
Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy - stevekinney
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118285/workaholism-america-hurting-economy
======
jasonkester
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 back that quality of life. You
just need to take more vacation time. You can negotiate this in to your
package, but if you're in as hot a talent market as we are today, you might
find more success with simply taking it. "Hey, as a heads up, I'll be taking 3
weeks off at the beginning of June" followed a few months later by "Hey, I'm
off to Kalymnos for a couple weeks in October", followed by "I'll probably be
out of contact between Xmas and New Years."

Note the lack of "asking" above. The correct attitude to take is that it's
_them_ who are acting irrationally by suggesting that you shouldn't take a
healthy amount of time off to live your life.

~~~
mncolinlee
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 better message for their electric vehicle
audience. You could look at the ad subject's "dirt from food" startup as a
literal circle of life, an homage to organic farming and green living.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAN61QK0aUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAN61QK0aUI)

~~~
bmm6o
Exactly. It's not so depressing when you realize that Cadillac is selling to
generally older people who have already made these decisions. It's a 60 y.o.
thinking "I did work hard, and I deserve a Cadillac", not a 25 y.o. thinking
"I'm going to bust ass working for the Man so I can drive a Cadillac".

Interestingly, the car is a hybrid, which is barely mentioned in the ad.

~~~
mncolinlee
> Interestingly, the car is a hybrid, which is barely mentioned in the ad.

Technically speaking, both the Ford C-Max Energi and the Cadillac ELR in these
ads are extended range electrics. They have smaller batteries than battery
electric vehicles, but the gas engine exists only as a generator of
electricity.

As I've always said, humans care about narratives. Most people and market
segments value the story a car says about its owner over the details of the
technology. That's why they don't mention it explicitly.

~~~
bmm6o
Right, it's just that the technology is forward-looking while the sales pitch
is so regressive. I suspect the target market would actually like it less if
they knew more about the technology.

------
ghshephard
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 negotiate with your manager if you want some" \- which, in my experience,
has resulted in a lot of people over the last two years taking zero vacation.
It's not good for them. It's not good for the company. About the only people
who are happy about this are Finance who no longer have to carry that
liability on their books.

~~~
vvvv
Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

~~~
tokenadult
_Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?_

It depends on the nature of the employment. A few occupations (notably in
banking) have MANDATORY days off. (Forcing bankers in certain categories of
jobs to take vacations is a good way to detect long-term embezzlement
schemes.) But there are definitely programming jobs in the United States in
which the company says, "You can take time off whenever you like," which in
practice means "You can take time off whenever the company isn't in crunch
time," which ends up meaning never. Freedom of contract and flexibility in
working arrangements is the hallmark of the United States economy and indeed
is one of the reasons that the United States is as wealthy as it is--people
choose the trade-offs they like among many possibilities.

~~~
brown9-2
The banking example you cite are voluntary industry practices or self-
regulation, not legally enforced.

------
cmollis
It's frowned upon to take any time off in the US. I've seen it viewed as a
sign of a lack of commitment or even laziness. Consequently, we take less time
off because we're scared we're going to lose our jobs.

No one is congratulated for taking time off in the middle of a project for
your 'sanity' or 'to re-charge'.

Everyone is scared. There is no safety net. It's no way to live, but it's our
reality.

~~~
Someone1234
> There is no safety net.

That's a wonderfully succinct way of describing the US. It seems like in a lot
of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer,
easier to get unemployment pay for one example), whereas there really is no
lower limit on how low the US will let you fall (e.g. healthcare is a
privilege not a right in the US).

They do say that the US has some of the highest anti-depressant medication
usage in the whole world (or was it more than the rest of the world combined?
I can never remember). That isn't a surprise when literally your health,
shelter, food, etc is all riding on keeping a job.

Thank god for Obama care and the new ban on pre-existing condition limits
(i.e. that you could not get insurance if you were sick before). It kept
people enslaved into a single job if they ever got sick since they could never
afford to lose that health insurance or they'd die.

~~~
switch007
>It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to
catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example)

For the avoidance of doubt, that does not include England (these days). People
with cancer in the final stages are declared fit to work

~~~
mike_hearn
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.

~~~
walshemj
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

~~~
mike_hearn
Seems this story is relevant:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/atos-
quietly-d...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/atos-quietly-
dropped-from-carrying-out-repeat-reassessments-by-dwp-internal-memo-
shows-9151893.html)

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

------
JackFr
And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly
higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like
it's hurting the economy.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita)

As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor
productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree.
[http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL](http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL)

The fact that Americans seem to only be able to find identity and meaning in
their work, so much so as that it causes a psychic crisis to leave even
temporarily, is the real problem, if it need be called such, rather than some
imagined hurt to the economy. But that problem is so ingrained in our culture
it is never going away.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita_

This is to be expected, if Americans are working longer hours than their
European counterparts.

