5 ms·

I find it hilarious that the answer to this isn't obvious. This is 2016. Tech workers are the American elites. Did you think elites were still guys with a mon

by CPLX 10y ago

I find it hilarious that the answer to this isn't obvious. This is 2016. Tech workers are the American elites. Did you think elites were still guys with a monacle sitting in a drawing room that overlooks a coal mine or something?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ryanlm 10y ago
Is that so? Why would tech workers be considered elite?
zanny 10y ago
> Tech workers are the American elites. I don't have any congressmen on speeddial to get whatever I want passed through the next pork barrel bill in Congress, what am I doing wrong?
- lisper 10y ago
  You aren't writing checks. Send a Congressman $1000 (that's really all it takes to get their attention) and you'll be amazed how responsive they will come. Senators are a little more expensive, but still reasonably priced at $2-5k. Presidential candidates are in the low five digits.
  - dimino 10y ago
    Tech workers probably want to put that $1,000 into their homes, or into their kid's savings, or pay down some of that student loan debt. I'm a tech worker and I don't honestly see a near-term future where I would throw $2,000 at a senator to talk to them about, say, net neutrality. I've got all kinds of things I'm saving for! My boat isn't going to drain me of my earnings by itself!
    - lisper 10y ago
      Everyone needs to decide on their priorities in life. If you want political influence (or at least the illusion of political influence) you can have it for a pretty modest price. If you want real political influence of the sort that will actually let you move the needle on something like net neutrality then you need to be writing much bigger checks. $1k will buy you half an hour on the phone will a congressman who will pretend to listen to you. But to actually influence policy you need budgets in the 6-7 digits because you have to repeat the process across many dozens of congressmen and senators.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > You aren't writing checks. Send a Congressman $1000 (that's really all it takes to get their attention) and you'll be amazed how responsive they will come. Senators are a little more expensive, but still reasonably priced at $2-5k. Presidential candidates are in the low five digits. Except for the first, all of those numbers are (or state a range that includes) amounts that exceed the limit for a single donors campaign donations for a single election cycle to a single candidate. Having to return your donation because accepting it will exceed the legal limit may get a candidate to notice you, but perhaps more as someone who they need to be careful around to avoid scandal than anything else.
    - lisper 10y ago
      You give the legal limit to the candidate directly, and the rest goes to their super-PAC.
- ebiester 10y ago
  You're not giving the max ($2700 for primary, $2700 for general) each election and gathering up a dozen people who give $1,000+ donations. This would likely be enough to get one congresscritter to look your way, at least.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Yup. $2700 for a primary, $2700 for a general election. Now consider how much of the country could conceivably throw $5400 at something like that without significant sacrifice, and "elite" starts to make a lot more sense.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      The elites in terms of expenditure-driven political influence are people whose expenditures far exceed the legal limit on direct donations (because they'll do that for more than one candidate in a cycle, plus giving money to entities like the party congressional/senate campaign committees, and the party national committees, and politically active interest groups, interest group PACs, and candidate- and issue-focused SuperPACs, and, in some cases, carefully structuring transactions to give goods and services directly to candidates and office holders while skirting bribery and corruption laws.)
      - eropple 10y ago
        I'm well aware, thank you. But if you max out your average Congressman and ask for a meeting, you get it. You will be invited to events--including ones that are not donation-expected for years after the fact, and your congressman will almost certainly know you by name, if not face. This is not a great system, but many tech workers can get into that circle if it's something that matters to them.
jazzyk 10y ago
>Tech workers are the American elites Apparently I did not get the memo. </sarcasm>
dragonwriter 10y ago
> This is 2016. Tech workers are the American elites. No, they aren't. The American elites aren't workers, they are capitalists. Tech workers are among the class of elite workers that have enough income that they can afford to make significant investments and tend to be in the petit bourgeoisie -- that is, in traditional terms of analysis of capitalist economic strata, the narrow middle class -- but "elite workers" are only elite among workers. The actual American elites (as is true of all capitalist and most modern mixed economies) are the haut bourgeoisie, the capitalist class; those who derive the overwhelming majority of their support from capital which generates returns largely passively for the capitalist (usually, through the application of other people's rented labor.) > Did you think elites were still guys with a monacle sitting in a drawing room that overlooks a coal mine or something? No, but the elites are still the guys that have the same relationship to tech (and other) workers that those guys with monocles had to coal miners (and other workers.)
ryandrake 10y ago
I think people have a weird distorted view of what a "tech worker" is then. Like watching medical dramas and thinking that's what being a doctor is like. I'm a tech worker, and I can assure you I'm not an "American elite". I don't get white glove treatment at the bank, have a butler, chauffeur, or financial advisor. I schlep it 2 hours to work each morning and 2 hours back, and if I lose my job, I'm N paychecks away from ruin like everyone else. My "N" may be 5 where others may be 2, but most of us are in the same boat. Does that really sound elite to you?
- sopooneo 10y ago
  I highly recommend soliciting the services of a fee only financial advisor. Or just read the book "Personal Finance for Dummies" cover to cover.
GeneralMayhem 10y ago
The new elites are in tech, but they're not the rank and file. Making even $250k/yr may be top-5% for income and give you breathing room to make a few investments, but it will never make you wealthy. That's lifetime earnings of about $10m before taxes, so you likely wouldn't get to fuck-you money ever, let alone with time to use it. There's a very serious discontinuity somewhere around the $1m/year mark where you get to the point that you don't have to work for the rest of your life while you're still young. There's another huge difference between that and the guys worth $100m+ who can have whatever they want, including financing insane research and construction projects, not just the normal comfortable middle-class lifestyle, and never run out of money. Putting those people in the same group as your average software engineer for socioeconomic purposes is ridiculous. Sure, I might have more in common with Zuckerberg than with a coal miner, but only just, and that's not saying much.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CPLX 10y ago
  > it will never make you wealthy. That's lifetime earnings of about $10m before taxes This thread has taught me that people in the valley or the HN echo chamber really sort of have no idea how most people live in this country, let alone around the world.
  - rckclmbr 10y ago
    and you must have no idea how much it costs to live in the bay area. a dentist in arizona will have a higher net worth at retirement than a tech worker in the bay area.
    - CPLX 10y ago
      > and you must have no idea how much it costs to live in the bay area I live in New York City. I could probably grok the basic concept.
  - refurb 10y ago
superuser2 10y ago
Elites are the guys who make deals for a living. Investors, executives, traders, etc. The people who own the tech companies, the people who service the IPOs, the people who own the real estate we pay such ridiculous rents on, the CEOs and board members of our employers and the companies we buy stuff from. Our pay is high, all things considered, but not nearly as high as law or medicine, and certainly not management. I'd say we are rising from the upper tier of clerical workers to the lower tier of educated professionals. That is "elite" compared to the average person, certainly, but not compared to the economy as a whole. The term generally given to this strata is "upper middle class." Some resent calling it middle class at all, but nonetheless - there is a critical distinction between "owners of the means of production," "managers of the means of production," and "highly skilled operators of the means of production."
- refurb 10y ago
  It reminds me of the saying "An alcoholic (the elite) are those that drink one more drink (make more money) than I do".

