woody Harrelson wiping tears with money]

Professional athletes and pilots have unions. They both make considerably more than your average programmer, even in FAANG and even with equity.

These "unions" in high paying fields behave more like guilds or cartels than worker's unions - they generally restrict supply. Athletes and Hollywood unions are sort of special cases too, IMHO. I don't think it's reasonable to claim that top earners in those fields earn so much because of their unions - they benefit from natural supply restriction of outliers.

For unions to be as effective in tech as for say pilots or doctors, you'd have to agree on a way to restrict supply (H1B restrictions, more licensing and credentialling etc) to give the union leverage. You have to control the supply taps and rate limit entry to the field.

I think it's hard to say if this would net out better for workers than the current arrangements, which are already the best in the world on nearly every metric.

It also seems like there's a timing issue - if tech workers DID successfully unionise enough to withhold a meaningful fraction of labour, the gains might ultimately end up in the market cap of AI companies via substitution.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#73

Post by culi »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #62
greesil wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital, politicians, conservatives, libertarians,

We’ve gotta add American Liberals, majority of Democratic Party to the list. The Sanders faction is unfortunately not yet the prevailing force.

Around the world "liberal" is synonymous with "capitalist". US is pretty unique in that it considers liberalism a leftwing ideology

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#74

Post by gloxkiqcza »

arjie wrote: post #49
Adiqq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to common people. Decommodification of life. There's no money for public investments, but there is always money for wars. There's no money for raises and bonuses for workers, until workers show there's no company without them. So, if there's no money for public invest…

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

In an ideal capitalistic world billionaires are people that provide most value to society, yes. In the real world it’s questionable to say the least because they usually do not do fair win-win business, they do cutthroat “I’m gonna abuse my position to the absolute limit, what are you gonna do about it, you have no other choice” business. People that don’t do that don’t end up billionaires because they can’t compete with those that do.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#75

Post by recursivedoubts »

aetherspawn wrote: post #47
Adiqq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to common people. Decommodification of life. There's no money for public investments, but there is always money for wars. There's no money for raises and bonuses for workers, until workers show there's no company without them. So, if there's no money for public invest…

Engineers are awful at advocating for themselves, and that’s why they study and work twice as hard as lawyers and finance, have less perks (travel, food, cars, private offices) yet they get paid half as much.

Most engineers who advocate for themselves would simply be fired. Job hopping was the way to get your salary up fast previously.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#76

Post by throwaway894345 »

arjie wrote: post #49
Adiqq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to common people. Decommodification of life. There's no money for public investments, but there is always money for wars. There's no money for raises and bonuses for workers, until workers show there's no company without them. So, if there's no money for public invest…

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

Billionaires extract a vast amount from the economy and pay a tiny fraction of that back in. It’s not “creating value” to replace millions of middle class retail jobs across the country with tens or hundreds of thousands of largely poverty line jobs and parking the delta in shareholder investment accounts.

Without billionaires, money stays in the community where it circulates (workers and small business owners make money and they spend it). With billionaires it is extracted from the communities and hoarded in investment accounts a thousand miles away.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#77

Post by ai_slop_hater »

Carrok wrote: post #64
arjie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. I truly cannot believe that anyone with an ounce of empathy or integrity could possibly believe a statement as absurd as this.

Why is this absurd?

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#78

Post by saghm »

arjie wrote: post #49
Adiqq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to common people. Decommodification of life. There's no money for public investments, but there is always money for wars. There's no money for raises and bonuses for workers, until workers show there's no company without them. So, if there's no money for public invest…

People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we ha…

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create.

That's certainly an opinion that some people have, but as the parent comment stated, companies don't run without employees, so the idea that the value created is solely attributed to the founders or other executives is not an empircal fact like you're claiming it is. There's no scientific formula for "how much of this result of a bunch of actions that multiple people took over the course of a few years is attributed to each of the people"; the only way to have any sort of objective delineation of that like you're describing is if you already bake in assumptions of how valuable each piece is before you've started, which just moves the opinions one later deeper.

I can't prove you wrong any more than you can prove the parent commenter wrong, because what you've said is based on so many premises that I fundamentally agree with that seem like universal laws to you.

Re: Samsung chip workers will get an average $340k bonus as AI profits soar

#80

Post by throwaway894345 »

arjie wrote: post #69
Carrok wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. I truly cannot believe that anyone with an ounce of empathy or integrity could possibly believe a statement as absurd as this.

Disbelief rarely alters reality. Eppur si muove.

Stating something as fact doesn’t make it so. :shrug:
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