[FirmwareBurner]

>There's a bunch of people who want a large income (wealth) disparity

Apart form you of course, so I'm sure you'd be ok if the government would tax your higher than average tech wage till your take home pay would match that of a train conductor's or bus driver's, like in Western Europe, and therefore fix the wage gap you hate so much. Would you like that solution?

Caption this: It's only a problem when the people who earn more than me are greedy, but my greed is fine, it's OK for me to out-earn others because "I've earned it", not like Zuckerberg, he didn't earn it.

[benterix]

> the government would tax your higher than average tech wage till your take home pay would match that of a train conductor's or bus driver's, like in Western Europe

I live in Europe and earn ca. 6 times more than my friend who is a bus driver in the same city. We both have access to free education and, if we wish, also free healthcare, for which I am paying slightly more, but I really don't mind.

[FirmwareBurner]

That doesn't scan. In which Western European country is that massive difference? Either you have a FANG wage or your friend has a poverty wage because here's how it's in Austria SW Dev wage 3k net/month, bus driver 2,5k. There's no 6x difference here.

So you're proving my point that it works for you when income distribution is not egalitarian because you wouldn't be very happy if you earned the same as your friend.

[benterix]

My salary is quite good, my friends in the field earn a bit less, but the gap is still there.

To put things in perspective, according to this website[0], bus drivers earn ca. €20 per hour, within some quite limited margin. I don't know if this data reflects reality. However, the data for SWE show a much, much wider margin[1]. So it would make much more sense to compare the medians, and this gives only 2x difference. A big gap still, but not enormous as in my case.

[0] https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/bus-driver/germany [1] https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/germany

[FirmwareBurner]

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Dataset of levels.fyi heavily skews towards FAANGs and big-tech, not entire SW sector of a nation.

Granted, I was also guilty of that since I was comparing the salary of a tram driver for the local state public transport company where they get great benefits and the union always negotiates top salaries since they have a monopoly and can just increase the bus fare to their customers whenever they need a raise.

But my point still stands. Why bother going to uni to become and engineer in the competitive private sector, if you're gonna net only 500 Euros more than a driver or any other government annex union job?

[benterix]

I would insist something is wrong here. 3k a month for an SWE seems on the lower end, really. I'm pretty sure you could get 4k just by switching jobs without too much effort and staying at the mid lever. 5k should be possible for senior positions. If you take this into account, it changes the dynamics.

But even if we assumed for a moment that 3k is some kind of upper limit: remuneration reflects demand. If nobody wants to do jobs that are necessary for the society, the related wages go up. From this perspective, things might be working as expected in a society with too many SWEs and too few bus drivers.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I would insist something is wrong here. 3k a month for an SWE seems on the lower end, really.

3K NETTO(post-tax) is the norm for mid positions in Austria for SW devs, not on the lower end. Where do you live if this is too low?

> 5k should be possible for senior positions.

5k NETTO is the norm?! In this market? WHERE? Survivorship bias maybe?

>From this perspective, things might be working as expected in a society with too many SWEs and too few bus drivers.

There's no "too few bus drivers", there's the unions of bus drivers (and other jobs) who can push their salary and cost increases into the prices of the general public, as they please (kind of like government workers) since they have a monopoly on public transit and that's what people need to get to work so they don't need to compete on the free market. You're comparing free market labor with a union monopoly.

Maybe a good strategy if you want to have a country where everyone is a government worker and you have no private sector innovation. Would you still be SW devs for the same wages?

[Gud]

If you earn 6 times more than your friend who is a bus driver, you live in a place that has an unusually high income disparity for Europe.

[fmobus]

Tech worker here, I just looked at my total comp, and it's about 4.5x that of a local bus driver. L+1s are probably getting close to 6x.

[Gud]

What's your location if you don't mind me asking? And did you compare the bus drivers total comp to your total comp? :-)

[FirmwareBurner]

That doesn't scan. In which Western European country is that massive difference?

Either you have a FANG wage or your friend has a poverty wage because here's how it's in Austria SW Dev wage 3k net/month, bus driver 2,5k. There's no 6x difference here.

So you're proving my point that it works for you when income distribution is not egalitarian because you wouldn't be very happy if you earned the same as your friend.

[benterix]

I have a good job, most of my friends earn, say, 4x bus driver salary.

[FirmwareBurner]

In another comment you shared a avenge bus driver salary as 44k/year. So by your statement, your friends would earn 4x that, meaning 176k/year while you said you earn 6x that at 264k/year.

