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?
Less trickling down for me
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.
That’s not how productivity works. It’s basically looking at how much a person can produce with a given amount of labor.
Take that small scale subsistence farmer. Individually, they will live a precarious life. Their country will not have the surplus food needed for other pursuits like building cities, engaging in R&D, developing science, and so on. A smaller and smaller number of people need to be able to feed more and more using less land per person.
Manually copied manuscripts are another example. They were painstakingly copied over by hand in an incredibly low productivity manner. The introduction of the printing press essentially eliminated an art form, but gave rise to practical mass media.
In the present day, computers have been the main form of productivity booster. While arguably social media is a drag on productivity, overall computers open up a broad range of possibilities.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Cancer is incredibly costly to society. Think about it, a single person getting cancer could mean many hours of them being in the hospital. Net zero on productivity
Demolishing subsistence farms and replacing them with cash crop slave plantations is mad profitable.
As I detailed above, transitioning from unproductive farms to highly productive farms is necessary. Don’t believe me, ask Mao.
I could make thousands of dollars in a day if I just sold everything I own.
That would not be a productive activity since there would be no value added. Arguably there would be less value, since that stuff is likely worth more to you than it is to another person.
The problem in the US is that increasing productivity among individuals is not scaling evenly with increasing benefits for individuals. So despite the success of large scale agriculture or the efficiency offered by computers, it feels like “productivity for productivity’s sake” at best or “productivity for the wealthiest individuals’ sake” at worst. It is not productive for me to work harder at my job because it does not translate to any tangible benefit for me, my family, or my community. To me, this is what makes “productivity” feel like an abstract concept.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Cancer is incredibly costly to society. Think about it, a single person getting cancer could mean many hours of them being in the hospital. Net zero on productivity
Bro, how could you misunderstand so badly. Cancer is literally uncontrolled cell production in the body. Cancer is highly productive (in the body) but obviously not a good thing to have in your body.
People have been told their entire lives that the GDP of their nation matters without ever considering what it actually represents, or how it actually went up.
Great, number go up, but why and who actually benefitted.
The 1%. Productivity has been going through the roof, wages have stagnated for decades.
Excuse the week-old reply but
People have been told their entire lives that the GDP of their nation matters without ever considering what it actually represents, or how it actually went up.
You got a poor, poor education if you were never taught why the GDP matters, or what it represents.
Welcome to America
You should care because that profit should be going to the workers who create the value. It doesn’t go to the workers, so you should continue not caring about productivity. Damn the man.
Workers aren’t the only factor the creates value. Capital and land also add value. Why would people use them otherwise?
That being said, the workers are jointly responsible for their actions in production while capital is merely an instrument of their will and cannot be responsible for anything. Workers are denied the positive and negative results of their actions, so we should not care
Oh no! We got so wrapped up thinking about general human well-being, we forgot about productivity!
But for real, if the economy isn’t for people then wtf is it for?
Oh, it is for people. Just not for people like us.
Don’t you understand? The line must go up as sharply as possible forever.
I’m a micro bro, don’t attempt to assuage me with your macro stats
I’m a micro bro
Sorry to hear that. I heard there are pills for it now.
my poor feelings!
It’s also bullshit. Worker productivity is overall slightly up with WFH. The economy suffered from the pandemic and everything that entails.
I prefer co-op games like the James Webb telescope. Thanks ESA for a perfect launch.
I’m a simple man, I see actual accomplishments of mankind being mentioned and I upvote.
Line go up is for smooth brained animals.
Rocket go up is for true gentlemen.
Cool pictures also make monkey brain happy.
It is amazing what humans can do when we all work together for something that’s good. I think it’s really when people start trying to take advantage of each other when it all goes downhill…
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.
Disgusting.
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Meanwhile, GM is having all its stuff made in Mexico and Canada.
“Everything is possible if you believe in it” and destroy the fucking planet while doing so
Most Americans have no clue what the rest of the world is like.
Most Americans don’t even understand the progressive income tax system we have, they will go so far as to decline raises because it’ll put them in a higher bracket and they think that will mean less take home pay. It doesn’t! You should always take a raise!
I believe I’ll someday move to a country that has good policies for everything from healthcare, to work life balance, and social safety nets, and I’ll never have to deal with the American nightmare again.
There’s actually a tricky spot for folks who get certain social services which are tied to income. A small raise can bump you out of eligibility for things like medicaid and food stamps, and thus can in fact result in higher expenses, less money in your pocket, and a lower quality of life.
Yep! The welfare cliff I believe it’s called. Evidence of a poorly designed welfare system, which I think some see as a feature not a bug sadly.
