Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google spoke about this: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-matt-brittin-... In my country (belgium) in case of a mass layoff the employer has to first work together with unions to find a way to keep the employees on board, and when no alternative is found has to help the employees find a new job. Also, for workers who were hired long enough ago they may fall under an employment regime where the notice pe…
I worked at a company who had an office in Belgium. We were consolidating offices. Same story ~15 months, of process. Offer employment elsewhere, more grace periods of where every employee takes the full time to consider the offer… just to collect a paycheck and say no. It was a mess, and in the meantime most of that office was at best worthless / some folks just disruptive. Many of these were capable people, highly…
Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
161–170 of 528 posts
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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You can build an amazing life for yourself in the US and yet be one medical crisis away from ruin. I wish you well but you appear to lack empathy for those who did everything “right” but were dealt a crap hand by fate or circumstances out of their control.
Our system isn’t perfect and some people have had unfortunate luck by not having insurance when a medical emergency came up. But that has nothing to do with what the conversation was.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#163> Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France. Damn...how does a country get so rich?
Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason. Also, navigable waterways. Transporting goods by water costs 1/100th what it costs to transport over land. After the US established a corp of engineers to dredge our waterways to make them passable, the ability to transport goods increased substantially, making internal trade extremely cheap.
Not for much longer. But, hey, we created a lot of shareholder value along the way, right?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-...
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked at a company who had an office in Belgium. We were consolidating offices. Same story ~15 months, of process. Offer employment elsewhere, more grace periods of where every employee takes the full time to consider the offer… just to collect a paycheck and say no. It was a mess, and in the meantime most of that office was at best worthless / some folks just disruptive. Many of these were capable people, highly…
Does that company still have a Belgium office? If so, they obviously disagree with your assessment of the value of those employees.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in…
Canada is an oligarchy and retirement home for the unproductive. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but this is my conclusion after spending 25 years growing up, living, working and building startups here.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#166(fact) America is a single market with a single language with basically a single set of regulations. Expansion is cheap in America. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to expand to another US city than it does to expand to Norway or New Zealand; but for a company in those countries, expansion is very expensive, expanding requires new laws, regulations, business entities, and languages, and shipping costs more.
(fact) America is geographically isolated from war, can't be invaded, isn't saddled with war or reconstruction debts.
(fact) Also by virtue of geography, America can produce everything: it has plenty of space to create anything it needs, from mines to farms to factories.
(fact) Americans are ambitious to a fault. I am an American living overseas, and possibly one of the most offensive things anyone has said to me here is "you should lower your expectations". I am constitutionally incapable of lowering my expectations. I don't give a shit if I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, I will export millions of dollars in products that I produced here, or I will die trying; 9 to 5 in the suburbs is not an endgame for me.
(opinion, maybe fact) The consequences of failure in America are lower; in some other countries, you're forbidden from starting a new company and they will revoke your passport for some time. People don't try because there's no "try again". They also have no access to capital, essentially.
(opinion) America also siphons wealth from every other nation; for example, it seems like people are more likely to invest in public markets in America than in their own countries a lot of the time. That means access to capital on the stock market is more accessible for American companies than others. It also seems like as soon as someone gets rich overseas, they move to America.
On the other hand, it's not all doom and gloom overseas, here in NZ all I have to do to start a business is walk outside and start selling shit. To file taxes for that all I have to do is fill in my Net Income on a 1 page web form and click Submit. There's no medical debt, car insurance costs $100 a year, and nothing has a barrier to entry; I can talk to the person in charge at just about any company or organization in NZ.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#167Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#168My 2 cents, some of the reasons America succeeds: (fact) America is a single market with a single language with basically a single set of regulations. Expansion is cheap in America. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to expand to another US city than it does to expand to Norway or New Zealand; but for a company in those countries, expansion is very expensive, expanding requires new laws, regulations, business entiti…
(fact) a single market with a single language
(fact) geographically isolated
(fact) not much space
(fact) burned to the ground in WW2
and yet for a while it was an economic powerhouse on the world stage.
Taiwan, Hong Kong and S Korea, similar stories.
So what is the common thread? Free markets.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how "many talented individuals make the totally rational self-interested decision to move to the United States" follows from Canada being an American vassal state. Doesn't this phenomenon apply to every country in the world? If you're born anywhere on Earth it's probably rational to want to make your way to the USA.
It's far easier for Canadians to do this due to the geographic proximity, cultural similarity, and harmonization of immigration systems. For many Canadians visiting America is a trivial drive across the border, in fact some Canadians make this trip weekly for access to cheaper consumer goods. Hell, I just looked it up and I can get a round trip ticket to Las Vegas for $160 CAD and I'm no where near the border. Hell,…
Well except for Quebec, the Indigenous tribes, and the monarchists/loyalists, who definitely are more doubtful and will likely never allow a full integration.
The media environment is also still substantially different, previously even more.
Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record
#170> The flexibility of the labour market helps employment adapt to shifting patterns of demand. Already many of the workers in America who were laid off from Alphabet and other tech firms at the start of the year are applying their sought-after skills elsewhere, or setting up their own businesses. In continental Europe, by contrast, tech firms are still negotiating lay-offs, and may think twice about hiring there in fu…
Adding friction to that leads to a less productive economy.