11 ms·

It has skewed the labor market to an insane degree. So much talent went into idiotic pursuits, and away from anything that had to do with public service.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
My wife's uncles is one of the top doctors in his field in the country, and was the head of department in the country's top medical university. He makes less money than me, even though I'm 35 years younger and my "skills" include some basic coding, some marketing, and some understanding of social media. Whereas this man has spent nearly 50 years in the medical field and has treated multiple presidents. None of the startups I've consulted for are profitable. Most, by all means, will never be profitable. Meanwhile, my maid, who works harder in a day than I do in a week, makes 1/50th of my annual income. All that free money has seriously misaligned societies incentives. Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society.
- lmm 4y ago
  > All that free money has seriously misaligned societies incentives. Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. Sounds like a problem that's sorting itself out. There were far too many people who wanted to be doctors; maybe if the supply drops the medical industry might have to - gasp - do something about their working conditions, or even pay more.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    My country has a massive shortage of doctors. There's also a virtual cap to how much doctors can charge for consultation - most people, outside of a small minority of tech elite, can't afford to pay any higher fees. My wife's uncle's fees is already high enough that only the wealthy can afford him. The problem doesn't seem to be sorting itself out. On the contrary, it's making access to people like him even harder for all but the top 1%. If doctor salaries were to go even higher, it would mean that people like my maid would never ever get even half-decent medical care. The solution would be to pay the maid more, but there's an oversupply of unskilled labor and any attempt to increase their wages would be thwarted by a flood of new labor supply.
    - geysersam 4y ago
      > there's an oversupply of unskilled labor That's interesting. What's unskilled about them? Could they not also learn some coding and marketing. Sounds like a worthwhile investment if they might 50x their salaries. (In fact, with those numbers, even if it takes them 30 years it would still 10x their life earnings...)
      - unholythree 4y ago
        I suspect a lack of general education and/or “soft skills”. I say this as a resident of a poorer US city, there are tons of barely literate people incapable of performing simple math who also don’t know how to handle conflict or social friction effectively.
    - Juliate 4y ago
      > The solution would be to pay the maid more, but there's an oversupply of unskilled labor The… misstep in reasoning here seems to me to consider that « maid » (and many other low-wage ones) is unskilled labor and/or painless, thus « deserves » lower wages. I can say from witnessing it first-hand that not 1 in 10 of those high-profiles engineers or managers I have met are not at all equipped to work as a maid.
  - flakeoil 4y ago
    > There were far too many people who wanted to be doctors; maybe if the supply drops... Actually, the problem is not that no-one wants to become a doctor, the issue is that there are too few open places in the medical schools. If it's due to lobbying by doctor's organizations or just bad planning by governments or something else I do not know. In all countries I have some visibility into there is no lack of people wanting to attend medical school and there are qualified applicants in the order of 100 to 1. And there is an accute need of doctors (and nurses) in those countries. And regarding doctor's pay, I do not necessarily agree that it is too low, but I agree the salaries for software engineers is too high in many regions, particularly in the US, and certainly on the west coast. And to nuance my comment on doctor's pay, I think it is important to note that a doctor has to study and practice in a hospital for about a total time of 10 years before graduating as an MD and start earning a decent salary. Thus many years of lost salary if comparing that with an engineer, and even more if comparing to someone just taking a couple of years of programming courses.
- qaq 4y ago
  "I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society" hmm you could make it more equitable by raising your maids comp by your own description it would have 0 adverse effect on you.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    Sure, but we need broader reform if anything is to actually change. You can't fight the market forces and systemic problems with personal choices.
    - qaq 4y ago
      Sure you can if people take individual action based on their honest believes a lot can change. If people simply virtue signal without taking basic actions that are available to them then there is 0 chance something will change.
      - geysersam 4y ago
        I'm not suggesting virtue signaling. Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Voting for a party working to increase her bargaining power is not. We need both individual action and political reform.
        qaq 4y ago
        No it's not. Crocodile tears about how unfair it is for her to make so little instead of paying her more is virtue signaling. Dems have being in power in CA forever voting for them is not going to change maids wage.
        sph 4y ago
        The problem is thinking blue or red are the answer to this problem. Their current iteration is the leading reason why we are in this situation now.
