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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#301

Post by jdietrich »

koolba wrote: post #224
jdietrich wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner. I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the funda…

> Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner. True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most o…

>True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most of that without leaving the continental USA.

You absolutely, 100% can't. America has no end of wonderful places to visit, but there are so many parts of the experience of foreign travel that aren't remotely replicated in domestic travel.

Being on the wrong side of a language barrier is profoundly dislocating. A domestic visitor to Big City USA won't find themselves asking for directions in pantomime, they won't have to point at something on a menu and hope for the best, they won't walk into a supermarket and realise that they can't tell shampoo from conditioner. There's a deep sense of vulnerability when you can't communicate effectively, a sense of marginalisation and remoteness.

American tourists have a reputation for assuming that everyone accepts greenbacks. It's a profound experience to realise that the money in your wallet is absolutely worthless to the people around you, that the pieces of paper you sweated to earn might as well be monopoly money to anyone outside of a Bureau de Change. The simple experience of having a pocketful of unfamiliar coins has a lasting effect on your understanding of the nature of money.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#302

Post by refurb »

hocuspocus wrote: post #266
refurb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Americans would shit themselves if they had to deal with that. Are Americans some kind of special subspecies where the bottom 80% of earners inherently enjoys being screwed?

No, my point is that plenty of American have very high quality healthcare. Sure they pay more, but they also get more.

Going from the system today to "no you can't go to that hospital" or "you'll need to wait 6 months for surgery" or "no we won't pay for the latest cancer drug" would piss a lot of people off.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#303

Post by nkrisc »

emodendroket wrote: post #286
lovich wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing median salary in Berlin with the high end in the US, and you are ignoring much of the complexities that were already mentioned such as the incredibley high cost of living in San Francisco where google and facebook pay those salaries. I'm in the Boston market and median salary for devs is around 80-90k when you include all skill levels, but every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute int…

> every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute into the city They should probably look for housing near a commuter rail then

That's the "has roommates" part. That housing is going to be more expensive.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#304

Post by beaconstudios »

tracker1 wrote: post #171
beaconstudios wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the level of service that the NHS provides is pretty poor for people with ongoing conditions. They're great for providing emergency treatment but if you require ongoing treatment you will likely get much, much better service from BUPA or another health insurer. One thing the NHS does really well is providing downwards pressure on health insurers' rates though.

Frankly, what I wish would have happened here would have been to gather up all the federally funded healthcare initiatives and create a government owned, non-profit healthcare corp to cover the same people (va, medicare, medicaid, federal employees, etc). To provide for downward pressure and a baseline for private insurers to compete against... allowing anyone to get a private policy from said corp. Would likely have…

I totally agree. I think the conversation around healthcare in the US seems incredibly polarised, to the point where no reasonable middle-ground can be achieved that works for both Democrats and Republicans. The system you've described seems to cover both bases, with coverage for all in times of need but the ability to leverage the market to drive innovation and improved quality. It seems to work well in the UK, for those that can afford BUPA cover.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#305

Post by derivagral »

emodendroket wrote: post #286
lovich wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing median salary in Berlin with the high end in the US, and you are ignoring much of the complexities that were already mentioned such as the incredibley high cost of living in San Francisco where google and facebook pay those salaries. I'm in the Boston market and median salary for devs is around 80-90k when you include all skill levels, but every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute int…

> every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute into the city They should probably look for housing near a commuter rail then

This generally won't solve the commute issue; you spend time driving, parking, on the train, walking/subway to work area. And then all of that in reverse. You still 'lose' 50+ minutes each way.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#306

Post by conanbatt »

0322317_anes wrote: post #261
conanbatt wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is related to one of the least favoured policy changes Milton Friedman wanted to make: remove medical licenses. There are plenty of tasks doctors are commanded with that do not require mastery level of expertise, and that enormously raises the cost of medicine. You dont need to study 10 years to read an EKG, someone could learn all the EKG patterns in a much shorter time. A funny story about this in argentina: a…

I have never heard that anesthesiologists make anywhere close to what specialized surgeons make. Where are you getting this information from?

Surgeons and anesthesiologists in Argentina. Is a famous trade quirk here. I think surgeons cannot unionize by law, but anesthesiologists can, but im not sure about that.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#307

Post by wu-ikkyu »

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.

>I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning

Depends on what you mean by winning.

If by winning you mean having lots of money to buy your family a bunch of stuff, then yeah.

However, if by winning you mean having the time to build a strong relationship with your family and maintaining your own physical and mental health, then you might have a more difficult time with that.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#308

Post by nkrisc »

tbrownaw wrote: post #241
probably_wrong wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you end up choosing the US, and go to an at will state, keep in mind that your employer can fire you for wearing the wrong color of socks, even if they never told you which color is the right one (no, really). I think it boils down to whether you want to take care of yourself, or if you let the state do it for you. I would definitely take the 60K if it includes awesome public transport, unemployment money, afforda…

If you end up choosing the US, and go to an at will state, keep in mind that your employer can fire you for wearing the wrong color of socks, even if they never told you which color is the right one (no, really). Getting new hires up to speed is expensive enough that they'd be pretty stupid to actually do this. Sure a few do, but it isn't common. Also, a couple minutes with google turns up this: https://stats.oecd.or…

>Getting new hires up to speed is expensive enough that they'd be pretty stupid to actually do this. Sure a few do, but it isn't common.

I believe the point they were making is simply that they can. You're not protected (aside from the small handful of reason that actually are protected).

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#309

Post by nkrisc »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #220
conanbatt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

Oh please, no. Please don't "improve" work life balance by making work more "fun" a la Google. I don't want to have "fun" at work, I want to have plenty of time off work to be with my family.

I've not worked for Google, but their campus always struck me as a slick disguise for a poor work-life balance for single twenty-somethings.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#310

Post by aninhumer »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #163
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.

It surprises me that Americans don't even get Christmas (or the “holidays”) off. Would the religious right not support that?

Well, my impression is that the big family holiday in the US is Thanksgiving more than Christmas?
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