Comment by flexie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by flexie | Hacker News Reader

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Oh, please. From my experience living in the US and now living in the capital of Bulgaria I know that the price of food, housing etc. is way lower here than in the valley or NYC. Easily 3 times cheaper. And the tax is lower too.

But don't take my word for it: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/sofia/s...?

A decent full stack developer in his early 20s with no or little college education and 2-4 years of working experience is paid out 25,000 dollars yearly after all taxes and social contributions are paid.

Adjusting for living expenses that's like being paid out some $70-80,000 in the valley.

Developers here don't have debt, easily save up money, live in nice apartments, drive German luxury cars, enjoy 5-6 weeks of vacation where they travel to foreign countries. They meet in at 10 AM and leave at 6 PM sharp. We eat lunch together at restaurants every day and take plenty of breaks. From what I have experienced living 5 years here, life as a developer in Sofia (the most expensive city in Bulgaria) is more comfortable than in the Valley or New York.

Professional opportunities in the US are probably better, no doubt about that, but that's another story.

So many Americans simply don't understand what you're saying. Having lived outside of the US myself for almost 10 years and planning to do so again, it's a world of difference.

I'm in love with the entire Iberian peninsula, particularly the southernmost bits. It's poor(er), beautiful in people and in landscape, the weather is nice most of the time, and things are affordable, even by the local sheep farmers. I won't be getting rich, but I'll be living and working on my own terms. Best part is, the wife is amenable to this after the children are out on their own. My wife is in the medical field. She can likely transfer her license and skills over. Heritage-wise, she's from the area, so this is a bonus as well.

>>now living in the capital of Bulgaria I know that the price of food, housing etc. is way lower here than in the valley or NYC. Easily 3 times cheaper

You're comparing two of the most expensive places in the world to Bulgaria, it's likely that your statement is true of many parts of the US.

But also two of the places in the world that pays developers best. I bet developers in Oklahoma City are paid much less than in SF or NYC in average. So the main point stands.

I was talking about the average cost of life in North America, I think Montreal and Toronto can be considered about average. The cost of living in the Valley is not representative for medium to large cities of USA or Canada.

That only weakens the argument. Cost of living in Toronto is nearly 2.5 times higher than Sofia: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/sofia/t...

But median salary in Toronto is merely around USD 50,000 before tax according to payscale: http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Software_Developer/S...

That leaves Toronto developers with significantly less than Sofia developers when you adjust for taxes and purchasing power.

So, do you sell your product(s) in Bulgaria, or in the US?

Denmark, mainly

I assume that means you get a Denmark sort of price for your software. Yet you pay your developers a Bulgarian sort of wage.

I don't want to moralise, but in this case I don't see how I can avoid the conclusion that you're basically ripping them off. So I'll just stop here 'cause I don't like to moralise- but I'll just say that I'd never work under such conditions.

I thought it was the nature of business to sell at higher prices than you buy.

Feel free to moralise but try to live up to it yourself: Don't buy anything produced in parts of the world where people make less than you. Buying employees or services or products are the same, you know.

With virtually zero percent unemployment for developers in Sofia, need for programmers everywhere in Europe, no visa-requirement preventing anyone from leaving Bulgaria, and some 10-15 percent of the population already having left, I think it's fair to assume that nobody is getting ripped off.

The thing is that I don't have much choice when it comes to, say, electronics or the clothes I wear and so on, but I'm not the person who employs the people who make those things directly and I don't profit from their work. In fact, if you think of it this way, if I pay £15 for a cardigan made in Bangladesh by a woman who gets paid £5 a week for her work, I'm getting ripped off also. Why am I not paying pennies for it, if that's what her work is worth to whomever is selling it to me?

Your position, however is different than mine. In your case there's noone forcing you to not share a bigger part of your profits with the people you employ. The choice is all yours.

You maximise your profit. Fair enough. But that brings us back to my original comment. In a free market economy, everybody is maximising their profits. For low-wage workers that means minimising the quality of their work, and I don't see any way out of it, if you agree that everyone is a rational player.

The alternative is that you're hiring complete idiots, which also works to your detriment, considering they're expected to work with their brains.

You can always go the extra effort to locate the factory workers who make your clothes and start sending them money directly. You have that choice too.

But back to your original point, do you believe that a shirt made in England that you would pay twice the amount of money for, would be 2 times higher quality than a shirt made in Bangladesh?

>> You have that choice too.

So I end up paying twice for each item I buy? Nice.

>> do you believe that a shirt made in England that you would pay twice the amount of money for, would be 2 times higher quality than a shirt made in Bangladesh?

My experience is that clothes and particularly shoes that I buy which were manufactured in Europe and are noticeably more expensive than the cheaper varieties made in SE Asia, are generally better quality and tend to last longer.

>> So I end up paying twice for each item I buy? Nice.

Not if you believe that you underpaid for it in the first place.

>> My experience is that clothes and particularly shoes that I buy which were manufactured in Europe

I was under impression that those were not available to you from your earlier posts. In that case, you can simply choose to pay more for European clothes of higher quality, so not sure what the problem is.

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