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You'l need less if you live in a country that have public health care, good public schools, you can quickly travel by train to some of the greatest cities in the world, a vibrant cultural life, and one month vacations.

> You'l need less if you live in a country that have public health care, good public schools, you can quickly travel by train to some of the greatest cities in the world, a vibrant cultural life, and one month vacations.

This is objectively not true, because the median American worker has a higher disposable income than the median worker in most of Europe, including Germany.

This means that, even after paying for health insurance and out of pocket expenses, etc., Americans have higher purchasing power. The gap is even larger when you look at tech workers, because they're paid particularly well in the US compared to the general public.

> This is objectively not true, because the median American worker has a higher disposable income than the median worker in most of Europe, including Germany.

The gap disappears completely if you consider hours worked. Based on [1] and [2], the median German makes $19.52/hr in disposable income, while the median American makes $19.29/hr[3].

Given that Germany does better than the US on many health and education outcomes as well it must be doing something right.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Average_annual_ho...

[3] Yes, I know the math is a little wonky, but I couldn't find median hours worked and had to settle for average. However, the distribution of hours worked is not as skewed as income given there's only a finite number of hours in a year.

This is a very good point that people often overlook.

The US has insane disposable income from top down. Even our low income have luxuries.

The problem with healthcare stems from corruption within out government.

"Disposable income" doesn't mean what your sentence is using it to mean, so it makes your summary claim suspect.

Did you mean discretionary income?

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disposableincome.asp

Why do I need the most disposable income possible?

IME, Peter is spot on. The most ineffective board I ever sat on was a charter school board. There was so much representation present that nothing could get decided in the time allotted. This was, in retrospect, perfectly optimized by the administration of the time - they did whatever they wanted, and unless it really upset a large number of people, nothing changed.

Yeah everyone should serve on a board or just a committee (there are plenty in your town I promise) to see what this looks like.

My town had a downtown improvement committee of 3 people which seemed successful, so to further expand its "power" they decided to add dozens of people to it (I was one of the ones added). What I saw was eye-opening.

I served on a student club committee as an undergrad, where at one point we had over 20 representatives, which made it hard to even make quorum consistently.

What effectively happened was that a small group of us with executive positions were the ones who actually ran the society, and we had our own meetings where we nailed down plans then presented it to the wider group as essentially a fait accompli.

Everything was far saner after we passed new regulations to force it down to a mere 11 people...

> Many totally rational worker ideals (keep comfy job) are often very opposed to a company's ideals (upgrade technology, take new risks, automate)

The premise trivializes worker's priorities and idealizes management's priorities. People's need for safety, money, job security, benefits, non-toxic environments, opportunity for advancement, reasonable hours and no off-the-clock work are not about 'comfy' - it's not a nicer office chair; these are their lives and careers; it's their kid's college tuition, their homes, and their health; it's their mental health and quality of life. Management also has plenty of self-interest and I don't find them so focused on efficiency.

> Thiel

He says plenty of outlandish things, and that quote fits his authoritarian bent. I don't take it at face value. Taking other people's ideas and priorities into account can be frustrating and it feels inefficient if you think you know everything. Too bad; that's your job as a leader.

Thiel's point is orthogonal to the point you are making.

His point could just as easily be applied to an argument for the German system to have only three board members with one worker's representative member.

It's not just Germany that has lower tech wages. I've looked at moving back home to the UK many times so that I can spend more time with my family, but can't reconcile the fact that I'd have to take a 75-80% pay cut to stay in this industry. Compared to North America, software engineers are paid pittance in the UK... now that you've brought my attention to the fact it's the same in Germany, it begs me to ask the question - is this the same in all of Europe?

I was approached by a German blockchain company last year and the salary range discussed wasn't great. Less than half. And it didn't seem cheaper to live there.

My theory of why tech salaries are higher in the US: the US, public and private, borrows trillions of dollars. It consumes more than it produces. Wages are higher. And so are imports and immigration. It's all a consequence of the borrowing.

If the US stopped borrowing so much and stopped inflating bubbles and re-inflating them after they collapse, consumption, wages, imports and immigration would fall.

If the US started paying down its debt, we'd be producing more than we consume. We'd be exporting more than we import and there'd be more emigrants than immigrants.

The growth industries are the most prone to bubbles. It's easier to believe something that is rising will get big than something that is the same or shrinking. So most of the VC capital goes to growth industries. Well, it would in any case, but even more so when there is an unnatural amount of capital. So that is where salaries get bid up the most.

The reason US tech salaries are high is because the 5 most valuable public companies in the world are Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook [0] which are all tech based American companies headquartered in 2 areas (bay area and seattle). They all compete for talent and bring up salaries for American software engineers (and they can still easily pay a lot more).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by...

