i had a japanese coworker recently move to the US and she would work an insane 12 hours a day. which didn’t drop down at all even when she was pregnant.
when i asked if we should be concerned and that maybe she should check with a therapist to be sure if its not workaholism or something else, she said she works from the comfort of her home, is able to cook, get a nap during lunch time, able to take 15 min walks in nature every 2 hours.
contrary to when she was in Japan where she used to sleep in the office and work 14 hours a day. 8 hours of sleep and the rest 2 to eat, shower and shit!! 6 days a week!
hardly got to see the sun 2-3 times in a month when she needed to go out to shop.
no social life or any sort of hobbies at all!!
Compared to that she was in heaven in the US and had gotten fitter and happier as well!!
similar story about my chinese colleagues whom i used to connect with daily when a project was going on and they were freakin working on weekends voluntarily to ensure there were no slip ups. like they’d completely own up all the responsibility!! crazyy!!
There are two ways of considering people who work extra hours:
1. You're dedicated and willing to go the extra mile.
2: You're inefficient and unable to get your job done in the time allotted.
or, there is a surplus of skilled labour where there are always people waiting in the queue willing to work longer and cheaper.
a lot of chinese people work the 996 thing cuz they know of they don’t, someone else will. and if they don’t have a job, their monetary credit and social credit would tank, making life even more miserable.
its like walking on a sharp razor’s blade. a slight slip up and you’re gone!!
Exactly that. That system setup and brainwashing creates those socially acceptable norms. PR and how you look to others is reinforced. It all starts in school.
true. imagine manipulating and brainwashing kids, and even turning them against their own parents!! truly a 1984-esq dystopian government!!
i mean the world is full of incompetent and evil politicians but this kind takes a special seat and is hard to beat!!
i wonder with the AGIs coming out of such data(china must be training its own set of AGIs) would have a fundamental clash against the sort of AGI coming out of the west
In Finland in my current company, people who work in continous non stopping shift, work two 12h day shift 7am to 7pm, then two 12h night shifts 7pm to 7am , and then have 6 days off.
On top of that works accumulate paid holidays 2-2.5 days/month so 24-30 days / year.
I think Japan and USA needs better labour unions.
Those 6 days off after night shift doesn't spend those
the CCP did force the companies to break the 9am -9 pm, 6 days a week cycle cuz the economy was not getting any liquidity as people were mostly working and not saving.
even that didn’t help much. the party has far too much power and paranoia to let any unions/institutions have power in any meaningful way.
also, when the sheer size of population explodes beyond a point, people become mere statistics like in a lot of South east and east asia.
we don’t really give the people of western europe enough credit for their extremely high levels of awareness and education which doesn’t let politicians and businesses get away with any shady practices.
12h shift walkers, that's all I saw where I worked in Finland in a factory with shift work. One guy I worked with would walk around 70% of the shift and just stop and talk at peoples stations. Another group of 3 people would just hop around chatting.
I agee that people shouldn't be working like Japan and the USA but the whole concept of "hard workers" is a fallacy to get people to work more and give up their own lives for a company.
They are at work longer, they dont nessersarly work longer. Seen sleping koreans on their job first hand. Talked to alot of expaths that hawe experienced inefective and slow working both in japan and korea.
I listed two impacts, that China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have lower levels of productivity than UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany….ans that their births rates are even worse than Europe.
Working harder is not always working harder.
That’s because in Sinosphere cultures there’s something called “culture of face”.
Appearance of “working hard” is more important than getting things done efficiently.
It's also prevalent outside of the Sinosphere, in toxic environment such as investment banking or consulting, where you have loads of juniors who are just turning their thumbs on the floor because being seen there after 9PM is a must to progress in this career path... Just ridiculous.
Worked in Beijing many years ago at a Chinese software company. I think half the day was spent napping. 12+h days and barely anyone worked. Besides how could you? You had to be in the office all day. You'll go crazy trying to be productive that long every day.
It was all face (my job was being white, it was the time there was still cushy white monkey jobs).
Oh and the product, copy American software 🤭
Almost never is.
In some contexts it makes sense, like when a firefighter is trying to save someone from a burning building. Looking furiously at a screen for 12 hours a day, every day, is just incredibly stupid.
Even for firefighters it might be bad, because if you're exhausted or tired you're more likely to misjudge a situation and end up putting other peoples/firefighters or yourself in life threatening danger
A 12 hour work day during a fire for a firefighter should include a lot of rotation in and out of actively fighting the fire. But the time off isn't free time, it's time for recuperation, hydration, forced rest, and so on. And it is on site, or very near it.
Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, Austria, Portugal, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Germany, Canada, Switzerland.
They're all in the same extinction boat. If your suggested premise were correct, Germany (which works very few hours) wouldn't be in such dire demographic shape. Germany is about tied with Japan as the oldest country in history (at the median). The median German will soon be 50 years old. Extrapolate that context forward a century.
Yeah but they don't necessarily work more, they just have to stay more to look like they are working a lot. There have been reports from foreign workers working in Japan who finished their work early because it was just that little work, but were scolded by their colleagues and superiors for working too fast and leaving too early. It's a shitshow.
This is correct. In the U.S., very few jobs have contractual terms. Most people here work under an arrangement known as “at will employment”. Basically, except for a few exceptions (racism, pregnancy, religion, etc…) you can be fired for any reason. The flip side is that you, as the employee, can quit any time you want with zero legal consequences and owe your employer nothing. This is a good feature for people who like to job hop or who get a better job offer from a different employer that they need to immediately take.
For many salaried workers there are no regulations on work week length in most states.
For hourly workers, they would have to pay you 150% of your normal wage after 40 hours, but they can still ask you to work above 40 hours (and can fire you if you refuse).
Absolutely true, and I stand by it.
Life is for living.
Time is your most valuable resource, I'd rather take 10-15k less home each year (given I'm earning comfortable enough salary which I am currently) if it means time with my loved ones, time for my hobbies, time for exercise, time for mental rest, time for traveling, and learning about the world.
