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Comment by Isinlor | Hacker News Reader

> as it increases the inequality

Really?! Speaking about inequality is so hypocritical in this context that it just boils my blood.

I could understand if you were having trouble to earn a living. But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY! And happily, and stress free. Your kids will get free education, free collage. You will get tons of vacations, 38 hours work week.

But no, you want more. You want luxury life, you want to keep the rest of the world underneath you.

Letting poor people compete with you on fair terms does not increase inequality. It undermines your position of power.

Western Europeans and their ancestors benefited greatly from conquest all over the world.

Are Indians and Chinese somehow second rate people? They do not deserve to even compete with the White Elite of Western Europe?

You should stop being egoist. Start your own company if you do not like being employee.

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Your comment breaks many of the site guidelines. That's not ok, regardless of how wrong or bad some other comment is (or you feel it is). Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using this site as intended? Flamewar rants, personal attacks, and denunciatory rhetoric are no way to persuade anyone, let alone to have curious conversation, which is what this site is for.

It's clear that you have good reasons for feeling strongly on this topic, and I definitely don't mean to disrespect that. But it's necessary to post respectfully and with dignity in order to properly represent one's point of view on a topic like this. If you stoop to just flaming the other side, you end up discrediting the very truth that you're trying to express (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

True. I will rewrite it in a better style.

Thanks for the work you are doing!

Appreciated!

> But no, you want more. You want luxury life, you want to keep the rest of the world underneath you.

Why does wanting more imply having people underneath you?

Your comment is full of frustration, hatred and anger, it doesn't have any argument in it. I hope you can see that.

The main issue stems from the fact that Europeans have a different lifestyle, therefore, moving forward for them implies having actually higher wages, not lower ones, in order to have at the end of the month some free days of vacation, health insurance for the family, etc etc.

The comment you are answering to says exactly that. It didn't mention anything like "let's send them back" or whatever it is, as you seem to imply with your words. It was an honest observation (backed up by economists, by the way, just google that) about the fact that by giving more work to people who get less money won't do anything else than lowering the salaries for the entire sector. Of course, it will give people from other countries a possibility to work and make it, however, as a local citizen wishing to improve my country and the average income, why would I care about people coming from other countries? I mean, what do I get in return?

> however, as a local citizen wishing to improve my country and the average income, why would I care about people coming from other countries? I mean, what do I get in return?

The main point of contention is not about whether this would improve the quality of life of the average EU programmer. It is about concealing what is just naked self-interest (i.e. concern about one's own wages) with noble talk of 'inequality'. I don't think there's anything wrong with concern for one's own interests, but trying to phrase it as a worry about something else comes off as a bit disingenuous.

Secondly, this just smacks of protectionism. If everyone thought the same way, we would have nowhere close to the diverse array of goods available to the modern consumer at such low prices.

What's wrong with self interest and protectionism?

My family comes first.

I don't want to be part in the salary race to the bottom for the sake of lower prices and consumerism.

"it increases the inequality putting all the gains in the hands of the employers."

That was not noble talk of global inequality, they meant it increases inequality on the labor market between capital and workers. So it was also a self-interested (and correct) statement.

You're confusing protectionism with protecting one's borders. Protecting one's borders and awarding more rights to the country's own population than to the rest of the world is the status quo and the only recipe for success we know.

> why would I care about people coming from other countries? I mean, what do I get in return?

This is a pretty stunning question.

Most people care about people other than ourselves. Most people sometimes do things to benefit others, even if they don't "get in return", as you put it, and they expect others to behave similarly. For example:

1. A billion people base their religious beliefs on venerating the self-sacrifice of God dying and/or giving-His-only-begotten-son to help others.

2. Most people believe that people other than themselves can have subjective experiences of joy and pain. Most people would take a little time out of their day, for instance, to help an abandoned, injured infant, even if they would never "get anything in return" for their selfless act; even though the infant can't promise them anything in return or prove that they are suffering, people see a suffering child and feel a sort of basic level of empathy.