If you do a little back-of-the-envelope normalization (GDP/capita/average
hours worked), the results are much closer. Norway, of course, absolutely
dominates by this metric.

    
    
      US: 28.9
      France: 24.3
      Germany: 26.4
      Sweden: 25.4
      Norway: 38.0

~~~
cbr
> Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric.

This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from._

Wasn't really generalizing, just stating fact.

Norway has far fewer proven oil reserves than Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Algeria,
Ecuador, Nigeria and on and on...

Oil is not a panacea. The combination of a progressive culture and resource
endowment tends to win. But don't assume that the latter is most important.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment

Don't forget having a relatively culturally and ethnically homogenous
population (when compared to countries like the US), something that is often
forgotten when holding up Scandinavian countries (esp. Norway) as a model.

~~~
selectodude
And the fact that there are fewer people in Norway than there are in New York
City.

~~~
Dewie
I think that's kind of why 'per capita' is used.

------
rayiner
The article focuses on professionals, but I don't know if that's the angle I'm
concerned about. American professionals work more, but they are also paid
more. They also have much better vacation and leave policies. More concerning
is the plight of median workers, who aren't making a lot more these days than
their European counterparts, but have much worse vacation policies to deal
with.

~~~
dasil003
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. People still genuinely
believe that America has the best healthcare, which is arguably true for the
1%, but not for the average person. We have major structural problems the
media completely ignores.

Just one personal example, last December I needed to buy a 6-pill dose of
medication while visiting family for the holidays in the US (I currently live
in the UK). This cost me $600, $100 per pill. And it turns out that this
medication is _not as effective_ as the generic that would cost $2 per pill.
But because there is no profitability this medication _is not currently
manufactured in the US_. Had I been in the UK I could have walked into a
pharmacy and bought this medication for £10.

Incidentally, while I was in line, the woman in front of me was purchasing a
perscription of antibiotics, which cost $200, but she only had $100, so they
only sold her half the dosage! I was shocked a trained pharmacist would be
allowed to do this considering the perils of antibiotic resistance, but it's
also pretty inhumane to withhold medication.

Frankly, the patriotic bullshit that Fox News and CNN feeds the populace about
how much better we have it than Canada or the UK needs to stop. America needs
to pull its head out of its ass and realize we are little better than a third-
world country for anyone below median income who doesn't have a good group
health insurance policy.

~~~
refurb
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.

Finally, to say "there is no profitability" in generics is laughable. The US
has _lower_ generic prices that most of the EU due to fierce competition for
the US market.

And finally, although the US may not have a single payer system, we do have
public health for the old (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid). In addition, if
you are sick and you go to a hospital, _you must be treated_ regardless of
your ability to pay.

~~~
whybroke
>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

~~~
zo1
I quote the parent poster: "The US has lower generic prices that _most of the
EU_ "

Emphasis mine. Perhaps, if they were consistently "cheaper" than the US, fine.
But your singular example doesn't quite contradict the person you're
responding to. So it actually _is_ the case, unless you prove your findings
for other EU countries.

I have no idea if that's the case, just pointing out the obvious flaw in your
logic. Perhaps a little too-quick to look for contradictions if you disagree
with the general point?

~~~
whybroke
Quite correct: I have no idea what the price is in Lichtenstein. Nor have I
compared the price of every drug manufactured. Nor even a majority of those
thousands.

I have, however bought a dozen or so different drugs and have done so in
France, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. All of which were
tiny fraction of the price in the US.

So given two hypothesis: the US is cheaper vs the EU is cheaper, and a bunch
of data points all pointing that same way, a little bit of Bayesian statistics
shows us which hypothesis is over overwhelmingly more likely doesn't it? We
can agree to use Bayesian statistics even though there's no entry in the
conservapedia can't we?