- nosianu 4y ago
  > Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. Good comment overall, but I think the issues in the medical field are less about compensation and much much more about insane working conditions and a lot of disincentives. If you want a glimpse at some of it, maybe occasionally check out https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/ https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/ or blog posts and articles. Same problems here in Germany, but maybe - hope dies last - some movement? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-berlin-b2239733.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-berlin-b2239733.html > An expert panel has unveiled a proposal for a major overhaul of Germany’s system for funding hospitals that it says will promote quality over quantity EDIT (after responses): If you have a hammer... The nice thing about always thinking everything is "money" is that everybody can join any discussion. There is no need to look at the details of the specific issue. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I think this fits sooo many discussions. Similar with discussions around education too. Simultaneously we have plenty of threads right on HN where people realize life satisfaction surprisingly does not hinge on pay - after some threshold, where the basic worries about how to get the basic necessities without worrying. Sure extreme pay would get quite a few more people into health care, but it would be an extremely unhealthy and inefficient way. Yes you can just not solve the actual major problems and just throw money at an issue, and especially younger people will see it as an opportunity to bite the bullet and endure bad conditions to work in that job for a while, to have a lot of money for middle age. On the other hand, if a minimum pay is guaranteed, the environment, satisfaction with the job and the environment, and the feeling of doing something really useful for society, become much better places for adjustments than pay. Especially when it's as bad as it is right now, which is kind of extreme. Just looking at 24 hour shifts, really??? Health care is the last place where that should exist, since that's the place where there should be the most knowledge about how bad for long-term health and also for short-term efficiency this is. I would not enter that field for that one thing alone already, because it's just too ridiculous. Once in a while out of necessity, sure, but as regular part of the system?
  - benjaminwootton 4y ago
    Shouldn’t they be creating upwards pressure on salaries? Meanwhile, techies want another $50k if they ever have to venture outside of their home office.
- hardware2win 4y ago
  Crazy. Salaries by prof. tell that SEs earn around 140k avg meanwhile meds. are around 300 easily I think youre just looking at tiny group of SEs
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    I’m based out of India. Doctors from top colleges after a decade of effort in their 20s start off at around Rs. 80,000-100,00 per month (many even lower in smaller towns) Starting salaries for 21-22 year old engineers from top colleges is approximately Rs 120,00-200,000 per month. By the time they hit their 30s, their salaries usually balloon to Rs 350,000-500,000 per month. Doctors don’t catch up until they’re well into their 40s - an age at which many engineers from top colleges start retiring. There is no real difference in the difficulty of getting into a top engineering program vs medical school. It wasn’t always this wonky, but it has become increasingly wonkier every year as tech valuations have gone beyond sanity.
    - machiaweliczny 4y ago
      This is arbitrage of digital work, not unfair society. USA has big demand for software and simply imports work. The problem is that india is poor. I agree though that it’s skewed because USA is at top of demand chain and could generate debt/demand in low interest rates environment.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        Digital work arbitrage jobs don't actually pay that much. The biggest source of wage inflation in the last few years has been domestic startups, all fueled by VC money from low interest rate regimes (Softbank, Tiger, Sequoia being the biggest culprits). Those tech bodyshop jobs that cater to the US market still pay a small fraction of what a startup that targets the domestic Indian market, such as Cred, pays. The point stands: digital work arbitrage has been around for three decades and didn't really create a massive income disparity. The bulk of recent income disparity has come through absurd tech startup valuations, all made possible because borrowing money was dirt, dirt cheap.
- _5uxp 4y ago
  Modern money doesn't equal to importance of work or amount of experience or how much avg. people understand about low interest etc. Here is your reality check, more fair society would only possible without monetary policies dictated by banks, top rich and powerful. They and their smart people/companies are only in the society to take more cut from you workers, globally. What you say is just utopia, and IMPOSSIBLE. Btw I like reading fairy tales as a comments here. Here it's simplify explained (not serious obv) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEbe9gveN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEbe9gveN4
  - notahacker 4y ago
    The idea that some other monetary system would magically equal importance of work or amount of experience (usually promoted on the right by extremely wealthy people deeply invested in gold and on the left by people that imagine themselves running the Politburo) is the even bigger fairy tale though...
- kmlben65 4y ago
TimPC 4y ago
Talent doesn’t go into public service anymore unless they have extraordinarily rare values. Even if tech salaries get cut in half they’d be a good deal higher than government salaries. Working a government job in the Bay Area means accepting a well below poverty line income. The room for advancement is also terrible as non-management engineer tracks top out above $600k in the private sector if you never make distinguished engineer and in the millions if you can. Meanwhile the CTO roles in important government organizations often list in the $140-160k range. A 2% pension only goes so far. Some of us actually want to own homes. If government actually wants talents it needs to be realistic about what the market is and take some money out of the insane amount it spends on contractors to pay accordingly. It also needs to build a culture that lets it hire well and lets it fire when it makes mistakes.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

My wife's uncles is one of the top doctors in his field in the country, and was the head of department in the country's top medical university. He makes less money than me, even though I'm 35 years younger and my "skills" include some basic coding, some marketing, and some understanding of social media. Whereas this man has spent nearly 50 years in the medical field and has treated multiple presidents. None of the startups I've consulted for are profitable. Most, by all means, will never be profitable. Meanwhile, my maid, who works harder in a day than I do in a week, makes 1/50th of my annual income. All that free money has seriously misaligned societies incentives. Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society.