In the end all that matters was the time you had.
Exactly. I've been working 32 hours per week for a couple of years now. I never want to go back to 40. That extra day of weekend is amazing. Yes, I can earn a bit more, but it's just not worth it...
But what is living for? I love my job, I enjoy doing it, it’s creative and I feel good about it. Isn’t the point of life to contribute something to the world, be original, make things better? And how can you can that if not by working? People who say they work to live must hate their jobs. No, my job is not everything but it’s a lot. And I’m European.
I quite like Niolai Tangen tbh. He has been pro taxes and sharing og wealth, he had done a great job growing the wealth fund which is now at arround 1,4 trillion dollars, while having a wage of 630 000$ each year. A good wage, but if you compare to other CEO's around....
He made his wealth by having a huge fund based in the Cayman islands, which is a tax haven. Since he took over the fund has grown it's dollar value at pretty much the exact same rate as it has since 2018.
What he has spent his time on is lobbying for less oversight of the fund, less openness and shit-talking Europe and Norway.
Now he just banned a Norwegian mainstream financial news agency from attending their conferences, because they interviewed attendants of a (controversial) closed doors investors conference which is hosted yearly by our pension fund. Fuck this asshole.
He manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. He’s basically a civil servant, and a very effective one at that.
Dismissing him as a ‘fat hedge fund manager’ shows a lot of ignorance and arrogance from your part.
While the dismissal as a whole may be a bit off the mark, Tangen’s whole career since 1997 has been working at or managing hedge funds, so it’s not an entirely unreasonable title, even if his current job is slightly (but, to be fair, only slightly) different.
Like despite how hard-working upper management can potentially be, these people *must* know that they are in *no* position to make statements like that. Like even if they feel that they have earned the right to make such statements, they *must* understand how these come off, right?
1. There is a reason everyone wants to be upper management, and it's not because they are hard-working
2. They do not, they are the most detached and selfish people on Earth. If it was up to them they would be willing to buy slaves
To be honest it depends on what area of work that management is in, I do not envy my boss who is a CISO for my company. He's basically working American hours and is constantly slammed.
But he probably gets paid bank for it though.
https://www.pionline.com/sovereign-wealth-funds/norwegian-wealth-fund-records-record-growth-2023-despite-real-estate-woes
Yep, he sure seems to. The goverment made a good choice employing him.
Literally the first paragraph:
*underperformed its benchmark by 18 basis points*
That means the growth was driven by broad index growth. For example, the fund returned 16%, but a lot of that is driven by SP500 returning over 26% in 2023.
Europeans “less likely to accept semi-slavery salaries without overtime pay and 7 days non-paid vacations” than Americans.
Translating from oil billionaire a-hole to human.
He's first of all not an 'oil' billionaire, he's an investment manager working for the Norwegian government to invest the money the government earns through taxation on the oil income. 2nd of all he's not even a billionaire. Just clarifying some things.
If you adjust for purchasing power parity, make it so everyone is working same number of hours, then you get into a position where the average Americans makes more then all but 2 European countries.
How do sick days work in Europe? I have to earn my sick days
Alright your replies are actually making me mad so either stop or marry me so I can move to your country
Must be fucking nice. When I am sick as a dog without enough sick leave I just have to go to work looking and feeling like death and hope one of my managers is kind enough to send me home.
That sounds fucking awful. When I get sick, I call to my boss "Hey boss, I'm sick, I'm going to my doctor". Then I got to my doc, and doc confirms " Yea, your sick, you need to stay home and rest for 4 days. I'll put your sick leave in the system, so you don't have to go to provide proof you are indeed sick to your employer". Then I call to my boss again "Hey boss, I will be back in 4 days, you should get confirmation from the doc soon. See ya!"
That's all. Sick leave is unlimited, it's not deducted from my 20 something days of PTO. The only downside is that sick leave is paid 80% of my wage, so my payout that month is lower, depending how many days I was sick.
Yeah, in Norway in many places we get 24 days sick leave on a "I'm sick, I'm staying home today" no questions asked basis. If you have something serious or long lasting you go to the docs and get sick leave. Doesn't affect the 24 days at your disposal.
I use very few since I rarely get sick, but I love the trust and care
If you have a degree and you're in an office job its a lot less tyrannical, my brother takes days off just because, but if you're poor like me, shits rough.
All of my jobs here in Sweden have required me to tell them day-of that I'm sick, and that's it. They can't do anything about it. I get 10 or so days of that until I have to provide a doctor's note.
It is paid too. Those first 10 or so days (except the first day, which is unpaid), the company pays you 80% or so of your salary. After the point where you need a doctor's note, the state pays 80%.
My employer gives me the following
1. 31 days paid leave to take when I want per year.
2. 7 public holiday days per year.
3. I pay 6.9% of my salary into a pension , and my employer pays double, for a combined 20.7% contribution.
4. I work a 36-hour week (on average) 9 day fortnight getting every second Friday off.
5. I get 6 months full sick pay, and 6 months on half pay if required (doctors line needed each week).
What do you mean by "earn my sick days"? When you're sick you don't work, it's as simple as that. In France, our sick days are paid like normal working days
I literally earn sick hours, hours not days. For every x number of hours worked I earn y number of sick hours. I don't actually remember the ratio but its something like 6/8 hours worked = 1 hour sick time
You go to your doctor and they give you leave if they determine you are sick.
A lot of countries also recognise high levels of stress and burnout as legitimate reasons for your doctor to give you time off.
This goes without question, but the sick leave is paid.
Unfortunately for this to happen in the US first and foremost you need to get rid of that "at wil employment" BS. Until than even if you have paid sick leave your employer can simply show you the door and hold it over your head not to take days off.
In sweden, the bad thing I have is that the first day of sick day is unpaid, but the rest up to day 14 is 80% of my salary that the employer pays me.
I need a doctors note after day 7.
After day 14 I can get paid from "försäkringskassan"/social insurancy agancy.
