Why Finland leads the world in flexible work • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#111

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #74

Someone1234 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dispute the "better business results" claim, I don't think that's factually true. But let's assume it is, why then is wealth so much more concentrated[0] in the US? Let's assume that the US did have "better business results" and let's also assume that that is the result of worse working conditions. Why then are the workers, working in worse conditions, not benefiting from it directly? Seems like, if that were true,…

Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living: https://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e20133... . (Note also that the American work-week is only about 7% longer than the Finish work-week.) That difference increases as you go into the upper middle class. But for the bottom 10%, which in the U.S. la…

>Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living

The difference is useless in the U.S. as its eaten away but healthcare, college costs, and several other kind of expenses...

Not to mention the quality of life, infrastructure, etc those extra 20% get you (even if they weren't eaten away) is way worse...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#112

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

verttii wrote: post #45

Someone1234 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dispute the "better business results" claim, I don't think that's factually true. But let's assume it is, why then is wealth so much more concentrated[0] in the US? Let's assume that the US did have "better business results" and let's also assume that that is the result of worse working conditions. Why then are the workers, working in worse conditions, not benefiting from it directly? Seems like, if that were true,…

In contrast, if USA is not performing better then why are most of the digital innovations of US origin? Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? While Finland has maybe 1? The Scandinavian countries focus on leveling the playing field for everyone. It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Whereas USA is happy to focus on the extr…

>In contrast, if USA is not performing better then why are most of the digital innovations of US origin? Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? While Finland has maybe 1?

Because there are a lot of people with servant mentality there to cater to their whims...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#113

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #86

Someone1234 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? Because wealth is concentrated at the top... That's the whole problem. Society gets poorer while the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate wealth. > It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Good..? So your complaint is that Nordic countries try to make give everyone a good standard of liv…

You are in no way answering to the question: why in Silicon Valley and not in Finland or other countries?

Because Finland, while would appreciate having such large companies, doesn't want this kind of shitty social environment and inequality, so it doesn't encourage it. Besides, it does just as well (and ever better than the US for the large majority of its citizens) without having billionaires...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#114

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #61

Someone1234 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? Because wealth is concentrated at the top... That's the whole problem. Society gets poorer while the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate wealth. > It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Good..? So your complaint is that Nordic countries try to make give everyone a good standard of liv…

The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms. I don't think you understand how US salaries compare to European ones, it's not even close.

>The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms.

Much slower than the pie increases. In fact slices (salaries) in the US have been almost stagnant since the 70s, while the "pie" got 10x the size...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#115

Post by leftbrain » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

verttii wrote: post #40

askosh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Estonian, also a nordic country. We have a bunch of things we are years ahead of in terms of digital innovations ( https://e-estonia.com/ ), all while having a 1.3m population. What does the USA do better exactly?

Estonia is certainly performing well. But since it's so tiny it's really hard to compare against a giant like USA. Although much of the same problem applies to Nordics. We use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Apple - all American products. Whereas the Nordic countries produce very few major digital innovations used globally. Also, I didn't know Estonia was a Nordic country.

> We use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Apple - all American products.

You say we use them now. But some of these companies are barely past their teenage years. Nokia as a company is around 150 years old, they didnt win fast and they are still in business (but not in the phone business)

How long any of these current, not winners but ”winning it right now” last? Who knows.

They are still young, but they will all fail or ceases to exist eventually and hopefully dont leave cities bankrupt behind them.

Also, we all had instant messages, social networks (very small, geographically) etc. before these behemoths and now days globalism is getting some pushback around the globe, who knows how long and what markets they can later dominate.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#116

Post by pkaye » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

mathieuh wrote: post #76

danmaz74 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They travel back to EU for routine stuff, but when they need elective procedures or advanced treatments you just cannot get those back in the EU Which advanced procedures aren't available in the EU? By the way, you can find private clinics in most EU countries if you don't want to use public health providers.

