I just read this article which talks about how the executives at Ford are willing to cut their salaries to $1 if they receive money from the federal government. Wow, that’s nice of them. Notably absent in that entire article is a mention of executive bonuses. Bonuses and dividends are typically taxed as investments instead of income, and usually result in a smaller tax burden. In Canada, the tax rate on dividends is roughly half of what it is in regular income, so that’s the preferred method of making money. So if they reduce their salaries to $1, I gotta ask, what are they planning to do ...

Given that I’ve been with my current company for the last four years, I haven’t really had to think about salaries for quite some time. That being said, I’m actually curious how Vancouver is doing in terms of salaries in the high-tech department. I know it’s fairly easy to acquire a +100k job in the Bay Area, and in New York you can easily approach 200k in some fields (Math+Programming in the stock market for example). By talking to various people over the last few months, I gather there’s a pretty big spread amongst most companies in this city. I’ve thrown together a few quick and ...