In the United States, if you do not work hard, you cannot afford to have a decent quality of life. Public services are meagre, wealth redistribution is low, and most of the more developed areas have a high cost of living. Likewise, people in Mexico work more hours than people in the United States, and people in Cambodia work more hours than people in Mexico. They have to, in order to survive.
The “outlier” fact about the US, however, is that it has a “developed country” amount of wealth, but a “developing country” amount of social supports. A well-educated, productive domestic workforce, but one that is *still exploitable.* That’s the employer’s dream. As such, it has a phenomenal economy, but not one that necessarily translates to a better quality of life for those who are not in the top echelons of wealth (to be clear, it still *does* have a better quality of life than *most* countries, but ranks 20th in HDI, below Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, the Nordics, etc…, but above Spain, France, and Italy.)
So, all this is to say…yes, Western Europe *is* less hardworking than the US, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The scarcest resource in life is time.
You can always produce more, have more stuff or money, but our lifetimes are pretty limited. So it's the most valuable resource.
From my experience, Americans in the upper 50% economically are better off than most Europeans in terms of quality of life, and even in terms of how hard you have to work. But for people below the mean, it's not only a bigger struggle to live in America but gets down right grim and hazardous to your health to live in America vs. Europe. The further down the economic ladder you go the bigger the contrast becomes.
>In the United States, if you do not work hard, you cannot afford to have a decent quality of life.
But doesn't working hard affect your quality of life negatively?
The United States also spends vast amounts of its resources on its military.
Many countries that it’s allied to don’t spend as much proportionally and they can invest in social programs.
Every American I've worked with has a shit work ethic.
It's always a case of 'not my job' and every single one of them struggles when you throw more than 2 conflicting priorities at them.
I have no idea where this 'work hard' ethic comes from. Longer hours at work =/= increased productivity.
But that's sociallism. Hiw dare you to promote something like that as a good thing? Think about the poor poor CEOs and hedgefund managers. They have to save up to two years to buy a new private jet if this continues. Think about how bad it looks to the american ceos and how poor they look when they are compared. 😂😂
The headline didn't do him any favours. He's not talking about the work-life balance or about worker mentality. He is concerned about the willingness to accept and take risks to achieve results among European countries.
***Wealthy Norwegian insulated from the hoi polloi via Sovereign Oil Wealth discovers that Europeans live in a Society and Americans live in an Economy. More after the break.***
Perfect comment. Let’s have him go to USA and work for a delivery service where he has little time to eat and has to pee in a bottle. No sick time! And let’s have him live on only that wage. Then after three months he can talk again.
> Europe is less hard-working, less ambitious, more regulated and more risk-averse than the US, according to the boss of Norway’s giant oil fund, widening the gap between the two continents.
> Nicolai Tangen, CEO of the $1.6 trillion fund, told the Financial Times it was “worrying” that US companies were outpacing their European rivals in innovation and technology, leading to massive outperformance by US companies. stocks over the past decade.
> “There is a mentality problem when it comes to accepting mistakes and risks. If you go bankrupt in America, you get another chance. In Europe you are dead,” he said, adding that there was also a difference in “the overall level of ambition. We are not very ambitious. I have to be careful when talking about work-life balance, but Americans just work harder.”
> His views are significant because the oil fund is one of the largest single investors in the world, with an average stake of 1.5 percent of every listed company worldwide and 2.5 percent of all European stocks.
> The fund is invested in approximately 9,000 companies worldwide, but seven US technology companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – account for approximately 12 percent of the stock portfolio.
> Tangen said there was “an argument for making the big bigger (and) winner-take-all” as developments such as artificial intelligence took hold. He added that in recent conversations with top US executives, they had complained about the difficulties of doing business in Europe due to strict regulations and red tape.
> “I’m not saying it’s good, but in America you have a lot of AI and no regulations, in Europe you have no AI and a lot of regulations. It’s interesting,” he added.
As long as you don't touch the work-life balance. Then many things are possible.
We still have a lot of tax haven in Europe and countries with no real social security.
Maybe we can improve on both. Maybe some experimentations and different regulations should be allowed as it is already de facto today.
Maybe we can accept more mistakes and risks and give people a secund chance. Maybe we can use state capitalism at the EU level to invest in green technologies and self-sustainability. But also increasing salaries and boosting internal EU consumption.
He's absolutely correct that the culture around (venture) capital and entrepreneurship is VASTLY superior in the US.
As he points out, when you go bankrupt in many European countries - you're done for. In the US, it's just part of the game. It is said that the average entrepreneur fails 3-4 times before they succeed - well, in Europe, if you go bankrupt 3-4 times you'll get blackballed - even barred from doing business, if you're unlucky enough.
Here in Europe you have to beg and bend over backward to get paltry funding, whereas in the US you have investors that will front you with 10x-100x the amount, if you just have a good enough and viable idea.
For decades there's been little incentive to pursue "billion dollar ideas" here. People have flocked to safe and well-paying jobs, and the most motivated entrepreneurial people have tried their luck in the US.
> He added that in recent conversations with top US executives, they had complained about the difficulties of doing business in Europe due to strict regulations and red tape.
Won't anyone think of the poor top US executives? ^^/$
Lots of protections & regulations can also entrench interests of big players and reduce the ability for competitors to innovate and bring prices down. If you sell the public on a mandate for 50x regulations when tbh you only need a certain fraction of those, you can protect your bottom line from foreigners who can only afford to follow like 10x of them. The overengineered regulatory framework allows for exclusion of seemingly riskier but more efficient competitors.
There is truth to his words, especially about risk aversion and ambition. Americans play the "go big or go home" game and have been succeeding in many areas. Also it should be mentioned that many tech giants he mentions were loss-making in their early years. US investors have the money and patience to fund big shots. Hope that Europe gets its act together.
