In my experience with working with foreign developers, specifically those in eastern Europe, real talent can easily command SF-level compensation from companies that pay SF-level compensation in the US. Employers often get what they pay for when they think that outsourcing means that they'll get equivalent quality work, just with lower costs.

IMO these acronyms have reached the point where they don't really serve a purpose.

If you can't tie your actions directly to cost savings or revenue increases you're just blowing smoke up your manager's ass about value created anyway. It's all hand-wavey negotiation and negotiation is almost entirely based around leverage.

Salaries aren’t high in the bay because houses are expensive. Houses are expensive because salaries are high. There happens to be a concentration of talented and highly compensated people there. That doesn’t mean they will settle for less elsewhere.