Contrast, for example, with the parent poster's hypothesis which comes form no
more data than a.m. radio infotainment, I think there's only one rational
tentative conclusion don't you?

~~~
refurb
I'd take a Commonwealth Fund analysis over your "Bayesian statistical
analysis".

[http://managinghealthcarecosts.blogspot.com/2012/03/united-s...](http://managinghealthcarecosts.blogspot.com/2012/03/united-
states-and-world-prices-of.html)

~~~
whybroke
Ah yes that is obviously much better than extrapolating from anecdotes.

But of the few European countries compared, at least two have deregulated
pricing for generics which is exactly the point we're talking about isn't it?
The others may or may not (I don't know). But why were Norway, Sweden and
Denmark omitted from that comparison when they are in every other comparison
on the original page? It's a strange omission because generics in Scandinavia
are lower than western Europe. Inside of Europe, countries that have
deregulated their generics simply have higher prices.

------
UweSchmidt
Often, when articles highlight bad laws or customs, economical arguments are
brought up.

Workaholism -> backfires and is bad for the economy

and in recent threads here on HN:

Workplace surveillance -> backfires, people feel controlled and performance
suffers

Government espionage in USA -> backfires, people lose trust in US businesses

I don't feel that this is the strongest argument. "Please treat us better, it
is in your own interest!"?

Germany's vacation was achieved through politics (labor laws) and unions
(labor contracts).

The economic argument probably won't work, since economic considerations (real
or imagined/short-term/local maximum...) have led to the current situation in
the first place.

~~~
cryoshon
It's the only argument here in the USA.

It sucks that things are this way, but the only way to justify anything or
argue for anything is an appeal to higher profits.

Money is this country's highest value, and all other values such as decency or
shared prosperity have been thrown into the garbage and decried as socialism
or wishful thinking.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
And that is (in my opinion) the biggest problem of all. Focusing on profit
margins alone (without any respect to the people), leads to burn-out, social
discrepancies to the extreme (go to South Africa/Kapstadt, if you want to see,
where it will end) and at last will dehumanize the human race. I write that,
because I see in my country, where it goes and we long where an isle inside
the ocean of capitalism. Now, capitalism has conquered humanity and capitalism
will kill humanity finally, it seems.

Our capitalism of today exploits all the resources of this planet (oil, water,
air, environment, humans, ...) in an increasing fashion and because this
planet has only limited resources, soon all will break down. The question only
is, what entity will break down first: capitalism, this planet, the human
race.

What use will you make of your five smartphones, three tablets and seven cars,
when your children will have no future?

------
robg
Even as a trained neuroscientist, I was amazed to learn that even mild stress
impairs brain functions involved in memory formation and retrieval, attention,
and decision making.

If you are working long hours, you aren't really working. On less sleep, your
brain has to work harder. With chronic stress, you start to impair your core
competencies. Sleep is the body's way of mitigating the effects of daily
stress.

------
tekalon
While the lack of safety net and fear of being fired are all valid reasons for
Americans not taking vacation, what about another reason- they don't know how
to vacation.

From personal experience, I get twitchy just from being sick/away from work
for more than a day. I only take one day at a time of vacation (usually on
Friday's to stretch out the weekend, and usually to get extra studying done or
run some errands) only to feel like I wasted a day. It could be cultural, my
family never took many family vacations (maybe 1 or 2). I'm lucky that my work
encourages taking vacations, but the idea of doing so seems so weird for me.

~~~
medell
I know what you mean! In my old office people would bank hours and rather get
paid out then take their full vacation. Most of my friends in Europe tell me
how their managers practically force them to take time off! (especially in the
summer).

It seems like it has become so ingrained in the culture that not taking
vacation, working long hours and being "busy" has become a badge of honor. But
with more and more articles like these I see a shift coming as the new
generation seeks more balance and lifestyle.

~~~
tekalon
I'm 50/50 on the 'badge of honor'. For some it's true. For me, I don't know
what to do on vacation. People get bored/anxious when they have nothing to do.
Even going on a trip can be hard (planning, financing, dealing with changes,
having to rest after the trip).

------
AndrewKemendo
>The United States is the only advanced country that doesn't guarantee that
its citizens will get paid vacation time and holidays

I find the reasoning consistently maddening. What they should be saying is
that there is no federal mandate for private employers to pay workers during
vacation/convalescence/maternity leave.

In point of fact, for government workers there is paid
annual/maternity/paternity leave which ends up being "use or lose" and in
effect becomes a mandatory leave - something universally omitted in these
articles.

I think this just comes back to the classic debate about how the American
economy is organized. Our constitution and US Code is not organized such that
the government can easily dictate laws to private employers, that is by
design.