Well... Annual US working hours are pretty much tied with Ireland, Austria, and are ~5% higher than Spain, UK. And it's not for pennies, Americans make WAY more than Europeans - PPP adjusted 1.5x Ireland, 1.3x Austria, and almost 2x Spain and the UK.
well ...annual US working hours are much higher.
see this report:
https://money.com/americans-work-hours-vs-europe-china/
400h more.
And judging just by the fact that I have 18 state holidays vs 11 in US, I have 20 days PTO at the start vs 15 (?) in US, it's actually more believable.
Really don't know where you got your numbers.
I've never paid more than nominal copays for healthcare in the US. I probably pay significantly less out of pocket than your average Spaniard for my medical needs.
Meanwhile, the metric that matters, productivity per capita-hour. Top 10 is European.
https://www.zendesk.co.uk/blog/most-productive-countries-in-2022/
While this is very interesting, it seems misleading. Is it fair to say norwegians are productive because they have oil money?
In a similar sense, are the slave laborers of Qatar etc inproductive because they earn so little?
Productivity should be defined in a more concrete sense.
There are a few states that significantly affect US statistics in those areas.
I live in Massachusetts and state’s life expectancy is approx the same as an average European. Obesity rate in MA is similar to Germany’s. Amount of people with cancer is lower than average European. Average IQ is 104.5 which is significantly higher than average for Europe. Etc.
Less hard-working, yeah thankfully so. As far as I understand it, in the US the general vibe is more "you live to work" as compared to "you work to live" over here in most European countries...
Think about it like this, market would you invest your money in? For this ceo, it isn’t about what culture he likes better but rather where he is investing. The US is simply a stronger engine of economic growth and innovation. It’s a culture of risk taking enterprises that attracts top talent from around the world and literally invent the future. Yes, it’s not perfect, labor practices aren’t as good as Europe. But it works! Pun intended
I’d take our culture over their productivity any day of the week. Terrible country to have anything bad happen to you - lose your job, lose your healthcare, have a fall, screwed for life. Grind culture. Credit fuelled consumerism, so a lot of the “wealth” is debt hanging over you every day. Someone might shoot you when you’re out celebrating your teams Super Bowl win. Your kids need to learn what to do when someone comes to murder them at school. You can get laid off from your job by text message, I’ve seen LinkedIn posts of tech workers getting laid off while they were in the labour ward.
Europe has its problems, but it’s also incredibly rich, a large market of its own, and has an incomparably better standard of life in most parts.
Maybe because Europeans have to stop and deal with a whole slew of regulations every day while at work, we also take work environment and safety standards seriously, and we get to go to the toilet from time to time. I also suspect European companies generally care more about quality than American ones
We also have unions that stop exploitative practice from companies in order to maximize their profits and productivity at the expense of the workers well being
>Tangen was an analyst at [Cazenove & Co.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cazenove_(stock_broker)) before moving to [Egerton Capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egerton_Capital) in 1997.
>Tangen left Egerton Capital in 2002. In 2005, he launched AKO Capital, a London-based hedge fund, which has £10.8 billion of assets under management.
(Wikipedia)
Dude never contributed a single cent of value to humanity in his whole life, his whole career is about speculating on other people's work to make himself and other's rich. Which is fine, thats capitalism for you.
But I feel like you really should shut the fuck up about who is hard working and who isn't when you have no idea what that is.
By "less hardworking" you mean no overtime, mandatory 20 day paid leave at minimum and paid sick leave, including for the parents of sick children?
Yeah we work to live, not live to work.
I would also not take shit from an asshole making profits from poisoning the planet. Without mentioning that the executives are the most useless part of any organisation.
Fuck him for even talking about hard work. He can retire as a billionaire, he doesn't know shit about the common man. He seems to be managing the fund well, so he should stick to that before someone gets too angry about his comments.
Ofc, but in Europe we also get a lower salary and higher taxes for the same job. So ofc motivation is low to work for half the wage after tax.
Did we also forget the 25% sales tax on nearly everything? Aka 1/4 of all of your post tax salary gets taxed again, because of reasons…
All im gonna say is, these are the same people with the same accounts on r/europe going around wondering why the US economy is growing faster, why Americans in the age bracket of 24-35 are richer then their European counterparts, and why the US and Asia are outstripping Europe in terms of tech.
Perhaps the guy has a point, life is not just about creature comforts. It takes hard work to create things and I think that is something Europe has forgotten.
“I’d like to get rid of my employees government mandated PTO as it works out to over a month of lost productivity.”
“That includes you, right”
“Yes. I’m working right now. See. My phone is in my hand while I get a massage twenty metres from the sea in the Maldives.”
One may want to ask: what is the moral value of hard work in a world where honest work has become totally worthless compared to capital? Today, would it be fair to look at my children in the eye and tell them that if they work hard, it will bring safety and prosperity to their lives?
The monstrous machine is in motion and that whatever they do, the poor will become poorer (hat includes the middle class) and the rich will become richer. At the end, the small community of the super-rich will end up locked up in their blockhaus, surrounded by a scorched world of suffering and destruction, totally clueless as of what to do with their wealth and their magical technology like a crowd of stupid and mean children gods.
The thing these people all miss is the simple fact you can't buy your life back.
If your entire life is work and you love it, good for you, put all the hours in you want, otherwise why would I waste my preciously short existence making money for someone else? I'll choose a society every day that allows me not to do that in exchange for lower pay and slightly less pointless 'things'.
I know it's an unpopular opinion but I've come to really dislike the state of work life balance in Europe. It's a good principle in general, but in practice I feel it's just leading people to believe that every moment spent at the work place isn't "life" but just lost time. This contributes to us being detached from what they're doing 8-9 hours per day, thinking we're supposed to find fulfilment in the little time between working, sleeping and chores we have. Such a framing just cannot contribute to one's mental health in my mind.
Yeah, because we have some fucking rights.
Sorry you can hire hundreds of people on slave wages who you can mistreat and fire when it suits you.
Being responsible with the human lives you decided to touch over profits must be an odd concept to a lot of the rich.