To be fair, the rest of the world isn’t easily accessible for most Americans
Education is broken because on purpose
It’s literally one Google search away. And if they want to travel, you’ll be able to speak English to basically everyone (under 40)
Right? I was like, “Who the fuck in the US is saying ANY of that?”
The media trying to manufacture consent.
Actually the media in Germany is starting to push that narrative, maybe to get us to focus more on work and less on enjoying our lifes
lmao, Germany of all places. This country is designed for people to live paycheck to paycheck, earlier it was at least somewhat justified by social security, but greedy government fucks don’t know where to get money anymore.
there is lot them in youtube commnets , some here , most on twitter they wont stop bragging about how rich their elites are .
God please let me move to Europe I don’t even care what language I have to learn I just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
Sprich Deutsch du Hurensohn.
That’s ich_iel spirit.
Is there a Lemmy version of r/ich_iel? I need it for research purposes…Nvm found it
I understood that!
Duolingo, you son of a bitch you’ve done it again!
Did Duolingo teach you what “Hurensohn” means?
If not duolingo, then certainly this year’s r/Place helped!
Yes. For everyone who missed it, “Hurensohn” ist the German word for CEO.
Just call your boss a Hurensohn tomorrow to impress them.
No, it was more for the joke but I was able to figure out roughly what it was before actually googling it to check which was nice.
Yes. Subscribe for the naughty words 😏
Subscribe for the naughty words
THIS is how Duolingo will get my money. That’s some value-add right there.
But the quebecois stuff just sounds religious. Weeeird. (I kid, I kid. I once had a sergeant mutter ‘sacre bleu’ to me, and I almost chuckled realizing it was an actual curse, which is the only way the day could have been made worse)
God I miss that comment chain on r/ich_iel! Made my day for real, even though I don’t speak an inch of German.
Inch of German lmao
If you work in academia, you don’t need to learn a new language. English is the working language. Also the 5 weeks of holiday is nice, but what really helps is the working day.
I started as a bioinformatician a month ago. I come in to the office at 0830 have coffee from 09:00 til 09:45 with my boss and colleagues, work a bit, have lunch from 12:00 untill 13:15, work a bit, go home at 15:30. That’s my day.
Work in IT.
Start at 9:00
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Go home at 18:00
Commute (if construction does not tear up the main crossing) is around 30min 1-way with bus or a 15-20min bicycle ride.Experience: About 5 years without college/uni.
if construction does not tear up
It’s München time
Entirety of Germany in my experience. Germans love their Baustelle
I think IT might not be as easy as you think. Academia is a bit more open.
IT isn’t quite high skilled enough to get in. They’d almost certainly need an employer to say they couldn’t find a European to do the job, which is exceedingly unlikely.
I don’t know if I quite get what you are saying…
You mean it from the perspective of a US based company?I think he’s saying it’s harder to get a work visa taking a job in IT, as the EU company would have to first prove that they couldn’t find a European citizen to take the job before they can start hiring foreigners.
It hasn’t been my experience though, we hire lots of foreigners on work visas. Many from India and former Soviet countries especially.
I’m not in a big corp so I can just assume:
Do some countries require to proof local citizens are not worthy enough so you need to import work force from abroad?Yeah, many countries do this. It’s common in Europe but the US does it also.
Yeah, that’s what I was saying.
In Spain we do have non-EU people, but oftentimes they come here, live in Spain “irregularly” at some point, and then manage to get residency through means other than an employer sponsoring them. That might not be the case everywhere though.
Work in IT. Start at 9:00 Lunch 13:00-14:00 Go home at 18:00
IT Job I left:
- start at 8
- coffee 10-1030-ish (sometimes like 11)
- lunch at 12-13
- second coffee 15-1530
- leave at 1647, home by 1720 by train – tools down, muthafuckas
- voluntary standby for 1/4 time and immediate double-time for callouts, sanctity of personal time otherwise.
- union, 9x9 work term, no abrupt firings.
- EXACTLY on the median base salary for my job+region, which includes dot-coms.
- in north america, no less.
Experience: About 5 years without college/uni.
Experience: my soul.
Both of y’all are melting American brains trying to do the math on figuring out what times you’re talking about.
Most Americans have no clue that 13:00 is 1:00pm because 12+1 is too difficult, and God help you if you say 22:00, because 22-12 might as well be euclidean geometry.
Maybe you don’t need the language for work. But you will need te learn the language eventually for other day to day interactions.
Or the paper works outside of the labs.
Don’t know about other countries, but in Norway you always have the option of getting websites and government information in English. Everyone speaks it including cashier’s, cleaners etc.
