Comment Re:Negotiating salaries is for the birds. (Score 3, Informative) 430
It seems logical to me.
Money sum is relative, buying power is what matters. If you earn $1000, but a can of coke costs $20 it's worse than you earning $100 but the can of coke selling for $1.
If everyone earns a lot, then the prices in that area are most likely higher too. On theother hand, if everybody earns less, then the prices are most likely lower.
This was the case in my country, Lithuania before the Euro - the average salary was low compared to other EU countries, but prices of food and services was also lower. Obviously imported goods were justas expensive as elsewhee. Now 6 months after we switched to the Euro, prices jumped (in some cases by a factor of 2 or somebody just wrote EUR instead of LTL after the number incresing the price by a factor of 3.45), but salaries remained the same. Now we have an interesting combination - almost Russian salaries and almost European prices.