You fly to Disneyworld, I take the train to the seaside.
You live in a big house, I live in a small apartment.
You pay American income taxes, I don't.
You demand clean air and water, I tolerate pollution.
There are some fundamental factors which make labour in other parts of the world much cheaper, and people willing to accept a much lower quality of life and associated lower incomes.
Its no wonder that big tech is so in favour of remote working - its going to allow the outsourcing of a huge amount of work (white collar) previously considered untouchable.
That strong social safety net does not fall from the sky. People in those countries just pay higher taxes instead, so if you want your employee to have the same net income, you need to increase the salary.
My American friends always rant about the high income taxes in Sweden. But my taxes include health insurance and I pay essentially nothing for kids' daycare, school and university. For people without perfect health and with kids, the total pay is worse in the U.S.
Those properties lead to inefficiencies for the workforce. Pollution negatively impacts the health of a population, including mental health. Lower taxes lead to less reliable infrastructure. And there are probably other non-obvious benefits to having a workforce living in a developed country.
Western Europe and the USA have maintained a huge advantage over the world. I wouldn't be so confident about that advantage disappearing. Much like wealthy people today are much more likely to have ancestors who were wealthy, I think people born in developed western nations are going to continue to enjoy competitive advantages over others for many more generations.
Funnily, except for the pollution part, most of your items on the right seem more attractive from a quality-of-life point of view than those on the left. Flying to Disneyworld sounds like a nightmare I would never (willingly) do, but a trainride to the seaside is always nice.
Haha I have to admit I wasn't sure of his point at that stage. Taking a train to the seaside sounds sort of romantic. Flying to Disneyland sounds sort of rote. I still get the point but it is amusing.
You eat meat, I eat potatoes.
You fly to Disneyworld, I take the train to the seaside.
You live in a big house, I live in a small apartment.
You pay American income taxes, I don't.
You demand clean air and water, I tolerate pollution.
There are some fundamental factors which make labour in other parts of the world much cheaper, and people willing to accept a much lower quality of life and associated lower incomes.
Its no wonder that big tech is so in favour of remote working - its going to allow the outsourcing of a huge amount of work (white collar) previously considered untouchable.