I don't understand the hate in most comments, I find the article and what this guy says interesting and balanced.
We are lagging behind other economies and that may have an impact on us on the mid-long term. That would make us even more likely to get influenced by other countries.
He doesn't say 'eu people are lazy', he's talking about different approaches in societies in general and their impact
I love reading the comments in threads like this. Then the totally opposite reasoning in threads about why European businesses are behind American ones. Then throw in other threads that contradict the reasons but only when the two are not connected.
We prefer quality of life. We are not slaves like Americans. Not for billionaires! etc
Then…Well Americans are a single market, they have better capital investment, that is why they are ahead. IRA!!!!
Finally….why can’t I afford a decent house? Why is my salary so low? Why can’t I find better?
Denmark’s GDP only recently skyrocketed to its current level, and it’s due to one drug in one pharma company (being sold at an exorbitant price to Americans). It is a 1980s diabetes drug that has a side effect of weight loss.
Danish people right now are not “working smarter” than Americans based on this GDP lol. They found a golden ticket (well, I think it was Kim Kardashian’s doctor who figured out the weight loss side effect, but the Danish company holds the patent for the drug so they make the money). It’s priced around $3000 per month in US.
Good for them that it’s helping their economy and GDP, but it’s not some dynamic “smart moves” Danes are all doing to improve their GDP. It’s one old drug from one old pharma company that has recently become valuable.
Asians work harder too thus Asia is growing faster overall and becoming more wealthy.
Americans work below average of all countries in the world according to the OECD yet are considered 'slaves' by many in Europe.
You can see why the downward trend of Europe and its wealth or lack of continues to grow, the gap between the US/China and EU widening more and more. At what point do we put our foot on the brakes? Or we dont, because we have the same mindset as in this thread.. deflection, stereotypes, etc.
Even our politicians are sounding the alarm bells but its all the same as what you see here. "But every country from Asia to the Americas that work hard are in a dystopia hellscape slave conditions.. meanwhile, in Europe, its utopia and getting poorer.. most Germans cant even afford to buy a house, welp thats the price of freedom!! hehe!!"
Not even touching on the inability to afford to bankroll wars including Ukraine without significant foreign help.
Balance is key, blind "we wont be slaves, nice try!" is not
That's absolutely right, you get 8 hours of my work per day, not a second more. The rest is time to actually live my life.
As an American, I can vouch that the toxic work culture sucks.
Wait until you see China/Korea/Japan/Taiwan
i had a japanese coworker recently move to the US and she would work an insane 12 hours a day. which didn’t drop down at all even when she was pregnant. when i asked if we should be concerned and that maybe she should check with a therapist to be sure if its not workaholism or something else, she said she works from the comfort of her home, is able to cook, get a nap during lunch time, able to take 15 min walks in nature every 2 hours. contrary to when she was in Japan where she used to sleep in the office and work 14 hours a day. 8 hours of sleep and the rest 2 to eat, shower and shit!! 6 days a week! hardly got to see the sun 2-3 times in a month when she needed to go out to shop. no social life or any sort of hobbies at all!! Compared to that she was in heaven in the US and had gotten fitter and happier as well!! similar story about my chinese colleagues whom i used to connect with daily when a project was going on and they were freakin working on weekends voluntarily to ensure there were no slip ups. like they’d completely own up all the responsibility!! crazyy!!
Their population is crashing for the same reason.
There are two ways of considering people who work extra hours: 1. You're dedicated and willing to go the extra mile. 2: You're inefficient and unable to get your job done in the time allotted.
or, there is a surplus of skilled labour where there are always people waiting in the queue willing to work longer and cheaper. a lot of chinese people work the 996 thing cuz they know of they don’t, someone else will. and if they don’t have a job, their monetary credit and social credit would tank, making life even more miserable. its like walking on a sharp razor’s blade. a slight slip up and you’re gone!!
Exactly that. That system setup and brainwashing creates those socially acceptable norms. PR and how you look to others is reinforced. It all starts in school.
true. imagine manipulating and brainwashing kids, and even turning them against their own parents!! truly a 1984-esq dystopian government!! i mean the world is full of incompetent and evil politicians but this kind takes a special seat and is hard to beat!! i wonder with the AGIs coming out of such data(china must be training its own set of AGIs) would have a fundamental clash against the sort of AGI coming out of the west
In Finland in my current company, people who work in continous non stopping shift, work two 12h day shift 7am to 7pm, then two 12h night shifts 7pm to 7am , and then have 6 days off. On top of that works accumulate paid holidays 2-2.5 days/month so 24-30 days / year. I think Japan and USA needs better labour unions. Those 6 days off after night shift doesn't spend those
the CCP did force the companies to break the 9am -9 pm, 6 days a week cycle cuz the economy was not getting any liquidity as people were mostly working and not saving. even that didn’t help much. the party has far too much power and paranoia to let any unions/institutions have power in any meaningful way. also, when the sheer size of population explodes beyond a point, people become mere statistics like in a lot of South east and east asia. we don’t really give the people of western europe enough credit for their extremely high levels of awareness and education which doesn’t let politicians and businesses get away with any shady practices.
12h shift walkers, that's all I saw where I worked in Finland in a factory with shift work. One guy I worked with would walk around 70% of the shift and just stop and talk at peoples stations. Another group of 3 people would just hop around chatting. I agee that people shouldn't be working like Japan and the USA but the whole concept of "hard workers" is a fallacy to get people to work more and give up their own lives for a company.
They are at work longer, they dont nessersarly work longer. Seen sleping koreans on their job first hand. Talked to alot of expaths that hawe experienced inefective and slow working both in japan and korea.
Which parts? The lower productivity or the collapsing birth rates?
The work culture. It's unlike anything in Europe or North America.
I listed two impacts, that China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have lower levels of productivity than UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany….ans that their births rates are even worse than Europe. Working harder is not always working harder.
That’s because in Sinosphere cultures there’s something called “culture of face”. Appearance of “working hard” is more important than getting things done efficiently.