by CPLX 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ryanlm 10y ago

Is that so? Why would tech workers be considered elite?

zanny 10y ago

> Tech workers are the American elites. I don't have any congressmen on speeddial to get whatever I want passed through the next pork barrel bill in Congress, what am I doing wrong?

lisper 10y ago
You aren't writing checks. Send a Congressman $1000 (that's really all it takes to get their attention) and you'll be amazed how responsive they will come. Senators are a little more expensive, but still reasonably priced at $2-5k. Presidential candidates are in the low five digits.
- dimino 10y ago
  Tech workers probably want to put that $1,000 into their homes, or into their kid's savings, or pay down some of that student loan debt. I'm a tech worker and I don't honestly see a near-term future where I would throw $2,000 at a senator to talk to them about, say, net neutrality. I've got all kinds of things I'm saving for! My boat isn't going to drain me of my earnings by itself!
  - lisper 10y ago
    Everyone needs to decide on their priorities in life. If you want political influence (or at least the illusion of political influence) you can have it for a pretty modest price. If you want real political influence of the sort that will actually let you move the needle on something like net neutrality then you need to be writing much bigger checks. $1k will buy you half an hour on the phone will a congressman who will pretend to listen to you. But to actually influence policy you need budgets in the 6-7 digits because you have to repeat the process across many dozens of congressmen and senators.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > You aren't writing checks. Send a Congressman $1000 (that's really all it takes to get their attention) and you'll be amazed how responsive they will come. Senators are a little more expensive, but still reasonably priced at $2-5k. Presidential candidates are in the low five digits. Except for the first, all of those numbers are (or state a range that includes) amounts that exceed the limit for a single donors campaign donations for a single election cycle to a single candidate. Having to return your donation because accepting it will exceed the legal limit may get a candidate to notice you, but perhaps more as someone who they need to be careful around to avoid scandal than anything else.
  - lisper 10y ago
    You give the legal limit to the candidate directly, and the rest goes to their super-PAC.
ebiester 10y ago
You're not giving the max ($2700 for primary, $2700 for general) each election and gathering up a dozen people who give $1,000+ donations. This would likely be enough to get one congresscritter to look your way, at least.
- eropple 10y ago
  Yup. $2700 for a primary, $2700 for a general election. Now consider how much of the country could conceivably throw $5400 at something like that without significant sacrifice, and "elite" starts to make a lot more sense.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The elites in terms of expenditure-driven political influence are people whose expenditures far exceed the legal limit on direct donations (because they'll do that for more than one candidate in a cycle, plus giving money to entities like the party congressional/senate campaign committees, and the party national committees, and politically active interest groups, interest group PACs, and candidate- and issue-focused SuperPACs, and, in some cases, carefully structuring transactions to give goods and services directly to candidates and office holders while skirting bribery and corruption laws.)
    - eropple 10y ago
      I'm well aware, thank you. But if you max out your average Congressman and ask for a meeting, you get it. You will be invited to events--including ones that are not donation-expected for years after the fact, and your congressman will almost certainly know you by name, if not face. This is not a great system, but many tech workers can get into that circle if it's something that matters to them.

