While I don't feel that there is risk of brain drain because of the reasons listed in the article, I do believe there is that risk. To be honest, even though many European countries don't pay as much as the US for the same job, I found much more comfort around the ideas pushed in those countries.
The culture I found in Sweden for instance is one that is much better for the employees than the fast-paced top-gun style of programming expected in the US. Sure my peak will probably be 60k, but that 60k will also come with a much better social quality of life. That's the problem with the US that would risk brain drain in my opinion. Money attracts people, but treating them well will keep them and the US is starting to fall away from treating its workers well.
Edit: just think about this. Most Americans talk about how they have so much work to do they don't get vacation. Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks and in many countries you get 4 contiguous weeks without question. Couple that with better healthcare options, and yeah the US is not looking so great.
At my company, we were driven by by high code quality. We would try our best to minimize escalations, we will never release new code on Friday or late in a day because people have lives. We really made sure no one was working late or on weekends. And we were still competitive and profitable business.
Then we get bought by a Fortune 500 company. Slowly new rules come in. Deadline driven projects. Code Quality is no longer important. People are expected to release barely working code just so that we can do a press release. People are working late and on weekends. Code is released on Friday at 5PM because who cares about employee happiness.
The result is smartest people have already left the company. This has led to more escalations and less gatekeepers to prevent bad design decisions. People are constantly leaving. I am still here but I am passively looking, so are most of the remaining people. Right now, market is good, so I might see a pay raise but I have told recruiters, I can take pay cut for a great work-life balance.
An escalation is an issue that cannot be fixed by a support engineer using regular troubleshooting methods and known fixes and has to be escalated to the development team. They are usually extremely costly and disruptive.
I found this to be pretty much a very biased subjective analogy. I am a european so I hope my "anti-european-rant" will be better accepted but lets see...
Europeans often have this illusion of a working social democracy compared to the US suggesting their by default offered benefits to be superior to the offers from the US. That's not the case. In a lot of middle-income-class positions you get most of the things you described as perks.
Health care support check. Additional vac days check. Plus a much bigger paycheck.
Surely I can agree with treating the workers well and in my book this equals with not exploiting them (so no excessive overtimes, phone calls, onduties etc). But this is not a universal thing in Europe you cannot really generalize this and a lot of the EU companies can be very exploitative even if it's ILLEGAL.
So then I guess my takeaway is then that there's great and poor working expectations and conditions in both areas. I found the US to be a highly negative experience and don't wish the stress on anyone. Being able to go home at night and not have to be on call or work overtime because it's expected is a great relief. I'll take that over a 100k salary any day. And certainly over my middle income job in California. However since I'm in tech I also get free choice essentially. We in this industry have it pretty lucky in that our skills are easily transferable across borders.
I am an American that found peace and happiness in Europe however because I am American you are right to say I'm biased. You don't live in a place all your life and not notice the negatives more.
Despite the fact that all we can do here is argue using anecdotes, I'll toss mine in - I live in the US, not on the west coast (midwest for me). I make over 100k a year, I have excellent benefits, lots of vacation time, and when I leave work after 8 hours, nobody bothers me.
I do feel incredibly lucky in this situation - I know not everyone gets the stuff I do. But I feel like maybe you might be mistaking "programming in SV/startup community" for "programming in the US". The rest of the country (for the most part) isn't as completely crazy and (sorry to say) idiotic with programming jobs and lifestyles as SV is.
Our company is based in Oregon, not a typical "startup" in that we are a bootstrapped lifestyle business, but we pay competitive wages, full good medical/dental/vision, and a 10% matched 401k. We have lax vacation time policies, typically meaning around four weeks, plus three months paternity and maternity. People work their forty and enjoy frequent three day weekends. We make software for bicyclists so most of our team ride a lot, and we comp all those expenses and a good amount of their fun bike trips. Not to mention a 2k bike budget when they get hired. All that, and we still have a hell of a time finding good candidates with the right attitude. Blows my mind that I can read people here saying they have to move out of the country to feel respected, and we have a hard time finding people...
But in Sweden almost EVERYONE (full time workers) gets 5 weeks vacation, 4 weeks contiguous, no questions asked. Not just engineers at great companies.
I think you're still missing the point. It isn't all about what we can individually get. I don't want to live in a country where you have to have a special high-paying job to get fair and reasonable holidays and healthcare.
