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Moooo
06-05-2006, 03:10 AM
http://us2uk.tripod.com/working.htm

It says here those buggers get on average a month paid vacation and 10 paid holidays! There were some other cool differences, but these struck me as really... nice.

Might not be so dumb afterall...

Moooo

BucEyedPea
06-05-2006, 07:20 AM
I believe most of Europe has such liberal time off.
Europeans don't have the same work ethic as Americans.
In fact many of them think we overwork and chase the buck too much.
It's not suprising that they've become socialist countries. ( socialist democracies). That article actually refers to such strict labor laws as
"human rights?"

Jenson71
06-05-2006, 07:25 AM
That's what those riots in France were pretty much all about.

ck_IN
06-05-2006, 07:35 AM
Don't the French have 39 days off?

The work ethic in Europe is a joke. No wonder they're becoming 3rd world economies.

Amnorix
06-05-2006, 08:12 AM
:shrug: They have some issues from being overly socialistic in some countries, but overall they're not doing too terribly.

Keep in mind that those countries are much smaller than the US, in terms of size, resources and population.

Germany, England, France and Italy have the 5-8 spots in country GDP rankings. EU as a whole (which is bigger and has more people than the US, I believe, is basically in a statistical tie with the US for GDP.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/gdp_2005_0.html

Again, I'm no socialist, and some countries definitely lean too far over in that direction over there.

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 08:35 AM
America is a better country to be rich, and there's far more opportunity to get rich over here. However for the average person Europe is a better life. Better medical care, more free time, better education, better beer, less violence, etc. Some countries over there are very capitalist - Switzerland comes to mind. We probably have more welfare here than Switzerland does.

StcChief
06-05-2006, 08:40 AM
Just look at the European tax rate. Ask yourself if you want complete socialized medicin etc.

Then to get real quality medical care you buy your own on top of the one paid for by taxes...No thanks.

Donger
06-05-2006, 08:46 AM
However for the average person Europe is a better life. Better medical care.

Better, eh? How so?

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 09:02 AM
Better, eh? How so?

More free time to spend with family and friends.

Better health.

Better education.

Better food.

Less stress.

Better beer.

Less violence.

Donger
06-05-2006, 09:03 AM
More free time to spend with family and friends.

Better health.

Better education.

Better food.

Less stress.

Better beer.

Less violence.

You said that they have "better medical care." How so?

PunkinDrublic
06-05-2006, 09:03 AM
I'm not saying we need to adopt a european system but if I got to pick one benefit of theirs to adopt here in the states it would be more vacation time. A couple of weeks paid vacation a year just isn't enough IMO.

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 09:12 AM
You said that they have "better medical care." How so?

It costs less and gets better results.

Ours costs quite a bit more and the results are pretty pathetic in comparison.

Donger
06-05-2006, 09:19 AM
It costs less and gets better results.

Ours costs quite a bit more and the results are pretty pathetic in comparison.

That debatable. I've read that, in fact, the British actually pay more through taxation for their "free" healthcare than we do.

Anyway, even if the care is better and less expensive, you might be surprised to learn how accessible it is. There are waiting lists for everything, especially surgery. I recently had an uncle die waiting for cancer surgery. That's the second family member to die waiting for his "free," great healthcare in as many years.

For those that can afford it, having secondary, private insurance is a requisite. Yes, they pay for their "free" healthcare through taxation and also pay for private insurance.

Sounds like a great plan to me.

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 09:32 AM
That debatable. I've read that, in fact, the British actually pay more through taxation for their "free" healthcare than we do.

Anyway, even if the care is better and less expensive, you might be surprised to learn how accessible it is. There are waiting lists for everything, especially surgery. I recently had an uncle die waiting for cancer surgery. That's the second family member to die waiting for his "free," great healthcare in as many years.

For those that can afford it, having secondary, private insurance is a requisite. Yes, they pay for their "free" healthcare through taxation and also pay for private insurance.

Sounds like a great plan to me.

