4 ms·

Yes, that developer earning a relatively modest, yet maybe comparatively high, six figure salary is the root of all that is wrong in the world. Also I assume t

Yes, that developer earning a relatively modest, yet maybe comparatively high, six figure salary is the root of all that is wrong in the world. Also I assume the author is implying their gentrification of Oakland is cool and acceptable but Google employees gentrification is so not. This vitriol really needs some perspective, although I'm pretty convinced this has to be a troll.

bunderbunder 13y ago
Perspective all around. The perspective where a six figure salary can be considered even remotely modest is the perspective that cuts the >90% of Americans who don't earn a 6 figure salary out of the frame.
callahad 13y ago
In 2011, a $100,000 salary gave you a higher individual income than 93.4% of all working-age Americans. It seems strange to describe an individual income in the top 6% as "relatively modest." Cite: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01_001.htm http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01...
- owenjones 13y ago
  Regardless the point I was trying to make is that if the author wishes to rail against inequality, they picked a poor target in their new neighbors. By relatively modest, I was referring to the salaries earned by people in actual places of power. If the author wanted to bring up the extreme disparity between the really-wealthy and the rest of us, I am all ears, instead they've focused on the harm done to them by the new gentrify-ing population; yet I assume at one point the author was a gentrifier of the same neighborhood they now wish to protect. People were upset when the hippies moved in to SF too.
  - waps 13y ago
    Googlers, by far more left than most of the country, cannot fathom that they are part of "the rich" most of them rail against. Some of these people are getting kicked out of their apartment, can't find a new place that's anywhere near their job, so they're getting kicked out, forced to move away, forced to quit their job and sent packing to nowhere with no job, no roof over their heads and no money. Plenty of these will be homeless for a while to come. My opinion is : stop fighting this discussion. You can't win. There are no words anywhere that will make people accept being forced into homelessness without fighting. Just shut up, go to church sunday and pay a few hundred bucks on collection, because that will actually help them for a while. Lots of churches help people relocate because they've got lots of locations, and this is (part of) what they do. TLDR: These protesters are right. Google, or googlers, techies in general, are forcing the lower rungs on the social ladder into homelessness. Sorry to say, but you're lucky you're in America. In Europe, I cannot imagine these protests would have remained peaceful. A few tires and one window does not count as violence. Visit the poor parts of Brussels once with what a techie normally walks around with in San Francisco and you'll know what violence is. Of course the reason this doesn't happen in Sanfran is that this is just the n-th time the poorest are being forced out.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  It's all relative - the Bay Area is enormously expensive to live in compared to most other places in the USA. The apples-to-apples comparison would have to incorporate cost of living. Which isn't saying that techies aren't paid very well, even in relation to their cost of living, but rather that absolute salary numbers mean little by themselves. A $60K salary in Manhattan for example is a tough life, whereas a $60K salary elsewhere can be very comfortable.
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  I'm 100% sympathetic -- $100K is a lot of money -- but you really do need to factor in cost of living. I am not trying to evoke sympathy for folks who make $100K. It's just reality that $100K means something drastically different in the Bay Area vs any number of other metropolitan areas. It's just more complicated than absolute numbers, is all I'm saying. If anything the fact that $100K is "not much" relative to the cost of living there is yet another symptom-- it implies that an eminently reasonable amount of money like $60K isn't enough. IOW, we should talk about floors, not ceilings or even averages.
  - bunderbunder 13y ago
    Keep some perspective in considering the cost of living, too. The area's high cost of living is merely an inconvenience for someone who's that lofty income bracket. For the people living on the community's median household income of about half that, I imagine it's a lot rougher. For the >10% of the community's unemployed people, it's probably downright disastrous. And I imagine from the perspective of those folks, when the $100k earners complain about the cost of living it looks a whole lot like crocodile tears.

bunderbunder 13y ago

Perspective all around. The perspective where a six figure salary can be considered even remotely modest is the perspective that cuts the >90% of Americans who don't earn a 6 figure salary out of the frame.

callahad 13y ago

In 2011, a $100,000 salary gave you a higher individual income than 93.4% of all working-age Americans. It seems strange to describe an individual income in the top 6% as "relatively modest." Cite: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01_001.htm http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new01...

owenjones 13y ago
Regardless the point I was trying to make is that if the author wishes to rail against inequality, they picked a poor target in their new neighbors. By relatively modest, I was referring to the salaries earned by people in actual places of power. If the author wanted to bring up the extreme disparity between the really-wealthy and the rest of us, I am all ears, instead they've focused on the harm done to them by the new gentrify-ing population; yet I assume at one point the author was a gentrifier of the same neighborhood they now wish to protect. People were upset when the hippies moved in to SF too.
- waps 13y ago
  Googlers, by far more left than most of the country, cannot fathom that they are part of "the rich" most of them rail against. Some of these people are getting kicked out of their apartment, can't find a new place that's anywhere near their job, so they're getting kicked out, forced to move away, forced to quit their job and sent packing to nowhere with no job, no roof over their heads and no money. Plenty of these will be homeless for a while to come. My opinion is : stop fighting this discussion. You can't win. There are no words anywhere that will make people accept being forced into homelessness without fighting. Just shut up, go to church sunday and pay a few hundred bucks on collection, because that will actually help them for a while. Lots of churches help people relocate because they've got lots of locations, and this is (part of) what they do. TLDR: These protesters are right. Google, or googlers, techies in general, are forcing the lower rungs on the social ladder into homelessness. Sorry to say, but you're lucky you're in America. In Europe, I cannot imagine these protests would have remained peaceful. A few tires and one window does not count as violence. Visit the poor parts of Brussels once with what a techie normally walks around with in San Francisco and you'll know what violence is. Of course the reason this doesn't happen in Sanfran is that this is just the n-th time the poorest are being forced out.
potatolicious 13y ago
It's all relative - the Bay Area is enormously expensive to live in compared to most other places in the USA. The apples-to-apples comparison would have to incorporate cost of living. Which isn't saying that techies aren't paid very well, even in relation to their cost of living, but rather that absolute salary numbers mean little by themselves. A $60K salary in Manhattan for example is a tough life, whereas a $60K salary elsewhere can be very comfortable.
wonderzombie 13y ago
I'm 100% sympathetic -- $100K is a lot of money -- but you really do need to factor in cost of living. I am not trying to evoke sympathy for folks who make $100K. It's just reality that $100K means something drastically different in the Bay Area vs any number of other metropolitan areas. It's just more complicated than absolute numbers, is all I'm saying. If anything the fact that $100K is "not much" relative to the cost of living there is yet another symptom-- it implies that an eminently reasonable amount of money like $60K isn't enough. IOW, we should talk about floors, not ceilings or even averages.
- bunderbunder 13y ago
  Keep some perspective in considering the cost of living, too. The area's high cost of living is merely an inconvenience for someone who's that lofty income bracket. For the people living on the community's median household income of about half that, I imagine it's a lot rougher. For the >10% of the community's unemployed people, it's probably downright disastrous. And I imagine from the perspective of those folks, when the $100k earners complain about the cost of living it looks a whole lot like crocodile tears.