7 ms·

>>But have you thought about why you feel this way? Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in

• tclancy 9y ago
  >I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. And what, hide cash in your mattress?
  • icelancer 9y ago
    Not really sure how I store my money is relevant; are you insinuating that my neighbors and potential regionally-available criminals can get my demand deposit and IRA balances at will? EDIT: Ah, I see, you were making a snarky joke about them breaking into my house and stealing stuff. I do have nice things in my house, yes, not cash under my mattress. Just because I live below my means doesn't mean I don't have things I wouldn't want them to steal. Expensive laptops, computing resources for work, and, oh, I don't know, just not a fan of people breaking into my house in general regardless of what I have?
    • throw-away-8 9y ago
      So what you really need is a full public disclosure of expenses in addition to public salary information.
    • jeirje88382hj 9y ago
      Your neighbors and regional criminals don't need to check your balances to determine if they should rob your house. They have your address and can quickly get a name from that, and probably find bread crumbs of work history, or that you're a "founder of a sports science" company. Without even knowing the dollar amount of what you make, there's plenty of info on you that already exists in order to determine if you're a good target.
  • seiferteric 9y ago
    I have read stories about people being taken at gunpoint to the ATM to withdraw their cash, it can happen.
    • icelancer 9y ago
      I am sure that is possible though I don't really fear it. I did when I worked in Latin America, however.
      • seiferteric 9y ago
        Okay, how about hackers targeting your bank/retirement account after they learn how much you make over the internet?
    • WalterBright 9y ago
      It happened to a close relative of mine. These things DO happen.
• grasshopperpurp 9y ago
  That's a legit concern. Assuming it was possible, if only those in your company could see your salary (and you could see their salaries), would you be in favor of it? I'm also assuming that people in your company don't live in your neighborhood/wouldn't be burglary threats.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    I am the founder of a company and I have told my employees my salary, so this isn't really a theoretical question I guess. So, yes. I have no problem disclosing it to those who matter. The reason behind me disclosing it was to show that I was not the highest paid person in the company per salary. I have asked my employees if they want their salaries shared, they have overwhelmingly voted against it, even when I bring up negotiation power.
    • conanbatt 9y ago
      This is such a culturally strong issue. I truly wonder how this should be implemented. As far as I know, its all prejudice from the public itself. Yet everyone goes to glassdoor to check salaries.
  • WalterBright 9y ago
    If your coworkers know it, everybody knows it. Not only are there blabbermouths and gossips everywhere, a coworker may have an axe to grind against you and will surreptitiously leak the information.
    • icelancer 9y ago
      This is possible but a risk I was willing to take. I highly doubt my employees will post it online and run a massive SEO campaign for everyone to see.
• vilmosi 9y ago
  >>> Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means If you live below your means, why would robbers target you? They don't care how much you make, they care what TV you have.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    Living below my means doesn't mean I live like my neighbors. My house is roughly the same as everyone around me. The contents of the house are not (and they are private), and yet I still live well below my means. I have a semi-nice TV, and more importantly, expensive computers like pretty much everyone on HN to do my job.
    • vilmosi 9y ago
      [deleted]
      • tylersmith 9y ago
        Their entire point is that publicizing their salary eliminates that privacy by telling people their income. It's a proxy measurement. Even if all they have in the house is a can of beans, publicly making more than their neighbors puts a target on them.
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
      • cisanti 9y ago
        Because robbers tend to rob wealthy people? You get looted or shot more likely, because the robbers don't know this guy lives a humble life. They think this guy must have cash and big TV.
      • icelancer 9y ago
        If my (relatively high) salary is published, they'll be able to make inferences - crucially, it doesn't matter if they are correct or not.
• gcb0 9y ago
  so you would outright reject any job in the government, even in a subsidised University?
  • DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
    When I worked for the DoD, our salaries where not published. Not that it mattered that much, thanks to the hacking of the OPM.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    Yes, certainly. For that and unrelated reasons.
• fierro 9y ago
  I feel like this is kind of silly. Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable. At least enough to make a decision "should I rob this house." What are we even talking about here?
  • icelancer 9y ago
    >>Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable. That would require two things, I guess. My name, and the ability to estimate my salary based on the company I run. I am pretty sure even if I told you both you'd miss by a significant amount.
    • emodendroket 9y ago
      I think you're vastly overestimating the sophistication typically going into selecting targets for home burglary.
      • Mz 9y ago
        If anyone is overestimating that, it would be the GP to which they are replying.
        • emodendroket 9y ago
          That seems to be the same guy?
          • Mz 9y ago
            I don't think so. I meant this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502923
            • emodendroket 9y ago
              Am I missing something? Both comments seem to be written by "icelancer"
• smallworld99 9y ago
  HN has zero understanding of the thoughts and motivations of robbers..
  • flukus 9y ago
    It's hilarious really. A home robber isn't going to download your salary history prior to robbing your house, chances are a lot of the money has gone into big heavy things that they aren't after anyway. Thieve's are opportunists, they only question they ask is "how easily can I get into that house without getting caught?".
    • anigbrowl 9y ago
      I'm gonna split the difference on that - casual thieves are attracted to stuff, organized thieves do some research. I know about a pattern of robberies of film crews (an industry I used to work in) in my area - these can be profitable because camera gear in particular is quite expensive so a small well-equipped film crew is standing on the street with $10-20k worth of poorly-secured gear, which they probably don't care about losing because it's insured. The modus operandi is consistent enough that I'm fairly sure the thieves are working from city-issued permits.
