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America's misguided culture of overwork

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Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#111

Post by nanairo »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #102
nanairo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not the original poster, but I thought I'd provide some info). As he pointed out it's difficult to find objective data. But you can check: * Human Development Index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve... ): the USA is at position 13. It includes things like life expectancy and education. * Satisfaction with Life index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index ):the U…

Only one of those measures is even remotely related to the factors I asked for data on (working hours, health care or luxuries), namely the WHO rankings of health care. Unfortunately, the WHO rankings of health care are not actually rankings of health care. They rank a weighted average of health (25%), health inequality (25%), responsiveness (12.5%), responsiveness inequality (12.5%), and financial inequality (25%).…

(mini-rant: Well, to be honest I found your attitude a bit annoying. The poster mentioned three things. You asked for data. He provided one and your reply was: "Not sceptic of that", without specifying much. I provide different measures, including one covering one more of the three original points, and you complain that some of them are off topic. So yeah, if one gives you on topic data you are not sceptic of that, if one gives you partially on topic partially off topic, then you complain too. Not very polite, if you ask me. Anyway, on with the actual reply.)

Your definition of health care is who got the best doctor. But the point is that there's a lot more than that to good health care. If a country has better diet, or a less polluted environment, or people are less stressed (which itself can cause further problems, including physical problems), then I think all of that should be included.

Why shouldn't the average health be counted? Is preventing an illness less effective than curing it? And what's the point of measuring how good are your doctors or facilities if a lot of people cannot afford those?

(edited for grammar.)

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#112

Post by Hagelin »

rick888 wrote: post #95
nanairo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not the original poster, but I thought I'd provide some info). As he pointed out it's difficult to find objective data. But you can check: * Human Development Index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve... ): the USA is at position 13. It includes things like life expectancy and education. * Satisfaction with Life index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index ):the U…

Ignorance is bliss. I would rather have the chance of making it big (or fail) than have the government take most of it away with huge taxes and strict rules that make it really difficult to have a successful business. "It includes things like life expectancy and education." Life expectancy is low because of the vast amount of people that eat crappy food (and don't exercise) in the US. I don't think this is going to c…

I also find it really funny because Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are not only very homogeneous, but very racist. It's very difficult to go against what is considered "normal" (IE: groupthink).

Oh, lovely, we’re very racist, are we? Compared to what, USA? I hear the same anti-muslim, anti-mosque rants from Americans that I hear from fellow Swedes. You complain about illegal immigrants, we complain Eastern-Europeans, ”They’re here to take our jobs”. We complain about paying for refugees and asylum-seekers, you complain about... I don’t know, do you have that issue?

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#113

Post by yummyfajitas »

daveoflynn wrote: post #75
yummyfajitas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"More free time" isn't the claim I was skeptical of.

On the health care front, both the OECD and The Commonwealth Fund give the USA low marks compared to other Western democracies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system#Cross-countr... No comment on the 'luxury' claim; that's too subjective for me.

At the wikipedia page, all they do is compare spending (in $) to life expectancy. This is a terrible comparison, since lots of non-health care factors affect life expectancy. For example, life expectancy within the US is 85 for Asians, 78 for whites and 72 for blacks.

Life expectancy in Japan is 83.

Hypothesis: ethnicity plays a strong role in determining life expectancy. The fact that Japan is 99.4% Asian while the US is only 5% Asian may drag the US down a bit.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#114

Post by matwood »

magamiako wrote: post #47
d_c wrote: post #5

"free university tuition" -> Not true anymore, it's more like 300-600 Euros per semester. Still not much compared to the US but enough for german students to protest and public banks to create state-sponsored student loans. This type of loan for students was unknown before in Germany.

The school I want to attend here in the states costs $250 per credit hour. A bachelor's degree (4-year) is 120 credit hours. It's $30,000 USD. I know salaries in some parts of the EU are behind the US in terms of buying power within their respective countries, but even at 500 Euros, you're not paying anywhere near like what we're paying for school, even adjusted for your local wages.

A better comparison might be to compare countries in the EU to states in the US. Some states use the lottery to provide tuition to any in-state student going to a state school.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#115

Post by zv »

speleding wrote: post #34

I've worked in both countries and I noticed at least one explanation for the productivity difference that isn't mentioned in the article. If a German is at risk of missing a deadline on a project he will put in a lot of extra hours to avoid that. An American who already puts in way more hours has much less time and energy left to make up for unforeseen circumstances. So the increase in flexibility pays off by avoidin…

Can't agree more.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#116

Post by maxawaytoolong »

I don't know much about other industries. But in software, much of the 'long hours' seems like the result of keeping up appearances, not actual necessity. In my office now, I am sitting here posting to Hacker News. My sysadmins are playing foosball. They'll probably then go get lunch for an hour. Then come back, read some websites for an hour. Punch out a couple tickets. Play foosball. Go to some meetings. Then around 6pm people will start freaking out and stay until 10 or 11 scrambling to get the work done they were supposed to do all day.

In contrast, a startup I once worked for grew large enough to have an office in Germany. I went to work there one summer. The Germans simply didn't fuck around. They'd come in by like 8 am, crush the problems, crank out features and then go home. The Germans maybe weren't as "fun" as their US counterparts, but they were an order of magnitude more efficient.

