Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe

If there's a recovery it will be years from now, when there are easy profits to be made.

Currently there are easy losses to be made, and no one wants that.

That's exactly the point, and something I don't think many British people realise. (I don't think Americans etc realise it either, but I don't expect them to.)

Moving to work in a different EU country requires what I'd guess is a similar amount of paperwork as moving between US states.

- Register your address with the local government (which may lead to an id card, tax registration etc) - Update your driving license, if applicable - Tell the old country you'll stop paying tax there (may lead to a tax refund)

These are the same kinds of processes as are used when a child is born, a teenager gets a first job, or an adult moves house. Nothing requires permission, nothing can be refused.

Additionally, there are agreements for things like state healthcare, pensions and out-of-work benefits.

If the UK raises barriers, then London will be less appealing for other European citizens.

Historically the EU plays hardball with dissenters. The leavers are gambling that our trading relationships are essential to the EU - but unfortunately they really aren't. So it's unwise to expect anything too conciliatory from Brussels.

What is clear is that if the UK does leave it will have spent the last forty years building up the City as the key European/World financial center, and then thrown away that advantage through the actions of a small clique of overly ambitious and utterly dishonest politicians.

And if you take away the City, no one in power has any idea at all how to build a 21st century economy - never mind a 20th century economy, or even a 19th century economy.

While the rest of Europe will be developing new startups, England will be playing with its union jack and wondering if maybe it should build a big navy again.

Will the banks move from a country where they have totally captured the government and legal system? Will Germany guarantee no prosecutions for financial crimes like the UK tacitly did?

Baseball, (American) Football, Basketball, … I guess coming in fourth does feel crushing.

Having a partner doubles your income. More, if French taxation works in any way similarly to the German system, then an official relationship puts you in a different taxation category. Having children moves you into yet another category where your net income noticeably improves. You're probably making an equivalent of 100K for a single person without realizing it.

>> And yet these startups, everywhere, are able to do exactly that. They use equity as a carrot to lure experienced people from a sure thing all the time.

Not really. Everywhere where I've been I've only seen kids writing code. Anybody who is senior has always been an independent contractor, and it's usually them who actually advance the work by leaps and bounds. But those, today you have them working for you, tomorrow they're elsewhere. And with the young and inexperienced, you won't accomplish much.

Also, experienced people with families usually ignore any talks about equity and start the initial offer analysis with a calculator in their hands. I'm yet to encounter a true senior specialist with family obligations that takes equity over hard currency.

I'll add one caveat -- if you are saying that you and your partner both earned around 50k euros/year (combined household income of around 100k euros/year), then I would believe you, and it would not be surprising nor would it contradict anything I'm saying.

If instead you are claiming that you supported the kind of lifestyle you describe on a 50k euros/year salary, I simply do not believe it.

If you want to equivalently spend about 1/3 of a 50k salary on rent in Paris, that will be 1388 euros/month, or $1534 / month. It's ludicrous for you to claim that you can easily find a 2-bedroom apartment with clean accommodations and a reasonable commute distance from central Paris for $1534/month. So, very likely, you'll be spending more than 1/3 of your income on rent in metro Paris, if you earn 50k, so a greater fraction even than in SF. It's actually quite a lot more than 1/3 after you take into account taxes. (Also, re: medical, I've worked at large & small, young & old companies and only 1 out of the 4 has required me to pay any premium on medical insurance, and even then it was low. I know this is not always the case in America, but you definitely can find jobs that provide this if it matters to you.)

When I lived in Paris in 2010, I lived near the Exelmans stop (close to Parc des Princes), which was a long-ass trek into the city center (and even longer for me going to Universite Paris 7 for work). It was a 1-bedroom apartment shared between me and a flat mate (I slept on a pull-out sofa). There was no dryer, only a washer, and the water closet was separate (across the whole apartment) from the bath/shower, and had no sink. We also had to flip a metal sheet up onto the top of the washing machine in order to have any counter space when cooking.

That apartment was 1300 euros/month (650 split between two roommates) and we were only given that price because the apartment owner said he found the two of us (graduate students) to be especially responsible and was hoping for good stewards to take care of it, so he offered a discount down from the 1500 euros/month he listed originally.

Thus, from my own experience, 1/3 of a 50k salary in Paris will if you're lucky get you a very cramped 1-bedroom with sub-par appliances and accommodations that is way outside the city center and requires onerous commute times.

This was in 2010, so I can't imagine how much prices have risen.

Absolutely no way will you be able to afford a 2-bedroom place on that budget unless you're way outside of Paris. And with the remaining ~ 30k euros not spent on rent, you will be very unlikely to afford private school and the rest of what you claim -- and I'm not even factoring in the much higher tax rates.

Even looking on lodgis right now, even all the way out in the 16eme where I lived before, I'm seeing rents of 2500 - 3100 euros/month for anything with 2 bedrooms. This is somewhere around $3000. Sure, yes, that's lower than in SF or New York, but just as I have been arguing, it's not lower by a large enough amount to justify the drastic reduction in wages.

Facing these prices, I'd be much, much better off earning in the high $100k range in SF/NY than I would be earning anything below 100k euros in Paris/Berlin/Amsterdam/etc.

But pretty much the only country in all of Europe where a visa worker can actually approach a 100k euro salary is Switzerland.

The reduced cost of living is not enough to justify the even-more reduced wage you're paid. It just does not make economic sense. If you have access to developed American job markets, you are better off in real wage terms than in almost any situation possible in Europe.

It's deeply unfortunate too. I absolutely loved life in Paris. I love spending more time at meals, less focus on consumerism, greater focus on closeness with friends, greater focus on culinary pleasure. I felt (and still feel) I would fit in well, be productive, and happy living in Paris. Except that for the wage I can earn there, I would struggle to get by, and it's absolutely not worth it to suffer the stress of that struggle. I wish it were differently, really. But it's just the wage reality.

Even with the exchange rate, my base salary was more than triple the $50k euros amount, and I have < 4 years of experience. I am a specialist in my area which makes my case a bit harder to compare, but still, the offer of provided healthcare and 4 weeks vacation doesn't make foreign jobs more attractive to me. I've had that in almost every American job I've had and also was paid a wage that was high enough to comfortably exceed local cost of living. In fact, I generally find that when an employer has to start nervously listing side perks like medical coverage or vacation as apologetic offerings to excuse an obviously poor salary relative to cost of living, it's a huge red flag that they know they are not equipped to recruit exceptional people.

In all my comments I am already talking about how much money you have left after general cost of living expenses. Even though such costs are lower in Berlin than in many major US cities, the salaries in Berlin are even lower at a disproportional level. Unless you adopt a more ascetic lifestyle, your lower salary in Berlin will not stretch as far despite the lower costs. The costs, while lower, aren't low enough.