We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don’t believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.
I’m not telling you to work less hours. If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all of your waking hours plugging away.
But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life. Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy our hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balance life. Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically. And there are few things that stress us out on a consistent basis like work does, especially when it takes away from all of the other things that life has to offer.
And if all of this data tells anything, it’s that we are the outliers, not the norm. Why are we the outliers?
Don’t let life pass you by in the name of fear, circumstance, greed, or misguided hopes. Sometimes you just need to draw a line in the sand and say “enough is enough”.
Didn't you JUST put up a thread about how Americans aren't working enough?
unemployment = unitilized capacity = less total REAL WEALTH. full employment = maximum capacity = maximum total wealth produced.
unemployment = unitilized capacity = less total REAL WEALTH.
full employment = maximum capacity = maximum total wealth produced.
We generally don’t fight for our working rights.
What are "working rights"?
That productivity statistic could be misleading. I bet the most productive people do have a standard of living 4 times or greater than the most productive in 1950.
Everyone I know is either overworked or unemployed.
There is no contradiction here. In fact, from the boss class's point of view, they are highly complimentary.
Seriously, formulate a resolution at debate.org. You have always run away from any and all arguments against your position. I refuse to put any effort into engaging you because it will be wasted. A debate will force you to address me. If you are so confident in your positions, you should not limit yourself to trolling mises.org with a few liberal articles and folk-kenysian economics.
The article left out the most important part: What is the real economic cost of these “benefits” and who will ultimately pay that cost. At best the entire work forces pays through lower wages and more restrictive working environments. At worst the unemployed pay as their productivity is not high enough to cover the extra costs of these benefits to employers.
But the issue with this kind of Fascism is that even in the best case of dispersed payers, the ones who foot the bill are the ones who do not need the services. So they see the greatest loss in productivity and ALSO HAVE THE BIGGEST INCENTIVE to avoid paying by reducing their productivity. This cost like the cost to the unemployed is not easily calculated, in fact it is impossible to determine. That is why growth rates in countries decline as government increases.
Are you serious? I thought you were putting this up to show us how annoying it was. If your friends are overworked, tell them to stop being lazy or quit the job. If they're unemployed, tell them to work for free/cheap or to make a job. I'm in college and work 3 separate jobs, two of which are for free and one of which I get paid $7 per week to do. I'm doing that so I can build my resume and get a good job when the economy is back on track.
Do you think the State should be able to force me to work less than I want to?
The entire ideology of the left is telling us that we're working too much and we need to go to school for longer. You realize on the one of the graphs that the United States, Japan, the UK, and Switzerland are all next to each other. I wonder why that is.
"I'm not a fan of Murray Rothbard." -- David D. Friedman
Why don't you work as much or as little as you choose, and allow me to do the same? Thanks.
neat initial post :)
ravochol, what sort of economic model do you have in mind when you are making this argument?
at first, i thought you were saying that the reason americans are overworked is that u.s. companies have significant bargaining power in the labor market such that they can nagotitate wages below their competitive levels (indirectly of course by making people work more hours rather than lowering their nominal salary). and you think that we should use government action to increase wages (by decreasing the number of hours worked per dollar of salary). in this case, your argument comes down to a failure in the labor market.
however, at the end of your post in the second "we need to remember", you seem to suggest that we are actually choosing to overwork ourself and that we could choose to work less. this argument seems to contradict the first because the problem here would be that there is some underlying irrationality that is leading people to make choices that leave them worse off, where as in the first argument workers didn't have much say in setting their work schedule.
could you clarify which of these two arguments you had in mind? or maybe its a mixture of both (they are phrased in a contradictory way, but the arguments could be rephrased to make them complementary).
Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine - Elvis Presley
I don't get it. Is the focus on this article the "we need to remember" and discussion questions like "do you think we work too hard", or did I miss the point?
thats the way i took it, but it is kinda vague
He's just ranting about the U.S. not having enough labour controls and trying to portray the amount of time people spend working as an objective issue to give credence to the complaint.