421–430 of 974 posts
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Wow, I had no idea
It's not insane - it's pretty common in most developed countries. The US is a major outlier.
I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…
What happens when the government doesn't have enough money to pay for retirement anymore? The system works well when you have growing workforce and productivity. It doesn't work with growing number of retirees and shrinking active workforce.
A disaster would mean I get perhaps 60 or 70 or 80% if my projected pension - but I’d live ok on that too. I’m not saving nothing personally, it’s just where I live you usually have to invest in a house if you want one. So the situation is you trust either the pension system or the housing market to hold up. If both were to fail I’d have problems.
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So maybe the real answer to the question is that European tech companies are just not making a lot of money?
Probably this I only know Finland tech scene but eg lot of Nokia engineers did FAANG like salaries in 2000s and there is now couple unicorns here where senior employees do very well.
From world market leader to out of business in 7 years.
I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…
I'm kind of surprised by the idea of saving nothing for your children. Is it a symptom of the dog eat dog American system of capitalism that it seems kinda wild to me? I guess if you can be certain that their fundamental needs will be met, it isn't as important. But in the US your life can be pretty crap, even if not abject developing world style poverty.
But I don’t need to save for their education or anything like that. I don’t save explicitly in their name.
I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…
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A lot of folks here are calling out the lower pay for SWEs in Europe and Canada as a failure - but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. Well, this is a lot like the housing conversation in the US. "I want my house to go up in value, and be a great investment!" Also: "Why…
Paying laborers more does not lead to the kind of inequality we see. "You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money." Very few of even FAANG-level salaries are high enough to put them in the same bucket as the people who wield power through their wealth. Paying the entire field of SWE laborers even 50% more salary is not going to appreciably change the inequality g…
Also European work days are much shorter. A key reason American software developers earn more is because they work a lot more hours.
Last time I checked this I think I concluded I had much better hourly salary here in Europe than in the US because work weeks where crazy in the US. Not to mention much shorter vacations. I got 6 weeks full paid vacation with plenty of national holidays on top, and long paternity leave for each kid.
It is unrealistic for why we should have the same pay as Americans with all the benefits we enjoy.
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That does not answer the question. Why should someone's income depend on their output? Why is that the ethically correct outcome?
Why did you automatically bring "ethics" into this discussion? The person you replied to was probably using the word 'should' in reference to some other objective.
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Trives of neanderthals were very equal too. Obviously you have to compare apples to apples
Read "Sapiens" 35 hour working week as a hunter gather is far preferable to the 60 + home chores of the homo softwaricus.
I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…
You are taking a risk. The risk is that you assume your government will be able to provide you with a comfortable life even when you can no longer work. And when the time comes for your children to get higher education and retire themselves eventually you hope the government will also be there to step in. It works, until it doesn't. In America you can compensate yourself for this risk by simply getting a job where yo…