I am aware of the competition between these companies. I live in Silicon Valley and spent a couple of years at Apple.

But I hardly think the investment environment in the Valley is irrelevant. Companies do use capital to get big.

> My theory of why tech salaries are higher in the US: the US, public and private, borrows trillions of dollars. It consumes more than it produces. Wages are higher. And so are imports and immigration. It's all a consequence of the borrowing. If the US stopped borrowing so much and stopped inflating bubbles and re-inflating them after they collapse, consumption, wages, imports and immigration would fall.

Just so everyone is clear, this is a heterodox (fringe) theory that is not accepted by economists, mostly because it flies in the face of both macroeconomic theory and empirical research.

> Just so everyone is clear, this is a heterodox (fringe) theory that is not accepted by economists, mostly because it flies in the face of both macroeconomic theory and empirical research.

It has its bases in reality, though. Remember Yo? 1.5M at 10M$ valuation for an app that broadcasts "yo". This is only made possible because borrowing money is extremely cheap in the US compared to Europe.

> It has its bases in reality, though. Remember Yo? 1.5M at 10M$ valuation for an app that broadcasts "yo". This is only made possible because borrowing money is extremely cheap in the US compared to Europe.

This is itself reductive and doesn't really represent the full story (venture capital in particular is itself already largely sourced from foreign money).

In any case, the statement "low interest rates encourage investment" isn't fridge (in fact, it is literally tautological). The fringe part is the idea that the US is fueling cycles this way, and the implication that the US economy would somehow be better off by paying off debt instead of printing money.

> The fringe part is the idea that the US is fueling cycles this way

I thought that the entire point of lowering interest rates is to fuel the economy? Problem is when the markets have become addicted to cheap money, and politicians don't have the guts to force them to give up the cheap money, so eventually the bubble bursts...

It exaggerates the cycles for sure. If the Fed let interest rates be set by the market after the next bubble collapse, the recovery would be slower, less bubbly and growth would be based on the value of things, rather than how easily a sector is stoked by interest rates. And it would be more likely to be sustainable and stable.

The fringe theory is that those four consequences are good things, not that they would happen. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding and you are saying borrowing has no effect on consumption, wages, imports and immigration, or even suppresses it?

Living in Berlin is absurdly cheaper than leaving in San Francisco. Think small appartments for 500 euros a month.

Good to know.

But....

https://www.thelocal.de/20170411/germany-has-second-biggest-...

For most California engineers, moving to Germany with the same salary would effectively reduce their taxes. California taxes for high earners are very high, even by European standards.

Unfortunately for most United States citizens, there's a double taxation system. Which means that even if you're living and working in another country, you're still required to report your income and pay taxes in the United States which means that even if the tax bill is lower in the country you live in, you've still gotta pay the difference in taxes to the U.S... unless you're willing to give up your U.S. citizenship in favour of your country of residence, which is a long and arduous process in a lot of cases.

Moving to Germany wouldn't be enough. You'd have to emigrate to Germany, become a German citizen and give up your U.S. passport in order to escape the U.S. tax system.

That's correct, but you'd still escape the state income tax, which is really what would make a difference. I specifically said "for California engineers", since for engineers in Washington or Texas, the move would be most likely be detrimental from the tax perspective.

The sweetest deal, at least for capital gains, seems to be in Puerto Rico. They're exempt from US federal taxes and there's no tax on capital gains there.

Peter Schiff talked about it on Joe Rogan's podcast recently.

That could be true. A lower rate on double the salary could still mean a higher tax bill.

And in California, the state income tax is an additional burden.

Of course, it's the final take home pay that matters.

>> It consumes more than it produces

One of the things the US produces with it's huge military spending is stability. The way the rest of the world pays for that stability is through buying T bills that pay <2% Every empire throughout history has demanded taxes from client countries, the way the US collects those taxes might be unique. All that is a long way of saying: don't worry about all that debt, it will never be paid back.

THere's a big difference being paying a tax and lending somebody money. And an even bigger difference between having cash in the bank and being unable to borrow.

No. The UK has some of the worst tech wages in Europe, esp. on a cost-of-living adjusted basis. Switzerland is on par or better than the US. Other countries fall on a spectrum in between.

FYI this isn't limited to Europe; Canada also pays much lower than the US. (The Seattle vs Vancouver comparison is especially striking). Elsewhere, Singapore is comparable to Switzerland and the US. I'm not sure about NZ and Australia.

For that matter, the parts of the US that aren't the bay area, Seattle, NYC ... pay a lot less than the parts that are. The tech scene in Canada is much smaller, but pay seems similar to "the rest of US", for the most part. Perhaps a little better if you adjust for health care,etc. but I suspect it's a wash.

