Tech Sector Feeling Covid-19’s Economic Pain

That would be a non-standard account with a non-standard way of withdrawing money. EFT and ACH withdrawals are fully protected.

Money wires are different, all the action is sender side. Even for me, Fidelity accountholder, a SWIFT money wire takes days to set up and I have to confirm it multiple times. I get the impression the bank hates doing them and will throw as many roadblocks as possible unless you are absolutely committed to it.

"Direct deposit" is ACH and it is reversible up to 180 days. The parent comment is referring to ACH.

"Wire transfer" could be either Fedwire or SWIFT and it is not reversible.

>Either that's not a full story, or Russia has some _interesting_ banking system.

No, we have it in the states as well, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-rep.... Basically what happens is that you don't get a paycheck or deposit to your account. Instead, you get your pay deposited to a debit card, which you can then use to withdraw money or transfer to your own account. Since the account is technically controlled by the company and not you, it's easier for them to seize your money. It probably doesn't help that russia has high corruption and low consumer protection.

> It is also hard to imagine why would any bank to want to "play along".

More business from companies issuing debit cards for employees. Often such banks are like 3rd tier ones, or complete hole-in-the-wall establishments. Such accounts almost always have near zero interest, or/are laden with high fees for every thing imaginable.

> Either that's not a full story, or Russia has some _interesting_ banking system.

Russia has a very interesting banking system indeed. If organised crime effectively makes a double digit of country's GDP, what else did you expect?

Wow. I don't intend to be inflammatory, but I am continually shocked by how far behind Europe the US appears to be in terms of personal banking and payments.

Time zones still matter, very few companies are going to go fully remote, salaries are sticky downwards, many companies are going to keep large campuses in elite cities. That said, to the degree living in NYC or SF starts to be seen as the same sort of luxury choice being made by employees that living in a prime beach location is, the comp premium will go down. Employers don't care that you like living in particular cities or that you like living somewhere you can easily hop to other local jobs and, in fact, the latter is something of a negative.

> they wouldn't need an SV salary to afford a good lifestyle.

While I agree you wouldn't need to worry about affording SV-grade housing costs, I feel like these discussions leave out a couple of things:

* The CoL is going up everywhere. Food, medical care etc... None of it is getting cheaper.

* Good houses in good school systems with reasonable access are still expensive in many areas of the country.

* It's kind of ridiculous to see companies pushing the narrative that they can suddenly pay everyone less based on arbitrary geography when the average revenue/profit generated per engineer is often many, many multiples of their total compensation costs.

Source? Are you talking 1BR or 2BR? I would put this number closer to 25-30% [1].

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...

I think we'll see the beginnings of a regulatory moat in the not too distant future.

Tech workers have the benefit of hindsight, having seen U.S. manufacturing jobs get decimated in the last few decades.

A lot of fields already have built in protection from foreign competition. For instance, most if all states require that anyone conducting telemedicine work needs to be both licensed in the state were the service is being performed.

Given the leftward drift of the Democratic party and Republican's newfound disdain for the big tech companies and things like HB1 visas, I would be shocked if we don't see some significant restrictions on how foreign workers are used in the tech sector.

American companies aren’t going to shift to Europe all of the sudden. The taxes are higher and it’s harder to fire people, American execs don’t like that.

What conferences are going on? Most have been cancelled. Is the EU allowing large gatherings like that?

The tech sector is strongest in America, they aren’t going to offshore their workforce because of one unfavorable president and a bunch of media hype.

Not being productive at home is your issue. I don’t have to drive over an hour a day to work for 4 hours anymore.

Just because EU workers make half as much as Americans doesn't make them cheaper. They get paid less (in part) because they work a lot less. Shorter hours, a lot more days off longer lunch breaks. On a per-hour basis your US-EU differential is dramatically lower.