Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation • Hacker News Board

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#381

Post by nickpp » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #369

nickpp wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good point, USA healthcare has the worst kind of regulation: it did lots of damage and helped very little. But Western European countries (which you probably compare to) had an immense, unspoken advantage: an incredible supply of highly educated, unexpensive health care work force - the Eastern Europe. If you want to truly compare the healthcare of USA with Europe's please include countries like Bulgaria,…

You can't compare Eastern Europe like that, though. Romania has a GDP per capita of 1/6th the US one and it spends a pitiful percentage of its GDP on healthcare, about 5%. The US spends 18%. So the US has 18 times more money (!) for healthcare. The other ones are even worse, Moldova's GDP per capita is 1/20th the US one. So probably 30 times more money spent by the US on healthcare. It's like comparing a maglev train…

You are ignoring what EE countries spend on training countless health care workers who then emigrate and work as cheap and highly educated in the West.

And health care cost increase exponentially with quality, not linearly. Bleeding edge research and medical advances appear in the USA mostly. And mostly everybody enjoys the fruits.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#382

Post by hgomersall » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:30 AM UTC

landemva wrote: post #105

neilwilson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current price changes are due to a lack of supply, which the market is rationing. Remember firms will always try to charge a fortune for their stuff. It's only competition that stops that happening. Competition is excess supply, or at least excess supply capacity. When competition stops being effective, prices go up.

At least in USA, there is not really a shortage of natural gas or gasoline. Yet the prices have ramped up.

There is a shortage because the oil producers have realised they can ride the OPEC supply restrictions and make more money. US oil producers are not part of the cartel, but they might as well be. As always, someone does well out of inflation.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#383

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:30 AM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #276

Gareth321 wrote: post #250

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly…

did you know that in the 70s no matter how poor you were you could make a phone call for just ten cents even if your cell phone was out of power!

>and more fuel efficient

more fuel efficient is only of interest if you are talking about how much it costs to run a car. Cars are more fuel efficient now than they were in the 1970s because it costs so much more to run them.

Funny enough of course that increase in prices started in the 1970s.

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-...

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#384

Post by nickpp » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:30 AM UTC

rocgf wrote: post #377

nickpp wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good point, USA healthcare has the worst kind of regulation: it did lots of damage and helped very little. But Western European countries (which you probably compare to) had an immense, unspoken advantage: an incredible supply of highly educated, unexpensive health care work force - the Eastern Europe. If you want to truly compare the healthcare of USA with Europe's please include countries like Bulgaria,…

You want to compare the richest country in history with Moldova? I'm not sure I see the point. My point was very simple. Out of all of the world's developed countries, the USA is the one with the most expensive healthcare, despite less regulations. My point was that regulation by the government does not lead to "incredibly more expensive healthcare", as you have have stated. From there, comparing the USA to Bulgaria…

And my point was just as simple: those developed countries enjoy the benefit of cheap, educated doctors from Eastern Europe. Without them, their health care would be much more expensive.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#385

Post by mrep » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:31 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #362

nickpp wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that those regulated domains are generally much more expensive in all those countries, no?

You don't need to believe anything, you can check for yourself. The numbers are easily available online. Healthcare is 2-3-4 times >. Education is generally >. Housing is expensive outside the US, too, a bit less so. I feel the problem is not regulation in the US, it's that you half ass it. Americans are all about "rugged individualism" and "small government" when advanced societies are advanced because large groups…

The US has the 3rd lowest housing price to income ratio [0]. You just need to avoid the west coast and northeast and you can find plenty of affordable housing [1].

[0]: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...

[1]: https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#386

Post by guerrilla » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:31 AM UTC

Jenk wrote: post #298

toyg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a non-American, it's heartbreaking to see efforts to unify the underclass completely derailed by this ridiculous race war. Yeah, well, it's not like things are much better in Europe. Far-right parties are now mainstream in most major EU countries, and their n.1 priority is exactly the same. Signed, a Brexit victim.

That's a country specific problem, not a Europe problem. I don't mean just Brexit for the UK, either. What does happen in Europe is far-right parties get a platform to speak on. The big continental countries have an election process that lets everyone be heard, and the far-right get heard plenty - allowing the electorate to smell their bullshit. In the UK we don't have such elections. We have a two horse race, and to…

> allowing the electorate to smell their bullshit.

You need to look at the numbers. Far-right parties are growing everywhere in Europe... One is nearly the largest party in Sweden.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#387

Post by meragrin_ » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

Shish2k wrote: post #333

ergocoder wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google HR answered this question in a company-wide forum. It is mostly the market (e.g. the other company pay high, so we do too). The living cost doesn't really matter. I appreciate the honesty though.

Facebook HR also got the same question (with the same answer) in the company-wide forum this week. Did I miss some big news story that’s causing this to be on everybody’s mind recently?

It isn't one specific thing. It is just an entire year of shortages and higher prices with no end in sight. I was promoted and received a decent raise this year. With previous raises outside the standard yearly raise, there was a difference. With this one, just treading water.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#388

Post by tsimionescu » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:33 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #321

abbassi wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting points; there is a scientific clarity in your analysis. But, I would like to add a point: the reality is that the production is in global scale now, the production has no borders, races, nationalities, but the capital has its local interests. The working class is a global class, while bourgeoisie is a local class. But since the bourgeoisie is the dominant class, it makes the working class divided. Li…

Imports are only ~15% of the US GDP, they really don’t explain wage stagnation.

A lot of work is moving abroad without becoming imports. US companies own significant chunks of the services and R&D workforce the world over. Even in production, it's not uncommon for a US company to buy a factory rather than importing goods produced in that factory.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#389

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #331

throwawaycities wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. The answer to the question of “are we better of than we were in 19xx” is somewhat subjective. Take your points: cars are faster/safer/more comfortable/more fuel efficient and houses are bigger and better. Ok so cars and houses are better today than 1970, but how does that relate to us? 1970 Average salary/median house cost/median…

I have a circa 1970 car, and a modern car. The 1970 car is very cheaply built, and is mechanically simple. The quality, complexity, and sheer number of parts of a modern car has increased enormously. Much of that is due to regulation, most every aspect of a car is heavily regulated today. None of this comes for free.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reasons the modern car has more parts and is not mechanically simple is not the boogeyman of regulations (although I suppose it could have caused some things like say seat belt alerts and airbags) but rather feature creep in the automotive industry, and computerization of everything.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#390

Post by nickpp » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #370

nickpp wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is "free" anywhere - it's just paid from a different pocket. From people's taxes in those "other" countries. And the quality of state-provided healthcare is significantly worse than in US. Most people with means get private medical insurance skipping the one purchased by their taxes entirely. Eastern Europe has two huge problem completely overshadowing their advantage from less regulation: a strong culture of…

If the tax burden is 10% more but you pay 2-3-4-10x less, your point is moot. And countries with comparable stats like waiting times pay less overall. Don't die on this hill, it's not worth it.

Living in Eastern Europe, I am paying both the tax burden AND private medical insurance and care since I do not want to end up in state hospitals. I would much rather live in the USA and pay private insurance enjoying the standard of care there.

It's the hill I live on, so I will probably die here.