5 ms·

> We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees When their pensions are taken into account, government employees are ridiculously over

> We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees When their pensions are taken into account, government employees are ridiculously overcompensated already. They’re basically minor nobility at this point.

Rebelgecko 1y ago
I have done the numbers for myself, and even taking pension and treating an extra week of vacation as a 1/52 pay raise, doing a software job for the government would be a huge step down for me financially. Basically gives me 0% chance of ever buying a home where I currently live
- ClumsyPilot 1y ago
  > me 0% chance of ever buying a home where I currently live The housing crisis is the Everything Crisis. It’s destroying competence of government services, as no one ambitious will accept this fate. It destroyed competitiveness of our industry because you can’t pay a worker less than it costs to rent. It’s causing apathy and rise in extremist views among younger population as they realise they have no path to dignified future. I am hoping that China does well for itself and one day we can just consider them as an example of competent and coherent governance and sort out our shit.
- colonCapitalDee 1y ago
  For every underpaid government software engineer there's an overpaid paper pusher, and they're both paid the same amount.
bombcar 1y ago
To be fair, we should all work to normalize retiring at 55 - it’s eminently doable but the earlier you decide to the easier it is.
- s1artibartfast 1y ago
  but nobody likes working even longer to pay for others to retire earlier.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    You can do it entirely “yourself” if you adopt FIRE concepts early in your working career.
- jltsiren 1y ago
  Then you would have two retirees for every three working age people. And given that only ~70% of working age Americans are actually working, it would mean three non-working adults for every two adults with jobs. Either the retirees would have a really low standard of living, or workers would get much smaller share of the value they create than they currently do. If you are not already retired or close to retirement, you should assume that the normal retirement age is ~70 years. Anything lower cannot be sustained with the current demographic structure.
Bukhmanizer 1y ago
This is an absurd statement.
nonameiguess 1y ago
I guess we'll see how I'm doing in 20 years to compare, but as of now, my dad is a former California public employee on a pension who had to move to the middle of the desert to stay within his budget, does all domestic work himself, and regularly needs to ask me for money. "Minor nobility" is a laughable characterization of his status in life. For what it's worth, it's also quite illuminating these days to compare injury history with him. We've had a lot of the same stuff happen, but when it happens to me, he always overestimates the effect because he's still suffering from never recovering properly thanks to a lifetime of no-premium but shitty Kaiser HMO treatment that used the lowest-cost option for literally everything, whereas I had to pay for stuff but at least got the latest available surgical procedures and proper supervised rehab, so my injuries actually healed and I'm not just suffering for the rest of my life like he does.

Rebelgecko 1y ago

I have done the numbers for myself, and even taking pension and treating an extra week of vacation as a 1/52 pay raise, doing a software job for the government would be a huge step down for me financially. Basically gives me 0% chance of ever buying a home where I currently live

ClumsyPilot 1y ago
> me 0% chance of ever buying a home where I currently live The housing crisis is the Everything Crisis. It’s destroying competence of government services, as no one ambitious will accept this fate. It destroyed competitiveness of our industry because you can’t pay a worker less than it costs to rent. It’s causing apathy and rise in extremist views among younger population as they realise they have no path to dignified future. I am hoping that China does well for itself and one day we can just consider them as an example of competent and coherent governance and sort out our shit.
colonCapitalDee 1y ago
For every underpaid government software engineer there's an overpaid paper pusher, and they're both paid the same amount.

bombcar 1y ago

To be fair, we should all work to normalize retiring at 55 - it’s eminently doable but the earlier you decide to the easier it is.

s1artibartfast 1y ago
but nobody likes working even longer to pay for others to retire earlier.
- bombcar 1y ago
  You can do it entirely “yourself” if you adopt FIRE concepts early in your working career.
jltsiren 1y ago
Then you would have two retirees for every three working age people. And given that only ~70% of working age Americans are actually working, it would mean three non-working adults for every two adults with jobs. Either the retirees would have a really low standard of living, or workers would get much smaller share of the value they create than they currently do. If you are not already retired or close to retirement, you should assume that the normal retirement age is ~70 years. Anything lower cannot be sustained with the current demographic structure.

Bukhmanizer 1y ago

This is an absurd statement.

nonameiguess 1y ago

I guess we'll see how I'm doing in 20 years to compare, but as of now, my dad is a former California public employee on a pension who had to move to the middle of the desert to stay within his budget, does all domestic work himself, and regularly needs to ask me for money. "Minor nobility" is a laughable characterization of his status in life. For what it's worth, it's also quite illuminating these days to compare injury history with him. We've had a lot of the same stuff happen, but when it happens to me, he always overestimates the effect because he's still suffering from never recovering properly thanks to a lifetime of no-premium but shitty Kaiser HMO treatment that used the lowest-cost option for literally everything, whereas I had to pay for stuff but at least got the latest available surgical procedures and proper supervised rehab, so my injuries actually healed and I'm not just suffering for the rest of my life like he does.