I've read the opposite, and have family members in the UK who've had surgery with no problems at all. My sister-in-law was shocked that we send new mothers home 2 days after birth whereas she had 2 weeks in hospital followed by a daily nurse visit for 2 more weeks once returning home. Ultimately the annecdotal evidence we're both citing doesn't wash. When you take a long look at population wide health statistics, they are healthier.

I don't know anyone over there that pays for secondary private insurance.

Donger
06-05-2006, 09:34 AM
I've read the opposite, and have family members in the UK who've had surgery with no problems at all. My sister-in-law was shocked that we send new mothers home 2 days after birth whereas she had 2 weeks in hospital followed by a daily nurse visit for 2 more weeks once returning home. Ultimately the annecdotal evidence we're both citing doesn't wash. When you take a long look at population wide health statistics, they are healthier.

I don't know anyone over there that pays for secondary private insurance.

What is the class status of your sister-in-law, if you don't mind me asking? Working class? Middle? Upper?

Is she a subject of the crown?

Does she have private insurance?

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 09:42 AM
What is the class status of your sister-in-law, if you don't mind me asking? Working class? Middle? Upper?

Is she a subject of the crown?

Does she have private insurance?

Middle - my brother runs a one man IT cosultancy, she works part time as a meeting planner for a small business in that field. She used to be a director there but decided to scale back when they had kids. Now she just works a few conferences a year. Yes, she is a subject of the crown. I believe he now holds dual citizenship. They do not have private insurance.

Donger
06-05-2006, 09:45 AM
Middle - my brother runs a one man IT cosultancy, she works part time as a meeting planner for a small business in that field. She used to be a director there but decided to scale back when they had kids. Now she just works a few conferences a year. Yes, she is a subject of the crown. I believe he now holds dual citizenship. They do not have private insurance.

That would explain it. The class structure is still in solid place in that rat-infested shithole. The working class do not get the same treatment as your sister-in-law received.

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 10:05 AM
That would explain it. The class structure is still in solid place in that rat-infested shithole. The working class do not get the same treatment as your sister-in-law received.

Sorry, I was thinking in American terms of class - education, income, career. She comes from a working class family. Her brother is working class - pours concrete every day. I'm not aware of any differences in terms of medical benefits. I am aware of the class differences, my brother has talked about how strong a role they play. Since he's an American he's granted better mobility than the locals and can operate outside of the BS.

ChiefsfaninPA
06-05-2006, 10:10 AM
All I know is that I get 15 vacation days, 4 personal days (one every three months) and 12 holidays a year. Can you guess who I work for?

BucEyedPea
06-05-2006, 10:47 AM
America is a better country to be rich, and there's far more opportunity to get rich over here. However for the average person Europe is a better life. Better medical care, more free time, better education, better beer, less violence, etc. Some countries over there are very capitalist - Switzerland comes to mind. We probably have more welfare here than Switzerland does.


I agree with most of your post...but better medical care?
Have you ever needed medical care while in Europe?
I have, as did a relative ( at a different time) who suffered a miscarriage.
Both of us high-tailed it out of there...to come back home to the US.
Me leaving Switzlerand and her leaving Italy.
Procedure I needed was out-patient and over there is required 5 days hospitalization? I had no faith in them.

What I do agree with the European's on is their use of more lo-tech medical care for a lot of lesser ills. But when you need surgery....you need good hi-tech care.

My gf married an Italian from Italy and they had a business there for awhile as well after they met in Indonesia. They closed it up, came here, because as he says....America is so much freer and it is paradise compared to over there. They have very little freedom, even small business. He said Americans do not appreciate the greater freedoms it has.

