The Wage Gap 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: The Wage Gap 2

#41

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

hollywood_court wrote: post #36

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's generally peoples reaction, I should get a CC with this technique or that technique. I don't need or want credit. And yes, sometimes people try to get smart and tell me my utility bill is credit. queue massive eye roll . It's just not my thing.

Credit may not be your thing but you’re effectively losing out on a good bit of money by not having one. I don’t have an exact number in front of me, but I imagine that we receive at least $8k back annually in rewards from our various cards. The only thing that doesn’t go on a card is the electric bill because they didn’t allow it until recently. But I believe they now do so my wife will change it soon. In addition t…

The card is issued by my bank and is covered under the same consumer protection laws as your CC. Several companies have learned this the hard way.

Re: The Wage Gap 2

#42

Post by xupybd » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 8:58 PM UTC

a_imho wrote: post #38

xupybd wrote: post #35

* 2. People are paid what a replacement would cost Let’s suppose for a moment that employees are interchangeable resources without discernible differences and companies are profit maximizing entities. How is it possible under such assumptions that 2-5-10x salaries exist when 1x replacements are readily available elsewhere? To argue that people are only paid what their replacement would cost also requires an explanati…

I'm not sure what you are getting at, could you please elaborate on some of those factors?

Sure to name a few:

1) Managing remote workers is a harder task than managing in office employees.

2) Time zone differences can slow work.

3) Cultural differences can cause problems with team cohesion.

4) Tax differences add to the cost of distant employees.

Re: The Wage Gap 2

#43

Post by Our_Benefactors » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

hollywood_court wrote: post #36

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's generally peoples reaction, I should get a CC with this technique or that technique. I don't need or want credit. And yes, sometimes people try to get smart and tell me my utility bill is credit. queue massive eye roll . It's just not my thing.

Credit may not be your thing but you’re effectively losing out on a good bit of money by not having one. I don’t have an exact number in front of me, but I imagine that we receive at least $8k back annually in rewards from our various cards. The only thing that doesn’t go on a card is the electric bill because they didn’t allow it until recently. But I believe they now do so my wife will change it soon. In addition t…

This kind of thinking is a fugazi. Most people (yes even you, who pays off the card every month) are bad with money. Credit cards reduce the friction between any given transaction. This will cause you to spend more money than you would have otherwise. Generally by much more than the 2% rewards your card offers. If you are actually receiving 8k back then you’re spending like $400k per year.

Nobody got wealthy by using credit cards. The “free money” is a cheap psychological trick. I don’t have the hubris to think I’m better at resisting unnecessary spending than the marketing department at Visa who wants every extra dollar in my wallet.

What many people find, after falling into the “but I fully pay my card each month” trap, is that turning off the card after this point is difficult with their current income, because they have effectively pushed their real wages a full month into the future. Depending how heavily you’re into credit it can take several months to build up a cushion to avoid dipping into emergency funds to cut the cards for good.

Re: The Wage Gap 2

#44

Post by a_imho » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #42

a_imho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you are getting at, could you please elaborate on some of those factors?

Sure to name a few: 1) Managing remote workers is a harder task than managing in office employees. 2) Time zone differences can slow work. 3) Cultural differences can cause problems with team cohesion. 4) Tax differences add to the cost of distant employees.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree that these are valid points, but subtle differences at best and mostly solved for multinational companies. Not something that would justify such disparity in wages. On top of that there are obvious advantages to having a distributed workforce as well.

1) With hybrid work on the rise managing remote is already a task, granted there are different levels to it

2) Similarly time zone differences can be taken advantage of, there are people to handle on call during normal working hours and cover national holidays for example. Also, some kind of work not depending on cross timezone collaboration can be done faster e.g. answering customer inquiries.

3) Also there is strength in diversity. A diverse set of experiences and backgrounds can help not to be blindsided by a monoculture for instance

4) Indeed, taxation can add accounting overhead, but even if we take that into consideration local wages will still dwarf the full cost of remote teams in some cases.

While I find it plausible that someone would put more value in having local employees even in a multinational setting, I would argue that is the exception rather than the rule.