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Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

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Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#91

Post by hnnewguy »

cbr wrote: post #77
hnnewguy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita This is to be expected, if Americans are working longer hours than their European counterparts. If you do a little back-of-the-envelope normalization (GDP/capita/average hours worked), the results are much closer. Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric. US: 28.9 France: 24.3 Germany: 26.4 Sweden: 25.4 Norway: 38.0

> Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric. This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from.

>This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from.

Wasn't really generalizing, just stating fact.

Norway has far fewer proven oil reserves than Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Algeria, Ecuador, Nigeria and on and on...

Oil is not a panacea. The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment tends to win. But don't assume that the latter is most important.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#92

Post by saosebastiao »

hnnewguy wrote: post #61
JackFr wrote: post #17

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data…

> the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita This is to be expected, if Americans are working longer hours than their European counterparts. If you do a little back-of-the-envelope normalization (GDP/capita/average hours worked), the results are much closer. Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric. US: 28.9 France: 24.3 Germany: 26.4 Sweden: 25.4 Norway: 38.0

Norway has always been a bit of an outlier. It is what you get when you combine Middle Eastern oil resources with a Western European rule of law.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#93

Post by bryanlarsen »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #14

Often, when articles highlight bad laws or customs, economical arguments are brought up. Workaholism -> backfires and is bad for the economy and in recent threads here on HN: Workplace surveillance -> backfires, people feel controlled and performance suffers Government espionage in USA -> backfires, people lose trust in US businesses I don't feel that this is the strongest argument. "Please treat us better, it is in…

You're right, we should fix the vacation policy for humanitarian reasons, not economic ones.

However, having a solid economic rationale is a great counter-argument.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#94

Post by njharman »

henrik_w wrote: post #44

Related: "Bring back the 40-hour work week" http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...

Fuck that. Computers, robots and the rest of automation / efficiency gains should (have been, and) be translated into 10-20 hour work week instead of increased consumption and consumerism.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#95

Post by chimeracoder »

jasonkester wrote: post #83

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before. It watches like a parody, but at the end you're hit by the reality that yes, this guy is being completely serious. The message really is "sure, I traded away my quality of life, but look at all this stuff! " That's actually the notion that Cadillac is trying to sell. Amazing that they're doing such a good job of it. Fortunately, there's no real trick to getting b…

> "'cause we're the only ones going back up there [the moon]"

If only that were true. In many ways, we're further away from being able to reach the moon (or deeper parts of space) than we were 20-30 years ago[0]

[0]http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#96

Post by orky56 »

Since such trends are definitely harmful, at what point does it become a human rights issue? If so, the UN or some other organization should put their foot down and set some guidelines for which a country's citizens can sustainably achieve value to their employers and the economy.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#97

Post by whybroke »

vvvv wrote: post #53
ghshephard wrote: post #20

Even worse is the new trend in technology companies to eliminate "Set Vacation". It used to be the case that you felt "obliged" somehow to take your 10 days of vacation a year, because you saw it piling up. Even better, if you were laid off, you could get the vacation in cash, and that helped when you were cut off without a job. But now, a lot of technology companies are saying, "No Set Vacation - you need to negotia…

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

Nope, no minimum vacation time.

Also, to save you a few years of surprises, here are some other factoids:

there's minimal healthcare, likely to be canceled by the next president

minimum wage is the equivalent of 5.33 euros and for waiters its only 1.57euros

Payday is not mid month but well after you do the work.

You can be fired at anytime without any waring for any reason from most jobs. Frequently a security guard will escort you out of the building.

But on the upside:

There's a death penalty in 3/5 of the country

The notion that the world is 6000 years old is sometimes taught in school.

You can buy a gun instantly in most states.

We have a per capita GDP almost as high as a northern European country.

We may not be socialist. Well, ok, some people say we are so never mind.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#98

Post by nickthemagicman »

jasonkester wrote: post #83

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before. It watches like a parody, but at the end you're hit by the reality that yes, this guy is being completely serious. The message really is "sure, I traded away my quality of life, but look at all this stuff! " That's actually the notion that Cadillac is trying to sell. Amazing that they're doing such a good job of it. Fortunately, there's no real trick to getting b…

That guy is the poster child for the Materialistic Self Entitled Baby Boomer Me Generation.

Materialism and greed are literally everything that is wrong with the world.

Spoilied Douchebags like he and his generation are a legacy hangover from post-WW2 America, a time of middle class economic excess greater than any the HUMAN RACE has ever seen.

Americans aren't exceptional in any way.

We just got lucky by being the only 1st world country not in the middle of World War 2 so we reaped ton's of resources and opportunities from that and we have been coasting on it ever since and attributing it to our 'exceptionalism'. Americans love to believe that the individual is greater than his situation. Such bullshit.

You want hard workers look at China. I can't wait until Communist ass China is the next world power and assholes like the guy in the commercial don't understand why 'Mericans aren't exceptional any more.

I'm so grateful that the new American generation's self awareness, global consciousness, hacker ethic, lack of racism, community values, and so many more positive qualities are replacing douchebags like this.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#99

Post by orky56 »

dasil003 wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #6

The article focuses on professionals, but I don't know if that's the angle I'm concerned about. American professionals work more, but they are also paid more. They also have much better vacation and leave policies. More concerning is the plight of median workers, who aren't making a lot more these days than their European counterparts, but have much worse vacation policies to deal with.

Vacation policies are the least of it. How about the lack of a safety net? Take health care. Civilized people should agree that medical care in a rich country should be available to everyone. The thought of people dying in the streets from preventable disease and injury sounds pretty horrendous. But for the past 20 years we've been fed the same fabricated FUD about socialized medicine that has no basis in reality. Pe…

Therein lies the problem with the US and the mentality of the citizens. Since the proletariat are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", the safety net is never there. To even take advantage of it is shameful. Perhaps unrelated, but the status of your achievements is reflected by how much you need to pay or put into it such as your job and even that 5-star hotel where you need to pay for breakfast and Wi-Fi.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#100

Post by chimeracoder »

hnnewguy wrote: post #91
cbr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric. This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from.

> This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from. Wasn't really generalizing, just stating fact. Norway has far fewer proven oil reserves than Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Algeria, Ecuador, Nigeria and on and on... Oil is not a panacea. The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment tends to win. But don't assume that the latter is most important.

> The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment

Don't forget having a relatively culturally and ethnically homogenous population (when compared to countries like the US), something that is often forgotten when holding up Scandinavian countries (esp. Norway) as a model.

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