~~~
octo_t
> and in effect becomes a mandatory leave

this is a good thing, as the rest of the evidence presented in the OP
suggests. People _should_ take all the leave they are entitled to.

~~~
bmj
I've pointed this out in other threads about this subject, but there are
actually employers who pay out a bonus to employees who use 100% of the PTO in
a given year.

------
cognivore
If you're in tech, the way to do avoid this is:

\- Develop mission critical systems.

\- Make sure no one else understands them.

\- When you're gone, break them so your employer suffers and realizes they
can't be without you.

\- Act like you don't care and want your time off.

Works for raises,too.

Of course, if you have a good employer, none of that is necessary.

------
VLM
"keep the nose to the grindstone"

LOL there's a classism component that a guy spending 60 hours in the office,
30 of them on facebook, twitter, amazon, or HN, is an office overtime hero,
but a guy using a shovel 39 hours a week while being paid for 40 is a lazy
slacker who should be fired.

Aside from the class problem, another big problem is in a euro country with
low income inequality, it means something to divide the total pie by the
number of roughly equal people eating it. But if you have a pie where almost
all the pie will be going to a couple fat guys and half the "eaters" are going
to starve then dividing the pie by the number of "eaters" is utterly
meaningless, or at least it is not comparable to the more equal country. It is
a meaningless math problem.

If I bring a pack of oreos to work and serve them at a meeting as a
snack/bribe, then dividing the pack by the number of people means something.
If I bring in a bag lunch and eat every single oreo by myself other than maybe
giving one to my college buddy while everyone else in the dept looks on
jealously, then the division result is meaningless, or at least not worth
comparing.

In a "let them eat cake" scenario if 12 people eat 12 equal-ish sized slices,
the average slice size means something. In winner takes all USA, one fat dude
eats the whole cake and 11 get nothin and the numerical average means nothing,
nothing at all.

------
henrik_w
Related: "Bring back the 40-hour work week"
[http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...](http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/)

~~~
njharman
Fuck that. Computers, robots and the rest of automation / efficiency gains
should (have been, and) be translated into 10-20 hour work week instead of
increased consumption and consumerism.

------
minikites
It seems like study after study shows that longer working hours don't result
in long term productivity increases, but managers aren't listening. Is this an
example of market failure or is there more going on?

~~~
thenipper
My guess is it is people trusting their 'gut' over a study. Working long hours
looks impressive. If you stay late or come in early you look like a team
player who is willing to put in the extra effort. Whether or not that effort
is actually valuable is immaterial, the appearance is what matters.

Call me cynical but I'd imagine that drives a lot of these overworked
schedules.

------
Shivetya
You know it is very easy to be generous with another person's money. Yet
mandating yourself rights to their money will likely lead to less jobs as many
can be off shored. I know, what about those service jobs; automation.

Guild tripping works to a point. However this is a two way street. Many
companies voluntarily offer paid maternity leave, some offer time off and paid
time off. Yet who is there to hold the workers accountable? Just the cost of
doing business? We all know people at work or have know that so abuse the
system it makes your head spin.

In professional fields we have a choice who we work for, we can choose the
good companies and if they continue to do well that will encourage their
competitors to step up their game. However we should never assume we deserve
something just because someone else has it or we convince ourselves its a good
idea.

------
seventytwo
One of the things the move towards a socialized healthcare system will do for
this country is focus a debate on how to increase overall well-being within
the country, and how to balance that with economic output. Something I think
this article misses is the effect our work habits have on our health as a
country. Studies have repeatedly shown that those last several hours per week
are only marginally productive, but how detrimental might they be? I would
imagine the health effects (stress, blood pressure, poor eating habits, lack
of exercise, etc.) become amplified in those very hours in which productivity
becomes nearly worthless.

It's hard to quantify any of this, however, so it might be completely glossed
over in the article on purpose. I'm sure that thinking like this will become
more prevalent...

------
justintime2002
> Professionals, managers, and executives with a smartphone spend 72 hours a
> week (including the weekend) checking work e-mail.

No, they spend 72 hours a week "interacting with work" in any way. Though the
thought of an executive sitting and refreshing an inbox for 10+ hours a day is
quite amusing.

------
orky56
Since such trends are definitely harmful, at what point does it become a human
rights issue? If so, the UN or some other organization should put their foot
down and set some guidelines for which a country's citizens can sustainably
achieve value to their employers and the economy.

------
adventured
Overall Americans are not suffering from workaholism.

Americans are working less hours than they ever have as a whole.

The BLS reports the average is down to 34.5 hours per week:

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm)

The hours per year are comparable to Japan, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, and
only 1.4% greater than the OECD average:

[http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS](http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS)

Meanwhile, a smaller percentage of Americans are working than at any other
time than in the past 35 years:

[http://i.imgur.com/c5iStWB.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/c5iStWB.jpg)

------
njharman
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#quickstart](http://maebert.github.io/jrnl/installation.html#quickstart)

    
    
      2012-03-29 09:00 Called in sick.
      Used the time to clean the house and spent 4h on writing my book.

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

------
nate
What I find interesting about mentioning the Cadillac ad and workaholism, is
how Ford actually found workaholism decreased the efficiency of his workers:

> On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling
> pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not
> popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's
> productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million
> to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-
hour_day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day)

------
peter303
According to the BLS only 146M people are working in US - 46% of total
population or 59% of working-age adults. And 26M of these are parttime. Goes
to show you working hours are not evenly distributed among people.

------
coreymgilmore
I feel this article is a little weak in one major sense: comparing the US to
European countries based on non-working time is okay, but you also need to
compare a metric like GDP. Using this, the US is #6 world-wide only behind two
European countries. So yes, Euros may get more time off, but the US is a way
more economically powerful and productive country economically.

Hurting the economy, sure people get burned out, but it is hard to come to
that conclusion based on the data given and the authors points.

