
McKinsey Study Shows 81% of US Worse Off Than in 2005, France 63%, Italy 97% - randomname2
https://mishtalk.com/2016/08/07/mckinsey-study-shows-81-of-us-worse-off-than-in-2005-france-63-italy-97/
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kristianp
Maybe the link should be the actual report page instead of mishtalk:
[http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-
growth/...](http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-
growth/poorer-than-their-parents-a-new-perspective-on-income-inequality)

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gozur88
Isn't 2005 about the height of the last bubble? You look wealthier than you
really are during a bubble.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Cheap credit allowed Americans to maintain their quality of life while wages
continued to stagnate and their real purchasing power declined. Then the train
rain out of steam.

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arcanus
Between a spat of terror attacks and a generally weak economy, I'm surprised
France is so low.

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toomuchtodo
France has a shorter work week, greater labor protections, _and_ their workers
are more productive than both US and Germany citizens.

When you don't allow the top income classes to continue to siphon value out of
the economy, your general populace does better overall.

~~~
ringwalt
Source on productivity? And whether or not individual workers are more
productive, French mega-corporations seem to have much less of a global reach
than American or German ones. I can't think of many French products that are
common in the US other than cosmetics (that's an anecdotal argument though).

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toomuchtodo
> Source on productivity?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=france+productivity](https://www.google.com/search?q=france+productivity)

Global reach is only enriching shareholders, not the middle class.

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buckbova
French are not more productive per capita, but more productive per
capita/hour.

There's a big difference here. Obviously there's diminishing returns after X
hours of work in a day or week, but there are still returns.

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toomuchtodo
> French are not more productive per capita, but more productive per
> capita/hour.

So they're more efficient, while Americans are more productive because they
work longer hours with less holiday.

> There's a big difference here. Obviously there's diminishing returns after X
> hours of work in a day or week, but there are still returns.

But where those returns are going are most important for this discussion. And
they are not going to workers.

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user5994461
There is a very simple way to have French be more productive per hours. Let's
compare a French and an American...

\- The French guy works 9 to 6. It's accounted as 35 hours and he gets paid
for 35 hours.

\- The American guy works 9 to 6. It's accounted as 40 hours and he gets paid
for 40 hours.

They both do and produce the same thing. The statistics say that the French is
more productive per hour ;)

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toomuchtodo
You forget that the American is working 50-60 hours, and only being paid for
40.

"Adults employed full time in the U.S. report working an average of 47 hours
per week, almost a full workday longer than what a standard five-day, 9-to-5
schedule entails. In fact, half of all full-time workers indicate they
typically work more than 40 hours, and nearly four in 10 say they work at
least 50 hours."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-
leadership/wp/2014/09...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-
leadership/wp/2014/09/02/the-average-work-week-is-now-47-hours/)

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/09/news/economy/americans-
work-...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/09/news/economy/americans-work-bush/)

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-
lon...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-
hours.aspx)

~~~
user5994461
Does the American works 9 to 9?

Anyway, I'd love to see a study that compare countries:

\- What time people say they do?

\- What time people actually do?

\- What time get accounted and paid for?

That would be very interesting.

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jgalt212
Ergo, the rise of Trump.

