41–50 of 63 posts
If we extend the definition of "work" to include self-directed projects, education and enrichment, 40-55 is about right; 40 for most people and 55 for the more ambitious.
Beyond 60 hours per week, marginal productivity is minimal.
People want to work. Some people want to work hard. Most especially, people want to achieve. The question is where people put their effort; whether they 'level-up' in real life or some artificial one.
Ever had your project interrupted when a European decides to take six weeks of consecutive vacation? I'll take puritan productivity any day.
http://blogs.ft.com/money-supply/2009/12/10/the-trans-atlant...
I would be much, much more interested in hearing of how any one of you hacked life such that you work a non-traditional schedule than reading how a group thinks the workweek should be established by fiat. (Most especially for a group which does not demonstrate that it has any experience with, ahem, working for a living.) Horse's mouth, incidentally: http://neweconomics.org/press-releases/shorter-working-week-...
I calculated that I needed to work one 8 hour day per month to maintain that lifestyle indefinitely.
Naturally, a guy with a laptop and unlimited free time will find something to keep busy, so that was also the trip that launched my first couple entrepreneurial sites.
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That's not the only reason to cut work weeks, though I agree it's a bad one. This old article by Bertrand Russell starts out by pointing out that the "fixed pie" view is not a good reason to work less, but that there are others: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html The gist of it is that you can take the dividends of increasing productivity in a lot of ways. As computers get faster, you can keep paying $2k for a new c…
Thank you very much for the interesting link to Bertrand Russel's take on this issue. Some time ago, another very interesting piece of Betrand Russel was linked by another HN user, and I have to say that reading Mr. Russel's essays should be required reading for some classes; probably in addition to reading some of his mathematical work, which is highly recommended, too. That aside, I think that the article does not…
Spending less time at work makes it possible to do all these things and it is something that I would very much like to do.
Of course, since I am working 60-70 hour work weeks, perhaps doing other stuff is just seductive to me right now.
Ever had your project interrupted when a European decides to take six weeks of consecutive vacation? I'll take puritan productivity any day.
Yet, European firms are still comparable to Americans in terms of productivity and compete successfully in global markets. Intriguing, no?
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There are not 37 million people collecting welfare. Go look at some budget graphics, welfare and human services are a tiny, tiny slice of our budget. It's a small dividend that they're getting. (FYI: For things regarding welfare, do not read heritage unless you're applying a skeptical eye. Everyone has an agenda, but their entire purpose of being is an agenda.)
Neither I, nor the article, made the claim that there are 37 million people collecting welfare. Perhaps you should read sources before declaring them incorrect? Incidentally, this article is simply an aggregations of statistics available from various government sources (e.g., census, BLS). Regardless of their agenda, their facts seem well supported.
"Average poor american has bigger living arrangements than the average Paris resident" -- really? The average subsistence farmer has bigger living arrangements than the average Manhattan banker, as well.
The US is a very capitalistic country (in a good way) and we have very little in the way of social welfare (in a sometimes inefficient way) -- being poor here isn't easy, even if it's not an automatic death sentence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet, European firms are still comparable to Americans in terms of productivity and compete successfully in global markets. Intriguing, no?
Some types of European firms. You don't see as much innovative software coming out of that part of the world as the U.S.