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> American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. What? > Europeans now work at all, and fewer Americans do.

> American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. What? > Europeans now work at all, and fewer Americans do. (In the authors’ view, the American decline is driven mainly by the expansion of government health benefits for the non-employed, especially Medicaid, which raised the value of not working. Um, other than the confusing “now work at all” which I interpret “are all employed”, this is a strange coincidence that the author thinks hair cutters are writing code and a vast population aren’t working at all. I have lived and traveled throughout Europe, I have to say despite the “grateful” comments there truly are deeper cultural issues than software pays good so Europeans should write more software. Besides, American VC pumps enormous cash into those salaries, most of which FAIL (20% success is the ideal VC margin isn’t it? I’m an outsider looking in on this one.) So huge segments of American software developer payouts are actually failed investments (how much did Meta blow on “metaverse”? How much did Twitter hemorrhage before the Elon buy out? Etc.) VC cash transfusion life support is not exactly the healthy economic float that saves civilization. And really, vanishingly few benefit from this dynamic, which I think the deteriorating tech roles due to AI infiltration exhibits. American vitality is a bubble trend without societal stability.

raincole 5mo ago
>> American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. > What? The context is clear is you read the whole paragraph instead of that one sentence: > Once a good is non-tradable, the wage is not set globally but in local markets. Newly productive American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. Since Americans still need haircuts and cannot import them, the wages of hairdressers increase, without it affecting wages for hairdressers in Germany. American software wages rise and so do American non-software wages. In Europe this does not happen, because there is no growing software sector to start with. And the author is correct (while the phrasing is a bit weird.) American hairdressers aren't not better at haircutting than European or African hairdressers. But they still (mostly) earn more than their counterparts in other continents, because their customers, or the customers of their customers, are richer. > So huge segments of American software developer payouts are actually failed investments (how much did Meta blow on “metaverse”? How much did Twitter hemorrhage before the Elon buy out? Etc.) In other words, capital pays laborers. It takes a huge amount of mental gymnastic to frame this as a bad thing.
- yepyoukno 5mo ago
  If you think there are more than zero writers of code who were drawn away from cutting hair and waiting tables, I’ll eat a hat! * it must be an unused natural fiber hat. HN, anyone among you who once cut hair and waited tables? Pizza delivery does not count!
  - raincole 5mo ago
    It's really hard to comprehend how this comment is relevant to the original article or my comment. It seems that you didn't read the whole article, the whole paragraph, nor the whole sentence you quoted. You only read one single phrase ('bid away') and decided to nitpick it to death.
  - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
    I bussed tables at one time. Like 25 years ago I think. Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job. But I was not bid away from bussing tables to write code, I was not really bid away from bussing tables for anything because nobody is bidding on table bussers to go work on anything at all.
    - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
      > Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job. you'd think so, but a lot of HN went to places like MIT and then straight into FAANG. Or Perdue and then into MechEng jobs, etc. etc. Is one of the reasons why you see some of the hot takes at HN -- homeboy never had to pay his rent waiting tables or cutting grass.
      - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
        I'm still thinking a lot of HN probably amounts to a relatively big amount like 12% which still means pretty much everyone, even on HN, probably did some crappy job. Also a lot of people, in non-HN pop, do crappy jobs and still end up with those hot takes.
  - 5mo ago

raincole 5mo ago

>> American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. > What? The context is clear is you read the whole paragraph instead of that one sentence: > Once a good is non-tradable, the wage is not set globally but in local markets. Newly productive American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. Since Americans still need haircuts and cannot import them, the wages of hairdressers increase, without it affecting wages for hairdressers in Germany. American software wages rise and so do American non-software wages. In Europe this does not happen, because there is no growing software sector to start with. And the author is correct (while the phrasing is a bit weird.) American hairdressers aren't not better at haircutting than European or African hairdressers. But they still (mostly) earn more than their counterparts in other continents, because their customers, or the customers of their customers, are richer. > So huge segments of American software developer payouts are actually failed investments (how much did Meta blow on “metaverse”? How much did Twitter hemorrhage before the Elon buy out? Etc.) In other words, capital pays laborers. It takes a huge amount of mental gymnastic to frame this as a bad thing.

yepyoukno 5mo ago
If you think there are more than zero writers of code who were drawn away from cutting hair and waiting tables, I’ll eat a hat! * it must be an unused natural fiber hat. HN, anyone among you who once cut hair and waited tables? Pizza delivery does not count!
- raincole 5mo ago
  It's really hard to comprehend how this comment is relevant to the original article or my comment. It seems that you didn't read the whole article, the whole paragraph, nor the whole sentence you quoted. You only read one single phrase ('bid away') and decided to nitpick it to death.
- bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
  I bussed tables at one time. Like 25 years ago I think. Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job. But I was not bid away from bussing tables to write code, I was not really bid away from bussing tables for anything because nobody is bidding on table bussers to go work on anything at all.
  - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
    > Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job. you'd think so, but a lot of HN went to places like MIT and then straight into FAANG. Or Perdue and then into MechEng jobs, etc. etc. Is one of the reasons why you see some of the hot takes at HN -- homeboy never had to pay his rent waiting tables or cutting grass.
    - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
      I'm still thinking a lot of HN probably amounts to a relatively big amount like 12% which still means pretty much everyone, even on HN, probably did some crappy job. Also a lot of people, in non-HN pop, do crappy jobs and still end up with those hot takes.
- 5mo ago