The same thing is not true in Germany and Spain.
Dutchie here, we do the same. Everybody speaks (some form of) English, almost everything is also available in English.
This is true but also keep in mind that Dutch is still leading in most cases. E.g. if you have a contract that’s both in English and Dutch, if issues arise the Dutch translation will usually be the one that is followed
Dutch is still leading in most cases.
Sint Maarten should check-in and tell us about the English-Dutch separation and the class system it all but foments. It’s 90% fascinating if 10% disappointing.
The Dutch speak better English than some parts of England.
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My experience is purely based on Germany and I hate it even as a native. Plus having ADHD and paper being a chore doesnt help at all…
Also most folks (in my experience of south west Germany) of age >40-50 have little experience with English and can’t converse beyond the most basics.
For some reason France really doesn’t like giving english (or any other than french) options on their gov sites. Every other country in the eu are fine.
In France, I feel French is heavily a part of their identity; and contrary to Americans fairweather-jeering their best revolutionary ally, the French do not surrender lightly. It feels like that’s the one thing even the poorest French person has, and taking away one iota of that will be met with a resistance we’ve learned to respect.
but in Norway [:] English. Everyone speaks it
Scandinavia is absolutely killing it for bilingualism, among so many other ways they’re killin’ it – no, really, other countries should just study them for clues in general. My experiences (just Sweden, Denmark and bonus Iceland, so far) is that they say Hej and listen for your “hello”, flipping over into beautiful and perfect English without hesitation. Their language programmes are just fucking astounding, really.
Spain’s fine in the touristy spots, but Spanish itself is VERY accessible as a language, so it’s kinda moot like France.
In Germany I will have to rely heavily on the kindness of strangers as I will never grok the language.
They’re exposed to English every day from multiple sources. You aren’t allowed into university unless you can read and write English to a high level. Your text books are in English at university and classes open to exchange students are taught in English. All English media is subtitled. And school lessons in English start when they’re 6. No mystery, just practice.
I would most certainly disagree that every person speaks English. Especially older people don’t, but in general many people here do not speak a good english
Oh, I see that I totally forgot to mention I’m from Germany
No, pretty much anyone in Norway can speak English, some don’t feel confident in their ability though. But if you ask any rando on the street if they speak English you get the answer of course ".
never needed german knowledge to do standard burocracy stuff
im in the country for almost 10 years now without speaking a word. not true.
Seven hour day with an hour and fifteen minute lunch. What kind of magic is this? What’s the catch?
The catch is that you live in Europe and cops won’t beat you to death.
sOcIaLiSm
Those are summer hours. In the rest of the year I’ll be expected to work an additional 45 minutes. Officially we only get 30 minutes for lunch, but no-one cares. When our contact in admin is in we keep it to 45 minutes.
30-45 minutes for lunch, where do you live, in the Netherlands?
In France it’s 1h30 usually (give or take a bit depending the company).
We take around a hour and a half but we’re not officially supposed to.
Well this might be an anomaly but the company I worked for in the Philippines gave you a dedicated hour for lunch and two 15-minute breaks, plus two hours weekly for any of the workshops/learning opportunities they provide.
lol i work a third of that
Removed by mod
In what country do you work?
Norge
I work in the public sector. If I start my day at 06.00, I can leave at 14.30 👌 Perfect for me since I am an early riser and the days are slowly getting darker and darker again
Yeah I have flex time, but the daycare doesn’t.
just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
If you avoid the flatlander areas, Canada may be for you. We also speak English; just, without the accent. :-P
(unless you live on the island that’s an hour’s ferry from France)
Speaking a language without an accent is like wearing clothes without a material
Idk I’m from the central US and I had a German foreign exchange student tell me we didn’t have a mimicable accent. I know it’s not true but it was interesting to hear that from someone who’s familiar with everyone around her speaking in a completely different way, even when using English.
That’s common if you don’t know a language too well. There is the variant that you learned, and since you don’t know more, you think that this variant has no accent and all the other variants (that you didn’t learn and thus are hard to understand) you think have accents.
Only once you spent significant time with multiple accents will you be able to pick up the differences.
Or typing without a font.
That said, I think they were having a dig at how some Americans believe they have “no accent” because they (think they) sound like movie people.
Dutch American Friendship Treaty.
Nah, man. Stay where you are, we don’t want any 'muricans (assuming you are). Fix what you have instead.
We’d love to fix what we’ve got if that were a reasonable option. For most people, it’s not.
See, politics are so broken here that it’s really just a dick measuring contest to see who can wax the best poetic. And then even when we do get a decent president—because let’s be clear, Biden isn’t a good president—they often cater to corporations long before they even think about making things better for the working people.