3. Almost everyone who has political opinions is arguing not primarily about themselves, but about people more vulnerable than them who are being hurt by existing policy or will be helped by new policy - usually large classes of people that the arguer will never meet.

4. The idea that other people matter is so incredibly common, we diagnose people who cannot experience it with a medical condition sometimes informally called "sociopathy"

So I'm going to assume you know that most people expect you to care about people other than yourself, and I'm going to assume that you actually do care about people other than yourself.

Now try to imagine what it would be like to extend that empathy to foreigners.

That's it. That's the whole trick.

Good luck!

>But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY!

I have trouble supporting a child in Greece, with a gross household income of around 50k.

I most certainly do not lead a luxurious life.

I shudder to think how this would work out in Western Europe where rents are even higher than the ~500 euro most people pay here for a medium sized apartment.

I guess, I should speak to my experiences only.

My mother alone, as a cleaning lady, was fully supporting me on 30 000 salary in Belgium, Leuven. But as a cleaning lady, earning that money was not easy, or stress free. She was doing 50-60 hours weeks. I know cleaning ladies, my mother colleagues, who as a single mother support their kids and sometimes even manage to spare some money to send back home. I know that there are also people exploiting western social programs to the extend that they manage to live exclusively on child support. My mother has a neighbor who was laughing that she is silly to work, because she has Belgian fiancée and she should live off social support. And, yes, this type of people should be deported in my opinion.

Right now, I'm studying now in Maastricht, Netherlands and I work 1 day a week earning 8k gross a year. I'm living with my fiancée in apartment with one bedroom and I spent around 10k a year.

Something must be going horribly wrong in Greece. You can live easily of 30k in the Netherlands, I would make that to even 25k. Yes, that would mean having no car and using a bike to get around (which is common).

I might be exaggerating, but I feel like I'm not.

Most parents I know pay almost 600 for rent (amenities not included, so add another 100, and quite a bit more if it's a colder winter). Fun to note that the minimum wage is currently around 500 euro, AirBnB is a hell of a drug. Add to that up to 400 for childcare a month, per young child.

Tax rate is near 40% at that income level, so let's say it's a net 30k out of the 50k. So that's 2.5k a month.

I will spare a list of the other required monthly expenses but it shouldn't be hard to see that it's hard to save up enough to ever buy property or to be safe against any event that costs any significant amount of money.

I don't think so. Maybe in the rural areas or well connected outskirts, if you own the housing. No chance you're living in Amsterdam on 30k and support a family without any problems.

You cannot rent a home on that income in the public market. In the areas where you could bike to work that would mean waiting 15+ years for a social housing home. Renting a room in the back lands of NL is possible, but you would need a car because public transport is only somewhat useful in the Randstad area.

> "Something must be going horribly wrong in Greece."

Something has most definitely gone horribly wrong in Greece a couple of years ago. I remember hearing that the costs of living in Greece at the time were not a bit lower than then expensive parts of western Europe, whereas wages for young people were quite a lot lower, making it practically impossible for young people to earn a living.

We haven't heard much about Greece in recent years, so maybe things have improved, but this sounds like maybe they haven't.

I think the key phrase in GP's post is "supporting a child".

In Netherlands that is probably subsidized.

Partly, yes. Still, parent paints a picture that in today's economic climate is not practically true.

I have (single living) colleagues from abroad who learn it now the hard way. Hopping from one airbnb to the other, moving al their stuff each time. Doing this for months and they start to despair now. Even local youngsters cannot afford a home anymore.

You’re on roughly triple the average household income for Greece. You may have trouble supporting a child in a manner appropriate to someone of your socioeconomic background.

