{"id":9299,"date":"2015-11-02T12:17:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T16:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2015-11-02T12:17:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T16:17:42","slug":"a-conservative-is-a-liberal-who-has-been-mugged-silicon-valley-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/02\/a-conservative-is-a-liberal-who-has-been-mugged-silicon-valley-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, Silicon Valley edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend has moved from the Midwest to Silicon Valley to work for one of the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

Back in the Midwest he was a passionate liberal, spending a lot of Facebook ink denouncing Scott Walker and his attacks on unionized government workers, etc.<\/p>\n

He is making more than double his previous salary, but his standard of living hasn’t improved. He can’t afford an apartment on his tech job salary so he stays in a “hacker hostel in San Jose” for $900\/month: ” I understand supply and demand and the invisible hand on some level- but the idea of making 3x the average household income and spending 50 percent on rent for a place I don’t even like irritates me to no end.\u00a0So many people make these inane salaries and buy a $120k car and pay $2500 for rent. I really would love an Audi R8, but I’ll buy it cash- unlike a lot of other people here.” As with many\u00a019th century\u00a0immigrant labor camps, the hacker hostel is a cramped all-male environment: “One room has 4 bunk beds; 8 people in it. Usually it is two bunk beds per room if it’s a small room and 3 rooms per house.\u00a0One room is filled with Nigerian people doing a startup.\u00a0The whole company lives and work together.” How does one locate such an abode? “You can see the places listed on Airbnb.”<\/p>\n

[In other words, techies who earn over $100,000 per year are living in conditions that would be illegal for federal and state governments to supply to citizens who have never worked. (regulations<\/a> require no more than two people per bedroom)]<\/p>\n

A few weeks later we had another exchange: “Have you ever given, or do you know anyone who does give serious thought to leaving the USA for a period of time to save on taxes? So lets, say that at [the big company]\u00a0I make $140k\/year with little hope of raises or promotions in spite of working really hard and living in an overgrown dorm. (They promise I’ll learn to relax and drop that whole ambition disease) I pay about 28% federal taxes, and 10% California taxes. I think if I go to one or more of many islands that are income tax free, my first 100k is income tax free. So if I’m trying to take my net worth from zero to 500k in 5 years, and don’t have the skills to build a wildly succesful startup…this…seems like a good option, but whats the catch? Maybe John Mcafee will shoot me? Maybe they don’t have internet in the islands? Dysentery?”<\/p>\n

[I responded that it was easier to move to Texas and simultaneously (a) escape state income tax, and (b) reduce one’s cost of living.]<\/p>\n

Related:<\/p>\n