[palakchokshi]

Ok let's take your argument "You know what would happen if these were allowed to rise unchecked?" in the opposite direction. Your premise is rise of salaries should be checked. Now let's say once those salaries were checked by companies by promising not to hire each other engineers, if those companies decided well let's reduce the salaries of our own engineers since they are not going to get a better deal elsewhere anyways. Very soon those salaries will be plummeting because of this agreement between the companies. You contradict yourself by the end when you say "EVERYONE gets paid market rate" It is NOT market rate if all companies in the market got together and decided not to offer higher wages to someone to incentivize them to come work for them. That is what a CARTEL would do but with lower wages.

[lectrick]

I... don't disagree. And I lean libertarian (which is to say, things should remain unchecked). I'm just saying that in this particular instance, it may not have resulted in as "net" a bad, as is being suggested.

[palakchokshi]

The beauty of free markets (when they actually work) is that the unchecked salaries would have been corrected by the market when they reached an unsustainable level (like it did in the previous dot com bust). Regarding people who refuse to face reality that their prior salary is not reflected in current market rates, well that's the person's own problem and can't be taken into consideration in arguing for suppressed wages via cartel behavior. Personally I would like to get the maximum money I can get for the work I'm doing. :)