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Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

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Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#31

Post by jelliclesfarm »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #14

Children are expensive. And it’s not about money. It’s about time and energy and effort and incessant tending and bonding. I honestly think people need counseling and planning before they start to think about starting a family. They need back up plans and contingency strategies. It used to be that we lived in small communal groups and non nuclear families. Usually matriarchal wherein the post menopausal grandmother p…

Where I come from the thinking is that people both responsible and irresponsible will have children, and being born to irresponsible parents is never the child’s fault. So the responsible thing to do for the state is to ensure the well being of all children by having generous grants, generous parental leave, universal healthcare including dental for children and so on. Basically, if a child’s well being ever depends…

We seem to have a collective child fetish.

(I hear the words of St.George Carlin.)

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#32

Post by _of »

zeroname wrote: post #18
renholder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upboat for rationalisation. Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it. No compulsion to take…

> (specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with) In other words, you're out of touch with ordinary, less privileged workers. > It really is a different world, over here. The antithesis to the apathetical, if I may be so bold... Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well. Plus, you can earn far more and you pay less in ta…

> Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well. Plus, you can earn far more and you pay less in taxes.

What about the ones that are not developers?

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#33

Post by zeroname »

markdown wrote: post #27
zeroname wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost isn't paid elsewhere. It's essentially going straight out of their own paycheck. Not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days. Remember, everyone gets those five days. Big earners, small earners. It evens out to nothing. Everyone can't live at the expense of everyone else.

An American parent has a sick child but can't care for them. A Fijian parent has a sick child and can care for them. This comes out of their own paycheck (not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days) If you really don't see how the latter position is so vastly better for the individual parent than I don't know what to say. Perhaps you've never been a wage sla…

Believe it or not, an American parent can take a vacation day as well. The difference is, you're not forced to have vacation days and suffer lower pay for it.

In any event, why have only five days? If five days is good, why aren't two weeks even better? How could five days be enough to care for your family? Why not a whole month, that's even better than two weeks! I'll tell you why: Because it's not a free lunch. These laws are made so that politicians can sell them to clueless voters, not because they make sense.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#34

Post by School-Cotton »

benj111 wrote: post #29
School-Cotton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you defining "rich" ? Having high quality of life like easy access to childcare, sick leave and vacation time from work, etc., is part of being a rich country, or more precisely, a developed country. So your argument amounts to "rich countries should be rich", which is circular. If by "rich" you mean GDP per capita as opposed to development, I don't think it's a great metric -- there are plenty of countries w…

I'm defining rich in this context as the US, as that was the developed nation we were talking about. You will note that despite the US being richer than most developed nations, it has poorer benefits like you highlighted [1], compared to those other developed nations. So I fail to see how that is circular, if the richer country has less of those things. [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730947/Americans-p…

Well I guess I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

Is it just the following? "High GDP per capita is positively correlated with other metrics of development, so it is an interesting exercise to attempt to understand why this applies more strongly in some societies than in others". If so, I agree with you that it's an interesting historical and sociological question.

I guess what I have a negative reaction to is people living in modern parliamentary democracies like the UK or France, people who are used to a system where elected officials tend to accurately represent their constituent's wills and are able to make those wills reality, scratching their heads failing to understand why the US doesn't "just" pass some reforms to make life better. From my perspective this is like asking why Syrians don't just decide to stop having a war. (I am sure if you polled Syrians, 99.9% of them would say they wish the war weren't happening!)