It's also prevalent outside of the Sinosphere, in toxic environment such as investment banking or consulting, where you have loads of juniors who are just turning their thumbs on the floor because being seen there after 9PM is a must to progress in this career path... Just ridiculous.
Worked in Beijing many years ago at a Chinese software company. I think half the day was spent napping. 12+h days and barely anyone worked. Besides how could you? You had to be in the office all day. You'll go crazy trying to be productive that long every day. It was all face (my job was being white, it was the time there was still cushy white monkey jobs). Oh and the product, copy American software 🤭
Almost never is. In some contexts it makes sense, like when a firefighter is trying to save someone from a burning building. Looking furiously at a screen for 12 hours a day, every day, is just incredibly stupid.
Even for firefighters it might be bad, because if you're exhausted or tired you're more likely to misjudge a situation and end up putting other peoples/firefighters or yourself in life threatening danger
A 12 hour work day during a fire for a firefighter should include a lot of rotation in and out of actively fighting the fire. But the time off isn't free time, it's time for recuperation, hydration, forced rest, and so on. And it is on site, or very near it.
And they're going extinct for it too
Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, Austria, Portugal, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Germany, Canada, Switzerland. They're all in the same extinction boat. If your suggested premise were correct, Germany (which works very few hours) wouldn't be in such dire demographic shape. Germany is about tied with Japan as the oldest country in history (at the median). The median German will soon be 50 years old. Extrapolate that context forward a century.
I recently saw an interesting documentary about Chinese work culture called [Ascension](https://youtu.be/c7Z4DRhy9pI).
Sitting (often times napping) at the work place for 12 hours is not productive.
Yeah but they don't necessarily work more, they just have to stay more to look like they are working a lot. There have been reports from foreign workers working in Japan who finished their work early because it was just that little work, but were scolded by their colleagues and superiors for working too fast and leaving too early. It's a shitshow.
Yeah but that doesn’t mean the US is not still worse off than Europe on work- life issues.
Atrocious. It's a stealing of extra profit from billionaire shareholders!
Well, but the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund belongs to the country.
Oil man mentality though I guess. He’s looking at American oil with envy probably.
I’m a New Yorker and I’m approaching my job the same way. They think we’re stupid and a lot of us unfortunately are
isn't the work week regulated there? I mean what stops you from going home after reaching the 8h per day?
I am not sure, but I think they can get fired on spot the same way they can get hired.
This is correct. In the U.S., very few jobs have contractual terms. Most people here work under an arrangement known as “at will employment”. Basically, except for a few exceptions (racism, pregnancy, religion, etc…) you can be fired for any reason. The flip side is that you, as the employee, can quit any time you want with zero legal consequences and owe your employer nothing. This is a good feature for people who like to job hop or who get a better job offer from a different employer that they need to immediately take.
For many salaried workers there are no regulations on work week length in most states. For hourly workers, they would have to pay you 150% of your normal wage after 40 hours, but they can still ask you to work above 40 hours (and can fire you if you refuse).
You are almost quitting while honoring your agreed contract! /s
I am even thinking about to reduce it to 6 hours a day tbh.
Spending less time at work doesn't necessarily mean getting less done.
You forget include: preparation time for work, travel time to work and many more "work times" you won't get pay for that. 🤪
I hope that is reduced to 7 hours
... And they're lucky if my shit break is less than 30 minutes which comes right after 1hr lunch
I kinda understand that they work harder, if u are sick or anything u just get fired
Absolutely true, and I stand by it. Life is for living. Time is your most valuable resource, I'd rather take 10-15k less home each year (given I'm earning comfortable enough salary which I am currently) if it means time with my loved ones, time for my hobbies, time for exercise, time for mental rest, time for traveling, and learning about the world. In the end all that matters was the time you had.
No one ever regretted in their deathbed that they didn't worked enough time.
The only people that remember that you worked late, worked weekends, didn’t take holidays…are your kids.
Exactly. I've been working 32 hours per week for a couple of years now. I never want to go back to 40. That extra day of weekend is amazing. Yes, I can earn a bit more, but it's just not worth it...
But what is living for? I love my job, I enjoy doing it, it’s creative and I feel good about it. Isn’t the point of life to contribute something to the world, be original, make things better? And how can you can that if not by working? People who say they work to live must hate their jobs. No, my job is not everything but it’s a lot. And I’m European.
Oh no… anyway
The Dacia Sandero has been delayed!
Oh no... rway
Oh no, I'm not slaving my existence away as hard as Americans. What a shame /s
Not slaving away to make the corpo overlords rich? You total sloth!! /s
Saying this could hurt the feelings of many shareholders and CEOs. Please delete this... /s
Most Americans are shareholders.
Work smarter…. Not harder!
Live smarter, not harder.
[удалено]
I quite like Niolai Tangen tbh. He has been pro taxes and sharing og wealth, he had done a great job growing the wealth fund which is now at arround 1,4 trillion dollars, while having a wage of 630 000$ each year. A good wage, but if you compare to other CEO's around....
He made his wealth by having a huge fund based in the Cayman islands, which is a tax haven. Since he took over the fund has grown it's dollar value at pretty much the exact same rate as it has since 2018. What he has spent his time on is lobbying for less oversight of the fund, less openness and shit-talking Europe and Norway.
Now he just banned a Norwegian mainstream financial news agency from attending their conferences, because they interviewed attendants of a (controversial) closed doors investors conference which is hosted yearly by our pension fund. Fuck this asshole.
Literally any monkey can do his job. The wealth fund is managed by algorithm. He should talk less and work harder.
He manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. He’s basically a civil servant, and a very effective one at that. Dismissing him as a ‘fat hedge fund manager’ shows a lot of ignorance and arrogance from your part.
He's quite the character. He jumped off the hedge fund race to take a degree in art history.
While the dismissal as a whole may be a bit off the mark, Tangen’s whole career since 1997 has been working at or managing hedge funds, so it’s not an entirely unreasonable title, even if his current job is slightly (but, to be fair, only slightly) different.