• Sangermaine 9y ago
  We were talking about your friends and family knowing. If you're concerned that your friends and family might rob your home if they knew your salary, you've got larger problems than talking about it.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    You're being quite biased towards people with normal family lives. Haven't had deadbeat parents or relatives demand your time or money for free simply because you make more money?
• Khelavaster 9y ago
  >> Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    >> The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed. That's not the point of the commenter. Secondly, I reject your summary opinion that lacks evidence, but you are welcome to your own feelings.
  • softwarefounder 9y ago
    This is a foolish and idealistic stance. Especially with all the factors to consider (neighbors, location, salary, relativity to peers, etc.)
  • dsacco 9y ago
    > The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed. That's a normative statement, not a positive one. I don't consider it at all screwed up or intrinsically wrong to want to hide my income from my neighbors.
    • conanbatt 9y ago
      The positive statement is that transparent pricing is going to raise wages. There's little doubt about that. I dont know what magintude it could be, but it might end up being significant. And if it is significant, it would probably be worth a lot more than the security cost. Its economically senseless to reject a better job position for the fear that someone might notice your increased income and rob you. For the vast majority of people that would be utterly ridicolous.
• tiggybear 9y ago
  If we had more equality, which would be a result of forcing all salary info to be public, you wouldn't have to worry as much about being robbed.
  • icelancer 9y ago
    That would not be the result of publishing salary information. It might be a drop in the bucket for equality at best. And you're speaking to someone who consistently votes and donates to democratic socialist candidates and causes.
    • rcyeh 9y ago
      In particular, publishing executive salary information has been blamed for fueling an arms race in executive pay [0], and by inference, inequality. As a thought experiment, if we were to add everyone else's information, it's not clear to me that everyone would come out as a winner. [0]: https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/more-transparency-more-pay-for-c-e-o-s/ https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/more-transparency-mo...
• ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  A lawsuit is a bigger risk than a house robbery, IMO. A big reason why people don't get sued is because they aren't a defendant you can get a lot of money out of. Publicly showing off a top 2% salary or asset level will change that. Like, if you own your house outright, it's often worthwhile to get a HELOC without ever drawing from it. That way, when an attorney tries to figure out if you're worth suing, it doesn't look like you have six figures worth of housing equity to go after.
  • conanbatt 9y ago
    Its possible the wage increases vastly outweight the insurace you would have to purchase to shield yourself from those consequences. If this information raises your wage 10%, its worth all the rest combined.
  • astura 9y ago
    I just got umbrella insurance to cover the "worth being sued" part. It's very cheap and well worth protecting my assets and my future earnings.
• conanbatt 9y ago
  There is definitely an increased risk of lawsuits or robbery. However it has to be weigh in to the expectancy of a wage increase. You have already decided to not pay for extra security by being in a poorer neihborhood, so we know safety is negotiable. What is that price to you? What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%?
  • icelancer 9y ago
    >>You have already decided to not pay for extra security by being in a poorer neihborhood I mean, that's not really true. I live in a poor(er) neighborhood but have cameras, an alarm, and home defense weapons. I still don't want my house being broken into. >>What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%? As my other comments (or my bio) will illustrate, these examples aren't too good. I am the founder of a small business who makes my wage public to my employees and offered to make their wages public to everyone, which was overwhelmingly voted down, even when I told them about the benefits. People value their privacy in this country. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone is stupid for doing so.
    • conanbatt 9y ago
      I dont think they are "stupid" on this, just prejudiced. People dont intelectually know that there is a tax for this privacy. Its like when people think that the tax incidence is always paid by the one that writes the check to the IRS, even though economists categorically say thats not how it is. I am confident that if people had the choice at hand of a 10% increase or privacy, the majority would sell their privacy. We are used to sell it for a lot less than that! Even for a virtually free credit score. Its an implementational challenge. The IRS can always just disclose everything, so the state can nuke this issue. A lighter approach might be making it opt-out in the future when you are employed: a lot of people would not care, and if you have 30% salary transparency, im sure everyone gets most of the benefit. And a private market approach might be for a site like glassdoor to only show real salary data when people send verified wage documentation.
• Yizahi 9y ago
  There is a big portion of people who declare their income publicly and nobody robs them based on this information. Robbers don't work that way, instead they try to find out and target who has unprotected stuff - unlocked home, locked home with owners on vacation (targeted by spotter), open car, car on unguarded parking with known vulnerability etc. etc. There are tens of thousands very rich people in any country and nobody robs them specifically, despite only several percent of them using active guards or security. They are robbed with the same chance as anyone else.
• 87tau 9y ago
  Being rich doesn't increase your chances of being robbed by your relatives or strangers, it's just the opposite it seems https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137
  • emodendroket 9y ago
    It doesn't seem like that link controls for the area you live in. I don't think it addresses the concern of being conspicuously wealthier than your neighbors.
    • 87tau 9y ago
      You'r right but it does say that if you live well below your means (more in poverty) your chances of being robbed increases. Living among poorer people than he can actually afford does increase the crime around him and probably subjects him to more crime as well (I didn't research this last correlation, just a practical guess. If you can provide research pointing otherwise please do, it will be an interesting point to know).