KC Jones
06-05-2006, 10:59 AM
BTW, just hitting on this topic today led me to read this review and analysis of several books covering the American and European differences. I'm haven't finished yet, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726

Consider a mug of American coffee. It is found everywhere. It can be made by anyone. It is cheap—and refills are free. Being largely without flavor it can be diluted to taste. What it lacks in allure it makes up in size. It is the most democratic method ever devised for introducing caffeine into human beings. Now take a cup of Italian espresso. It requires expensive equipment. Price-to-volume ratio is outrageous, suggesting indifference to the consumer and ignorance of the market. The aesthetic satisfaction accessory to the beverage far outweighs its metabolic impact. It is not a drink; it is an artifact.

This contrast can stand for the differences between America and Europe —differences nowadays asserted with increased frequency and not a little acrimony on both sides of the Atlantic. The mutual criticisms are familiar. To American commentators Europe is "stagnant." Its workers, employers, and regulations lack the flexibility and adaptability of their US counterparts. The costs of European social welfare payments and public services are "unsustainable." Europe's aging and "cosseted" populations are underproductive and self-satisfied. In a globalized world, the "European social model" is a doomed mirage. This conclusion is typically drawn even by "liberal" American observers, who differ from conservative (and neoconservative) critics only in deriving no pleasure from it.

To a growing number of Europeans, however, it is America that is in trouble and the "American way of life" that cannot be sustained. The American pursuit of wealth, size, and abundance —as material surrogates for happiness —is aesthetically unpleasing and ecologically catastrophic. The American economy is built on sand (or, more precisely, other people's money). For many Americans the promise of a better future is a fading hope. Contemporary mass culture in the US is squalid and meretricious. No wonder so many Americans turn to the church for solace.

These perceptions constitute the real Atlantic gap and they suggest that something has changed. In past decades it was conventionally assumed—whether with satisfaction or regret—that Eu-rope and America were converging upon a single "Western" model of late capitalism, with the US as usual leading the way. The logic of scale and market, of efficiency and profit, would ineluctably trump local variations and inherited cultural constraints. Americanization (or globalization—the two treated as synonymous) was inevitable. The best—indeed the only—hope for local products and practices was that they would be swept up into the global vortex and repackaged as "international" commodities for universal consumption. Thus an archetypically Italian product—caffè espresso—would travel to the US, where it would metamorphose from an elite preference into a popular commodity, and then be repackaged and sold back to Europeans by an American chain store.

...and it continues...

Demonpenz
06-05-2006, 11:08 AM
I wish people had less vacation days or atleast be forced to take them a week at a time. I am tired of people taking off single days leaving more work for everyone else.

BucEyedPea
06-05-2006, 11:11 AM
Americans sense of freedom is more expansive than Europeans too.
A key difference from our Constitution and theirs is that fundamental rights come from a higher source than govt. This way those rights can't be taken away. (ideally) In the European constitutions, their rights come from govt. However, what govt gives as a right can then be taken away. But they like it that way.

Also their geography, just as ours, molds their psyches...at least from what I learned in art history. America is large and expansive...we drove big cars for a long time. What is deemed American art, as centered in NY, was those giant abstract canvases needing buckets of paint and ladders to create. Whereas, the low countries had those little tiny pictures mainly. Amsterdam is like being in a toy village...very small scale.

ct
06-05-2006, 11:26 AM
All I know is that I get 15 vacation days, 4 personal days (one every three months) and 12 holidays a year. Can you guess who I work for?

Gov't job?

ck_IN
06-05-2006, 12:08 PM
Sounds like that review was either by a reviewer or a book author that had an anti American bias. It's an affliction that seems common in the NY Times among other NY publications.

The vibrant economies in Europe most closely resemble the American model. Ireland for instance. The traditional Euro model symbolized by France and Germany is pretty sceloritic. The sense of entitlement and lack of sense of 'earning it' in those countries is absurd and is leading to their own donwfall.

StcChief
06-05-2006, 12:24 PM
Sounds like that review was either by a reviewer or a book author that had an anti American bias. It's an affliction that seems common in the NY Times among other NY publications.

The vibrant economies in Europe most closely resemble the American model. Ireland for instance. The traditional Euro model symbolized by France and Germany is pretty sceloritic. The sense of entitlement and lack of sense of 'earning it' in those countries is absurd and is leading to their own donwfall.

