There’s no Americans bragging about that. Corporations and the government, sure. The rest of us are to busy living in pain
Some years ago I were in US on vacation and a Cadillac commercial said you shouldn’t buy cars made by lazy people wo have 4 weeks vacation every year, instead you should buy an American car.
you should buy a car assembly someone who is absolutely exhausted and has exactly no reason to give a fuck. Because freedom.
As an american, who gives a shit about all that stuff when your family savings can be wiped out, home foreclosed upon, and bankrupted just because you get sick or suffer an injury!? Even if you plan and do everything right, it could still happen to you, through no fault of your own.
So, IMO until we have universal healthcare like every other modern nation, they all beat us…
or you can just move to a different country. Ez.
I can’t speak for others of course, but I don’t want to move away from family…
I love how in every topic about WFH there’s some dudebro going on about the economy suffering due to supposed lessened productivity and I’m like… Why should I care?
Don’t you even think about the billionaires, bro?
I love the abstract “productivity”.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Demolishing subsistence farms and replacing them with cash crop slave plantations is mad profitable.
I could make thousands of dollars in a day if I just sold everything I own.
Our metrics of economic growth revolve around basically doing all of the above, to varying degrees of figurative vs. literal-ness.
This reminded me of an old joke:
Two economists are walking down the street with their friend when they come across a fresh, streaming pile of dog shit. The first economist jokingly tells the other “I’ll give you a million dollars if you eat that pile of dog shit”. To his surprise, the second economist grabs it off the ground and eats it without hesitation. A deal is a deal so the first economist hands over a million dollars.
A few minutes later they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist, wanting to give his peer a taste of his own medicine, says he’ll give the first economist a million dollars if he eats it. The first economist agrees and does so, winning him a million dollars.
Their friend, rather confused, asks what the point of all this was, the first economist gave the second economist a million dollars, and then the second economist gave it right back. All they’ve accomplished is to eat two piles of shit.
The two economists look rather taken aback. “Well sure,” they say, “but we’ve grown the economy by two million dollars!”
The story is interesting but not very lifelike. The first economist would be much richer than the first, if they were OK with spending that much money on humiliating someone else. The likelihood that the second economist would accept the same deal is impossible in my mind. That amount of money is just humiliation money to them, not really worth it.
lower unemployment
Doesn’t matter, I can only have two, maybe three jobs at once so any more than that is irrelevant to me
higher growth
I get the same $8/hr whether the GDP goes up, stays the same or goes down. You can’t leave workers out of the distribution of wealth and then pretend that more wealth is good for workers
I prefer co-op games like the James Webb telescope. Thanks ESA for a perfect launch.
Don’t want to brag, but I took my compulsory 2-week vacation in July. I’m having another week of vacation in the middle of August and I’m taking a whole month off in the middle of October when my second child is born (dad-vacation, in addition to the 18 months that the mom has as paid maternity leave). Oh and all of this is fully paid.
I usually just take a week over summer then the other 6 weeks at other times of the year. Hotels, fights and stuff pretty much double their prices over the summer.
I can do you a half price fight. Just come over and tell me my mom can’t cook.
I recall going to the UK after brexit, to a house party with family friends. I was hounded with how do you function with only a 2 week holiday. I then shared i had 4 weeks after 5 years. They were so confused that we could function with less than 6 weeks of vacation.
Burn out in the USA is a real thing. Our politicians will never vote for a mandatory vacation for anyone other than them selves
It’s amazing how submissive American men are.
post ww2 socialist russia people had more disposable income and more vacation days than americans.
Does everyone have healthcare?
Canadian here, no, not at all. I had a family doctor but they retired, the new doctor was already full up so I am left without a family doctor. If I need medication it has to be paid for out of pocket, any dentistry that is not life altering (cleaning, fillings, braces/retainers/corrections) has to be paid for out of pocket. Therapy? Out of pocket. Glasses, hearing aids, you guessed it.
Sure you could have a job with health coverage but that is up to the discretion of your employer, they can drop your coverage and all you can do is nothing. Canadian health care is an absolute embarrassment and should never be celebrated as some achievement over the only country with a worse system than ours.
Might depend on province. I’m in BC, never had issue with Doctor. Bi Yearly vision checks, if you don’t have employer plan you signup for pharmacare and based on income once you hit a threshold all meds are free. Or free from the start with a disability status application. And I do celebrate our system even though it is not perfect, I had Cancer. Biopsy, CAT, PETS, FMRI, surgery, chemo and radiation, hospital stay all free. cost me $70 parking pass at cancer center. If that was in the USA id be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars owing
It took me way too long to realize chasing a high pay, high stress career wasn’t worth it. I envied my friends and family for being able to enjoy weekends, evenings, and holidays when I couldn’t. I missed my best friends bachelor party, I missed Christmas and New Years parties. If i didnt miss them entirely i would show up late or leave early from every occasion. I realized I was going to reach the end of life never having lived it.
This reddit-ass post
Do an even better comparison: school vacaancies with work vacancies. That’s real life. GPT/BARD might help speed it up
I used to work for a French company. My colleagues in France would take the whole damn month of August off, and then complain that North Americans never worked.
TBF my experience with Japanese and American workers is that you spend a lot of time in the office, but aren’t particularly productive. Hardly surprising, given there’s loads of evidence that suggests a strict enforcement of leisure time, actually increases productivity.
No one works at 100% if they work 70 hours a week and check their emails during the weekend.
Or as I once put it to a boss, when he asked me why I was leaving the office at 1700 on the dot, I finish my work in 8 hours, my colleagues need 9.
The obvious problem is that the United States missed the Revolutions of 1848 because they were trying to figure out how to be the Red Wizards of Thay before it existed.
