America's misguided culture of overwork
1–10 of 192 posts
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#2I'm surprised wealth distribution wasn't mentioned in the stuff about GDP comparison. I'm no Economist but I was under the impression that wealth is distributed more evenly in European countries than in the US. We have rich people here in Europe but the US seems to have lots of insanely rich people and lots of poor people to go with it...
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#3"How did Germany become such a great place to work in the first place? The Allies did it.”
What? I’m pretty sure the European labour movement and the Social Democrats wouldn’t agree with that answer. On a list of possible explanations, I think ”You can thank the Americans for it” would rank rather low.
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#4It's an interesting topic, and quite complex. In my line of work (high level tech support), measuring productivity is relatively straightforward, and the European team with its 30 days of holidays and no overtime at all beats the US team in average output per year easily. Both lose out to the Indians, whom I admire a lot for the pure raw effort.
On the other hand, I've heard local startups complain about the difficulty of finding people that are willing to put in the hours that you'd need in a startup.
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#5"free university tuition" ->
Not true anymore, it's more like 300-600 Euros per semester. Still not much compared to the US but enough for german students to protest and public banks to create state-sponsored student loans. This type of loan for students was unknown before in Germany.
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#6Hmm, I enjoy hearing all the praise heap onto us (Germany) latetly. There was a time when Germany was called the sick, fat old man of Europe, too inflexible and and stubborn to able to adjust to a changing environment.
I'm sure once the growth lessens the tone will change again - I'll enjoy it as long as it lasts.
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#7It's an interesting topic, and quite complex. In my line of work (high level tech support), measuring productivity is relatively straightforward, and the European team with its 30 days of holidays and no overtime at all beats the US team in average output per year easily. Both lose out to the Indians, whom I admire a lot for the pure raw effort. On the other hand, I've heard local startups complain about the difficul…
The question is if those startups are willing to pay in relation to the hours they want (and I don't think one should keep this relation at a linear scale)
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#8"free university tuition" -> Not true anymore, it's more like 300-600 Euros per semester. Still not much compared to the US but enough for german students to protest and public banks to create state-sponsored student loans. This type of loan for students was unknown before in Germany.
Not everywhere. My university is in a state with no tuition.
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#9"free university tuition" -> Not true anymore, it's more like 300-600 Euros per semester. Still not much compared to the US but enough for german students to protest and public banks to create state-sponsored student loans. This type of loan for students was unknown before in Germany.
Well, it is true for at least some of the states.
For the other ones (I'm in Baden-Württemberg), it's usually 500 Euros + 1xx Euros of fees per semester.
Also: I recently read an article (sorry, no link) about student loans in Germany. Apparently, there are about 20-30 banks that offer "student loans". Only 3-4 actually offer something that is limited to students and apparently most of the banks want to move away from keeping those "special" deals arround
Re: America's misguided culture of overwork
#10This guy has lots of facts wrong - makes you wonder about his accuracy in research:
- no federally mandated six weeks of vacation time (though 4-5 weeks are the norm, even in private sector)
- University tuition has been introduced recently (though still low, but will rise as obvious source of gov revenue)
- Free nursing care / child care for a small percentage of toddlers only
- No labor minister of that name (he is undersecretary) etc.