So is this really a Canada [or wherever] vs. US comparison, or large US tech-hub vs. everywhere else comparison?

Norway: Senior software engineers make ~100k in the cities, or maybe a bit more if money is the priority. Starting salaries for software people ~60k. You can make maybe double the senior rate if you're an independent consultant, but then you'll have no job security and be the first out during downsizing. The job market is considered very hot at the moment. We are considered a high-cost market for software talent by European standards, to my understanding.

4-5 weeks holiday, mostly 7.5 hour workday. Free healthcare and social safety net, but total tax burden is 50%-75% of pre-tax income depending on personal consumption patterns. Cost of living is comparable to some medium-size US cities. Average 1-bedroom apartment costs ~300k, very generally speaking. All consumer products are as expensive or more expensive than in US cities, due to 25% VAT.

>> Compared to North America, software engineers are paid pittance

I'm not certain it's North America as a whole. I'm in Toronto, mostly considered the highest paid city in Canada, and I've long decided to not pay attention to Silicon Valley salaries, lest I get depressed :)

Whether you search for developer, software engineer, system administrator, SRE or the like, salaries in California seem positively extravagant to those in Toronto (which also has a very high baseline cost of living).

Further, I'm pretty sure Mexico salaries are even further depressed (which is the third country composing "North America" :)

I know a family that moved back to Germany recently. The father is a lawyer. He described their new situation as a 2-3x pay cut once you factor in higher taxes. He also said it was a similar situation for doctors.

Lawyers have higher average salaries in the US, though there are plenty of lawyers in the US who don't make all that much.

German billing requirements are often lower. My personal experience was 1150 in Germany and 1650 in the US, while my spouse's was 1300 in Germany and 1900 in the US.

If you factor a 1900 hour billing req at $120,000 (new lawyer at a bigger firm or experienced at a smaller firm) with a $20,000 bonus in the US going to maybe an in-house company position for $85,000 (US) and 1300 hours with little or no bonus and maybe 10-15% higher tax rate, then it can sure seem like a 2x or 3x pay cut.

But the quality of life is much different.

I know plenty of US lawyers who earn 6 figures but work the equivalent of more than 2 full time jobs' worth of hours to do it.

My spouse and I are planning to move back to Germany within about 6 months. We each have jobs as lawyers lined up (one definite, one tentative), and we will be taking nowhere near a 2x to 3x pay cut even factoring taxes. Based on changes in the US tax code, I am not even sure that my spouse's salary overall will be less there than here. Mine, I think, will be, but that's partly because of circumstances.

So, I'm not saying you're wrong, by any means, but to take a 2x to 3x pay cut moving from the US to Germany working as a lawyer seems to me like there's more involved than only taxes.

Clearly you’re more knowledgeable about this than me. I was actually surprised when he told me he was taking such a huge cut. I expected the pay to be significantly lower based on what I’ve seen for engineering salaries, but 2-3x is drastic. He is a staff lawyer for a large company, though, so maybe that’s a factor?

Anyway, good luck on your transition!

is this the same in all of Europe?

No, in some countries (e.g. southern) the pay cut is much higher.

It's probably the same everywhere there's not a myth of programmers as rarefied hacker geniuses homesteading the tech frontier, as well as enough VC funding sloshing around to pay those rockstar ninjas the SV-tier salaries they demand. Most programmers are maintenance tradesmen, and are paid accordingly.

Not only are tech salaries lower, the tech in Germany is shockingly bad. The mechanical engineering is world class, but try to buy a ticket online for the amazing train system, and it feels like using an Airline website from the 90s.

You're kidding, right? Two years ago I visited Germany and was able to find and buy train tickets with options including various connections of long-distance trains, local transit, and walking (with statable preferences on how much walking and waiting was allowable), which included connections in random cities as short as five minutes (but which worked!), store it all on my phone, and show it to a conductor, who took it all in stride. (Although some apologetically asked to see the credit card I'd used to buy it because the shitty US credit system hadn't caught up with European state of the art.)

It was a substantially better experience than I could get in most of the US at the time, although Amtrak has gotten better about not looking surprised when my ticket is on my phone, and some cities have moved in good directions there too.

Yeah not sure what he means. In Germany you can buy a train ticket using the app, show the QR code to the ticket inspector and he scans it. Done.

It's not always so simple, as I found when I bought a "flexible" ticket from Germany to South Tyrol online. The ticket couldn't be printed, but had to be posted (an extra 4.50 euros!). It also wasn't possible to cancel online, but had to be posted back to the train company with a post mark dated before the date of travel. I tried to cancel it at the train station, but again this was not possible.