There's so much variation that it's difficult to make a comparison. In my experience, it's reasonable for a senior developer in the US but not in SV to make over $130k in a 9-5 with a month's vacation. Compared to that, $60k and maybe an extra week's vacation doesn't look as nice. Developers are definitely pushed too hard in the US, but they are also definitely underpaid in Europe.
The developer market is so much bigger than the valley. I went there and left because, LOL like I'm joining a startup for 150K to live in SF.
If you don't care about brand name then work in other parts of the country, even remote. Easily pull down six figures and live like a king compared to Europeans. Typing this from Europe.
I work in a company that has significant European presence. Plus I have worked for a year in Netherlands. Company approach to European employees and US employees are very different. Sure you get paid a lot more in the US, but most companies are very stingy with vacations (doesn't matter what the vacation rules are). People in our European offices are routinely out for the entire month of August, very little email during that period. They are also not expected to work beyond office hours. In addition, parental leaves are much more generous in European offices. Further, risk of layoffs are minimal.
When I used to work in Netherlands, regular employees only worked 4days / week for 36 hrs. They would take a day off in the middle of the week.
Having experienced both, the European work life is much more preferable to me, especially when you have a family.
Which again does not contradict what i wrote does it ?
You may prefer it to be the norm but it cannot be considered a universally the best approach. I mean look ... some people actually prefer the steretypical american way. And then there are people like you that have different preferences.
What I was trying to say is that in the US you get to get nice salary and the euro perks quiet often but in Europe you are pretty much stuck when it comes to money.
You are comparing the worst of Europe (companies can be very exploitative even if it's ILLEGA) with the best of USA (a lot of middle-income-class positions) and not even the complete thing (you get most of the things). That's not a fair comparison.
These things cannot really be compared. As i said some people prefer the social benefits to be the norm some other (myself included) prefer the money. A lot of middle income positions in many places in europe are treated like a mere bricklayers
>In a lot of middle-income-class positions you get most of the things you described as perks.
I don't care about getting it myself. Although, it should be pointed out, you don't have to 'negotiate' for health care or notify someone of your preexisting conditions or any of that crap. You just have to turn up and you'll be treated entirely for free.
But I also want to live in a country where this applies to everyone that doesn't earn as much as me too.
Yep, I'm a US citizen with an American PhD in CS. I did a five year stint at a research lab in Iceland, and after two years back in the states, we're in the process of moving back to Reykjavik now, for most of the reasons you're discussing (as well as the bleak outlook for US science funding, and well, the overall bleak outlook for the US as just a suitable place to live at this point, but hey).
It's not just academia and a bleak social outlook. I've been playing around with starting a business, and the USA is not, not, NOT a good place to bootstrap anything involving R&D or manufacturing. Without enormous capital reserves to back you or political connections, you're dead before you leave the gate.
Case in point; my state offers a 40% tax break to manufacturing companies. No, sorry, the governor vetoed that. They offer a 40% tax break to ONE gargantuan manufacturing company. I'd have to pay full price.
I could compete from China. I could play on an even playing field in Europe if I'm gonna pay out the nose anyways. Or I could stay in the US and get bled like a stuck pig until incumbent players can pay a pittance for my operation's desiccated corpse. American dream, my ass...
Have you looked into employment with a US government (either state, local, or federal)? It's pretty much exactly what you described, plus you get to work on real problems instead of churning your minimally viable product into framework flavor of the month.
Problems you mentioned are not unheard of from my personal experience but it's highly dependent on which company or industry. Most of my peers who work in the software industry never had a problem of getting vacation time of few weeks and never work more than 8 hours per day. Of course there's a few times during the year where working more hours are encouraged (e.g. before release/deadline), but even then it's pretty rare. A lot of my friends from foreign countries will not hesitate to come to U.S. to work if they can resolve their visa situation. Also, this article mostly addresses academic jobs which is a totally different story from typical corp jobs.
Yes, all of the above. Plus, those same sorts of policies keep the US employment rolls lower. More people would be employed if the full time work week was 30 hours (time and a half above that), for instance.
In Europe 4 weeks of PTO is the minimum by law IIRC. I'm inclined to think the parent meant "2 continuous weeks" (I'd have to check but AFAIK at least in germany your employer has to grant that as well, either by law or by court interpretation of the law. Take this with a grain of salt, no legal advice, yadda yadda...)
In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it. Depending on my team I might not be able to take the month leading up to taxes off, but a month off is easily done and happens often.
> In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it.
I can get up to six weeks with roll over. Used up 4 weeks for my wedding, still had 2 weeks left, saved one of them up so I'd have 5 weeks in total the next year.