~~~
autokad
it also tries to state that working hard leads to less productivity, when US
productivity eclipses most european countries.

i had a consultant complain that they hate working with europeans. the people
always go on vacation and projects get held up, and they come back and have to
get oriented with everything again. by the time they catch up they are on
vacation again

~~~
thegeomaster
How big a sample size of Europeans does your consultant have? Your claim that
"Europeans go on vacation and projects get held up and they can never catch up
again" is... dubious at best.

~~~
autokad
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.

~~~
thegeomaster
Platitudes? On the contrary, the article made a lot of claims to back up the
central point, and backed almost every one of them with research papers.

The countries with a high unemployment rate are also poorer and lack other
benefits, most notably the mentioned vacations. We're talking about developed
EU countries, and that's what we're comparing against the US.

~~~
autokad
France, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain are developed nations, they just
don't suit your argument. They all have or did have very long vacation days
per year.

And you cant just cherry pick a few european countries and compare against the
whole of the US. If we are going to play that game, why not pit them against
silicon valley, manhatan, etc.

~~~
mike_hearn
Greece and Portugal barely qualify for being developed. Greece in particular
is basically a third world country that sits on Europe's doorstep. They got
into the eurozone through gross fraud and manipulation of their own economic
statistics, then borrowed money at German rates for years to enjoy a first-
world standard of living. But the fundamentals in Greece were not first world
at all. One memorable quote I saw in an article about this was, "We imported
flat screen TV's and exported tomatoes".

What's happening in Greece is basically the huge pain of reality reasserting
itself. Greece is more like a poor Asian or African country; enormous
corruption, largely unskilled workforce, rampant tax evasion, no real
industries to speak of outside shipping, huge imbalance of payments and so on.

Portugal is in much the same boat. It's "developed" in a sense, but like
Greece up until very recently was actually a military dictatorship of the like
you'd expect to see in the developing world. It's not developed in the same
way Germany is.

With respect to the others, Ireland and Spain are indeed first world nations,
suffering very badly thanks to the financial crisis. Ireland took on its banks
debts and became poor in the process. Spain had a huge construction bubble.

France, well, OK .... ;)

------
rdtsc
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.

------
radikalus
There is surely some freedom in being able to set whatever policies you like
at your company without having a federal entity stipulate you give each
employee X days of paid vacation.

If you want to heavily incentivize a cultural shift towards more vacation time
for US employees, I don't think a federal mandate is as attractive as just an
economic incentive. (Tax break to companies where X% of employees take more
than Y days per year etc)

------
nickthemagicman
It's actually really hard to find a job that pays a decent wage and gives a
good amount of time off. The kind of job where you can 'work to live'.

Our mentality of "Americans love to work hard" is misleading. I'd say
Americans are just optimistic. We are sort of 'forced' to work hard so we're
optimistic and try to make the best of it.

------
throwaway5752
How does this stuff get so popular on YC?

Is there a founder anywhere that didn't put in months of 100+ hour weeks? Or,
to clarify, a successful founder?