Our group was six people, try buying six tickets online at once, and let me know how it goes :)

I've done it a few times, just travelled there with 6 people for a week one month ago.

Different experiences, different people, who knows who's the edge case eh?

> Why are tech workers wages so low in Germany compared to the USA, if they have workers on the board?

Because in Germany we have a lower cost of living compared to the tech hubs in the US. Also we have socialised welfare and healthcare systems. Additionally most Germany companies are more risk-averse and focus on long-term stability rather than massive growth.

And on a more cynical note we also deregulated the labor market in the early 2000s to circumvent labor laws by outsourcing low-wage workers to temp agencies that are allowed to treat them like contractors without running afoul of laws intended to prevent this.

There is also a phenomenon of 'diffusion of responsibility'.

People think there are enough people to take care of the problems, and don't exactly have to intervene all the time.

> More board members may increase intransigence, decrease oversight (cover over who is really making the decisions and who is not), and turn US corps more bureaucratic.

Take a look at the evidence in the real world (y'know, actual facts, not baseless speculation) and you will find strong indication that larger board sizes increase corporate performance.

> Boards beholden to current workers may sacrifice a lot of progress to keep things comfy, at the expense of future workers and jobs.

Again, this is the sort of thing that you could investigate by doing research of actual facts in the real world. You might start by looking at how German firms with significant worker board representation responded to reunification and Eastern Europe online. Hint: workers did not sacrifice future growth to keep their "comfy" wages.

> Obviously it "works" in germany, for some amount of "works," but it should need no explanation that US companies as a whole are able to move faster, and in high tech, often with higher wages(!!) than in Germany.

Like most "economic debates" in the US, I expect the debate around codetermination will be driven purely by ideology. There will be no serious review of the existing economic research and zero attempt to seriously investigate what works and doesn't work in any countries. What you'll get is just one side crying "Communist!" and the other side crying "Capitalist!" and there will be zero progress.

> Take a look at the evidence in the real world (y'know, actual facts, not baseless speculation) and you will find strong indication that larger board sizes increase corporate performance.

So you have statistical evidence that an increase to board size on day t is associated with greater excess stock returns on days > t?

Believe it or not you can actually look this up yourself. The impact of board size on corporate performance has been pretty thoroughly researched.

Yes, it has:

"One of the most consistent empirical relationships about boards of directors is that board size is negatively related to firm performance (Hermalin and Weisbach, 2003). Yermack (1996) finds a statistically significant negative relationship between board size and firm performance as measured by Tobin’s Q with a sample of 452 large U.S. industrial corporations for the period of 1984-1991. In the same study Yermack also exhibited that companies with small boards have more favorable values for financial ratios. Similarly Eisenberg, Sundgren and Wells (1998) concluded the negative relationship between firm board size and performance measured by return on assets (ROA) for a sample of 879 small private firms in Finland. In their 1998 study, Barhart and Rosenstein revealed that companies with fewer board members have superior performance compared to companies with crowded boards (...)"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321869618_The_Effec...

To be fair, I wonder how well these studies control for the well known negative relationship between firm size (as measured by, e.g., market cap) and excess returns, since firm size is presumably a confounding covariate of board size.

It's funny because you conveniently left out the fact that the single paper you quote finds no correlation.

The point here, as stated before, is not uncritically accept nonsense about board size because it validates your ideology and to look at actual research and evidence on the topic. At some point if you want to be taken seriously (at least outside of the US) you need to do more than appeal to your ideology du jour.

"conveniently"? You claim there is a positive correlation. A study finding no correlation goes against your position.

The point here, as stated before, is not uncritically accept nonsense about board size because it validates your ideology and to look at actual research and evidence on the topic.

Physician, heal thyself.

Right but your reply is equally disingenuous, adding a text snippet that is for your position but against the overall conclusion of the paper. The paper is also based on data from Turkish firms.

The whole thread is disingenuous, yes. The entire premise is that corporate governance is based off a dumb quote that's backed by zero evidence. The downvotes above just confirm how quickly these debates become ideological echo chambers. In America this just means people spouting neoliberal truisms like "unions will just raise wages!!1" which of course is nonsense as can be seen by the actual behavior of unions in Germany, Sweden and the auto-unions in the US. The point here is that there's no economic reason why workers in the US have such little power and are, except for the very top 1%, treated far worse than any other workers in the developed world. It is an ideological trap that has captured not just the US 1% but actually the US 99% too. This is not going to change any time soon. Given the relentless war on unions and the intense pro-corporate bias that exist at all levels of the American power structures, the obvious expectation is that US worker wages will continue to stagnate and ultimately fall in accordance with their actual economic negotiating power.

I don't have a position, I'm agnostic on the issue.