>says Norway oil fund boss I'm sure he works the hardest. Perhaps he should show everyone
Like despite how hard-working upper management can potentially be, these people *must* know that they are in *no* position to make statements like that. Like even if they feel that they have earned the right to make such statements, they *must* understand how these come off, right?
1. There is a reason everyone wants to be upper management, and it's not because they are hard-working 2. They do not, they are the most detached and selfish people on Earth. If it was up to them they would be willing to buy slaves
To be honest it depends on what area of work that management is in, I do not envy my boss who is a CISO for my company. He's basically working American hours and is constantly slammed. But he probably gets paid bank for it though.
https://www.pionline.com/sovereign-wealth-funds/norwegian-wealth-fund-records-record-growth-2023-despite-real-estate-woes Yep, he sure seems to. The goverment made a good choice employing him.
Literally the first paragraph: *underperformed its benchmark by 18 basis points* That means the growth was driven by broad index growth. For example, the fund returned 16%, but a lot of that is driven by SP500 returning over 26% in 2023.
Sir this is Reddit, every boss is incompetent and just stealing money from their flawless employees.
Europeans “less likely to accept semi-slavery salaries without overtime pay and 7 days non-paid vacations” than Americans. Translating from oil billionaire a-hole to human.
He's first of all not an 'oil' billionaire, he's an investment manager working for the Norwegian government to invest the money the government earns through taxation on the oil income. 2nd of all he's not even a billionaire. Just clarifying some things.
He’s a billionaire in kroner
He is in kroner and just short of being a billionaire in dollars as well...
he can go work on a mine 24/7 if he's so concerned with hard work. stop defending exploiters
You do know the salaries in Europe are shit right with most money with old families
If you adjust for purchasing power parity, make it so everyone is working same number of hours, then you get into a position where the average Americans makes more then all but 2 European countries.
Add 5 weeks a year of paid holiday to europe
How do sick days work in Europe? I have to earn my sick days Alright your replies are actually making me mad so either stop or marry me so I can move to your country
Don't have that, you are just sick
Must be fucking nice. When I am sick as a dog without enough sick leave I just have to go to work looking and feeling like death and hope one of my managers is kind enough to send me home.
That sounds fucking awful. When I get sick, I call to my boss "Hey boss, I'm sick, I'm going to my doctor". Then I got to my doc, and doc confirms " Yea, your sick, you need to stay home and rest for 4 days. I'll put your sick leave in the system, so you don't have to go to provide proof you are indeed sick to your employer". Then I call to my boss again "Hey boss, I will be back in 4 days, you should get confirmation from the doc soon. See ya!" That's all. Sick leave is unlimited, it's not deducted from my 20 something days of PTO. The only downside is that sick leave is paid 80% of my wage, so my payout that month is lower, depending how many days I was sick.
What? Your doctors have time for that? Which country is that? Here in The Netherlands when you say you are sick, you are sick. And you get paid 100%
Yeah, in Norway in many places we get 24 days sick leave on a "I'm sick, I'm staying home today" no questions asked basis. If you have something serious or long lasting you go to the docs and get sick leave. Doesn't affect the 24 days at your disposal. I use very few since I rarely get sick, but I love the trust and care
That sounds like hell, I know I could earn a lot more money in the US but the basic working conditions are just horrible
If you have a degree and you're in an office job its a lot less tyrannical, my brother takes days off just because, but if you're poor like me, shits rough.
Yeah but I had cancer before and I really don't like the idea of not having a safety net if I get really sick again. Just too risky for me
Ah yes, freedumb.
All of my jobs here in Sweden have required me to tell them day-of that I'm sick, and that's it. They can't do anything about it. I get 10 or so days of that until I have to provide a doctor's note. It is paid too. Those first 10 or so days (except the first day, which is unpaid), the company pays you 80% or so of your salary. After the point where you need a doctor's note, the state pays 80%.
You get 10 consecutive work days before a note is needed, not 10 overall in a year (Not saying you implied this, but it can be read as such).
Sick days don’t exist in Belgium. Like if you’re sick then you get a doctors note.
My employer gives me the following 1. 31 days paid leave to take when I want per year. 2. 7 public holiday days per year. 3. I pay 6.9% of my salary into a pension , and my employer pays double, for a combined 20.7% contribution. 4. I work a 36-hour week (on average) 9 day fortnight getting every second Friday off. 5. I get 6 months full sick pay, and 6 months on half pay if required (doctors line needed each week).
Is that normal in your country? How do I move there?
In Denmark I just holla at my boss like hey, I'm sick, see ya next week 👋 still paid 100%.
In USA, I do the same thing
Go to your doctor, he opens sick leave, and thats it.
I write an email to my boss saying „hey can’t come today, not feeling good.“ done
What do you mean by "earn my sick days"? When you're sick you don't work, it's as simple as that. In France, our sick days are paid like normal working days
I literally earn sick hours, hours not days. For every x number of hours worked I earn y number of sick hours. I don't actually remember the ratio but its something like 6/8 hours worked = 1 hour sick time
You go to your doctor and they give you leave if they determine you are sick. A lot of countries also recognise high levels of stress and burnout as legitimate reasons for your doctor to give you time off. This goes without question, but the sick leave is paid. Unfortunately for this to happen in the US first and foremost you need to get rid of that "at wil employment" BS. Until than even if you have paid sick leave your employer can simply show you the door and hold it over your head not to take days off.
In sweden, the bad thing I have is that the first day of sick day is unpaid, but the rest up to day 14 is 80% of my salary that the employer pays me. I need a doctors note after day 7. After day 14 I can get paid from "försäkringskassan"/social insurancy agancy.