At this point, fixing our political system would require either:
- A voting miracle, voting not on party lines but on the actual merits of the candidates, or at least voting for the actual best candidate in the primary of the “least” evil party.
- A revolution, either through ratification of a new constitution or actual war.
Most people in America are too uninformed for number one to be realistic within less than an entire generation. Sure, newer generations are far more informed and are actually changing the voting landscape in some ways, but it’s not going to be enough to change everything while we’ve still got boomers voting for politicians who don’t have their best interests in mind. It will take years, if not decades, to get that far.
Meanwhile, most people don’t want to be involved in a revolution. Even if everything is peaceful (which it likely wouldn’t be), and we’re able to ratify the new constitution without many issues (which there would be a ton of), that still leaves us with a tumultuous period of transition. Not many people would really want to live through that. I admit that most people probably would because there’s not much of a better choice during that transition, but I guarantee there would be a huge spike in emigration from the United States.
Moving to Europe or Canada is just the best option for a lot of Americans who feel they can’t deal anymore with our broken politics, substandard workers’ rights, and/or dwindling human rights for LGBTQ people. My family has tossed the idea around of moving to Canada, since it’s close, or even Germany despite the fact that my husband and partner make decent money. We just can’t keep up sometimes, and as a polyamorous household of three AMAB people, two of whom are married, we’re worried for our rights, too.
For most people, moving to a different country is a fresh start, and the majority of them will do their utmost to make sure they respect the country they come into. There will always be some that don’t, especially when they’re coming from a country like America, but for the most part, all we want is basic rights that other people have and not having to worry about putting food on the table some days.
Edit: commas and grammar
Too bad European countries are following the US footsteps. Finland just ousted their popular prime minister lady with a government of actual ultra right wing nazis, Germany’s AfD is gaining lots of traction and getting crazier with their conspiracy theories about great replacement, Italy is going far right too with their new government. UK and their Brexit night… At least Spain is still not having a far right party in the government, if they can form one.
My family has tossed the idea around of moving to Canada
Come to Canada! It’s 70% awesome and the rest is prairies and Republicans! Lend your income to our tax system and help out my neighbours and my family and also get some healthcare (still recovering from covid, but it’ll mend). Yay!
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
Don’t worry about it man. You are missing the point. Look at how many billionaires we have now! All that money is going to trickle down any time now!
But your billionaires get richer more quickly than ours! Isn’t that something to be proud of?
hey watch it buddy, one day I’m gonna be one of those billionaires
one day I’m gonna be one of those billionaires
I sense people actually believe they’re an easy powerball away from just that.
Everyone is sure they’re the exception
This has gekoloniseerd kokosnoot energy
I don’t understand how the hell people even work jobs that don’t make minimum of $30/hour at least in California and even parts of the East Coast. Like your rent is $1600-$2200. At 0.8*3200 for $ 20/hour with taxes your take home is $2560 for a 40 hour work week. So what are you just not eating that month?
How about healthcare transportation medical 401K literally anything? Pruning of benefits didn’t happen because of corporate greed it happened because people just accepted what they were offered. In the Midwest where apartments might be closer to $700-$900 a month some of this works but on the coasts rent is usually twice that. And a car to get most places is $400 a month with insurance supposing you have the credit.
I work in IT and programming, and Id love to do physical labor and talk to real humans rather than salamanders in silicon valley. But the jobs I see don’t even break $30 an hour. Yet it costed me $27 for ham and cheese and altoids, not even including bread where I live in the bay area. It is fucking expensive.
I feel like America is doing so many things ass backwards greed first. But it’s not like I have the experience of living overseas or in Canada or otherwise so I don’t have much to compare it to, so it’s safer by default to live with the devil you know than the one you don’t.
What people do is pile into apartments. Yeah, to live alone may cost let’s say $2000/month rent. But you can pile 4+ people into a four bedroom apartment that costs $5000, split it four (or more) ways, and they’re paying $1250/month. Some of them have significant others, so then you wind up with two people in one room each paying $625/month. (Just random numbers, but that’s the general idea of it.)
The people I know who do it hate it, but it’s what they can afford while staying in the area they like (and/or were born in, have a community in, etc.).
Good lord that’s no way to live.
27$ for ham? How much are we talking about? 500g or 1kg? (about 1 or 2 pounds)? Deli or conveniece?
Half a pound. Deli.
Christ 250g of deli hame for $27? So probably about 22-25€?
That’s probably a ½-¼ more expensive than good ham from a local italian shop in Germany…Good god.
