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Almost everywhere I have worked has had an already established set of benefits, non-negotiable.
Exactly, most companies are pretty firm on that, although I'm not doubting the existence of ones where it is negotiable. Some allow you to "buy" additional vacation days, or basically take a reduced salary for the extra time off. For example, if you buy a week, your salary is reduced to 51/52 of what it originally was. I'd gladly take that option, as time off and travelling flexibility is pretty important to me.
It's a mistake to look at one country and extend it's liberal labor policies to the economy. One would require some complex correlation studies and then, again, statistics can lie.
15 years ago, even compared to the other countries going through the recession, Germany was considered the "sick man of Europe" and unemployment was high even compared to Europe's usual lackluster average. The Eurozone changed all that. Now Germany is the trade capital of Europe, selling to all those southern Euro countries. They now have a trade surplus. Combine that with a good education system that focuses on trade skills (something that we need in the US) and an extremely disciplined work force. It really has nothing to do with generous vacation. As the Eurozone threatens to collapse, let's see what the future brings. It may be a disaster for Germany. They are also politically leaning more and more to the right.
Does government mandated vacation time cause unemployment as the others suggest? I think it has the potential. The US economy is much more complex and cannot be compared to any other. But I am more afraid of the impact on small businesses - millions of them that just have a handfull of employees will make it impossible to survive with mandated vacation. It's from them that innovation occurs. There is a reason for that. I'm not saying it's the liberal vacation policies in place in these social democracies but the entire package of regulations in place that strangle businesses, the philosophy in the US that the government is more hands off. Only the US can create an Apple, or an Amazon, or a Google from scratch and the thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue that come with it. It's always been the US policy for the people to tell the government what to do, not the other way around - the Great Experiment, with it's good and bad points (and with that, some people win, and some people lose). But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Exactly. The more you allow a government to decide what's best for you, who will be watching the watchman?
Exactly. The more you allow a government to decide what's best for you, who will be watching the watchman?
Why shouldnt the government serve ordinary people instead of the ruling billionaire class?
I dont get it. We have to choose. Either oligarchy or democracy. We cant just allow the billionaire class to hijack the government and as soon as workers start to fight back they're labeled lazy idiots who depend on government!
Somewhat off topic - Historically that phrase was always taken out of context and evidence suggests it was uttered a century prior. It was always incorrectly attributed to Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution by a mob that hated the king and thus hated her, and hated her Austrian ancestory, encouraged by the same powers that later initiated the reign of terror with people being guillotined left and right. She was actually very generous with the poor.
So actually the phrase comes from misinformation given to the ignorant, and propaganda from other parties with an agenda - maybe I am not as off topic as I thought.
What is behind your thought that vacation time causes unemployment? How do you address the fact that Germany is one of the more generous countries when it comes to vacation, yet their unemployment rate is only 3.1%, lower than the 3.9% in the US?
Maybe you are just looking for any facts and randomly connecting them in a futile effort to support your political opinions?
You have to look at the EU overall and compare it to America. I was only commenting on someone who brought up Spain. The EU has a 6.4% unemployment rate whereas America has 3.6%. Since 1995 roughly when the EU started its averaged close to 10% unemployment whereas America has averaged about 5.5%. Even after the 2008 meltdown we were never above 10%. You can blame vacation time, high taxes and the VAT or burdensome regulations for the shortcomings in the EU or the generous safety net that probably discourages looking for a job but the numbers do not lie.
You can point to whatever factors you choose for why their employment numbers are so bad but you can also look at their lagging GDP numbers or the fact it takes 200 million more people for the EU to equal our economic size. I blame the massive wealth redistribution that goes on in EU countries whereas you are penalized for being successful and rewarded for your lack of success stunts growth and hurts those they are trying to help.
I think they should be looking at our success and mirroring that not the other way around. Yes more people have longer vacations there but more people have jobs here.
Last edited by Oklazona Bound; 06-12-2019 at 10:06 AM..
Why shouldnt the government serve ordinary people instead of the ruling billionaire class?
I dont get it. We have to choose. Either oligarchy or democracy. We cant just allow the billionaire class to hijack the government and as soon as workers start to fight back they're labeled lazy idiots who depend on government!
Don't look at it as having to choose between the two (actually I see government mandates, even benign, as more associated with authoritative government rather than democracies, and only the most cynical can classify the US as an oligarchy), see it as a sliding scale. The US has many regulations over worker rights and safety - OSHA, Fair Labor Standards Act, ERISA, FMLA, etc., various states have other regulations, some pretty strict. Obviously that scale will not and will never be equivalent to what is in place in Europe due to the reasons listed below.
Again, it's just part of this Great American Experiment - in general, the government stays hands off and Americans prefer it that way. Americans are distrustful of big government, much more than they are of big business. It goes to the very heart of our constitution, a document that tells the government what they cannot do, a document that tells the government to stay the hell out of our business. But if the people prefer for that to change, no problem, they do that through the democratic process. This thread alone shows that not everyone agrees with mandated vacation.
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