Sorry, but something is wrong here. Either you're data/math is wrong, or you and your friends work in the top 1% FAANGs/big-tech jobs, because those tech salaries aren't the norm in Europe.

[benterix]

No, 44k for a bus driver is in Germany. I also saw job offers for SWE in Germany at 35k, though... To make a solid argument we would have to compare medians.

My loose impression is the median for regular SWEs in Germany is around 60k and for senior positions ca 80k. Whether this is demotivating or otherwise is a matter of personal attitude I think - the difference is not enormous but it is there.

[queenkjuul]

I could comfortably live on a bus drivers wage here, obviously I'd prefer they make as much as tech workers, given their job is much harder; your solution is fine with me too, though.

[antfarm]

I believe that in the long run, that solution would be preferable to the effects of income and wealth disparity on US society.

[FirmwareBurner]

And who's gonna want to do complex skilled jobs then if you pay them poorly?

[insane_dreamer]

False dichotomy. Reducing inequality doesn't mean people doing complex skilled jobs should be paid poorly.

[hnthrow90348765]

Sure I would, as long as they tax billionaires even more and guarantee it. I do CRUD app development, I'm not even responsible for anything as potentially dangerous as a train. Superintelligence would very likely take my job anyway, so I won't get taxed for long.

[blinkbat]

there's a cap on the bracket around 600k. there are people who make many times this and their percentage owed does not go up. they are also uniquely positioned to avoid paying what low comparative amount they owe. let's start there.

[tanduv]

perhaps we can create a sort of a bracket that scales based on the income?

[DanHulton]

Unless you are yourself a robber baron the likes of Zuck, you should look up this little concept called "class solidarity."

[FirmwareBurner]

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy here of people seeing greed only in those with more income than them but never in themselves when they accept those generous big-tech, big-finance, big-ad-tech, big-4, big-pharma compensation packages from the evil robber barons they claim to hate. If you hate them so much why are you taking their blood money?

Also, there is no class solidarity the way you imagine it in your fantasy, because to the average person on the street putting the fries in the bag ac McD, or stacking shelves at Walmart, or tearing down the roads with a jackhammer in the summer heat, the big-tech worker is closer to the robber baron Zuckerberg, than they are to them. So when you get laid off from your big-tech job, they won't have solidarity for you, they might even break a smile, as those spoiled pampered tech worker are brought down from their Kombucha sipping ivory towers.

Class solidarity, as seen applied in Europe, means bringing the income of tech workers in line with unskilled labor till everyone is equally lower-middle class, not touching the super wealthy robber barons to contribute more to society, because no society does that, that's just fantasy. Look at the owner of IKEA's complex tax avoidance scheme: https://www.greens-efa.eu/legacy/fileadmin/dam/Documents/Stu... Do you think he has any class solidarity? He has more in common with Musk, Zuckerberg or XiJinping than with his average Swedish countrymen.

The more class solidarity you wish and vote for, the higher the tax burdens will be on skilled and ambitious middle class workers and small businesses, not on Zuckerberg or the elites with inherited wealth. So be careful what you wish for. My country already went through communism once and everyone had enough of "class solidarity" for the next lifetime, but there's always some westerners out there who cling on that "this time it will be different". Sure buddy.

[einszwei]

> the big-tech worker is closer to the robber baron Zuckerberg

A big tech worker earning 200k is closer to a minimum wage worker earning 20k per year than Zuckerberg earning 20M per year with net worth of 200B

[bigfishrunning]

Yes, but from the point of view of the minimum wage worker, they don't identify with either the engineer or Zuck, so those two are equivalent.

[somebehemoth]

What now? How would you even begin to know this? It sounds like you are out of touch if you don't think low wage earners can tell the vast difference between normal people and billionaires.

[cwmoore]

The tech worker and the billionaire both have enough money. The menial worker does not. See the difference yet?

[queenkjuul]

tech workers are in every literal way closer to construction workers than billionaires, and everyone i know knows it, even the construction workers.

Did you know my construction worker friend actually makes as much as i do? Amazing what class solidarity in the form of unions can achieve, eh?

[queenkjuul]

The owner of IKEA is literally in the same class as Zuck lmao what are you even on about

[sshine]

The founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, passed away in 2018.

IKEA is currently owned by a series of foundations.

On account of Ingvar Kamprad being dead, they're not really in the same class.

Before Ingvar Kamprad passed away, his estimated worth was $42.5B -- $58.7B.

Compared, Zuck's estimated worth is $221.2B -- $247B.

[queenkjuul]

Yeah that very much puts them both in the same class

[bigfishrunning]

And he's got a scheme to avoid taxes, i think is the takeaway here