I don't know what it is, but Germans seem to have a cold, efficient "Terminator" relationship to work. Americans have a dramatic bi-polar relationship to work, where they waste a lot of time when they are working and then worry and complain about their jobs are when they are not working.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#117

Post by nanairo »

bad_user wrote: post #103
rick888 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorance is bliss. I would rather have the chance of making it big (or fail) than have the government take most of it away with huge taxes and strict rules that make it really difficult to have a successful business. "It includes things like life expectancy and education." Life expectancy is low because of the vast amount of people that eat crappy food (and don't exercise) in the US. I don't think this is going to c…

Life expectancy is low because of the vast amount of people that eat crappy food in the US. And what makes people eat crappy food in the US? Could it be that crappy food is sold starting from the school's cafeteria? Could it be that people don't have enough time to cook or eat at better restaurants? This to me just means that in those other countries, the government is re-distributing wealth It could also mean any nu…

Exactly. You want better food at school cafeteria? The government has to pay. You want less death by secondary smoke? You need government intervention (which incidentally the USA have accepted now).

Having a government is not such a bad thing. Even Americans used to embrace regulations, until Reagan and the "get the government off my back" idea spread out. Regulations are what help internalise in the price externalities such as these. You could tax unhealthy food, or subsidise healthy food. But somehow this is felt as a wound to people's freedom of doing anything they want, including eating crap if they want.

And freedom is all great: pity for those poor people who are so poor that their only choice is eating crappy food, and who can't afford preventive measures such as cancer screening.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#118

Post by davidw »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #113
daveoflynn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the health care front, both the OECD and The Commonwealth Fund give the USA low marks compared to other Western democracies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system#Cross-countr... No comment on the 'luxury' claim; that's too subjective for me.

At the wikipedia page, all they do is compare spending (in $) to life expectancy. This is a terrible comparison, since lots of non-health care factors affect life expectancy. For example, life expectancy within the US is 85 for Asians, 78 for whites and 72 for blacks. Life expectancy in Japan is 83. Hypothesis: ethnicity plays a strong role in determining life expectancy. The fact that Japan is 99.4% Asian while the…

Like many things in economics, it's imperfect.

If you compare the US with Canada, which has a similar mixed ethnicity, the dollars to life expectancy is still way better in Canada.

To save some time, I think the typical libertarian argument is to admit the system in the US actually does stink in terms of costs, and argue that if only we had a truly free market, where people could instruct their ambulance drivers to drive around shopping for the best price/performance ratio for their emergency surgery, then things would be better in the US.

This just goes around and around and around, though, doesn't it. I somehow suspect we won't see "health care economics problems solved on niche web site" as tomorrow's headlines.

I love to talk about this stuff with people in person, but the bandwidth of a web site is just too low - people write books on these subjects, for pete's sake.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#119

Post by thwarted »

hammmatt wrote: post #86
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #56

This article is pure speculative narrative. That is, whereas most essays make a thesis, then present evidence and arguments to support that thesis, this article presents a whole story spun out of thin air, involving FDR, national health insurance, vacations, the Chinese. As such, it presents an interesting problem. You could argue with some detail --- such as the role Germany plays as a competitive partner in China -…

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…

There is probably a lot of national pride that manifests itself similar to NIH syndrome.

Re: America's misguided culture of overwork

#120

Post by yummyfajitas »

nanairo wrote: post #111
yummyfajitas wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only one of those measures is even remotely related to the factors I asked for data on (working hours, health care or luxuries), namely the WHO rankings of health care. Unfortunately, the WHO rankings of health care are not actually rankings of health care. They rank a weighted average of health (25%), health inequality (25%), responsiveness (12.5%), responsiveness inequality (12.5%), and financial inequality (25%).…

(mini-rant: Well, to be honest I found your attitude a bit annoying. The poster mentioned three things. You asked for data. He provided one and your reply was: "Not sceptic of that", without specifying much. I provide different measures, including one covering one more of the three original points, and you complain that some of them are off topic. So yeah, if one gives you on topic data you are not sceptic of that, i…

You are correct, I should have originally specified that I was only skeptical of the claims on health care and luxuries (since working hours are easy to look up). That was my mistake, and I offer my apologies.

You provided more data unrelated to health care and luxuries. One of your data points looked (at first glance) to be directly on point, but on further examination it turned out not to be. I pointed this out. I'm sorry that you consider disputing your facts is impolite.

Preventing an illness is great, and I'm strongly in favor of it. However, you are expanding the term "health care" beyond it's normal use. A quick google search finds definitions for "health care" similar to the following: "The prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions."

Being ethnically Japanese, visiting the gym or living in a less polluted environment is not health care by the usual definition, even though it affects health. If you want to define health care as "anything which improves health", be my guest. With that definition in mind, I agree that the US has a poor health care system. But when you use a non-standard definition of terms, it's helpful to clarify that.

I was simply arguing against the idea that the WHO rankings provide strong evidence that the US has poor health care, with health care defined as per the definition I quoted. The WHO rankings don't even attempt to study that question.

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