~~~
VLM
Thats kind of the point, there's an idealized platonic form of a startup with
100 hour workweeks and open plan offices and pooled time off and no vacations
ever.

Everything mentioned above has been researched and proven to be a dismal
failure at actual financial productivity.

Therefore in a disruptive startup-py manner there are, on average, enormous
fat stacks of cash to be earned by going against the idealized platonic form.

WRT successful, I think it unlikely there are many holders of BS degrees who
didn't experimentally binge drink in college. I certainly did, till I outgrew
that phase. That correlation does not imply successful earning of a degree, in
fact the cause/effect relationship probably implies getting alcohol poisoning
is anti-productive at the goal of successfully obtaining a credential.

So the battle is between the cargo cult crew, who think success is the result
of better following the platonic form of the ideal startup even if its a dumb
idea, vs the rebels who know based on research they'll on average make more
money if they disruptively toss the idealized platonic form.

------
crazy1van
This seems too simplistic. The article focuses on one of the inputs to a
nation's economic system -- labor and the price of that labor (wages). It
seems to truly answer the question "What is it all for?" in an article whose
title refers to "hurting the economy" it would make sense to at least discuss
the output of that same system by citing GDP or some similar metric.

------
thisiswei
How do you define "workaholic" ? Please take a look at Foxconn workers.

------
tokenadult
Alas, this is about the level of analysis I've come to expect from years of
reading _The New Republic_ on issues like this. Neither cultural nor legal
conditions surrounding employment in the United States are ideal for workers
who have the preferences of the author of this article,[1] but neither are
they so horrific that the economy is "hurt" in a big way, especially compared
to the economies of other countries.

Other comments posted before mine have already pointed out that overall
prosperity in the United States is quite high, and I might add that many of
the newly industrialized countries of east Asia (which characteristically have
high population densities and limited natural resources, and thus are a model
of what policies it takes to be prosperous despite a lack of natural
advantages) increase steadily in wealth and general prosperity[2] despite
ignoring parts of the author's advice.

For me, the crucial fact to keep in mind in any of these decry-America threads
on Hacker News is that people vote with their feet. The United States
continues to be a highly desired country to immigrate to,[3] so whatever
trade-offs the United States economy offers, there are still a lot of people
who think they are better trade-offs than the trade-offs in the familiar home
country they were born in.

[1] [http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/bryce-
covert](http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/bryce-covert)

[2] [http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/business/world-rich-
list-s...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/business/world-rich-list-
singapore/)

[3] [http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-
drea...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dream-
life.aspx)

[http://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-
born.html](http://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born.html)

[http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/immi...](http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/immigrant-
process/petition/file.html)

AFTER EDIT: I note the downvotes indicating disagreement, and I am curious
about what you disagree with. Please let me know.

And I am amused by this correction to the submitted article: "Correction: This
piece originally stated that workers with smartphones spent 72 hours a week on
their off time checking work e-mail. In fact, the 72 hours include working
hours, and the workers are just professionals, managers, and executives. We
regret the error." We are not talking about a strongly numerate analysis here.

~~~
Dewie
> Other comments posted before mine have already pointed out that overall
> prosperity in the United States is quite high,

I've seen more that people have pointed out that _America_ is prosperous, not
necessarily that America is _overall_ prosperous. The US seems to have one of
the highest gini coefficients out of the OECD countries.

> For me, the crucial fact to keep in mind in any of these decry-America
> threads on Hacker News is that people vote with their feet.

Which can't be easily decoupled from how well America has managed to market
itself in the last 60 or so years, and marketing does not necessarily reflect
reality. While the US hasn't been universally loved in all that time - see for
example US foreign policy - it seems to have been able to market itself as a
great place to live, also for people from developed countries. How long has
there been a noticeable trend of "decry America" w.r.t. living standard on the
Web?