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.
That sounds really good, where do you work?
I’m guessing Norway, Finland, or Sweden.
Czechia and Slovakia have very similar paternity and maternity leaves.
Or France
Or Germany.
France is great, but you won’t have the same materny leaves as in the more northern countries.
Dads now get 1 month of paternity leave in France \o/ (actually for a few years now)
I’ve had about 6 or 7 weeks of paid vacation this year already. A week long winter vacation and 4 week summer vacation and random days off in the middle of the week every now and then. The good thing about christian culture even though almost no-one is religious here is that we still get a day off for their holidays.
Which European country do you live in?
I don’t know which country he lives in but it could be Germany since I know that it’s like this in Germany.
Sounds very much like it. Paid leave for dads is what a few of my co-workers did.
I had a few days off in spring, recently had my 2 weeks and another coming in october.
Not much but it’s sufficient to me (but more is always better).*Fully paid by your higher taxes.
Yup! And all we get for it is healthcare, childcare, college tuition, pensions, sick leave, maternity leave…
Don’t forget reliable and comfortable public transport and properly maintained roads and public infrastructure.
reliable
lol
* dependent by country
properly maintained roads
Laughs as he drives across the border into Belgium and has a filling shaken out
yeah, in a few well-marketed cities you usually find on postcards. “Europe has great public transportation, I was in Munich last week…”, right, because whole continent = one city.
In majority of the cities and countryside it’s either get a car or get fucked.
I try explaining this to fellow Americans that you end up paying much less in the end and never have the stress of how you’re going to afford this stuff (or possibly even lose everything to a sudden health problem) but it falls on deaf ears if they’ve already been brainwashed. They refuse to hear that other countries have things figured out to make the lives of their citizens much more enjoyable.
But imagine I’ll never get sick or have kids, then I’m losing money!!
Right?
*Fully paid by higher progressive taxes on wealthy people.
- paid by middle class, which cannot afford tax evasion.
Wealthy people in Europe don’t pay shit. It’s much easier than in the US, where only ultra-wealthy don’t pay shit.
Yeah just go to Monaco. It’s infuriating.
^This is what the law and order crowed says when the law is for wealthy and powerful people.
Honestly, I was being a bit facetious by responding to an overly simplistic comment in an overly simplistic way. Personally, I think we should fund universal welfare programs by cutting out the ultra-wealthy middle man with a sovereign wealth fund like they do in Norway. No need to tax the ultra-wealthy if they don’t exist because they can’t extract the wealth from the people in the first place.
this “overly simplistic comment” has everything you need and more, but I’ll bite.
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Wealthy people own companies. Companies are perfect tool for accumulating wealth, since you can reinvest profits forever and pay income tax (corporate rate) only on stuff you intend to extract to your own name, which is usually not much compared to total amount of generated income. Private person, on the other hand, is taxed on whole income and may qualify for usually laughable deductions. Got huge bonus from your job at the end of the year and plan to get few months off work to “invest in yourself” and learn a new trade? Tough luck, buddy, you are “rich” now - welcome to higher tax bracket, government will take their cut first and let’s see what you’ll be able to afford with what’s left.
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VAT is a scam to fuck people who have to spend their income for actual living. If you live paycheck to paycheck you’ll end up paying VAT on your whole income.
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Wealthy people don’t get their income in salary, salary is for working class. Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it’s possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%. Social security contributions are easily bypassed by employing yourself as CEO for minimal salary. Boom - now you have same healthcare as people who have to pay great chunk of their whole paycheck for it.
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If we restrict ourselves to EU citizens and your particular country is really anal or maybe 20% or something tax is too much for you anyway - you are free to move to Cyprus, Malta or Switzerland, which will have 0% capital gains if you meet not too tough conditions. Or “move”, you just have to get a residence there to declare as your primary one and be present at least sometimes - there’s no border control, it’s really hard to track if you spent there more than half a year for tax residency purposes, this is usually a matter of long legal battles and you won’t even get into that territory if you’re not doing anything too bizarre.
This is a biggest difference with US citizens, they can’t benefit from tax havens because of their passport, IRS doesn’t care and is good equipped with lots of info, so US guys are left with real shady stuff with nominees and cash or traditional buy-borrow-die, which is sustainable only for ultra-rich.
I’m living and doing business in EU and it took me quite a lot of time to get from nothing into the position where I can utilize at least some of the benefits of the above - but you have to be completely fucking blind to not see that it’s rigged and tax burden on people who don’t try to game the system is completely disproportional.
