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Comment by zeroCalories | Hacker News Reader

You probably just don't? If you really want to, wait until you're married with dual income and buy significantly under your budget. That might mean a longer commute and your kids sharing a room, but you won't be having panic attacks during every performance review for the next three decades.

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So I commute 3 hours a day, to a job I work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for, while my son and daughter are sharing a room...

When I left grad school in 1997, the biggest problem me and my friends had was figuring out whether or not Microsoft, Intel, Google, or Amazon had the best stock option package. Was it going to be 4, or 5 years before we'd be able to buy a million dollar house?

Now the advice is to just roll over. Lets call it what it is: POVERTY

Let's call your 90s example what we now know it was: a bubble.

Software engineering salaries are substantially above the US mean and those that receive them are on track to be solidly upper middle class. They're not so high that you are free to make irresponsible financial decisions with no consequences.

Two points:

1. Most of the companies on that list are more profitable now than they were back then, and

2. My grandfather was a janitor, who never made more than $50 a week, and his kids never had to share a bedroom. He was able to buy a house and put his kids through college.

Its been several generations since we've had an economy which actually functions the way its supposed to. Half the people alive have never experienced it and really lack a frame or reference here.

The sad truth is that the era of our grandfathers (the Fordist era, as a shorthand) was an insane anomaly in the history of political economy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to bring it back, but it was grandpa and his peers that got lucky, not us who got unlucky.

The reason I have a hard time with the luck theory is that companies are far more profitable, and workers are far more productive today than they were back then.

So why all the advice for tech workers to just accept that they have to live in poverty. And yeah, that's the word for it. The recommended lifestyle is not recognizable as anything like middle class. Don't buy a home. Don't go to college or send your kids to college. Commute from somewhere we don't have to see you or associate with you.

The problem isn't pay, the problem is the cost of housing(and education). Even if everyone got a 3x pay raise we would probably see a 4x increase in housing costs because fundamentally there is a supply issue. Until politicians are ready to tank the housing market by either investing in public housing, up zoning, deregulating, etc. the problem will never get better. You can still participate in the system if you want, but I refuse to take on life ruining risk to join a rat-race where lead poisoned boomer home owners get to squeeze me for 50% of my salary every month. If we lived in a sane economy with good labor protections(like the eu), or fair housing prices(like Tokyo) then we could talk about it.

Agreed that we are wealthier now as a planet and a country than during the Fordist era, but that's why it's called political economy. Our society is richer but labor is worse off. This is in line with historical norms throughout almost all of recorded history. Tyranny and poverty are the rule, not the exception.

I agree that this state of affairs is unacceptable but from my perspective it's just good luck that my grandpa was able to live during the era he did. He certainly didn't plan it that way!

Well, I’m glad we can agree that the current situation is unacceptable—my grandfather, who was a janitor, would have been ashamed if that’s how his family had to live. OTOH, my other grandfather, who belonged to a union, fought hard so that his family didn’t have to live like that.

Americans used to make their own luck.

"insane anomaly" = "solid progress that we've since backslid on"

Sure, I'm not against widespread middle class prosperity, just annoyed when people present their greatest generation parents as an example of a norm that we are failing to meet. It wasn't normal, it was extremely bizarre. If we want to make that progress back, we'll have to do lots of radical stuff. Labor will have to be militant again, or we'll need some kind of external pressure like an ascendant USSR, or both, and it still may not be possible. It certainly won't happen just voting for Democrats every two years.

The laws were also different though. Trickle down economics is a fairly “new” concept (and total failure) and that has certainly fucked the economy up. By cutting taxes to the wealthy (among the many other laws that benefits corporations over individuals, etc) the gap/disparity between the haves and have nots has increased tremendously. A vacuum salesman in the 70s/80s could afford a house, children, etc. I don’t think they were lucky but they also didn’t have the chips stacked against them.

I can relate. I hate the situation I am in, and I am too reserved to make risky changes. It sucks. I have lost trust in Tech.

> So I commute 3 hours a day, to a job I work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for, while my son and daughter are sharing a room...

bay area market is crowded with young folks with faang salaries who are willing to share rent with several others. Would you consider moving to some other place with possible salary reduction?

You can call it a FAANG salary if it makes you feel better, but if you can't afford your own place, you are not in the middle class, you are living in poverty.

> moving to some other place with possible salary reduction

Well, we just proved that pretty much everybody in tech can work remote, with no effect on the profitability of the companies, so why should there be a reduction in salary working some place else?

> you are not in the middle class, you are living in poverty.

I agree with you, certain areas in US are very expensive and FAANG salary may not be enough to fit middle class definition.

> we just proved that pretty much everybody in tech can work remote, with no effect on the profitability of the companies

Which companies? Some companies(FAANG and ecosystem) benefited from COVID because of significant market shifts online and this is not relevant to remote job, but I am not sure about many other companies. Also, another impact on revenue was fiscal policies (0 rates), and there can be cooldown soon too.

> Which companies?

Software companies for sure, but I was working at a Stock Brokerage/FinTech/Media company in NYC when covid hit, and pretty much everybody from admins to sales to execs were working remote--and were actually MORE productive, inasmuch a they didn't arrive pre-exhausted from a train ride from Jersey.

Some jobs (janitorial, manufacturing) can't be remote, but I can't name a single tech or service-sector company which was materially affected by remote work, can you?

I think you can make ideal employee more productive (reduce commute and all office life bs), but the major risk is bad actors: dudes who "silently quit", work 3 jobs or just getting lazy at home without manager watching their backs constantly. CEOs probably have some internal metrics, and make decisions based on them.

That’s what we did. We should have bought sooner, we would have saved a lot. But we’re happy owning now and not having to worry about what rent will be next year. Hopefully in a few years we’ll refinance at a lower rate and have a lot more principal paid down.

If you’re having kids and you want a big place (we want neither), there are plenty of places in the country where houses (big ones) are a quarter of what they are in the Bay, Seattle, etc. Sure, you won’t be making $350k/year as a senior but the schools will be excellent, your kids will be safer and if one of you lose your jobs it won’t matter because you’ll have a massive emergency fund and lower expenses.

> dual income

> kids

Pick one!

What do you mean? You can have kids and two working parents.

You can have 10 kids as a single parent. Doesn't mean its a good idea.

I picked single income, two kids and a mortgage. Oops!

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