Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#141

Post by aperrien » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:05 PM UTC

resu_nimda wrote: post #137

nickthemagicman wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I like how you edited "Self Entitled" into the generational title, just to really drive home the disgust. ;) I partially disagree, though. I do think Americans are exceptional, even if I haven't settled on exactly how, and I definitely don't think of it as a wholly positive trait. But this juxtaposition from your post is interesting: Americans aren't exceptional in any way. Americans love to believe that the individu…

I don't believe in American exceptionalism. I do however, believe in exceptional Americans.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#142

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #131

mike_hearn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you show me a link for that? I'd be interested in reading about it. What I've read is that a lot of people on disability benefits (higher than jobseekers allowance) were in fact just fine and when properly re-examined magically stopped being disabled. However, that assumes the review assessment was more reliable than the old one. I'd be interested in data showing whether it is or isn't.

Well this goes back decades when in order to massage the unemployment figures GP's (family doctors) where encouraged to mark people as disabled to get the figures down. now the government has outsourced the test to a third party who get paid on the "savings" the produce so you get things like terminally ill people so yes the tests are now being fiddled

Seems this story is relevant:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/atos-quietly-d...

The part about Atos wanting to pull out because of death threats against its staff is particularly nasty.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#143

Post by whybroke » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #72

dasil003 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your example of the cost of medication is an odd one. Most (all?) states in the US have mandatory generic substitution. That means the pharmacy must fill your Rx with the generic unless the doctor wrote "Dispense as Written" on the Rx. Now, if the generic was not available in the US that is a different story. Patents don't all end at the same time, so the drug may already be off patent in the UK, but not in the US. F…

>The US has lower generic prices that most of the EU due to fierce competition for the US market

This is not the case.

From direct person experience I can attest that:

Betaserc is 1/25 the price in Spain as the generic in the US

Nebivolol is 1/10

Lovastatin is 1/5

Enalapril is 1/2

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#144

Post by aperrien » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

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…

You know, for all these horrible employers, who is it that is loaning them money to start these businesses? How are they able to persuade others to loan them money to start this madness?

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#145

Post by walshemj » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:10 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #113

autokad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i made a statement, backed it up by mentioning productivity, and then made a reference to a real world example that I have observed, unlike the article that just mostly made platitudes. if you'd like further evidence, the EU area has an unemployment rate close to 12%. companies are not anxious to hire europeans for one reason or another.

Most EU unemployment is in the countries comprehensively raped by the IMF/EU Central Bank/European Commission cabal, who swooped in after 2008 demanding huge cuts in social spending so that the bond investors who were partly responsible for the crisis would be inconvenienced as little as possible. Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus have seen huge leaps in unemployment, underage prostitution, suicide, child a…

And the forcing of disparate country economic systems into line with the single euro based German one which meant they had no way out.

As the economics editor of the Guardian said of the Euro is a bad idea who's time has come.

The PIGS politicians also fiddled the figures to there own ends which lead to a property boom and crash in their country's - so those country are not totally innocent.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#146

Post by walshemj » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:11 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #106

People in tech industry (all I know) tend to call in sick to "recharge" or get things done (that are causing them stress) rather than take vacation. The interesting thing is that this tacitly known to not really be sick and accepted both by peers and management. Vacation == lazy. Sick days == we all pretend we work 60hr weeks non-stop. Cultural anecdote example from http://maebert.github.io/jrnl/installation.html#qui…

Ah gross misconduct as the lawyers and HR tend to call it :-)

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#147

Post by frogpelt » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

mncolinlee wrote: post #119

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…

The ad also inspired several parodies, including this one from Ford. The Cadillac ad is clearly trying to sell to an affluent, white, conservative audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off. In the ad, they show their success with the car they drive. It's a study in market segmentation. Ford's parody spins it around by focusing on social consciousness, eco-friendliness, and diversity, a be…

"no vacation"

In the Cadillac ad, the heavily painted individual said two weeks instead of the whole month. Just pointing that out.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#148

Post by nickthemagicman » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

resu_nimda wrote: post #137

nickthemagicman wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I like how you edited "Self Entitled" into the generational title, just to really drive home the disgust. ;) I partially disagree, though. I do think Americans are exceptional, even if I haven't settled on exactly how, and I definitely don't think of it as a wholly positive trait. But this juxtaposition from your post is interesting: Americans aren't exceptional in any way. Americans love to believe that the individu…

Honestly, you can look at a poor kid born to a poor family who works his ass off every day.

Then look at a wealthy kid born to a wealty family who works his ass off every day.

Even if they make the same on all of their standardized tests, make the same grades, and go to the same college, and get the same degree.....

Who's going to be more successful with the same amount of hard work?

And sure there's outliers but it's hard to argue that one's situation matters much more than the individual and this bizarre American sense of individual exceptional-ism is really naive.

I think stems from early Puritanical settlers who believed in pre-determinism and God rewarding people Materialistically the better person you are.

I'm pretty successful but I credit my family, being born in a 1st world country. My hard work was the tiniest of all parts of it. Had I been born in Romania or Zimbabwe I would not be where I am no matter how hard I worked. Conversely, I probably could have been way more successful if I had been born in a truly wealthy family.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#149

Post by rdtsc » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

When you look for jobs find companies that will let you have adequate vacation time and actually make you take it. The older you get you'll start valuing your and your family's time more and more. Making loads of money and then waiting for that 1 week vacation to blow it off, or wait until you are old to travel is not optimal the way I see it. By that time you'll have so many ailments travel won't be an option for long.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#150

Post by kevitron » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:13 PM UTC

brightsize wrote: post #116

jmct wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind naming the generic drug? It seems like this is a powerful argument against having (only) for-profit healthcare. I'd like to be able to point to a specific case of what you're describing.

A data point from the USA: I take a very low dose of lamotrigene extended-release (mild epilepsy). The brand-name cost of this was $1200-$1400 per month. The recently available generic version of this costs nearly $400/mo. And this is, again, for a very low dose. For someone with a moderate or severe seizure (or bipolor - it's used for that too) disorder, the cost might be 4-5x this. While one might argue that the na…

That's insane. I take the generic lamotrigine, but even at a high dose it's something like $36/month here in Canada. I have a half-decent private insurance policy, but at US prices I'd burn through my yearly prescription rebate limit in a month.