It is very hard to paint the US with a broad brush.
I have 25 days in Sweden and my UK colleagues 28 days, but they still envy me because of how my 5w are mine to choose and aren't used up on bank holidays etc. When summer comes I usually have 4-5w off and they have 2 or 3.
Having to use pto for sick days also doesn't happen anywhere in the EU.
This is interesting. I work for a Swiss company with an office in SV. We often joke about our European employees and their work-life balance.
Well, I ended up working with a team in Switzerland and holy crap, they work hard! Emails coming in at all hours of the night, meetings that go well past dinner time.
I didn't notice any difference in work life balance. Our office has the same vacation policy as HQ, so even that was the same.
It sort of depends on where you work. I'm in the US and I get five weeks of vacation. My colleagues take off contiguous weeks all the time. Of course you're not going to get that in your first year at a startup, but that sort of thing is available in the US if you're willing to take a bit less money and you stay at the same company for awhile.
According to my calculations 60k in Sweden would land you some 43k after taxes. At 60k the progressive taxes in Sweden are just starting to hurt. Somewhere north of 80k, it starts to feel like you only work for the government...
If you don't understand how progressive taxation works, maybe. High taxes on the marginal dollar after your middle-class life expenses are met isn't so bad.
Particularly if you realize that your late-career taxes paid for the two years of maternity leave your family enjoyed when you were 30 and didn't make a ton of money.
Well, there are progressive taxes and there are progressive taxes. In Sweden, the taxes were a bit too "progressive" a couple of decades ago, when you could have a margin tax rate above 100%. It's a bit better now though...
But if I understand you correctly, your argument is that once my expenses are met, I might as well give the rest of my money to the government?
You might as well give a larger fraction of it to the government.
This is not really a controversial position since almost all jurisdictions have some version of progressive taxation.
Among other effects, it compensates somewhat for value added taxes (eg sales taxes) that consume a disproportionate fraction of the income of poor people.
Well, I do give a larger fraction of it to the government. My current margin tax rate exceeds 60%.
I never claimed it was controversial but the consequence of this (good or bad) is that I feel more inclined to ask for more free time rather than a raise. From a government position, the good is that it potentially opens up for more people getting employment, the bad is that I will pay less taxes (because I earn less). Had the progressive tax rate hit me less hard I might instead work to increase my salary so that in the end I would pay more in absolute money with the lower margin tax rate than with the current one.
The compensation you talk about goes both ways. If you have a high income, you're more likely to have a higher education and with that accumulated student debt that needs to be paid off. It can also be seen as one incentive to push yourself through getting a university degree, which again is seen as beneficial by most governments.
I guess you can see it both ways, either from a fairness perspective or a utilitarian perspective. I'm personally quite fond of fairness but, and this is a large but, I'm convinced that too much focus on fairness can be detrimental to everyone, including those who consider themselves unfairly treated (and hope to get even by more fairness). See my example above, if I paid more in absolute money but less in relative, that would seem less fair, but it would be more beneficial for everyone. Of course it would benefit me more thus be a thorn in the eye of some.
> US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere.
The US doesn't “defend the world” by any stretch of the imagination. As for what it does commit to defending, well, other countries wouldn't let the US put the forces and facilities in their countries that the US wants there for global force protection of the US didn't also make a credible commitment to mutual defense; the US doesn't “defend the world” as a charitable service, it agrees to assist with the defence of select countries in order to contain others, secure access to key resources, and be in a position to project force to advance US interests anywhere in the world.
I can tell you're someone who has actually read the core objectives of branches of the military and has experience with their relationships with other countries.
If you're reading this and would like a concrete example of what the guy above me means, take a look at the U.S. history in major foreign bases like Okinawa. Okinawa does not exist so we can defend Japan. It serves as an Asian FOB, helps contain North Korea / China, secures our access to important shipping routes, and of course "projects force".
The "U.S. protects Europe and the rest of the world" is just some jingoist narrative with no factual basis.
> Pharma companies develop drugs with US subsidies and make their profits off US citizens while European countries put price ceilings on their drugs.
You conveniently forget the European drug companies who develop drugs—and completely pay for the research—while negotiating price ceilings, and then export the same drug to the US, selling it 5x the price for pure profit (minus distribution/marketing/lobby costs).
Disclaimer: my Dad managed research at one of those large European pharma companies.
You proved my point, if US did what Euro countries do to us, European pharma companies would lose their primary profit source. It's a wealth drain from US citizens to Europe.