> The average household net-adjusted income in Greece is USD 17, 700 annually. It is considerably lower than the OCED average of USD 33,604.

https://destinationscanner.com/average-salary-in-greece/

> The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Greece was last recorded at 25140.70 US dollars in 2018, when adjusted by purchasing power parity (PPP). (Roughly €22K)

https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp-per-capita-ppp

Ehh it might just be that the cost of living in some parts of Greece are much lower than in others, making the average salary much lower than the requisite for covering cost of living for more expensive regions.

Numbeo seems to support this based on CoL in Athens: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Athens

I think everything is relative. I have met and I know many indians that have a lifestyle that we (Europeans) would never follow or think about. That's probably the "luxury" that the parent comment is talking about. As usual, this is where two cultures tend to diverge. For "them" we live a stressful lifestyle, etc., etc., because we need to make money. For "us", they have a laid back lifestyle that we can't understand: how do you want to provide for your 4 kids, when you have so little money? Etc etc.

Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is very persistent in people coming from such countries that tend to see us as "weak" or "luxurious" people, because such a lifestyle is light years away from where they come from. I don't say this with the "white mindset". It's just that we Western people are talking about reducing the working hours to 30 per week, because we want to spend more time with our family, want to live stress-free, etc. etc., and possibly keep a good salary. This clashes with the old traditional capitalistic way of doing business: let's hire cheap labor from abroad, so we make more money. The main parent comment is right about it. It's proven that this doesn't lead to anything than more cheap labor.

Oh BTW, I also have met very ambitious Indians that work way harder than Europeans. So, take my precious words with a grain of salt.

You are right on that, it's a difference of perspective in a lot of these cases. I personally very well could subsist on bulk prepared, cheaper food, go out or visit family very rarely, never pay for a gym membership or for a music tutor or for dance lessons or for children's activities. But from my point of view that's insane, and those are basic things that you will spend some amount of money once you can afford it on to have a life worth living.

Luxury to myself means luxury goods (status symbols such as cars, phones etc. or even best-in-class functional items with increased cost compared to value-for-money alternatives), frequent travel etc. all of which I can't afford.

I wonder though if this goalpost would move even further if my income ever increased, or this mindset is well, set, from our upbringing.

Portugal is also Western Europe, its pretty cheap

> But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY! And happily, and stress free.

If that was the case, birthrates wouldn't be so low in Europe. Free school and healthcare doesn't support your family when rents are higher than ever and fewer people than ever can afford to buy a property to raise a family in.

Low birthrate isn't caused by high rent, but by a highly educated population and an economic system where kids aren't necessary to take care of you when you get old.

“and an economic system where kids aren't necessary to take care of you when you get old.”

Until you get terminal cancer and you are sent home to die. Then, I assure, a “kid” might be useful, because nobody else will give a flying fuck.

Says who? Meaningless statistics?

Talking to my circles of highly skilled couples most cite money as the primary reason they're putting off having children.

Most people I know who don't have children simply aren't interested in having children. And they can afford not to have children, so they don't.

Sounds like anecdotal evidence to me so I rather put my faith in the statistics.

I haven't seen any evidence that birthrates have anything to do with having a high income in developed economies. All the evidence I have seen points in the other direction, where when women's education and career are de-emphasized by the society, the birthrates are high.

If you live in the EU, downshift! With stable $30k you can easily buy a seaside villa in Bulgaria on a 7 year credit with today rates.

I've come to the conclusion that the economics are only part of the story.

Unless one is single, there's a ton of stuff you have to worry about, from finding a job for the spouse, to learning the language, subtle to not so subtle xenophobia, navigating a different social & political system, etc. Moving with kids makes things even more complicated, to the point that we essentially only have migration from poorer to richer countries. I'd wager immigration from the west to the east is almost zero. I know some cases, but it's a tiny minority.

Then there's the fact that most people don't want to live in another country, surrounded by foreigners speaking a language they will almost certainly never speak fluently themselves.

>But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY! And happily, and stress free.

Yeah, please take me and my family to this magic lala land. You can also survive on the streets with no money. That doesn't mean it's a lifestyle you should aspire to.