Yes, in the UK most professional jobs will offer private health as a benefit, plus NHS rules for getting on lists for operations are pretty fair, essentially if you can prove it’s affecting your life you can get operations for lots of things. There are the classic tabloid stories of people getting boob jobs and gender reassignment surgery on the NHS but I’m sure for the people affected it was a godsend. My own brothe…

I as chatting with someone in UK on Reddit who has some rare disease and trying to see what he could do to improve from it. Apparently he had reached a dead end with the UK medical system but his research indicated there are some doctors in the US who knew more and was desperately trying to find a way to get the same treatment. Sadly all his parents/sibling died from that disease so he had no support network. I felt really bad for him but had no way to help him. All I could suggest is he speak to a patient advocate. What would you have told him differently?

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#117

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

dominicr wrote: post #85

acd wrote: post #63

I can highly recommend the world to adopt like in the Nordics at least 4-5 weeks of yearly vacation. Staff are more rested with more vacation so they are more productive plus you get a different perspective having time off. Also companies should allow remote work and flexible hours. Further due to increased automation we could actually work less hours keeping the same output. If we automate more work we could allow u…

One effect of this in the Nordic culture is that often a lot of these holidays are taken at the same time. People take 3 or 4 weeks off at once between the end of June and early August, especially in Norway. Productivity for the company effectively hits zero for 6 weeks whilst the Norwegians have their holiday, then the Swedish and Danish have their turn. Although the few people that do work get a lot done due to hav…

[deleted]

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#118

Post by mathieuh » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #116

mathieuh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in the UK most professional jobs will offer private health as a benefit, plus NHS rules for getting on lists for operations are pretty fair, essentially if you can prove it’s affecting your life you can get operations for lots of things. There are the classic tabloid stories of people getting boob jobs and gender reassignment surgery on the NHS but I’m sure for the people affected it was a godsend. My own brothe…

I as chatting with someone in UK on Reddit who has some rare disease and trying to see what he could do to improve from it. Apparently he had reached a dead end with the UK medical system but his research indicated there are some doctors in the US who knew more and was desperately trying to find a way to get the same treatment. Sadly all his parents/sibling died from that disease so he had no support network. I felt…

The NHS has been fucked by consistent cuts by the Tory government. Unfortunately they just don’t have enough money to cater for things like this. I would write to my MP but I know that’s just going to be a fart in the wind.

I have my own experience with this, I was/am a heroin addict and it took 12 months to get into any treatment at all. And A&E wait times are increasing year on year, either this winter or next there is going to be a crisis. Already we’ve come close.

I still maintain that for the vast majority of people and ailments the NHS is perfectly adequate, it’s just hobbled by the government at the moment. You could conduct a poll of almost any demographic in the country and they would say they would be willing to pay more taxes if they were ringfenced for the NHS.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#119

Post by dantheman » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #114

dantheman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms. I don't think you understand how US salaries compare to European ones, it's not even close.

> The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms. Much slower than the pie increases. In fact slices (salaries) in the US have been almost stagnant since the 70s, while the "pie" got 10x the size...

1. Almost stagnant means that they did not increase their % of wealth - their wealth increased. 2. Focusing on income ignores the plummeting costs of goods, what they can buy is much better and more plentiful than they could in the 70s.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#120

Post by rayiner » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #111

rayiner wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living: https://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e20133... . (Note also that the American work-week is only about 7% longer than the Finish work-week.) That difference increases as you go into the upper middle class. But for the bottom 10%, which in the U.S. la…

> Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living The difference is useless in the U.S. as its eaten away but healthcare, college costs, and several other kind of expenses... Not to mention the quality of life, infrastructure, etc those extra 20% get you (even if they weren't eaten away) is way worse...

See above re: healthcare expenses. College costs are also small in comparison to a lifetime of earning thousands of dollars less. Most college graduates in the US have no debt, and the median debt for those that do is $10,000-25,000. Higher American salaries make that up in just a few years. Finnish National pension isn’t any more generous than Social Security, and other expenses are tiny in comparison.

As to “quality of life”—that’s subjective. If I wanted to live in a 900 square foot house without air conditioning, like the average Finn, I’d move back to Bangladesh.