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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#141

Post by jpatokal »

thw1438383 wrote: post #97
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.

11-12 hrs is normal hours by Japanese standards. My wife used to work for a trading house that had a dormitory at the office to make it easier to sustain a stretch of 18-hour days.

On the limited upside, the wages are not all there is to working for a Japanese megacorp. In addition to the thick wad of non-taxable allowances, there are also non-monetary benefits. As patio11 notes [1], “Most people want to become wealthy so they can consume social status. Japanese employers believe this is inefficient, and simply award social status directly.”

[1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#142

Post by lordnacho »

I don't know if it was Mary's first baby, but she might know that it's not terribly urgent to go to a hospital.

Even when your water breaks, the hospital will tell you not to come in immediately. With my first kid it was like that, we had hours before anything started happening.

A few minutes extra to drive someone doesn't seem all that bad.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#143

Post by Ntrails »

oblio wrote: post #134
Ntrails wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you retain first past the post, switch to AV, move to proportional representation? What are the consequences of each of these choices and who is the right person to make them? There is no perfect voting/political system - all of them have side effects.

The fact that there's no perfect __anything__ shouldn't stop us from trying to improve the status quo.

Agreed, so my question is why the OP is declaring 2 party system as "worse" when all current systems have drawbacks.

Worse is subjective in this arena. So what are your metrics? What do you define as better? I'm not terribly keen on prop rep, for example - I think it actually gives too much power to extreme parties. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you think it would be better? If so, why?

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#144

Post by jpatokal »

andy_ppp wrote: post #117
tscs37 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep in mind that your costs of living are also different. In the EU you don't pay as much for the same services as in the US, especially healthcare. I'm not sure about Japan but it could be the same thing there.

Cost of living, for the same sized apartment, in Tokyo is more that San Francisco by my calculations.

Emphasis on the "same sized apartment" there: American-sized apartments are quite rare in Tokyo and priced to match. In Tokyo, unlike SF, there are tons of tiny but perfectly livable "one-room mansion" apartments at non-insane rents ($500-1000/mo, depending on how small and how far away from the city).

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#145

Post by jacquesm »

cmdrfred wrote: post #139
jacquesm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now let's hope nobody gets ill.

We both have health insurance, we make too much for Obamacare but we costed it out and we can afford for one of us to stop working if we had to.

Excellent. Make sure you keep a sharp eye on that and the future developments, this is one of those little things that can really ruin your life. It's bad enough to have a serious health issue, if it gets compounded by a financial crisis then you can go from 'ok' to 'really bad' in a surprisingly short time when there is no safety net.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#146

Post by oblio »

Ntrails wrote: post #143
oblio wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that there's no perfect __anything__ shouldn't stop us from trying to improve the status quo.

Agreed, so my question is why the OP is declaring 2 party system as "worse" when all current systems have drawbacks. Worse is subjective in this arena. So what are your metrics? What do you define as better? I'm not terribly keen on prop rep, for example - I think it actually gives too much power to extreme parties. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you think it would be better? If so, why?

I'm OP. I just said why the 2 party system is worse. Re-read my previous comment.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#147

Post by jdietrich »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #113
intended wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Average home size in the UK is less than half that of the US: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house US @ 77 sq meters per capita vs UK @ 33 sq meters per capita.

The average new-build British home is 76 square metres; a typical single-wide mobile home ranges from 60 to 93 square metres.

We're a crowded island, we have small houses.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#148

Post by te_chris »

dnel wrote: post #91
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.

So this. I was on holiday in Mexico with my GF and American's kept asking if it was our honeymoon. They couldn't understand being able to take 4 weeks off and travel! (From NZ)

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#149

Post by MandieD »

refurb wrote: post #37
rimliu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I saw a report somewhere stating thad Danes are most happy to pay taxes—because they are happy what they gain in return. Also, there was a report recently, that happiest people are in Norway. Maybe it is not fair to call all socially responsible arrangements "welfare society"?

Or maybe they don't know any different? How many people have actually had the opportunity to live a decade or more of their adult lives in different countries? A very small minority. Canadians love their single payer healthcare. They have no problem waiting a year or more for surgery. They don't think paying a 15% VAT is a burden. They don't know any different. Americans would shit themselves if they had to deal with…

I've done both: grew up, was educated and started my career in the US, then moved to Germany.

Yes, I pay some spectacular taxes, and on a somewhat lower salary than I would probably have in the US, and as a result, live in a smaller house and drive a cheaper car. But the six weeks of annual vacation soften the blow, and being able to leave my nice bike lightly locked in front of my house and in front of a pub in downtown Nuremberg on a Saturday night makes up the rest of the difference.

As for the medical, my anecdata is that I've never waited more than two hours in an emergency room (each time, non-life threatening, just weekend) and that care was far less expensive than in the US, even as a private payer. One example while skiing in Austria: I fell and injured my thumb, ski patrol insisted I go to the hospital. I paid 20 EUR to take a cab to the next town. The emergency room looked at my passport and took my word on my address in Germany. A few x-rays later (no break), I had a packet of pain pills for the next three days.

A few weeks later, the bill arrived: 125 EUR.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#150

Post by ZeroGravitas »

wiz21c wrote: post #86
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.

What you describe about really winning/loosing is inequality. I generally think that inequality is bad for populations (you may disagree, but usually, those in favor of inequality are those on the right side of it)

Though weirdly in modern American politics, there's some degree of inversion there, with the "coastal liberal elites" voting for "socialist" healthcare and the unemployed coal miner with black lung disease voting against it.
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