<story><title>Homeless in Silicon Valley</title><url>http://billmoyers.com/content/homeless-in-high-techs-shadow/</url><text>Have tech millionaires pushed the cost of living so high that the working poor are ending up homeless? Bill Moyers, the most subversive show on television according to the New York Times, shows the extremes of wealth and poverty in Silicon Valley.</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wes-exp</author><text>What I want to know is why can&apos;t rent be cheaper in the Bay Area for simple apartments? There&apos;s plenty of vertical space to build more housing. But instead everything is small one or two story homes that cost a million bucks at minimum.&lt;p&gt;Part of Silicon Valley&apos;s original magic was that it was just  farmland and affordable to live there. Now it&apos;s a terribly expensive place to live. Imagine how conducive to startups it would be (on top of existing success) if people could actually afford to rent a place. Right now all $1000/mo gets you is a BUNK BED! &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/134016&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/134016&lt;/a&gt; In other places in the US $1000/mo would get you a newly constructed apartment with all amenities and granite counter-tops.&lt;p&gt;This could be the ultimate startup: just build housing and correct the supply/demand balance!</text></comment>
<story><title>Homeless in Silicon Valley</title><url>http://billmoyers.com/content/homeless-in-high-techs-shadow/</url><text>Have tech millionaires pushed the cost of living so high that the working poor are ending up homeless? Bill Moyers, the most subversive show on television according to the New York Times, shows the extremes of wealth and poverty in Silicon Valley.</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>up_and_up</author><text>Are some people being over compensated?&lt;p&gt;&quot;the average American CEO now earns 319 times as much as the average American worker&quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-ceo-pay-hour-workers-year/story?id=11067470#.UV8jX6s4WGg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-ceo-pay-hour-workers-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Japanese Business leaders are making way less then American CEOs around 16 times as much as an average worker.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/07/08/106536/japanese-ceo-american-sixth/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/07/08/106536/japanese...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the average worker makes, say, 30K. I can see someone making 10x, maybe 50x that. But really 300x ??&lt;p&gt;Making decisions at the top is no doubt difficult and requires experience and expertise etc. But can you really say a CEOs time is worth 300x?&lt;p&gt;Like everything else, the pay at the top affects the pay scale at the entire management tier.</text></comment>