The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess • Hacker News Board

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#91

Post by dnel » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:52 AM UTC

seanhandley wrote: post #59

As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a "normal" work/life balance. People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It's surreal.

I visited the US for the first time while on honeymoon and a couple of friends we visited while over there asked how I was handling doing work while away, it was an eye-opening insight into American culture I'd never witnessed before but it was a good opportunity to explain work-life balance from a European pov though, I didn't hear any counter-arguments from that small sample, maybe someday it'll catch on.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#92

Post by intended » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:53 AM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #80

J-dawg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we do have it worse in some ways. Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning. But when you're losing you're really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.

I live in America and my wife's family is from the UK. We aren't rich by any means but we bought a small house last year and when her family flew in they kept commenting on how big our house was. Our house is about as small as you can get without living in a trailer. I'm a high school drop out and we each make less than the median nation income and I feel we are better off than if we lived in the UK. Though I admit l…

Whats the comparison of sizes like ?

Really curious because if the next smaller house in size is a trailer then the UK sizes must be weirdly small.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#93

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:53 AM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #16

ganfortran wrote: post #11

Classy newyorker is good at criticising, but never good at offering alternative. And the implied solution(opposite of being too much self-reliant) is always the cliche rosy picture of bigger government and welfare society.

is always the cliche rosy picture of bigger government and welfare society. ...which works very well in Western Europe, where you don't have to worry losing everything when you get ill, lose your job, etc. I am in favor of a fair bit of (regulated) capitalism. But in the US people are taught that capitalism is good and socialism is bad [1], and the industry at large exploits it to get extremely cheap labor. There is…

> ...which works very well in Western Europe, where you don't have to worry losing everything when you get ill, lose your job, etc.

but it doesn't. plenty of people here are fed up with what EU became (westernized soviet union with idiotic central panning out of touch with reality out there in member states on the inside, super-weak 'power' on the outside).

Swiss were clever (or lucky) enough to vote to NOT join EU and they thrive beyond what is anywhere in EU - smallish government, relatively little taxation, more freedom than rest of europe will ever experience. They have very generous social net for unemployment too.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#94

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:56 AM UTC

llamataboot wrote: post #78

Waiting for the inevitable HN critique about "voluntary work" and "why should anyone have the right to tell someone else to work less" without a complete understanding of what voluntary means in a world with massive structural inequalities. Or as the anarchists say, "Work 50 hours or starve" isn't a choice, it's a threat. (edit: nitpick misspelling)

which is kind of ironic because in a state of anarchy like subsistence farming you'd expect to work a lot more than 50 hours, and doing back-breaking manual labour at that.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#95

Post by coldtea » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:56 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

cbanek wrote: post #2

Seems like in America it's hard to win. Either get paid not nearly enough and struggle to make ends meet, or get a high paid high stress job, still work all day and all night. Maybe we just have too much of that protestant work ethic?

Back in reality, working hours have no significant upward trend. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHNONAG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M0829BUSM065NNBR https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHAETP More people simply don't work. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART Consumption (note: figure adjusted for inflation) has only increased. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A794RX0Q048SBEA Looks like that prote…

Or, you know, this whole interpretation is misleading statistical BS, and as the caption says "Factors such as unpaid absenteeism, labor turnover, part-time work, and stoppages cause average weekly hours to be lower than scheduled hours of work for an establishment" -- and lowly paid part time work has replaced steady full time employment in many sectors.

(As for the per capital consumption, does it add mr. Gates with Joe Average? Even so I'm sure they will be an increase in Joe Average's consumption, but is that because Joe Average has more buying power than a worker in the 60s, or because they have to spend more to stay afloat, as everything's more expensive, and they don't have much cushion left in the bank?)

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#96

Post by gambiting » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

seanhandley wrote: post #59

As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a "normal" work/life balance. People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It's surreal.

There's a Cadillac ad for US, where the narrator openly says that those Europeans enjoy their holidays, but an American works hard and gets to enjoy nice car cue cadillac car enters the scene. They openly ridicule the idea that Europeans can take a month of holiday per year. I do feel a bit sorry for that attitude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#97

Post by thw1438383 » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

seanhandley wrote: post #59

As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a "normal" work/life balance. People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It's surreal.

Atleast they get paid relatively more than in the EU. In Japan you're expected to work mad hours (read 11-12 hrs) for what is barely above minimum wage in the US! Add to that Tokyo is hecka expensive.

I was quoted a salary of $ 30k for a deep learning position. Now that is third world.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#98

Post by cmdkeen » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

supremesaboteur wrote: post #44

trome wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

58% of Americans would prefer a federally funded healthcare system[0], akin to healthcare in Canada. We only feel alone because both parties are bought and owned by multi-nationals, and don't give a shit about what most people want. First Past the Post ensures a 3rd party will cause carnage if it ever did rise, splitting the vote and not electing the candidate most voters would prefer. Look at Wolf PAC in Connecticut…

Doesn't federally funded healthcare system have problems like lower quality of healthcare, increased government spending, increased chances of corruption and creating a moral hazard of not working to earn what is consumed ?

The UK still allows private healthcare so those who really want to pay extra can do so. In several areas, for instance emergency medicine, there isn't a private offering and others the NHS has the centres of excellence available to all based on need.

While our emergency system is often at the point of creaking it at least isn't anywhere close to American levels of having to deal with what should be primary care problems. There's also the massively real hazard of what happens when you have a large proportion of the population who can't access basic healthcare, for instance a greatly increased communicable disease risk. Then there is the economic cost of people unable to work, or work as well, due to potentially treatable medical conditions or bankrupted by medical bills. On a purely economic basis there is a case for universal healthcare.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#99

Post by foldr » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:58 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

rejschaap wrote: post #31

I don't really see the 'gig economy' as an alternative to regular jobs, which is always implicitly or explicitly implied by these articles. If you need a job, go find a job. If you are flexible, have some extra time, could use some extra money, enjoy these gig tasks or whatever, find a gig task. Obviously there aren't enough jobs to go around, this is not caused by the gig economy. Some regular jobs don't pay well en…

There are plenty of jobs. People just refuse to do them. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_ou... Aren't Trump's anti-immigrant attitude considered bad in part because we might lose immigrant labor we are dependent on?

'Creche' isn't Hinglish. It's just not used much in the US.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#100

Post by onion2k » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

J-dawg wrote: post #73

rmc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays. This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don't get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.

Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we do have it worse in some ways. Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning. But when you're losing you're really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.

Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America...

If having more money and a bigger house is winning that's true, but many people don't see life that way. Being happy, having time to enjoy life with your friends, doing worthwhile and interesting things, raising your kids well, etc are also ways to win. In general if you talk to an older, wealthy person, they say those are things that should have done instead of working so much.