Wealthy people own companies. Companies are perfect tool for accumulating wealth, since you can reinvest profits forever and pay income tax (corporate rate) only on stuff you intend to extract to your own name, which is usually not much compared to total amount of generated income.
Right… to get at that wealth through taxes you would need a wealth tax or a tax on corporate profits along with outlawing stock buy backs.
Private person, on the other hand, is taxed on whole income and may qualify for usually laughable deductions. Got huge bonus from your job at the end of the year and plan to get few months off work to “invest in yourself” and learn a new trade? Tough luck, buddy, you are “rich” now - welcome to higher tax bracket, government will take their cut first and let’s see what you’ll be able to afford with what’s left.
That’s not how a progressive taxes work. Under progressive tax you get taxed at a higher rate as you make more money, but only the amount above a certain threshold is taxed higher, you’re not going to receive less money because you make above a certain amount as you seem to be implying. It’s explained more fully in this short video. https://youtu.be/VJhsjUPDulw
In terms of reinvesting in yourself, yes there should be universal access to education. If you’re capable and desire to improve yourself through education that should be free and you should be paid to pursue that self improvement. A society made up of smarter people benefits us all, we should make that investment.
VAT is a scam to fuck people who have to spend their income for actual living. If you live paycheck to paycheck you’ll end up paying VAT on your whole income.
Agreed VAT is a regressive tax that taxes the poor more. We see 100% eye to eye here.
Wealthy people don’t get their income in salary, salary is for working class. Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it’s possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%.
Well, yes which is why I said I support sovereign wealth funds. That is the state owns portions of companies directly in the same way other shareholders do. This cuts out the wealthy people entirely. The State can then use dividends of that fund to invest in social services. It can also use it’s position as a shareholder to give working people better labor contracts.
Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it’s possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%.
So you support lowering incoming taxes and raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, royalties? Sound like a decent policy to me. Well this is something else to consider; its almost like its more complicated than my original sarcastic comment implied.
Social security contributions are easily bypassed by employing yourself as CEO for minimal salary. Boom - now you have same healthcare as people who have to pay great chunk of their whole paycheck for it.
Uhh… yeah we should close that loopholes, right? Even if we didn’t close that loophole I still think its a much better system for healthcare than in the US.
If we restrict ourselves to EU citizens and your particular country is really anal or maybe 20% or something tax is too much for you anyway - you are free to move to Cyprus, Malta or Switzerland, which will have 0% capital gains if you meet not too tough conditions. Or “move”, you just have to get a residence there to declare as your primary one and be present at least sometimes - there’s no border control, it’s really hard to track if you spent there more than half a year for tax residency purposes, this is usually a matter of long legal battles and you won’t even get into that territory if you’re not doing anything too bizarre.
Not all that familiar with these kinds of tax dodging schemes within in the EU. But US corporations do similar things with the Cayman Islands. We could probably close these loopholes with enough political will. But again the easier and cleaner solution is a sovereign wealth fund which I mentioned in my first comment responding to you and you have not yet acknowledged as a way of raising funds.
I’m living and doing business in EU and it took me quite a lot of time to get from nothing into the position where I can utilize at least some of the benefits of the above - but you have to be completely fucking blind to not see that it’s rigged and tax burden on people who don’t try to game the system is completely disproportional.
Perhaps that is how things are but how should things be?
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Right… to get at that wealth through taxes you would need a wealth tax or a tax on corporate profits along with outlawing stock buy backs.
No, you just need to prohibit forming 1-man holding companies. Want to have shares? Write them to your own name, not to a shell company’s name. That’s a first step to get this income at least tied to individual. Or get a hedge fund license, which ultra-rich will do, but they will find a way in any system other than full commie madness.
That’s not how a progressive taxes work.
I know perfectly well how progressive taxes work. In majority of cases bonus from employer will be taxed at source at higher tax rate regardless what you plan to spend it to. Even if your plans for these money would be fully deductible, you will still need to have spare cash to cover planned expenses until you get a refund. In case of wealthy person, there’s a privilege to optimize your spending first and report/pay taxes later simply because there’s no taxation at source involved.
Well, yes which is why I said I support sovereign wealth funds. That is the state owns portions of companies directly in the same way other shareholders do. This cuts out the wealthy people entirely.
No, it doesn’t unless you propose nationalization. Even if shares in publicly-listed companies will be bought in some way said fund it’s still possible to have billions in privately-held company. You can’t get something that is not for sale unless you decide to rob.
So you support lowering incoming taxes and raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, royalties?
What I’m proposing is irrelevant, the topic was who is paying for European social security. And my point is that it’s paid by poor and middle class, since they have no freedom in optimizing and planning their income. You can have tax brackets up to 99%, it’s absolutely irrelevant before a discussion what is subject to this tax. However, works well for populism reasons.
