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Comment by ejanus | Hacker News Reader

How do you break that circle?

> How do you break that circle?

I think it’s intrinsic to the models. The U.S. pays top performers better. But the average European has a more-stable lifestyle. The same regulations and labor protections that grant that stability slow down growth, so apart from an internal restructuring it’s tough to see the situation changing.

There is also a hub effect aside from pay. Shannen has all the electronics companies because it is a huge where you can buy anything. A hub can happen randomly outside of policy, like a crystal growing in solution (and it can also be triggered if there isnt one, like dipping a string into super saturated cooled solution).

Remote work is kind of in the process of dissolving the crystallization for software.

*Shenzen

You can't. If your people do not feel the need to live humbly and serve their country they are going to flock elsewhere to the highest bidder. If a German engineer finds $30k/y after tax to be an unacceptable salary what are you going to do about it? Brainwash him into sacrificing for their glorious Fatherland and just shutting up and doing the work?

Uh, you forget that those US companies make a profit off of those engineers! How you break the cycle is simple: you find a way to pay those engineers more, so they stay at home AND you put the profit in your pocket. There are plenty of large companies in the EU that could do this.

But they don't. They're too cheap, or perhaps EU style managers can't stand the idea that some people in the same company as them make half as much as they do.

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