-0.5% interest mortgages
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
If we have a 100% employment rate for software engineers in profitable businesses, and by extension tax-producing ones, then why is the Finnish government still sinking into debt? Why is EU?
Because even if it has lots of tax income, the government is spending even more.
I know this. I was just making rhetorics to his rhetorics. Main point was that human resources are tied up in unprofitable business because it's possible to do that when interest rate is near 0%.
Don't forget that part of that spending is "servicing" (paying the interest on) the debt.
This, in my opinion, is the main reason why Euro central bank can't raise the interest rate; at 60% debt-to-GDP, a few percentage points in interest can sink a government for good.
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@remi said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
minimum size for renting (9 sq.m I think)
That's the key number anyway. In Helsinki, the 80m2 seriously restricts the availability of affordable housing. This, in turn, inflates the cost of living.
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@dkf said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Where are they all hiding at?
In countries with shorter winters?
Lower taxes, more like. There is some correlation between them though.
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@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
My company has trouble recruiting people for software development (embedded). While, AFAIK, there are at least 3 universities pumping out software engineers in this country, at least one of which teaches C and C++. Where are they all hiding at?
If your business is much more profitable than everybody else's, you should be paying much better than everybody else. If that's the case and they're still not coming, there must be something else that's seriously wrong about the place.
Definitely not about the pay, since the problem appeared before the process got that far. We just can't find qualified applicants. The number of people that sent their resumes and had some sort of software engineering experience was in single digits. And we're not the only company with this problem. A friend from another company called me and tried to recruit me; he confessed they have the same problem. Now, unless we both have a crap review in Glassdoor, something's seriously off.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
It's worth noting that the other type of mortgage, the so-called "repayment mortgage" is considered a bit strange in the UK
It depends where you are in the UK. When housing costs are a sane (or at least sane-ish) multiple of income, repayment mortgages are preferred here too.
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@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@boomzilla said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@Gąska said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@Gąska said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@Mason_Wheeler said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC waaaaaay back in the day, there was a good system in place to prevent this kind of mess. In the Law of Moses, it was specifically forbidden to make any loan for a period of longer than 7 years, and every 50 years was a special holiday where all outstanding debts were to be forgiven.
It's not about capitalism; it's about the orthogonal concept of whether your legal system encourages or discourages unlimited and perpetual indebtedness.
Back in the day, the only projects that took more than seven years were the ones ordered by the king, and by definition he didn't need to borrow, he just took and mandated.
Well, maybe in Asia. Here in Europe, it was different. Absolutism didn't really take off until after middle ages, and it lasted relatively short time. Before that, kings very much did borrow money on regular basis. Loans were the main source of income for Knights Templars, for example, which led to their eventual banishment.
Did any of them observe something akin to the Shmita?
Of course not. They hated Jews.
If we're talking about the Shmita as a custom in an exclusively Asian context anyway, I'm not sure what the Knights Templar have to do with it.
Seems like they were active in both finance and Asia. Why not?
My argument was that the Shmita wouldn't be compatible with a system where people would want to "invest" in projects taking more than seven years. If the Knights Templar didn't observe such a custom, they're simply not an argument, neither for nor against mine.
I know. I was just stirring the shit.
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@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Now, unless we both have a crap review in Glassdoor, something's seriously off.
For serious? The real issue is almost certainly that the level of demand for software engineers is extremely high right now.
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@dkf said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
When housing costs are a sane (or at least sane-ish) multiple of income, repayment mortgages are preferred here too.
True, but that hasn't been the case for decades, or at least not in the southern half of the country, anyway(1). (I remember my parents' comment on house price evolution: in 1971, they bought a house. In the six weeks from when the seller accepted the firm offer to when all the paperwork had been done and the sale was completed, prices of similar houses in the area had risen by 50%.)
(1) The furthest north I've ever lived in the UK is near Coventry, and we moved from there to near Tunbridge Wells in 1971.
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@dkf said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Now, unless we both have a crap review in Glassdoor, something's seriously off.
For serious? The real issue is almost certainly that the level of demand for software engineers is extremely high right now.
I'd say that equates roughly to "something's [...] off". Especially as I can't immediately observe a truly profitable sector demanding enough to create an employees' market. So, help me out here a bit. What happened in the last 5 years? And, more to the point of the argument I was having with @LaoC, is the demand created by such enterprise that would stay provitable if interest rates went up by a percentage point?
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@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@Gąska said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Yes, your moving them over 1000 years has not gone unnoticed.
Over 1000 years from what? This is the first time you mentioned any time period whatsoever. And a very weird one by that, considering your mention of capitalism, which was a much later invention than crucifying Jews.
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@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
What happened in the last 5 years?
I don't know. I observe that introductory offers for SEs round here are crazy, that retaining even our own students is difficult, and I know that it's an international market when it comes to SEs so it's very likely to be a problem elsewhere too. I'm guessing that the core of it is that there's just so many bits of the whole economy that need a few SEs, rather than anything easily identifiable.
