America's misguided culture of overwork • Hacker News Board

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#171

Post by karve » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 12:59 AM UTC

parbo wrote: post #62

How about moving to Sweden? We have 4G (the real LTE-kind) in the three largest cities now, and even better social safety net than Germany. ;)

While I like our system in Sweden, there has been a dramatic change in the last 10 years. Especially for students, youth, foreigners and others with a limited social network.

The housing market is ridiculous, both for renting and buying, especially compared to 10 years ago. For students it has become harder to both get accepted to university and to keep their student benefits. Foreign students have harder to get admitted, not competing fully with Swedish students and also soon have to pay tuition around 8000€/year. When you finish school you won't get unemployment benefits, but instead have to apply for welfare if you can't find a job instantly. I've heard it's a funny feeling having studied for five years and then being interrogated by welfare workers who can't understand why you're there in the first place. If you're young you basically won't get any help for the first three months of unemployment, which is when you want it.

Off the top of my head I know several people who has moved to Berlin explicitly for the cheaper housing and better quality of life. Swedish DJ Petter Nordkvist[1] has stated in interviews[2] that he moved to Berlin because "it is nearly impossible to find a flat [in Stockholm] if you don’t buy". An example even more relevant to this site is Soundcloud. The founders attended university and the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship in Sweden and then moved themselves and their company to Berlin, stating "since it was and still is affordable to live and work there"[3] as one of the reasons for moving.

[1] http://www.discogs.com/artist/Petter+Nordkvist [2] http://www.hrfq3.sakura.ne.jp/home//e_interview/petter02/ind... [3] http://blog.twingly.com/2010/05/18/from-stockholm-to-berlin-...

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#172

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 1:42 AM UTC

leot wrote: post #168

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine, then, what might happen if we doubled the size the base of people that could start/support an Apple or a Google On the face of it: yes, it would lead to higher GDP. BUT you have to consider where that wealth to spread around came from in the first place. If I know that by becoming very wealthy I'm going to be taxed to kingdom come so my wealth can be "fairly distributed" then I don't have much of an incentiv…

You're making it sound like the work won't pay. It will, just less. Care to quantify "kingdom come"? This argument is effectively: "I will work my arse off if the tax rate is 5%, but not if the tax rate is, say, 45%. It's only worth it if I can become hyper-rich; super-rich just isn't good enough for me." Where is the evidence that increasing income/wealth taxes from, say, 20% to 40% causes people to work less hard?…

"Kingdom come" is the tax rate at which the risk of entrepreneurship is much greater than the potential after-tax reward.

To your other question: whether nor not it outweighs any supposed benefits of wealth redistribution is irrelevant to the individual entrepreneur. Someone willing to work his ass off to start and run a successful venture isn't likely to think "I'll lose the majority of my profits to taxes, but I don't mind because at least it's being redistributed fairly."

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#173

Post by natep » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 4:43 AM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #161

teoruiz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - University tuition has been introduced recently (though still low, but will rise as obvious source of gov revenue) In Spain (another socialist economy by the article standards) University tuition is something between 600-1000 EUR a year and has not risen for a good decade now (except for the inflation).

Spain is on the verge of bankruptcy. Just saying.

And, I heard on NPR, has something like 40% unemployment of the young (18-25 years, I think?)

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#174

Post by arethuza » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 9:30 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #136

davidw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but the real difference is in spending. People in the US live to 78, Canadians to 81, according to that site, which isn't a huge difference. The difference in spending, however, is, which is why the US is such an outlier on that chart. ... and around ...

I was questioning the claim of "more luxury, more free time, and better health-care ". Much like free time, claims about costs are easily googleable.

I think that just a disagreement over how to interpret "best" - for an individual who can afford it the "best" health care is likely to be in the US. However, I suspect Europeans think of it as "pretty good health care for everyone" rather than "the absolutely the most effective health care for some".

I'm in the UK so I rather like knowing that everyone has access to pretty decent healthcare which is free at the point of delivery. If I want fancier stuff or a slightly nicer room or more quickly than what the NHS can provide I can always go private. However, I've never done that and I don't know anyone who has for anything major.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#175

Post by hammmatt » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 10:26 AM UTC

alaithea wrote: post #150

hammmatt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as we are speculating. What exactly is wrong with learning from the examples and failures of other countries. True, maybe we can not generate the same economy as Germany. However, perhaps we could find a way to copy or mimic what is that makes Germany so effective. The article would argue that is their social polices. It is probably a mix of harmful and beneficial. I'd wager their free healthcare doesn't cont…