I appreciate that you've moved toward civility in your comments on HN, but we need you to go further, because comments like this add no information and are just rude. Could you please just be scrupulously civil and respectful and only post comments that have good signal/noise ratio?
Other users have reformed themselves this way (I'm one of them), so I'm sure you can, once you internalize the value of what we're shooting for here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). It isn't primarily an ethical issue, if that helps; it's about trying to avoid degradation into boredom. Flame-style comments provoke worse, both quality- and quantity-wise.
No, it obviously doesn't, unless of course you think the US manages to lead the world by acting against its own interests.
In addition, and as far as agitprop goes, this particular argument begs the question: if this is the case, why are we doing it in the first place?
This kind of juvenile ideology, claiming some pretended affront to some national interest to justify some weakly supported exceptionalism and eventually supremacism, is old as the world. As I don't want to invoke Godwin so early in the afternoon, I'll just mention this is also quite a popular theme amongst wife beaters.
A significant segment of the US population is following a well known path for all of those acquantied with early 20th century European history. It's only that the US is still catching up with all that, being such a young nation, and not having been vaccinated against fascism like pretty much most of the old world. It's gonna get rough I'm afraid.
Drug makers spend more in marketing than R&D, and I strongly suspect that most of their marketing dollars are spent in the US. So all we're really subsidising is more marketing to doctors via our high cost health care system.
This was very apparent to me when recently on a visit in the US. There were a lot more TV commercials for different kinds of drugs than I'm used to. Ironically the required(?) list of potential side effects at the end of each ad often sounded worse than the condition the drug was supposed to treat in the first place.
The US chooses to do this though. The US can stop doing this anytime it wants to, nobody is forcing us to.
If we don't like subsidizing Pharma companies maybe it should just stop doing it. It's not like Europe is asking us to. Similarly, I'm all for closing bases. If the US wants to close bases and cut military spending, who's stopping us?
Russia has 144 million people and a GDP on par with Italy. The EU has 500 million people and - even without NATO and the UK - French nukes, with the ability to develop them in other countries if necessary. Russians aren't stupid, they would never attack us.
Fun fact: Russia has never once invaded Central Europe. Central / West European countries have invaded Russia a few times.
Russia does not need space or natural resources and it would be difficult to conquer its way to the soft factors it is missing.
Given the strength of most European countries and their lack of natural resources, the chance of a large war being a net positive for Russia is small. Of course, sometimes there are internal reasons to start a war. Falklands and some US wars and, I think, most of Russia's small wars after the cold war come to mind.
Russia is part of Europe, Russia invading other countries in Europe is presumably a threat those countries would be highly motivated to address. The US keeps forces there and defence commitments because we're afraid of how Europe might act to protect itself if we weren't there, and because we want other countries in the region to feel inclined to accommodate US interests. (In both cases, “Finlandization” is an applicable concept.)
Of course US does. We really need to acknowledge that. Don't believe it? Support US withdrawing from mutual defense pacts with South Korea and Japan and NATO.
>Support US withdrawing from mutual defense pacts with South Korea and Japan and NATO.
I wouldn't support the US reneging on its current security agreements, particularly with Japan, since we forced them into their current pacifist regime, but if South Korea, Japan and/or NATO wanted the US out, I wouldn't oppose it.
I'm afraid there's a point at which America's overwhelming military, cultural and political dominance itself becomes a problem. Even if one can argue that, as hegemonies go, you could do worse, superpowers and their chess games are also holding the world back.
People greatly underestimate the magnitude of bloodshed that would come with American isolationism.
Because of Pax Americana, most people can't even grasp the concept or seriousness of, say, a neighboring nation dropping bombs on your city just because they want your territory. The US is insulated from such concerns, Europe is rife with them :)
> Because of Pax Americana, most people can't even grasp the concept or seriousness of, say, a neighboring nation dropping bombs on your city just because they want your territory.
Because of “Pax” Americana, many people have a vivid and direct understanding of a remote nation dropping bombs on your city because they aren't satisfied with your internal politics, even though they don't want to be bothered with the general burden of governing the territory.
Pax Americana can't last forever. The world must inevitably move on from the the old "gods playing chess" paradigm of East vs West. Something has to come next.
> I wouldn't support the US reneging on its current security agreements, particularly with Japan, since we forced them into their current pacifist regime, but if South Korea, Japan and/or NATO wanted the US out, I wouldn't oppose it.
Why? If US does nothing for their security, then there's zero point of US spending money on it. It is like code - if the line is NOOP, then it should just go.