lmm 4y ago
> All that free money has seriously misaligned societies incentives. Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. Sounds like a problem that's sorting itself out. There were far too many people who wanted to be doctors; maybe if the supply drops the medical industry might have to - gasp - do something about their working conditions, or even pay more.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  My country has a massive shortage of doctors. There's also a virtual cap to how much doctors can charge for consultation - most people, outside of a small minority of tech elite, can't afford to pay any higher fees. My wife's uncle's fees is already high enough that only the wealthy can afford him. The problem doesn't seem to be sorting itself out. On the contrary, it's making access to people like him even harder for all but the top 1%. If doctor salaries were to go even higher, it would mean that people like my maid would never ever get even half-decent medical care. The solution would be to pay the maid more, but there's an oversupply of unskilled labor and any attempt to increase their wages would be thwarted by a flood of new labor supply.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    > there's an oversupply of unskilled labor That's interesting. What's unskilled about them? Could they not also learn some coding and marketing. Sounds like a worthwhile investment if they might 50x their salaries. (In fact, with those numbers, even if it takes them 30 years it would still 10x their life earnings...)
    - unholythree 4y ago
      I suspect a lack of general education and/or “soft skills”. I say this as a resident of a poorer US city, there are tons of barely literate people incapable of performing simple math who also don’t know how to handle conflict or social friction effectively.
  - Juliate 4y ago
    > The solution would be to pay the maid more, but there's an oversupply of unskilled labor The… misstep in reasoning here seems to me to consider that « maid » (and many other low-wage ones) is unskilled labor and/or painless, thus « deserves » lower wages. I can say from witnessing it first-hand that not 1 in 10 of those high-profiles engineers or managers I have met are not at all equipped to work as a maid.
- flakeoil 4y ago
  > There were far too many people who wanted to be doctors; maybe if the supply drops... Actually, the problem is not that no-one wants to become a doctor, the issue is that there are too few open places in the medical schools. If it's due to lobbying by doctor's organizations or just bad planning by governments or something else I do not know. In all countries I have some visibility into there is no lack of people wanting to attend medical school and there are qualified applicants in the order of 100 to 1. And there is an accute need of doctors (and nurses) in those countries. And regarding doctor's pay, I do not necessarily agree that it is too low, but I agree the salaries for software engineers is too high in many regions, particularly in the US, and certainly on the west coast. And to nuance my comment on doctor's pay, I think it is important to note that a doctor has to study and practice in a hospital for about a total time of 10 years before graduating as an MD and start earning a decent salary. Thus many years of lost salary if comparing that with an engineer, and even more if comparing to someone just taking a couple of years of programming courses.
qaq 4y ago
"I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society" hmm you could make it more equitable by raising your maids comp by your own description it would have 0 adverse effect on you.
- geysersam 4y ago
  Sure, but we need broader reform if anything is to actually change. You can't fight the market forces and systemic problems with personal choices.
  - qaq 4y ago
    Sure you can if people take individual action based on their honest believes a lot can change. If people simply virtue signal without taking basic actions that are available to them then there is 0 chance something will change.
    - geysersam 4y ago
      I'm not suggesting virtue signaling. Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Voting for a party working to increase her bargaining power is not. We need both individual action and political reform.
      - qaq 4y ago
        No it's not. Crocodile tears about how unfair it is for her to make so little instead of paying her more is virtue signaling. Dems have being in power in CA forever voting for them is not going to change maids wage.
        sph 4y ago
        The problem is thinking blue or red are the answer to this problem. Their current iteration is the leading reason why we are in this situation now.
