I hate the fact that I agree - feeling cynical myself.

At this point when I read about $megacorp moving production to the US, I see an indication of globalization-level exploitation and profits being applied to the US labor market.

What do you expect or want to happen? Companies will pay the lowest price they can to adequately fill the role they need to fill. As everything it comes down to demand and supply. If lots of folks are available who can fill the role well, the comp is gonna be pretty low. Do you want companies to pay more just out of charity? When apples are on sale, do you ever just pay double the price because it feels fairer? The only place where we do this is with tips and that's usually already priced in.

I am not surprised, I am disappointed.

I hope that we’ll at some point consider economic models that account for externalities, for the finite nature of Earth, for our humanity.

Like the donut economics model aiming for sustainability - or a similar approach.

eg the climate is so wet/humid in Taiwan that the buildings tend to generate mold, most things are run down, and that kind of thing.

Didn't sound like a good place to live (yeah, as a generalisation), if you've got a choice in the matter.

- better wages

- US jobs

- lower price

  - extreme corporate profits
  - better wages
  - US jobs
  - lower prices

This is clearly what's happened and needs fixing, but even after that, you still have a trade off between high-paying US jobs and low consumer prices.

But the answer to that one isn't as obvious because it isn't linear. In a competitive market, competition with labor in other countries might cause you to get paid $1000/year less, but lower your cost of living by $2000/year.

Ignoring new entrants, sure. In a competitive market, shareholder returns entice new entrants. Flatten those and you lose that edge.

For many markets, the competition caveat is missing: this is something we can improve with policy. But pushing down profits for labor's sake is a false economy; it leaves the industry less resilient in a global context. Put another way, a solid repeatable business plan is finding a market leader suppressing shareholder returns and exploiting what they're missing from a separate jurisdiction.

They aren’t “job creators”.

Difficulty: answer without referring to lightly-populated and culturally-homogeneous Nordic petrostates.

… All of which are also running under capitalism.

And don't replace your iPhone every year, because now it costs 50% more.

Of course, walking back on the race to the bottom will be difficult. So I don't know how it plays out in the real world.

This flattens down the experience curve [1], meaning the technological edge advances slower. That, in turn, exposes the entire industry to more-agile competition. This is the recipe for undermining competition behind a protectionist wall: cut costs to beat bigger competition with movement and then scale.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects

Negotiating salary well is an important career skill.

The next time (2008), offer was $60k, I countered at $100k (job required relocation) and we met at $80k.

The next time (2011), offer was $110k, got $120k (relo again, this time to a tech center)

Next time (2012), offer was $125k, got $140k and more equity.

I’ve never had a job offer rescinded over it which was always something I heard about growing up.

Of course times change and ymmv.

Smaller companies are typically very willing to negotiate. It can't hurt to ask for 20% more. The worst that will happen is they'll say no.

Asking for more than 20% gets a bit risky.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a useful customer fintech company, except maybe Betterment if you ignore half the features.

Especially for something like silicon design, there is virtually zero knowledge available outside of institutions.

Sounds like nothing has changed

Related: When you look at salaries for robotics engineers who work in a factory, the salaries are so much lower than you would expect. Plus, your factory is probably in a rural area due to very cheap land prices.

One more: Anything "embedded" usually pays surprisingly low salaries considering their skill-level (much higher than mine!).

I've seldom seen a more classic example of econ bro arrogance than this comment. Apparently economics doesn't just tell us which neoliberal policies to support, it also tells us when we can be happy and sad too?

There are relatively fewer employers seeking hardware skillsets compared to employers seeking software skillsets. People may say, "there are way more software engineers though! hardware is SO hard!!" as a counter, but they don't realize there is a proportionally crazy amount of software employers out there trying to hire engineers.

Your pay is capped by what you make your employer (the ROI you mention), but actually determined by how hard it is to replace you. Hard being defined as the difference between "# of Positions" and "# of Employable People". You could make your employer 10 million a year but you won't see a dime of that if anyone on earth can replace you within 5 minutes.

The fact that rural areas pay less has more to do with lower bargaining power of the employees than it does the cost of living. If one quits, the literal million dollar question is where are they going to go work instead? The other major manufacturer out here in the middle of nowhere? "Shut up, take what you get."

If the rate hikes cause a mass startup extinction we'd see an equalization of pay.

At this point in the housing market, buying makes no sense. I wish people would stop pushing the "American dream" of NEEDING to own a home. Homeownership is not a necessity, it is a luxury.

This American dream philosophy has caused very unfair policies where people who make $60k qualify for housing assistance and can buy houses for 0 down because the govt pays for some of their down payment[0].

If I can't enjoy the luxury of owning a home, why do my tax dollars pay for that luxury for those who earn less? I'm not anti socialism at all, either. I'm just stating that home ownership is a luxury in this day and age. Pay for people to live somewhere, yes. Provide them with mental health care, yes. I don't mind my tax dollars being used for those necessities. Helping with home ownership? In a market that already has fierce competition and low inventory? It's ridiculous.

[0] https://abc7.com/amp/california-housing-finance-agency-down-...

Also, the higher the pay, the rarer the source of income, and so lower probability of replacing your income if you lose your job. That means you might want to put down more than 20% to ensure your monthly mortgage payment is still possible even if your income drops by 30% to 50%. Such as if the wife has pregnancy complications and cannot work, etc.

1. You should be paid the same regardless where you work.

2. ~150K is significantly underpaid for any programmers.

Granted, I live in a rural area, so CoL is lower, but still, that doesn't entirely balance out.

Not every tech worker works at a tech company, and not every tech worker makes bank, in either relative or absolute terms.

>> "Many high-tech companies have relocated to Fort Collins because of the resources of Colorado State University and its research facilities. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Beckman Coulter, Microsoft, Rubicon Water and Pelco all have offices in Fort Collins. Other industries include clean energy, bioscience, and agri-tech businesses."

Maybe not a hub yet, but it's headed that way. It's also only an hour away from Denver.

HP, Broadcom, Intel, and AMD used to all be on the same intersection.

Source: Used to work at the Microsoft office in Fort Collins (HoloLens group). Some of the folks I worked with were the original folks that set up the office.

Just don't be surprised when the cost-of-living ends up higher then one might expect. Housing is still a good deal by Bay Area or NYC standards, though.

You will not be able to afford much on 150K there.

4 Bed, 3 Bath 2k to 3k Square feet houses average $264 a square foot, 650k average price.

That is a great deal more affordable than my Zip code or most of the good housing areas in the Bay area

https://www.redfin.com/city/7006/CO/Fort-Collins/filter/sort...

edit: MLS = Multiple Listing Service, that thing you do when you "list" a house.

I've never seen this. Is that a required 15 overlap for shift change?

alarm response means you as a mech tech/mechanical maintenance have failed proactive or preventative work and will spend the rest of your career working mandatory overtime to fix what aint fixable anymore. the reason for this failure is nearly always management pushing for higher uptime and output. alarm response should never constitute a new factories big ticket issues.

- Automation can't easily justify higher salaries, as it is highly automated to begin with.

- The product's pricing has to be cheap too, which is going to be difficult.