I don't believe the US does nothing for their security, certainly in the case of South Korea and Japan I think the US has been both an asset and a burden. I'm just not certain that what the US does is entirely necessary, meaning I don't think it's impossible for the world to go on without American interference and it shouldn't be a unilateral decision on the part of the US to simply opt out.
If the US has treaty obligations that require its military engagement, then those need to be upheld, or else the US should try to renegotiate them. Otherwise, even if the security situation is made worse, the US should respect other countries' sovereignty if they want them gone.
Yeah seeing the refugee crisis, the uprising of ISIS, terrorist attacks that are indirectly related to a lot of American invasions we Europeans are getting definitely the long end of the stick.
I find it really weird how over the ocean they are always pounding the self on the chest but they never think about how some of us need to deal with the consequences of the decisions they made in the past. You can bicker a whole day of keeping people out and travel bans but you need to ask yourself what is one of the reasons we have them in the first place.
Military spending is also not about the bill but funding the American military complex by forcing shoddy products (JSF) to other countries. I know this is the reason why this country is still debating about replacing our old F16 fleet.
America is not perfect in that regards that they only brings safety to the world or they do everything because they have high moral values.
>You can bicker a whole day of keeping people out and travel bans but you need to ask yourself what is one of the reasons we have them in the first place.
Because they know you're a soft touch? How many 30 year old "Syrian children" from Pakistan and North Africa are you going to settle before you realize most of the people coming to Europe are coming for the free benefits and not because they're fleeing war? Shouldn't Syria be pretty much empty by now?
Besides, there was a country which kept migrants bottled up in Africa until France and the UK decided to settle old scores.
>Military spending is also not about the bill but funding the American military complex by forcing shoddy products (JSF) to other countries. I know this is the reason why this country is still debating about replacing our old F16 fleet.
Nobody's forcing you to do anything. You could buy from the Swedes, or the French, or even the Russians. And no, the JSF is not a "shoddy" product. It's just too expensive. Do you expect the US will bomb your country if you don't buy it? Don't buy it.
>America is not perfect in that regards that they only brings safety to the world or they do everything because they have high moral values.
Nobody's claiming to be perfect. All I'm saying is we're wasting money protecting Europeans who are perfectly capable of defending themselves. Europeans who refuse to spend more than a token amount on defense and then expect the US to "take the lead" whenever something bad happens. If it were up to me you'd be on your own.
"... before you realize most of the people coming to Europe are coming for the free benefits and not because they're fleeing war? "
The majority is definitely not coming for what you call 'free benefits', and most of those who do will be sent back home in due time, if their home countries accept them back.
Unfortunately it's quite common that they don't, and then there's not much left to do but allow also these people to stay. Can't really deport people when their home countries won't let them through the border control.
>The majority is definitely not coming for what you call 'free benefits', and most of those who do will be sent back home in due time, if their home countries accept them back.
Those people are not leaving. You may tell yourself they're leaving. Your government may tell you they're leaving (someday), but when push comes to shove the media will be blanketed with sob stories and accusations of racism if anybody actually tries to repatriate them.
US spends more on military than every Euro country combined. If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.
> If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.
If? In the entire history of NATO, the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once, and that in response to an attack on the US, and the non-US NATO contributions were not insignificant.
Sure, deterrence is the point of the treaty, but the claim upthread was about the significance of contributions that would be made in the event of an attack, a claim which contradicts the facts of the time when an attack resulting in the mutual defense provisions being invoked actually occurred.
> They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked
Many Europeans gave their lives in Afghanistan, responding to an attack on the U.S., and also in Iraq on a fools errand. The U.S. is the predominant power, but that doesn't make others insignificant.
The fact that we spend too much by an order of magnitude or two doesn't mean the rest of the world is dependent on us. We don't spend this much because it's the only way to make the world safe. We spend this much because every Congressman has a some part of a defense contractor in their district and they'd rather build billion dollar boondoggles that the military leadership explicitly doesn't want than vote to close the local plant.
The culture I found in Sweden for instance is one that is much better for the employees than the fast-paced top-gun style of programming expected in the US. Sure my peak will probably be 60k, but that 60k will also come with a much better social quality of life. That's the problem with the US that would risk brain drain in my opinion. Money attracts people, but treating them well will keep them and the US is starting to fall away from treating its workers well.
Edit: just think about this. Most Americans talk about how they have so much work to do they don't get vacation. Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks and in many countries you get 4 contiguous weeks without question. Couple that with better healthcare options, and yeah the US is not looking so great.