Uhh… yeah we should close that loopholes, right? Even if we didn’t close that loophole I still think its a much better system for healthcare than in the US
It’s not a loophole, it’s perfectly normal to have a paying job along with your other income sources. If these other income sources would’ve been subject for same tax brackets as job income, there wouldn’t be a problem.
US healthcare is a scam which siphons insane amount of money simultaneously from government and people, I don’t think there’s any valid argument in favor of it.Not all that familiar with these kinds of tax dodging schemes within in the EU. But US corporations do similar things with the Cayman Islands.
Corporations could be established everywhere, corporate tax rate is another topic. In EU it’s possible to dodge taxes on your personal income, not corporate, which is not the case for US citizens.
Perhaps that is how things are but how should things be?
Again, how things should be is another topic, my original point is that high income taxes and tax brackets with what currently considered as income is cheap populism to shaft middle class. When applied to wealthy people this will catch a few exceptional individual performers like sports players which have no case in declaring their individual ability as company activity (ironically, only on “salary” part of their income - brand deals and royalties will be optimized into oblivion).
As of what would be fair… Removing VAT, eliminating 1-man holding companies to get assets to individual’s name then doing same tax rate and get any income to be subject for same tax brackets and social security contributions as everyday man’s salary. Regarding taxation at source and deductions for individuals… well, that would be also fair, but it is operational nightmare.
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I’d rather my country raise my tax to 50% than live in a country like America.
Ironically, the average total taxation (after you add local, regional, national, etc. taxes) is either lower or at a similar approx. 35% of income.
Americans just get stiffed by where that money goes afterwards.
I wonder how it ends if they add all the insurances, benefits etc. they would need to pay to get the same benefits as us.
Having lived and worked in both the UK and US, yes I pay roughly 4% less “tax” in the US.
but, as I didn’t have to pay for Healthcare, and my student loans payments were a percentage of my earnings — vs the amount I’ve had to pay for Healthcare, copay, scripts, etc here. If we actually compare like for like and assume that Healthcare payments are only not called a tax out of a semantic convention for political reasons despite being practically a tax by nearly any definition - I’ve pay way more in “”““tax””“” in the US.
Assuming the average person earns roughly $65k, would you pay an extra $200 for 100% fully covered, fully comprehensive, $0 co-pay, you walk in (to your nearest hospital, no need to check if they’re in network) get an x-ray, a blood test, your appendix removed, stay over night, go back the next day for kidney dialysis or chemotherapy and pay nothing more than that monthly extra $200/rate in perpetuity? Especially as the average cost is $456 (+ co pay) for Healthcare and that usually isn’t a “good” let alone the “best” package.
God I wish I lived in a country with that kind of medical system.
I’m sick of being afraid of getting hurt (enough to need to visit a doctor at a hospital) not because of the injury to my body but the unknowable-ahead-of-time-and-might-also-bankrupt-you bill.
Fuck the selfish people in this country who are ruining it for everyone because they don’t want “undeserving” people getting free healthcare! Drives me bonkers!!!
I’ll add that I also wish I could go to the doctor anytime for any reason even if it’s just for a big particular pimple or a wart, and not have to think about the bill.
Not have to think is this worth spending $100+ on when it may go away on its own, or that I should just Google it instead of going to an actual doctor so I can save that money instead. This is WITH insurance btw. This is 10 fold worse with no insurance.
Germany is currently in the process of changing the healthcare system because it can’t be paid anymore. People paying no tax but going to the hospital and to the doctors for every little issue actually did destroy the system. Similar is happening with other “benefits”. People do not understand that these things aren’t actually free.
We are supporting each other in hard times and fun times. Whats the problem? Should we rather shoot, hate and make fun of each other instead?
Works good overseas, right? Imagine fearing an ER visit because of crippling debt or the ride with a fucking van to the ER itself.
Who’d have thought that prioritizing mental wellbeing, family, and health over corporate gains would be a good idea!? Surely this backwards commie system is doomed to fail!
Lol, we’ll see how that works out with your immigration policies.
How does that work exactly? Why would the government pay my vages during my summer holiday when I work for a private company? I’m afraid you have no idea what you’re talking about…
I will gladly pay for those.
But as far as I am aware those higher taxes fuel other things paid leave. I believe paternity leave is subsidized by it.
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.
We are voting to give ourselves an increase on per diem, but we are also cutting food stamps benefits.
Dude we dont even get presidents day off.
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.
