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Comment by trosi | Hacker News Reader

But he said specifically that he earns 10-20% less than his friends (and probably a lot less than the one who founded his company), so in fact he can afford less than them. It's just that he is content with that much.

On the other hand, many private companies don't contemplate (on don't look favorably upon) employees who work part time or anything below the standard 40 hoours/week, so if you do work in the private sector you don't have much of a choice. If everyone was magically allowed to reduce his/her working hours and salary by the same percentage I wonder what would be the outcome.

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He earns 10-20% less but they work significantly more than 10-20% more. If they worked (and had worked) the same hours per year, they'd make significantly less money than he does.

That's expected, the state pays it's employees very well for a multitude of reasons, but primarily: to buy their loyalty, to make them less susceptible to bribes, and to encourage stability. It also has no reason not to, there's no competition.

I don't know the Danish situation, but e.g. a teacher in Germany will have a pension that is higher than the salary of 70-80% of the population.

Teachers in Germany also have 19.5 (now 18.5) years of education. There are few jobs that require more (e.g. doctors).

So, how much percent in pension payments for teachers would the German taxpayer save if the state required, say, one year less teacher education?

The question does not make sense to me. It‘s a market. You require a masters degree and an additional tough 1.5 years of training? Better pay me well, through salary or benefits. Let‘s not kid ourselves: most of us (highly qualified) white collars in the private sector enjoy some additional retirement scheme and can reach much higher salaries.

Why shouldn't a teacher have a high pension? I can't think of a job that's more important to the long-term viability of a country than that of a teacher.

A high pension is one thing. A pension that's higher than the salary of most of the population is quite another.

I'm not arguing that teacher shouldn't be paid well, I'm saying that the state is paying it's officials very well. Not because of the jobs they do, but because of who employs them. Teachers in Germany that are not employed by the state get significantly less.

> But he said specifically that he earns 10-20% less than his friends (and probably a lot less than the one who founded his company), so in fact he can afford less than them.

If he has a defined benefit pension and they don’t he’s probably going to come out ahead if he lives long enough. Given he’s in government and they’re not that’s a reasonable assumption.

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