Irish were always a more hard working (despite the drunk image) to get ahead. This really doesn't surprise me.

jidar
06-05-2006, 12:33 PM
I don't see how anyone could be paying as much as americans are paying now for healthcare, private, socialist or not. I pay OUT THE ASS for healthcare now.

UKMike
06-05-2006, 01:00 PM
That would explain it. The class structure is still in solid place in that rat-infested shithole. The working class do not get the same treatment as your sister-in-law received.

Did you just make that up?!

Moooo
06-05-2006, 01:43 PM
It sees like some of you guys are defending America and insulting Britain as if you've been told America sucks. It doesn't in the slightest, its just different. In a more capitalistic society, the same free-enterprise system which allows everyday Americans to get rich, allows CEOs to make 500 times more than you and only offer their employees 2 weeks (as opposed to Europe). If I was going to compare America to anything, I'd say it'd be like a scratchers ticket. Sure, you may be able to do something good with a dollar, but scratchers are the only thing where you could make a thousand bucks off of it.

Moooo

Donger
06-05-2006, 01:47 PM
Did you just make that up?!

No. Two uncles in two years. They were both on waiting lists for over a year.

BucEyedPea
06-05-2006, 02:08 PM
In a more capitalistic society, the same free-enterprise system which allows everyday Americans to get rich, allows CEOs to make 500 times more than you and only offer their employees 2 weeks (as opposed to Europe). If I was going to compare America to anything, I'd say it'd be like a scratchers ticket. Sure, you may be able to do something good with a dollar, but scratchers are the only thing where you could make a thousand bucks off of it.
Moooo


That's right...but someone elses greater wealth does not belong to someone else because of that, nor does it necessarily mean that their greater wealth is the cause of another's below average earnings. Some big, companies increase the number of weeks off the longer you stay too. Small guys can make a lot of money off of such CEO's firms too. Often, one does not get the huge benefits and checks without sitting on a hot seat, or taking on enormous risk or responsibilities...many of them work quite hard. Without such men, the world would not provide so many jobs for others who were allowed to improve their standard of living. And one is always free to seek self-employment to gain the same advantages.

Just my two cents.

Moooo
06-05-2006, 02:20 PM
That's right...but someone elses greater wealth does not belong to someone else because of that, nor does it necessarily mean that their greater wealth is the cause of another's below average earnings. Some big, companies increase the number of weeks off the longer you stay too. Small guys can make a lot of money off of such CEO's firms too. Often, one does not get the huge benefits and checks without sitting on a hot seat, or taking on enormous risk or responsibilities...many of them work quite hard. Without such men, the world would not provide so many jobs for others who were allowed to improve their standard of living. And one is always free to seek self-employment to gain the same advantages.

Just my two cents.

Yeah. It's very luck-oriented. IMO, I would never own a business. As a matter of fact, you couldn't pay me enough to, the long hours, the numerous amounts of taxes (people don't understand until they have to take out a LOAN just to pay their taxes some months). Its not for me.

Personally, from what I've seen the only people America's system favors is the entrepreneur, and even that can be argued. about %45 of Americans work for a small business, and about 60% in the EU, so...

One things for sure, when you do become the CEO of a major company, there's NO better place to be BY FAR than the US.

I also think the work ethic thing is a load of crap regarding vacations. I refuse to believe that people here in America wouldn't take the extra two weeks paid, even those who love their job.

Moooo

UKMike
06-06-2006, 10:33 AM
No. Two uncles in two years. They were both on waiting lists for over a year.

You're right, it was definitely beacuse they were working class :rolleyes:

Donger
06-06-2006, 10:42 AM
You're right, it was definitely beacuse they were working class :rolleyes:

Barring some other explanation, I'll stand by that. A middle-class great uncle on my father's side had the same disease and needed the same operation, and didn't have to wait more than a month.

Are you saying that you believe that the working class in England get the same treatment from NHS as the other classes?