Yup, I gave up my 70 hour work weeks. My 50 hour weeks grew my salary and position, then my 60 hour weeks put me in charge of massive projects, which drove me to 70 hours during a couple ERP implementations. I took a paycut overall, but now I work 40 hours.
By law in Germany you cannot work more than 40 hours per week. There are some exceptions but usually it’s downright illegal for employers to request it.
I demand we lower it to 20 and let AI do the rest of the work.
People in many jobs already work 20 hours in reality. We should just make it official.
Well, 60h is the limit. 6 days at 10h each max. The 40h figure is the long term limit.
I’m currently working a job in IT at a lower than median salary, but I also can fuck around (within boundaries of reason), adapt my work schedule to myself and work from home 100% of the time. I wouldn’t have it any other way. My team and managers are some of the chillest people I’ve met
IT and WFH here also. On an average week I do maybe a handfull of hours of actual work and I earn about the same as a doctor. I’d still prefer to do no work at all and I get major anxiety every time I have to go back to work after summer vacation.
Big relatable
This is exactly what I’m looking for right now. The hurdle is that it’s getting harder to find non-contract jobs in IT anymore. So every hour I take off from work is an hour coming out of my pocket. Either way I’ve come to accept that my sanity and free time are things worth paying for.
Does everyone have healthcare?
For a meager $18000/year with copays and premiums. Murica!
Don’t forget they won’t help you until you spend a couple of thousands out of pocket first.
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
HA
Caring about health? Proof of aliens
i do!
also im a student and getting paid monthly to do so.
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…
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.
Your momma is so stupid, she burns the water to make tea.
Yo momma . . . is a wonderful person for whom I have great admiration.
Thank you Mr Sandler. :-D
This is the way.
Sorry, didn’t see your email cos it’s actually fuckin illegal to send me it if I’m not working
It can’t be illegal to send you an email outside working hours, that’s just silly. Now if it’s illegal to demand that you read it and respond outside working hours, I would understand.
Sending an email to the wrong person at 17:01? You go to jail.
You send an email outside of work hours? Jail.
You hand-deliver a letter during work hours? Also jail.
We have the best work-life balance in the world. Because of jail.
Slide a note under the door ever? You bet yer ass you’re goin straight to jail.
We actually call this the jail-jail balance
Send a chat message to ask whether someone received an email? Jail.
Send an email to ask everyone to read a chat posting? Surprisingly, also jail!
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.
Absolutely. I worked for one office where one founder would literally come around doing “bed checks” multiple times a day. I’m talking about a guy with a net worth well over $100 million, seriously connected to federal politics, major local influence on universities and government. This guy spent no less than 15 hours/week checking to see who was sitting in their seats. That was one of his top priorities.
Of course, this bled down to supervisors that he promoted. And as a result, the entire office was full of the most mediocre workers I’ve ever dealt with. Just sit at their desk doing nothing except ready to schmooze the boss. Many were afraid to use the bathroom, go to lunch, etc. Total nonsense.
My old boss told me that he didn’t care how many hours I worked as long as I got the job done.
Months later I got called into the office and put on a PIP with the reason being that I left early. I worked from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM.
I ended up going back to the company I was at before then. They have the same policy but actually don’t care. My current boss has told me multiple times to get off the computer and go home. Last time I had to leave early, she told me to make sure I factored in traffic.
That’s the thing - if you have plenty of vacations and a short work week, then you tend to actually do work during your working hours. If you’re in the workplace for 70 hours every week all year, then naturally you can’t do useful work for most of these hours. Which is why it looks like you never work as you have to rest at work.
I’d rather have 30 incredibly intense and productive hours than 60 completely chill no stress do a little of this a little of that hours.
My old job was 60-70 hours of incredibly intense productivity (was working for a Japanese corporation) and I learnt at a rate well above what other workers would due to the intensity, but then I had a breakdown from burn out. Keeping that tempo for fewer hours is the best of both worlds. Employers need to be focused on output rather than time logged.
I agree. There’s also that benefit you forgot to mention that you have 30 hours more free time to spend however you like, instead of somewhat “free” time that you have to spend at work.
I’m definitely cutting off my nipples this summer
How very Ichi the Killer.
But the real killer is average life expectancy.
Check out the southern US states for that, especially Mississippi. It’s soul crushing that people think that’s okay.
And the rocket scientists over in the Mississippi legislature thought it was a good idea to turn down Medicaid expansion funds from the ACA. I honestly have a hard time figuring out how self destruction they let themselves be.
According to Wikipedia, 74.7. Hawaii is the highest with 81.6. That’s fascinating, on average people in Mississippi are living 7 fewer years. That’s a lot.