~~~
adventured
Part of the problem is a double standard with regards to America. The other
part of the problem, is that America bashers know a lot more about America,
than the average person is likely to know about their country, so the basher
feels free to attack and never fears their country will be put under a
spotlight for its terrible qualities. It's a game of bash and hope for
ignorance.

For example, if America doesn't have paid maternity leave, that's considered
very backwards, and America frequently gets bashed for such things. If Spain
has 34% real unemployment, somehow that isn't considered wildly backwards by
comparison, because hey they have paid maternity leave and six weeks of
vacation.

Or if Albania (or Nigeria or Congo or Vietnam) has a drastically better gini
number than the US, somehow that's considered amazing. Except it's ignorant
analysis.

I see this all the time in regards to Europeans bashing the US. They're
counting on Americans not knowing enough about most of Europe to lodge a
counter response.

~~~
Dewie
> Part of the problem is a double standard with regards to America.

I don't know what that means.

> The other part of the problem, is that America bashers know a lot more about
> America, than the average person is likely to know about their country, so
> the basher feels free to attack and never fears their country will be put
> under a spotlight for its terrible qualities. It's a game of bash and hope
> for ignorance.

I don't know if that is _intentional_ , but it might be what happens.

But this could easily swing the other way - a lot of non-Americans know about
America, so they can discuss it and amplify anything that they think is
positive about it.

> For example, if America doesn't have paid maternity leave, that's considered
> very backwards, and America frequently gets bashed for such things. If Spain
> has 34% real unemployment, somehow that isn't considered wildly backwards by
> comparison, because hey they have paid maternity leave and six weeks of
> vacation.

What? The ridiculous unemployment of young people in Spain is seen as a big
problem. Certainly a bigger problem than a small amount of maternity leave.

If it is viewed as _barbaric_ by comparison, then it might be because
maternity leave is a matter of social policy, while unemployment is obviously
not. It might be a symptom of mismanagement by the government, but no a matter
of social policy.

I think Spaniards are more busy with protesting the government than with
feeling smug about being better than Americans. On the other hand, a lot of
them have a lot of 'free time', so who knows. :)

> Or if Albania (or Nigeria or Congo or Vietnam) has a drastically better gini
> number than the US, somehow that's considered amazing. Except it's ignorant
> analysis.

Oh come on. I have never seen America been compared to countries like Congo
over stuff like this, except perhaps hyperbolically.

> I see this all the time in regards to Europeans bashing the US. They're
> counting on Americans not knowing enough about most of Europe to lodge a
> counter response.

Thankfully for America, there are plenty of prideful Americans willing to take
a stand, it seems.

Keep in mind, though, that not all America bashing is from Europeans.
Americans can do it, too. And even if a European (or whatever) country is
being hailed as _better_ than the US, it might not be people from that country
who are saying it.

------
frozenport
What about Asian cultures?

------
kajumix
The entire first world could get by with 100% time off on the back of the poor
of this world. Why not just lose the pretense and admit that the rich
americans and europeans can truly afford to spend all their days idle,
consuming stuff imported and made elsewhere by people who work 12 hours a day,
7 days a week, while you all spend your days debating 35 vs. 40 hours of
invaluable pretend work. Such hubris.

------
490371703
Can someone explain to me why paid vacation is ok? If you don't work, in other
words contribute to your job, why in the hell should you be paid? By the way
that doesn't mean I don't believe in the workers' welfare, but just not in
this way.

~~~
walshemj
You do know that if your salaried like 99.9% of NH contributors are your not
paid by the hour your paid to perform a job or function.

Some weeks I get hardly anything done but I once saved my employer 1/2 million
pounds in an afternoon.

And British Telecom the company accountant and I once saved 3/4 million in
around 2 days (fixing the AR system the FD brought)

You salary is averaged out over the 52 weeks for ease of running the payroll
and tax systems for one.

------
nuff

        Ninety-four percent of professional workers put in 50 or more hours, and nearly half work 65 or above.
    
    

This sounds crazy exaggerated without any citation. According to wiki,
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average non-farm private
sector employee worked 34.5 hours per week as of June 2012."

EDIT: reference..
[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm)

~~~
_archon_
Your quote includes Wal-mart greeters and burger flippers. I don't find it
hard to believe that white collar professionals put in over 50 hours a week on
average. My experience is in engineering for manufacturing.

