Great points. When we shop we go for local and fresh as the top priority if we can. After that, fresh and not processed is better and I think that's a worthwhile hypothesis. Let's face it, if /. readers ate more vegetables that were fresh we'd be better off, organic or not :)

If and when we go to the theatre, it's usually for a blockbuster action or animated film the entire family would enjoy. We go to our local AMC before noon on weekends. The admission is $6/person and we rarely buy the popcorn (might as well eat bacon fat :) ). That's a price point I can deal with. The whole business model and release cycle for movies and music is broken and the industry is too slow to react. I've even seen more progressive types in the industry post to /. and reddit on just how archaic the thinking is at the top.

Utter bullshit. Teacher's unions maybe costing the system more but without them, teachers would be treated like shit. They are already even with meagre protection. Once the unions are gone, I assume you'd blame the teachers. When they're all fired who do you blame next? There is only one problem with education, its the parents, period. Modern parenting is doing more harm than any school. Thing is, no parent wants to admit. Blame everyone else but ourselves.

You say teachers aren't cheap yet you quote 22,000 pounds? Surely you're not saying they're making too much at that salary? That's about half what a Canadian teacher makes (including currency conversion.) It's amazing how little the general public values teachers. Wonder why they have unions? They would be treated like utter shit if they didn't. They were before unions and they are again as their unions weaken.

Agree although its not unusual for individuals to be bumped up in a team without the team knowing. Compensation is still relatively confidential among employees in my experience. What does happen is that middle management is limited by an overall salary increase budget that requires stealing from other team members' raises in order to provide more for an individual. Those overall budgets have been hovering around 2-3% for almost a decade. Given that, a manager can't increase an individual salary much before it cuts into other people's increases.

Not to mention violating various software licenses along the way...

Even if such contracts were possible in US and Canada (they aren't) your example illustrates why they don't work. Companies that have you locked in aren't going to use financial or other goodies to motivate you to stay. Employees will leave after the contract period and the company likely has a bigger problem than natural attrition from abusing employees the old way.

Isn't it amazing that the so-called business leaders in a company can't compare the cost of a relatively small increase in salary to the cost of hiring a new employee with recruiting, hiring, and training?

Let's not forget there's lots more to software development than writing the actual code. Experience in the whole software development lifecycle is critical as are the soft skills that are often learned rather than natural for techies.

..and you noted it because it's rare, right? I'm 45 and the only way I could get another job is through my network of colleagues. I actually removed old experience on my resume so as to not immediately give away my age. Ageism is alive and well everywhere and its not a cost thing either. Very few managers want to hire someone significantly older then they are. When folks here are saying "oh we so totally need experienced developers here, we can't, like, find any" they really mean experienced, young, cheap, exploitable resources. I'd like to see the pile of rejected resumes for every one of the unfilleable positions.

That is commendable, seriously. I can vouch for the previous poster, $1600/mth for a family in a major urban centre in Canada would be difficult. Assuming you've already sold your house and cars and moved to a small rental, you could likely make ends meet with the capital and the income. Note that EI doesn't last forever and you'd have to move to welfare benefits after that. If you go that way then you'd definitely have had to already divest yourself of any savings and other assets. Once there, it's a tough haul to get yourself out.

It's worth pointing out that you don't qualify for EI in Canada if you are actually fired or leave a job willingly. Luckily (depending on your point of view) nobody gets fired, they get laid off. Even if there is no economic reason for your departure its easier on the employer to lay you off (firing is just too much work!) and easier on the hapless employee because they can qualify for EI. It's rare in technical jobs to actually get fired. I was laid off from a job due to "restructuring" but knew it was coming and I was the only one in the group. It was a firing plain and simple. I got the appropriate form that lets me collect EI once my severance ran out and the company gets rid of me without all the hassle of firing me. They advertised for my job the following week. This company has repeated this pattern many times in the past. Provincial labour laws in Canada are quite weak (often less stringent than many states) so lay offs to get rid of people are common and easy if you're willing to pay slightly more than the legal minimum severance (1wk pay for each year of service is the de facto minimum.) Pay a littler more severance and you're clear. It's HR's nasty little secret.

..or cannibalism

I call bullshit on this. In my extensive experience this has not been the case. I have been in three different companies that used out sourced employees in Asia - Russia, India and China. In almost every case productivity was far less than equivalent North American developer but more importantly there was lack of creativity, direction, and motivation. If managing programmers is like herding cats then managing off shore programmers is like herding ferrets. This may get better over time as management expertise and multi-site development improves but for now, the risk/gain needs to re-evaluated and in fact, many companies are moving development back in-house all three of the companies I mentioned have done this.) One thing you also conveniently left out is that wages overseas are growing rapidly, considerably faster than in North America. Cost of living in Moscow and other major metro areas in Russia has skyrocketed, Indian and Chines developers are leaving poor paying jobs immediately for better paying jobs. In my current employer, we had to raise salaries at our Chinese development group by 30%. The advantage to off shore development in terms of costs is dwindling IMO.

You said it. It's import to point out that only a very small percentage of musicians make enough money from record sales in the first place. Cracker dude is one such lucky bastard and thus not even representative of the majority. I will pay for music when it goes directly to the artist no iTunes, no record company, right off their own website. Guys like Jonathon Coulton are spearheading this and he does quite well. I would bet he nets much more than many popular artists because his costs are minimal (he even hit the billboard charts last year, all with self produced and released albums.) Metallica could easily self produce an album and sell it but I bet they are locked in solid to some contract that restricts this for years.