231–240 of 544 posts
Such an awesome accomplishment. Also, it’s interestingly a huge black eye to the CCP: news of this Indian accomplishment will be censored in China, because it proves that nations can progress without forced-sterilization/-abortion/-1-child-policy/authoritarianism/ etc.
Why do so many people on HN hate on China? What's your relationship with Chinese people in your personal life?
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My first job was in Infosys back in 2001. Coming from a lower-middle class farming family, it was a huge deal. My monthly gross was something my dad (farmer) + mom (school teacher) would earn in an entire year. I remember my dad proudly putting a portrait of NR Narayana Murthy (founder of Infosys) on our wall - it is usually reserved for gods/ancestors or revered sages.
My FIL funded their maid’s kids education. The son got into a decent engineering school and landed a job at TCS. The daughter studied nursing and got a job at a large chain hospital. The kids bought their mom an apartment and a car. Its just amazing to watch - this woman’s mom, grandmom, aunts, uncles were all peasants or did odd trades. Now because of a single generation, the entire family could dream of middle clas…
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My first job was in Infosys back in 2001. Coming from a lower-middle class farming family, it was a huge deal. My monthly gross was something my dad (farmer) + mom (school teacher) would earn in an entire year. I remember my dad proudly putting a portrait of NR Narayana Murthy (founder of Infosys) on our wall - it is usually reserved for gods/ancestors or revered sages.
When I see Indian developers, I have in my mind that they're similar to Chinese: the whole village bands together and gather resources to give that one kid a university education and a good job, so that that one kid returns to the village many years later to help people out of poverty.
Interested in comments from anyone who lives in India or has experience/familiarity with it as to whether reality on the ground matches the rosy picture painted in the article.
I can give me 2 cents (or paisa hah), apologies if it gets a little sentimental, I am drunk. Looks like I've ascended on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Grew up in a poor family with my dad as the sole earner taking care of my mother and 3 kids. Mum used to do minor clothes repair work for neighbours for some extra money, but it wasn't much. One of my first memories is waddling along to the ration shop (cheap subsid…
Although I do fall in the FAANG engineer earning 300k+ in New York, I do believe most of us are the same(desi engineers in TCS/Infosys or on site FAANG) for whom programming/CS/tech is a passion and ambitious/adventurous/lucky to be able to get out of poverty/lower middle class, we hustle and make the best of the hand we are dealt, not everyone gets lucky to crack the FAANG lottery and clear the leetcode hoops FAANG companies throw at you. Personally I feel you should change your attitude to think the peanuts they give you is enough, of-course while keeping your humility and remembering your humble upbringing to appreciate the pay/privilege many others dont have/wont ever get just due to dumb luck, unless some crazy innovation like miniature nuclear fission reactors that give humanity potentially infinite energy and makes everyones life luxurious , in a world of finite resources and potential over population its inevitable there will some overpaid, some underpaid engineers, yet both these sets are paid significantly higher than many many others from a non engineering disciplines.
I don't understand poverty statistics. With this news, the UK now has more people living in poverty than India (16% vs 22%?). If it is valuable to judge poverty on relative income, you would think the rational course of action would be mass immigration from the UK to India but that is clearly not the case.
The severity of poverty in rich western nations is easy to underestimate. There are people in the UK who are underfed, can't afford heat, have to work multiple jobs etc. This kind of poverty does look different than poverty in India - better in some ways, but worse in others - but it is still poverty.
The data on relative poverty is hard to trust, but we also can't trust gut feelings about which countries "must" have more poverty. Perhaps it is true that UK does have a higher fraction of people in some kind of poverty.
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When I see Indian developers, I have in my mind that they're similar to Chinese: the whole village bands together and gather resources to give that one kid a university education and a good job, so that that one kid returns to the village many years later to help people out of poverty.
not villages necessarily, families look out for each other, everyone's own kin.
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But is there a greater percentage of people in UK deprived along any of those dimensions?
It must be relative to that nation. From my experience the UK IS becoming an incredibly segregated nation along economic lines. I don't find it hard to believe that 22% of the populace are in relative poverty. This is very different from absolute poverty, of which I'm sure India has a higher percentage.
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Real estate will get more expensive due to political greed than any other kind of development. The supply of real estate is artificially constrained by the political class, so any kind of development (say hypothetically manufacturing instead of software) will make it expensive. There used to be a time when new land for building houses was frequently sold by the government in the form of new "colonies", but that has c…
A big reason why Gurgaon real estate is more expensive than Bangalore despite having way more land and poorer jobs is government corruption. All those bribes and backroom deals get siphoned off to buy apartments and land. These buyers can hold forever because their cost basis is practically 0. I’m actively hunting for an apartment in NCR and get painfully reminded of how poor I actually am.
After leaving Delhi we would , after an hour or so, make our first stopover in a little village called .... Gurgaon! There we would have chai, samosas, etc. In those days Gurgaon was separated from Delhi and a sleepy little village.
When the capital expanded, those villagers became instant millionaires.
A lot of comments in this thread are crediting TCS, Infosys, etc for lifting people out of poverty, but another factor was the skyrocketing realestate prices. Small-time farmers who could barely make ends meet suddenly were sitting on million-dollar land holdings.
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India doesn't have "private" corporations which are just an extension of the state. All the mega banks in China are indistinguishable from the state - you're looking at 100% of debt to GDP on their balance sheets alone.
I think the relevant figures here would be how much of each countries' banks' balance sheets are de facto liabilities to the state. I can buy that Chinese banks incur more liability for their government than Indian banks do for theirs; I don't buy the idea that China is 100% liable for its banks' balance sheets while India is 0% liable for its banks' balance sheets.
Such a bank does not exist in the US or any major EU countries. They issue bonds and keep the debts on their balance sheets.
I'm skeptical India has any such equivalent.
The same is true for all the major banks in China. The main difference in China is that - since the bank is an extension of the state - the state directly decides who does and very importantly WHO DOES NOT get funding.
The companies that do get funding are often times GSEs. This is federal debt... Pretending otherwise is pedantic.
Sure, I'm with you - count Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's debts as the US Federal Government's debt.
India and almost every other country don't have any equivalents.