[femiagbabiaka]

Software engineering isn’t most professions. Salaries have been going up more than a decade accounting for inflation.

If 10 million software engineers dropped in Silicon Valley, a lot of things would happen (for one there’s nowhere for them to live). But that’s not what’s happening.

[tossaccount123]

It was hyperbole to show the effect of supply and demand

More and more I notice how similar software engineers are beginning to sound like the "Made in America" factory workers who said China could never do their job. Never take the present comfy situation for granted

[wycs]

Anyone who thinks China is not full of extremely talented software engineers does not know anything about China.

[femiagbabiaka]

so true -- they're even kicking our ass in many fields of CS research.

[Buge]

If we want stuff to be made in America instead of China, we should increase the number of skilled immigrants allowed in.

[gesman]

Import tax on crap would solve it.

[Buge]

By "stuff" I was actually referring to digital products, digital technology, websites, technology companies, etc. An import tax on those would be harder than for physical products.

[madengr]

Yes, mostly crap.

[Buge]

I never claimed it wasn't crap, I said it's hard to tax imports of it.

[logfromblammo]

It would not. An import tax reduces imports, but also reduces exports by a greater amount. An export tax on real estate transfers to foreign persons, cash or cash-equivalents, luxury goods, artwork, and technology--such as engineering documents and diagrams, manufacturing machinery, and firmware source code--would also not solve it, but it would bite a bigger chunk out of the problem.

Imports are paid for by exports. The US is currently paying for the manufacturing that it exported with dollars and documents. It could be paying with cars, and airplanes, and espresso machines, and in-sink garbage disposals, and novelty CNC lathes for engraving wooden pencils and chopsticks, and rapid refrigeration devices for single canned beverages, and maybe even non-imaginary 8K OLED television sets. If you make the specific exports that produce the most internal economic activity the cheapest way to pay for imports, increases in imports would encourage more exports.

If you're covering a trade deficit with cash, that impacts the same currency you use to conduct domestic trade--you're giving the trade partner leverage over your whole economy. What you really want to do is make a note spent in your own country buy far more than the same note spent elsewhere, so that the notes stay in the country, and the goods and services get exported instead. But you also want the rest of the world to have high demand for your currency, so that you can bring in a lot of imports, or go on lots of cheap tourist vacations. So devaluing your currency is not the best option.

But if you had, say, a 50% tax on foreign money transfers, if someone were to buy a $1 doodad from Elbonia, they would have to pay $2 for it in cash--$1 for the importer, and $1 for the tax. But they could also pay for it by purchasing a $1 doohickey locally and trading that for the $1 doodad, avoiding the tax, and keeping the $1 circulating in the domestic economy, and the Elbonian money circulating in Elbonia. Instead of taxing the trade itself, tax imbalanced trades and trade deficits.

Of course, any real-world implementation would be politicized to Hell and back, and chock full of loopholes, but it works just fine between imaginary countries.

[gesman]

As a consumer I don't corporations outsourcing manufacturing to China and then bringing back crap, charging me full price and keeping the difference.

As a patriot I'd rather pay higher price for domestically made products and know that our local workers made it.

There is a balance of course between killing imports and selling country short and flooding it with crap - but certainly China was having a party paid by north american consumers for last 3 decades.

[aswanson]

There already are import taxes on "crap" like electronic components. Browse around digi-key for "tariff pending" or "tariff applied". All its doing is making bills of material more expensive.

[PedroBatista]

If they did the same, US exports would tank.

[femiagbabiaka]

Software engineer salaries have been rising in a globalized market. Companies can already hire wherever they want. Many do.

I have no doubt that if companies can pay workers less then they will. But that’s not what’s happening.

[pishpash]

Rising compared to what? Junior engineers are doubling or tripling up to live near work in metropolitan areas or face crushing commutes. It's a sign that even in software engineering, capital is crushing labor.

[femiagbabiaka]

You're describing two different problems. Housing supply in the Bay Area and New York -- the areas I'm assuming you're talking about, because most other metropolitan cities are building to keep up with supply just fine -- is incredibly low. In addition, in the Bay Area especially, the incredibly high salaries in combination with that supply is causing skyrocketing prices.

[emiliobumachar]

Be aware that Silicon Valley is an extreme global outlier in real estate prices.

[AYBABTME]

Not really, there's cities all over the world with conditions that lead to crazy high real estate/housing costs. Most every metropolis ends up with a similar situation. Slightly different settings that all sum up to "high demand low supplies". NYC, London, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, ...

[ben_w]

SF is an outlier compared to London. From expatistan.com:

Monthly rent for 85 m2 (900 Sqft) furnished accommodation in NORMAL area:

SF: $3,663 (£2,789) London: £1,766 Difference: 58%

[harimau777]

Is this true when you are comparing similar conditions? Something along the lines of: Large cities with significant multiculturalism, high tech jobs, significant culture (arts, media, entertainment, museums, etc.), public transportation, and openness to various ways of life

[bluGill]

Yes. Try moving to Minneapolis, which has plenty of everything you ask for and housing prices are not out of control. If you don't need a large city, Des Moines does well too on the rest of your qualifications.

[C1sc0cat]

Not Compared to London though - London does have a much better transport system so living 60-70 miles away and commuting isn't as bad as it would be in SV.

[pishpash]

Indeed. An argument could be made that given the astronomical living costs of Silicon Valley, the wages should have already been higher given how much profits the companies are making.

[olalonde]

More and more? I recall software engineers were panicked over outsourcing just over 15 years ago. Have you watched Office Space? This is not a new phenomenon.