The US political and institutional system is so extremely deadlocked and broken that there is no person alive -- not even Trump or any Senator or any other powerful person you care to name, who would be able to institute mandatory sick leave for workers, free childcare, or any other plausible solution to the problem stated in this headline, no matter how much they wanted to. So it gets a bit tiring to constantly hear moralizing about these issues from people who don't realize that no path to fixing them exists.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#35

Post by black-tea »

Of course they do. When I was a kid I stayed off and my mum looked after me. I really don't understand how people can think they can have a normal career and have children. Let's just stop. We're not better off with all this extra working.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#36

Post by StreamBright »

eecc wrote: post #6

What sort of failed state does not mobilize to support and ease the pain of fellow humans living through such hardship. By the way, “poor life choices” is not a valid argument. Edit: ok, in view of the objections regarding the technical definiton of “failed state” let me reword it to “failed society”. It is closer to my own objection anyway

Thanks but I do not need any support from any state. I can manage my and my children's life just fine without them.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#37

Post by DanBC »

StreamBright wrote: post #36
eecc wrote: post #6

What sort of failed state does not mobilize to support and ease the pain of fellow humans living through such hardship. By the way, “poor life choices” is not a valid argument. Edit: ok, in view of the objections regarding the technical definiton of “failed state” let me reword it to “failed society”. It is closer to my own objection anyway

Thanks but I do not need any support from any state. I can manage my and my children's life just fine without them.

How were your children born? Fed? Clothed? Educated? Transported? Protected from crime?

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#38

Post by benj111 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #25
markdown wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail. > What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's…

> See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have lo…

"Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions"

You made a similar point in your reply to me, but you've made it better here, so I'll reply here.

The US is a human construct, just like any other nation. And part of 'The US' is its people, its citizens. You can't divorce the country from the people that make it.

It does have willpower, it does have feelings, it does have emotions. As an example take a look at the countries reaction to 9/11. There was a reaction, which seems to disprove your theory, I would go further and say it was quite a human reaction.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#39

Post by renholder »

zeroname wrote: post #30
renholder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, you're out of touch with ordinary, less privileged workers. Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah? Isn't the site "Hacker News" and not "ordinary, less privileged workers'" news? > Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well. That mig…

> Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah? It means your experience doesn't scale to broader society, but you were making a point about broader society. If the ordinary secretary or the shift worker or the policeman don't get their "work from home days" there's essentially no difference in your exa…

>Working from home on occasion certainly isn't unusual.

Occassion and modus operandi are two entirely different precepts but you know this, yeah, and your trying ever-so hard to be pedantic. It's cute.

>Paid sick days is something your insurance may or may not cover.

I thought it was the employer who paid the sick days in the states. What you're talking about falls under the FMLA, I believe; which is an entire different set of principles - independent of the actual employer, yeah? Then you reinforce the point that it's not an overall societal protection with the statement, "States laws also may protect workers from getting fired during longer illness."

>Nothing, just rubbing it in.

You've brought nothing of attainable consequence to the conversation, much less any evidence of your assertion. How can you rub in that which you assume to be true but have no evidence for or against? The arrogance is astounding, to say the least.

>If you're successful in Finland (or some other little Euro country), you're going to be far less wealthy than in the US.

I'm assuming you're speaking of purely fiscal wealth, which is a pretty myopic perspective to have. You've provided no evidence of this claim. Are you sure we, the europoor, are actually poor or is this just something you're reverberating from the echo chambers of American exceptionalism.

>You'll be paying for everyone else to live.

Do you not do this with the current Social Security system? The irony is palpable...

>If that makes you happy, go for it.

Already doing it, so this is pretty pedestrian.

>Pat yourself on the back.

Is this not what you're trying to do with your own argument around more pay and less taxes? Pot meet kettle. The banality of this tangible irony is already starting to bore me.

Do you have anything of consequence to proffer or is it going to continually be this mundane level of effort, deriving from your bravado? If the latter of the two, then, you're bringing a knife to a gun show and it wouldn't be fair to keep being you with your own phantom limbs, so I'm dipping out. Have fun!

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#40

Post by [deleted] »

zeroname wrote: post #30
renholder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, you're out of touch with ordinary, less privileged workers. Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah? Isn't the site "Hacker News" and not "ordinary, less privileged workers'" news? > Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well. That mig…

> Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah? It means your experience doesn't scale to broader society, but you were making a point about broader society. If the ordinary secretary or the shift worker or the policeman don't get their "work from home days" there's essentially no difference in your exa…

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