I don't know why this being downvoted so much. A family requires a lot more money than being single. Are so many people here single without children that don't know or care about this?

Raising children on 30k€ in a city in Western Europe is scratching on the government defined poverty line.

> Raising children on 30k€ in a city in Western Europe is scratching on the government defined poverty line.

What do you base this on? Based on [0], the poverty threshold in Germany is €13.152/year, and Germany is one of the richer EU nations. Even if that’s a working single parent and one child, €30k isn’t scratching the poverty line.

[0] https://m.dw.com/en/germanys-minimum-wage-is-barely-above-th...

30k is gross and 13k is net income, those are very different things.

You also only looked at the poverty line for singles, not for couples (or single parent) with children. But you are in good company in this thread as nearly nobody takes children into account. Raising children on the poverty line is not the right way.

The poverty line is defined as 60% of median income, not by needs. In the UK there is also the phrase “living wage” which seems to be about needs rather than relative wealth, but I don’t know enough German to get past the opening paragraph of news (I have the German vocabulary of an 8-year-old, which is somehow all you seem to need for CEFR B1) so if an equivalent exists here, I don’t know it yet.

Fair point about gross/net:

€13.152 times two people = €26.304, and for reference €30k gross, category 2, one child = 21.018,18 € net, so about €5k short if that’s how family poverty is defined.

You cannot work with both parents fulltime when you have a toddler. Childcare is often only open 8 hours a day, so working 8 hours is not possible (remember mandatory breaks) and you also have to pay a lot for it. Also, single parents are increasingly common.

Poverty often means that you cannot afford a new washing machine when one breaks. Or not it being able to send your children to school trips.

As a German, I can tell you: 30k€ is not enough to raise a child here, even if both parents are working because at least one cannot work full-time.

I’m agreeing with you. And to an even greater degree if that’s €30k split between two adults and a child.

We need to stop taking government statistics as de facto goalposts.

Just because the German government says you can live on €13.152/year doesn't make it a fact.

Government numbers also says inflation is 2.6% last year but if I look closely, my bills and mandatory expenses have gone up way more than that.

That article states that Romanians are best off in the EU when it comes to living on minimum wage, while I can tell you that it's definitely not like that in the real world.

Lots of the time statistics are made with a formula tailored by the government to fit a certain political agenda.

> EASILY! And happily, and stress free. Your kids will get free education, free collage. You will get tons of vacations, 38 hours work week.

Most Europeans can’t afford a house anymore. The fear for a lot is that excess immigration and taking on refugees will break the social welfare you just mentioned.

I actually agree with a lot of your points though and envision a similar future that will be less about borders.

But you wrap it in such a vicious rant I imagine you are alienating people from your idea more than winning them over.

I know that I got emotional. But to be honest, I think emotions are sometimes important to make the point clear.

> The fear for a lot is that excess immigration and taking on refugees will break the social welfare you just mentioned.

I understand that fear. As I was responding to another person in this thread, I know people ruthlessly exploiting western social programs to the extend that they manage to live exclusively, or almost exclusively on welfare. My mother has a neighbor who was laughing that she is silly to work, because she has Belgian fiancée and she should live off social support.

But that is not the type of argument that was made originally.

The original comment was by an entitled software developer, who hides behind equality.

> Most Europeans can’t afford a house anymore.

Many people say it, but I never seen a good analysis of that issue. If you have data to back that up I would be very happy to see it. That's something that I wanted to research for some time. My biggest question is whether it was really so easy before, or is it just still difficult. Is the issue related to immigration? Or is it due to regulations? Or something else?

>But no, you want more. You want luxury life, you want to keep the rest of the world underneath you.

Is the US also wanting me underneath them by not giving me a work Visa to work at FAANG in SV?

>Is the US also wanting me underneath them by not giving me a work Visa to work FAANG?

Arguably yes based on his comment.