jazzyk 10y ago

>Tech workers are the American elites Apparently I did not get the memo. </sarcasm>

dragonwriter 10y ago

> This is 2016. Tech workers are the American elites. No, they aren't. The American elites aren't workers, they are capitalists. Tech workers are among the class of elite workers that have enough income that they can afford to make significant investments and tend to be in the petit bourgeoisie -- that is, in traditional terms of analysis of capitalist economic strata, the narrow middle class -- but "elite workers" are only elite among workers. The actual American elites (as is true of all capitalist and most modern mixed economies) are the haut bourgeoisie, the capitalist class; those who derive the overwhelming majority of their support from capital which generates returns largely passively for the capitalist (usually, through the application of other people's rented labor.) > Did you think elites were still guys with a monacle sitting in a drawing room that overlooks a coal mine or something? No, but the elites are still the guys that have the same relationship to tech (and other) workers that those guys with monocles had to coal miners (and other workers.)

ryandrake 10y ago

I think people have a weird distorted view of what a "tech worker" is then. Like watching medical dramas and thinking that's what being a doctor is like. I'm a tech worker, and I can assure you I'm not an "American elite". I don't get white glove treatment at the bank, have a butler, chauffeur, or financial advisor. I schlep it 2 hours to work each morning and 2 hours back, and if I lose my job, I'm N paychecks away from ruin like everyone else. My "N" may be 5 where others may be 2, but most of us are in the same boat. Does that really sound elite to you?

sopooneo 10y ago
I highly recommend soliciting the services of a fee only financial advisor. Or just read the book "Personal Finance for Dummies" cover to cover.

GeneralMayhem 10y ago

The new elites are in tech, but they're not the rank and file. Making even $250k/yr may be top-5% for income and give you breathing room to make a few investments, but it will never make you wealthy. That's lifetime earnings of about $10m before taxes, so you likely wouldn't get to fuck-you money ever, let alone with time to use it. There's a very serious discontinuity somewhere around the $1m/year mark where you get to the point that you don't have to work for the rest of your life while you're still young. There's another huge difference between that and the guys worth $100m+ who can have whatever they want, including financing insane research and construction projects, not just the normal comfortable middle-class lifestyle, and never run out of money. Putting those people in the same group as your average software engineer for socioeconomic purposes is ridiculous. Sure, I might have more in common with Zuckerberg than with a coal miner, but only just, and that's not saying much.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
CPLX 10y ago
> it will never make you wealthy. That's lifetime earnings of about $10m before taxes This thread has taught me that people in the valley or the HN echo chamber really sort of have no idea how most people live in this country, let alone around the world.
- rckclmbr 10y ago
  and you must have no idea how much it costs to live in the bay area. a dentist in arizona will have a higher net worth at retirement than a tech worker in the bay area.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    > and you must have no idea how much it costs to live in the bay area I live in New York City. I could probably grok the basic concept.
- refurb 10y ago

superuser2 10y ago

Elites are the guys who make deals for a living. Investors, executives, traders, etc. The people who own the tech companies, the people who service the IPOs, the people who own the real estate we pay such ridiculous rents on, the CEOs and board members of our employers and the companies we buy stuff from. Our pay is high, all things considered, but not nearly as high as law or medicine, and certainly not management. I'd say we are rising from the upper tier of clerical workers to the lower tier of educated professionals. That is "elite" compared to the average person, certainly, but not compared to the economy as a whole. The term generally given to this strata is "upper middle class." Some resent calling it middle class at all, but nonetheless - there is a critical distinction between "owners of the means of production," "managers of the means of production," and "highly skilled operators of the means of production."

refurb 10y ago
It reminds me of the saying "An alcoholic (the elite) are those that drink one more drink (make more money) than I do".