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@Gąska said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@Gąska said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Yes, your moving them over 1000 years has not gone unnoticed.
Over 1000 years from what? This is the first time you mentioned any time period whatsoever. And a very weird one by that, considering your mention of capitalism, which was a much later invention than crucifying Jews.
Obviously the one I (and you BTW) replied to: "waaaaaay back in the day" when the Law of Moses was the actual law of the land. So more or less until the Roman era.
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@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
My company has trouble recruiting people for software development (embedded). While, AFAIK, there are at least 3 universities pumping out software engineers in this country, at least one of which teaches C and C++. Where are they all hiding at?
If your business is much more profitable than everybody else's, you should be paying much better than everybody else. If that's the case and they're still not coming, there must be something else that's seriously wrong about the place.
Definitely not about the pay, since the problem appeared before the process got that far.
Sorry, I'm not following. The problem of not finding people appeared before which process got how far?
We just can't find qualified applicants. The number of people that sent their resumes and had some sort of software engineering experience was in single digits.
Are you saying you do offer pay well above industry average and they're still not even applying? I don't know what to make of that. You have the same sources of financing available as every other business so if yours is demonstrably more profitable, banks should be more forthcoming with credits and offering even better conditions, right? And unless yours is a crap workplace, I don't see why software engineers should stay "tied up" in a lower paying job elsewhere. Do you?
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@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
My company has trouble recruiting people for software development (embedded). While, AFAIK, there are at least 3 universities pumping out software engineers in this country, at least one of which teaches C and C++. Where are they all hiding at?
If your business is much more profitable than everybody else's, you should be paying much better than everybody else. If that's the case and they're still not coming, there must be something else that's seriously wrong about the place.
Definitely not about the pay, since the problem appeared before the process got that far.
Sorry, I'm not following. The problem of not finding people appeared before which process got how far?
In Finland, salaries are not included in the advertisement for the position. It's handled as part of the interview, usually. But since we can't get applications from qualified applicants, the hiring process does not get to the interview, and therefore the "let's discuss money" part.
We just can't find qualified applicants. The number of people that sent their resumes and had some sort of software engineering experience was in single digits.
Are you saying you do offer pay well above industry average and they're still not even applying? I don't know what to make of that.
Me neither. I'm also baffled.
You have the same sources of financing available as every other business so if yours is demonstrably more profitable, banks should be more forthcoming with credits and offering even better conditions, right?
My employer is what's usually described as "small and medium enterprises", and is privately owned. As far as I know, the company has not needed to loan money in the time I've been in their employ. But they did change banks last year, to avoid being charged negative interest on the company assets.
And unless yours is a crap workplace, I don't see why software engineers should stay "tied up" in a lower paying job elsewhere. Do you?
Well, it's been more comfy than my previous employer, thus far. Like I said, I'm baffled.
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@acrow Is your company well known for offering above market pay? If so I'd expect that to help. If not it might be worth advertising minimum rates for different experience levels (junior, senior, etc).
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@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@LaoC said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
My company has trouble recruiting people for software development (embedded). While, AFAIK, there are at least 3 universities pumping out software engineers in this country, at least one of which teaches C and C++. Where are they all hiding at?
If your business is much more profitable than everybody else's, you should be paying much better than everybody else. If that's the case and they're still not coming, there must be something else that's seriously wrong about the place.
Definitely not about the pay, since the problem appeared before the process got that far.
Sorry, I'm not following. The problem of not finding people appeared before which process got how far?
In Finland, salaries are not included in the advertisement for the position. It's handled as part of the interview, usually. But since we can't get applications from qualified applicants, the hiring process does not get to the interview, and therefore the "let's discuss money" part.
I see. But surely, as @mikehurley suggested, you can put something like "from $x" or "up to $x depending on experience" in the ad? Otherwise you'd really have to rely on reputation.
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@mikehurley said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Is your company well known
Nope. They're:
- 3rd largest manufacturer in the world for a niche market.
- 15 people on payroll, of which half are engineers.
- 2 full-time software engineers at the moment, myself included. We need a third one.
- Thousands of people see our product every day, but from too far away to read the company logo, due to the nature of the product.
- Manufacturing of physical products is mostly outsourced, since we don't have the physical volume to keep a dedicated manufacturing plant running full-time. Though, judging from what I saw in our subcontractor's calendar, this arrangement is very common among SMEs.
- Revenue around €10M..€15M range, I think, though year-on-year variation is large.
Nobody knows us. I didn't know this company existed until I spotted a job ad in the newspaper that one day, years ago.
We looked into getting a job ad on Stack Overflow for some more targeted advertising, but Stack Overflow only sells yearly subscriptions. Which was deemed more than we need, so...
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@acrow said in -0.5% interest mortgages:
Though, judging from what I saw in our subcontractor's calendar, this arrangement is very common among SMEs.
Yes. Only have stuff in-house if you're using it a lot. It's also at the core of why SaaS is actually a good idea even if it isn't for everyone; for an SME who only needs it a few weeks a year at most, it's very costly to keep a complex commercial app going.
