[anonymous]

About the money issue, it's not so bleak. As you pointed out - you have an expectation about your salary and won't work for less. On the other hand, you also have an expectation on how much you'll work. So you're basically telling people "I will do X work for Y money" with X and Y being respectively the minimum and maximum values you'll take. The question isn't for the company to pay you more money so you'll work more, they have to pay you more money so you'll work for them at all and that is what drives programmer prices up (or down).