And for the record, you can work for several FAANG companies in the EU. Why not just start working?

Rich to hear Indians feeling entitled to EU immigration when the Indians just happily passed a law against Muslim immigration.

Letting poor muslims compete with you on fair terms does not increase inequality. It undermines your position of power.

Not everyone agrees with that law. In fact there are massive protests against it with dozens dead.

Its good to understand history. India and Pakistan were partitioned based on Religion. Muslims under Jinnah decided that Muslims cannot live in a united country and partitioned United India. Millions were killed during that transition in 1947. Same with Bangladesh in 1906. Things were settled long time back once and partition is a one-time affair. Is it not?

> when the Indians just happily passed a law against Muslim immigration

That's because of the current Fascists govt who is hell bent on copying 1984, China & Nazis.

Most Indians do not support this law.

Most? Any data to backup?

>Letting poor people compete with you on fair terms does not increase inequality.

It certainly contributes to brain drain which helps maintain inequality between countries.

That is, unless there are fiscal transfers to India I'm unaware of to help pay for the educations their government pays for and western employers use...

> But no, you want more. You want luxury life, you want to keep the rest of the world underneath you.

No, I want the country I live in to act in the interest of its own citizens and not of the interest of India. After all, I pay masses of taxes, so I think it is not unfair to expect my government to not work towards making sure I get paid even less than I do now.

> But no, you want more

Don't you? And since you also do doesn't it make the rest of your point not only moot but also hypocritical? Isn't this the exact reason someone would move from a poorer country to a richer one? Not because they can't live in one but because they want a better life in the other. You can easily live without a lot of things. But sometimes it's not only about living but about how you live.

> Letting poor people compete with you on fair terms does not increase inequality.

You're being very libertine with the suggestion that everyone else in this conversation hates "poor people" and must be racists. "Fair terms" would imply all equal. Are you competing on quality or price? Because winning solely on price is a sure way to lower everyone's wages over time but also lower the quality. Doesn't this push better qualified people to places where "fairness" implies more than accepting the lowest possible salary?

> Are Indians and Chinese somehow second rate people? They do not deserve to even compete with the White Elite of Western Europe?

This makes you sound incredibly racist.

I get the impression from your rant that you're dismissing the parents comments core complaint about the adverse impact of increased labor supply on the middle class and then follow on to namecalling. This style of commentary seems beneath HN's aspirational high signal low noise.

As an engineer, isn't life in Asia more luxurious because you can easily afford a maid and other amenities? Seriously, what's the benefit of moving into Western Europe?

No corruption for basic services, access to decent education, property rights and if in the US, money.

Although the access to education is now being heavily gated by property values in countries like US.

Freedom of speech and action. Less corruption. Clean air and environment. More social protections.

If you believe this—truly—is it safe to assume you support open borders for Israel?

Ok, neo-liberal shill.

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hey man, why you have to burn someone so hard that they curl up in their bed crying tears of agony like a little pussy?

Slow clap

I think you're attacking a straw man here. Chinese and Indian people can certainly compete with European people, and they do it everyday. But they can do it from China and India.

The GP thinks its about "getting even", as if China and India were naive, noble backwaters the devious Europeans pulled the wool over and secretly exploited in 1700s.

When really, they got out competed in trade and on the battlefield by the Europeans.

By the governments and private corporations (like east India company) supported by the people ... Your comment implies as if bunch of people decided to colonise the entire world outside Europe on their own whims ...

The European governments and private corporations were made up of and supported by private citizens, were they not?

Back then, arguably not. “Who gets to vote” started out as a very small group.

So, it’s fair if a European gets out competed in the labor market today.

Of course it is. But it's not the European companies getting outcompeted, it's the individual laborers.

So it's equally as fair for those laborers (voters) to say "no more importing cheap competition". The UK already has. It's incredibly difficult to bring in foreign employees.

Edit, addendum, ignore the part about companies, though you'd said European firms.

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