nosianu 4y ago
> Enrollment in the medical field is falling drastically because no one wants to work years to make less money than some 24 year old with two years of coding experience. Good comment overall, but I think the issues in the medical field are less about compensation and much much more about insane working conditions and a lot of disincentives. If you want a glimpse at some of it, maybe occasionally check out https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/ https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/ or blog posts and articles. Same problems here in Germany, but maybe - hope dies last - some movement? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-berlin-b2239733.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-berlin-b2239733.html > An expert panel has unveiled a proposal for a major overhaul of Germany’s system for funding hospitals that it says will promote quality over quantity EDIT (after responses): If you have a hammer... The nice thing about always thinking everything is "money" is that everybody can join any discussion. There is no need to look at the details of the specific issue. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I think this fits sooo many discussions. Similar with discussions around education too. Simultaneously we have plenty of threads right on HN where people realize life satisfaction surprisingly does not hinge on pay - after some threshold, where the basic worries about how to get the basic necessities without worrying. Sure extreme pay would get quite a few more people into health care, but it would be an extremely unhealthy and inefficient way. Yes you can just not solve the actual major problems and just throw money at an issue, and especially younger people will see it as an opportunity to bite the bullet and endure bad conditions to work in that job for a while, to have a lot of money for middle age. On the other hand, if a minimum pay is guaranteed, the environment, satisfaction with the job and the environment, and the feeling of doing something really useful for society, become much better places for adjustments than pay. Especially when it's as bad as it is right now, which is kind of extreme. Just looking at 24 hour shifts, really??? Health care is the last place where that should exist, since that's the place where there should be the most knowledge about how bad for long-term health and also for short-term efficiency this is. I would not enter that field for that one thing alone already, because it's just too ridiculous. Once in a while out of necessity, sure, but as regular part of the system?
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  Shouldn’t they be creating upwards pressure on salaries? Meanwhile, techies want another $50k if they ever have to venture outside of their home office.
hardware2win 4y ago
Crazy. Salaries by prof. tell that SEs earn around 140k avg meanwhile meds. are around 300 easily I think youre just looking at tiny group of SEs
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I’m based out of India. Doctors from top colleges after a decade of effort in their 20s start off at around Rs. 80,000-100,00 per month (many even lower in smaller towns) Starting salaries for 21-22 year old engineers from top colleges is approximately Rs 120,00-200,000 per month. By the time they hit their 30s, their salaries usually balloon to Rs 350,000-500,000 per month. Doctors don’t catch up until they’re well into their 40s - an age at which many engineers from top colleges start retiring. There is no real difference in the difficulty of getting into a top engineering program vs medical school. It wasn’t always this wonky, but it has become increasingly wonkier every year as tech valuations have gone beyond sanity.
  - machiaweliczny 4y ago
    This is arbitrage of digital work, not unfair society. USA has big demand for software and simply imports work. The problem is that india is poor. I agree though that it’s skewed because USA is at top of demand chain and could generate debt/demand in low interest rates environment.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Digital work arbitrage jobs don't actually pay that much. The biggest source of wage inflation in the last few years has been domestic startups, all fueled by VC money from low interest rate regimes (Softbank, Tiger, Sequoia being the biggest culprits). Those tech bodyshop jobs that cater to the US market still pay a small fraction of what a startup that targets the domestic Indian market, such as Cred, pays. The point stands: digital work arbitrage has been around for three decades and didn't really create a massive income disparity. The bulk of recent income disparity has come through absurd tech startup valuations, all made possible because borrowing money was dirt, dirt cheap.
_5uxp 4y ago
Modern money doesn't equal to importance of work or amount of experience or how much avg. people understand about low interest etc. Here is your reality check, more fair society would only possible without monetary policies dictated by banks, top rich and powerful. They and their smart people/companies are only in the society to take more cut from you workers, globally. What you say is just utopia, and IMPOSSIBLE. Btw I like reading fairy tales as a comments here. Here it's simplify explained (not serious obv) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEbe9gveN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEbe9gveN4
- notahacker 4y ago
  The idea that some other monetary system would magically equal importance of work or amount of experience (usually promoted on the right by extremely wealthy people deeply invested in gold and on the left by people that imagine themselves running the Politburo) is the even bigger fairy tale though...
kmlben65 4y ago

TimPC 4y ago

Talent doesn’t go into public service anymore unless they have extraordinarily rare values. Even if tech salaries get cut in half they’d be a good deal higher than government salaries. Working a government job in the Bay Area means accepting a well below poverty line income. The room for advancement is also terrible as non-management engineer tracks top out above $600k in the private sector if you never make distinguished engineer and in the millions if you can. Meanwhile the CTO roles in important government organizations often list in the $140-160k range. A 2% pension only goes so far. Some of us actually want to own homes. If government actually wants talents it needs to be realistic about what the market is and take some money out of the insane amount it spends on contractors to pay accordingly. It also needs to build a culture that lets it hire well and lets it fire when it makes mistakes.