> I'd wager their free healthcare doesn't contribute as much as their free education, ext. Germany's healthcare system is universal, but not free. Standard insurance is funded by a combination of employee contributions, employer contributions and government subsidies on a scale determined by income level. Higher income workers sometimes choose to pay a tax and opt out of the standard plan, in favor of 'private' insur…

Ah, you are right. Thank you for correcting.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#176

Post by hammmatt » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 10:30 AM UTC

thwarted wrote: post #170

hammmatt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent four months living in Germany. I see tons more national pride when I am in the United States. The only national pride I have seen Germany conveyed was for their football team. Some Germans find it difficult to even discuss their recent history, they feel very shameful about it. If anything struck me about Germany it was how everyone could agree on rational things. Everyone agrees to fund the train stations. M…

My comment wasn't about Germany, but about countries which don't take influence from other countries in their own decision making. The United States could swallow some pride and seriously research and adopt policies that work in other countries rather than dismissing them immediately because that idea/method came from somewhere else (drug laws come to mind).

I think we agree on almost everything.

I was just theorizing that the magical force behind Germany's constant industrial success is having rationality deeply rooted in their culture.

I probably just misunderstood your comment.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#177

Post by bpyne » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 10:51 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #165

bpyne wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm employed at a university in the US and have what we consider a "cushy" job: i.e. good benefits and a short work week. Just for comparison, here's what my employer offers. vacation = 2 weeks personal time = 6 days (sick time is considered personal time) holidays = 7 We have also time off that I don't know how to categorize. It's specific to universities. university shutdown between Christmas and New Year's = 7 day…

"University tuition ranges and often includes housing, which is necessary in less urban areas." Really? I'd think campus housing would be more necessary in urban areas, just to provide subsidized living space in often expensive areas. I go to a rural university, and there are more than enough apartments around--just living by myself, I'm paying less than half for a studio apartment than I would for a bed in a dorm ro…

My thought pattern was more along the line of urban areas have plenty of apartments available off campus. Rent fluctuates according to the local market: my own city is a steal for students right now. Some markets are always ridiculously high, e.g. NYC and Boston. In less urban areas where land is available, universities can easily build dormitories. Of course, I haven't seen more than a handful of universities so I'll admit to a small sample size.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#178

Post by bpyne » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 11:04 AM UTC

mattm wrote: post #153

patrickgzill wrote: post #69

My personal experience with Germans is that they are hard workers for several hours, then they take off and play. During the time they are working they are focused on getting work done. Americans will put in long hours, but then during the course of the day will play in the form of checking personal email, talking around the water cooler, etc. You can cross ref. this with NASA's finding that programmers who were only…

My experience echoes this. I really believe there is a fixed limit to the amount of work one can do and once you cross that line, you just end up goofing off or procrastinating. And it's nowhere near 40 hours per week. I would say it's more like 20-30. The 40 hour work week is standard because Henry Ford's productivity studies found that for repetitive, manual labour, that was the maximum amount of hours one could wo…

I saw a PBS documentary sometime in the early 90's about the Labor Movement in the US. Just after getting the 40 hour work week, they pushed for 32 hours because it was found to be optimal. Industrialists fought harder against that one so Congress felt it was a worthy compromise to leave at 40. I'd love to find the study the Labor Movement based its conclusion on.

My own experience is that I'm maximally focused for 6 hours each day but it's split into 2-3 hour bursts.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#179

Post by sasvari » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 11:18 AM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #161

teoruiz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - University tuition has been introduced recently (though still low, but will rise as obvious source of gov revenue) In Spain (another socialist economy by the article standards) University tuition is something between 600-1000 EUR a year and has not risen for a good decade now (except for the inflation).

Spain is on the verge of bankruptcy. Just saying.

which has nothing to do with tuition fees.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#180

Post by sasvari » Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 12:16 PM UTC

lefstathiou wrote: post #124

I've always found these America vs Europe comparisons to to be rather poor. We're so much bigger and more diverse and our problems are on such a larger scale that its hard for me to rationalize we are still talking apples to apples. I cant help but laugh when i see these "quality of life" indexes that compare Norway, one of the most xenophobic/racist/elitist nations with a population half that of Manhattan, to the US…

Norway, one of the most xenophobic/racist/elitist nations

for me this is a pretty severe accusation. don't know on which data you are basing that on ...

European companies are falling behind their American counterparts in many of the next generation industries.

well, do they? do all of them? which industries? which companies? looking at green technology i.e., Europe (especially Germany) is in a very good position for the future. and this is one of the most promising industries ...