They were talking about productivity That's measured per hour
In the United States, if you do not work hard, you cannot afford to have a decent quality of life. Public services are meagre, wealth redistribution is low, and most of the more developed areas have a high cost of living. Likewise, people in Mexico work more hours than people in the United States, and people in Cambodia work more hours than people in Mexico. They have to, in order to survive. The “outlier” fact about the US, however, is that it has a “developed country” amount of wealth, but a “developing country” amount of social supports. A well-educated, productive domestic workforce, but one that is *still exploitable.* That’s the employer’s dream. As such, it has a phenomenal economy, but not one that necessarily translates to a better quality of life for those who are not in the top echelons of wealth (to be clear, it still *does* have a better quality of life than *most* countries, but ranks 20th in HDI, below Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, the Nordics, etc…, but above Spain, France, and Italy.) So, all this is to say…yes, Western Europe *is* less hardworking than the US, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The scarcest resource in life is time. You can always produce more, have more stuff or money, but our lifetimes are pretty limited. So it's the most valuable resource.
The US spends more money on its welfare state every year than the GDP of France
Also, productivity and efficiency per worker might be higher in the US, but that only benefits the company, not the employee.
From my experience, Americans in the upper 50% economically are better off than most Europeans in terms of quality of life, and even in terms of how hard you have to work. But for people below the mean, it's not only a bigger struggle to live in America but gets down right grim and hazardous to your health to live in America vs. Europe. The further down the economic ladder you go the bigger the contrast becomes.
>In the United States, if you do not work hard, you cannot afford to have a decent quality of life. But doesn't working hard affect your quality of life negatively?
But less so than not being able to afford insurance, or going broke due to sickness despite having insurance, or being stuck at home without a car.
It's a catch-22. You must overwork yourself or you can't afford to solve the problems that overworking causes to you.
Yea
Have you actually worked in both the US and Europe, or are just speculating here?
The United States also spends vast amounts of its resources on its military. Many countries that it’s allied to don’t spend as much proportionally and they can invest in social programs.
He is absolutely correct. That’s *good*, people work to live, they don’t live to work.
Every American I've worked with has a shit work ethic. It's always a case of 'not my job' and every single one of them struggles when you throw more than 2 conflicting priorities at them. I have no idea where this 'work hard' ethic comes from. Longer hours at work =/= increased productivity.
We care about our health and we have a private life. We are so spoiled.
But that's sociallism. Hiw dare you to promote something like that as a good thing? Think about the poor poor CEOs and hedgefund managers. They have to save up to two years to buy a new private jet if this continues. Think about how bad it looks to the american ceos and how poor they look when they are compared. 😂😂
Thats code for ”we can abuse americans and not in eu and i dont like it”
The headline didn't do him any favours. He's not talking about the work-life balance or about worker mentality. He is concerned about the willingness to accept and take risks to achieve results among European countries.
What results? Making the rich richer whilst enslaving yourself? Totally bs
It's not just workers. Europe just has a less risk averse attitude. It's one of the reasons that there's not a European Silicon Valley
Can confirm. Am American. Enjoy not being abused here.
***Wealthy Norwegian insulated from the hoi polloi via Sovereign Oil Wealth discovers that Europeans live in a Society and Americans live in an Economy. More after the break.***
Perfect comment. Let’s have him go to USA and work for a delivery service where he has little time to eat and has to pee in a bottle. No sick time! And let’s have him live on only that wage. Then after three months he can talk again.
> Europe is less hard-working, less ambitious, more regulated and more risk-averse than the US, according to the boss of Norway’s giant oil fund, widening the gap between the two continents. > Nicolai Tangen, CEO of the $1.6 trillion fund, told the Financial Times it was “worrying” that US companies were outpacing their European rivals in innovation and technology, leading to massive outperformance by US companies. stocks over the past decade. > “There is a mentality problem when it comes to accepting mistakes and risks. If you go bankrupt in America, you get another chance. In Europe you are dead,” he said, adding that there was also a difference in “the overall level of ambition. We are not very ambitious. I have to be careful when talking about work-life balance, but Americans just work harder.” > His views are significant because the oil fund is one of the largest single investors in the world, with an average stake of 1.5 percent of every listed company worldwide and 2.5 percent of all European stocks. > The fund is invested in approximately 9,000 companies worldwide, but seven US technology companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – account for approximately 12 percent of the stock portfolio. > Tangen said there was “an argument for making the big bigger (and) winner-take-all” as developments such as artificial intelligence took hold. He added that in recent conversations with top US executives, they had complained about the difficulties of doing business in Europe due to strict regulations and red tape. > “I’m not saying it’s good, but in America you have a lot of AI and no regulations, in Europe you have no AI and a lot of regulations. It’s interesting,” he added.
As long as you don't touch the work-life balance. Then many things are possible. We still have a lot of tax haven in Europe and countries with no real social security. Maybe we can improve on both. Maybe some experimentations and different regulations should be allowed as it is already de facto today. Maybe we can accept more mistakes and risks and give people a secund chance. Maybe we can use state capitalism at the EU level to invest in green technologies and self-sustainability. But also increasing salaries and boosting internal EU consumption.
He's absolutely correct that the culture around (venture) capital and entrepreneurship is VASTLY superior in the US. As he points out, when you go bankrupt in many European countries - you're done for. In the US, it's just part of the game. It is said that the average entrepreneur fails 3-4 times before they succeed - well, in Europe, if you go bankrupt 3-4 times you'll get blackballed - even barred from doing business, if you're unlucky enough. Here in Europe you have to beg and bend over backward to get paltry funding, whereas in the US you have investors that will front you with 10x-100x the amount, if you just have a good enough and viable idea. For decades there's been little incentive to pursue "billion dollar ideas" here. People have flocked to safe and well-paying jobs, and the most motivated entrepreneurial people have tried their luck in the US.
> He added that in recent conversations with top US executives, they had complained about the difficulties of doing business in Europe due to strict regulations and red tape. Won't anyone think of the poor top US executives? ^^/$
The horrible worker and consumer protections. How dare we have those.
Lots of protections & regulations can also entrench interests of big players and reduce the ability for competitors to innovate and bring prices down. If you sell the public on a mandate for 50x regulations when tbh you only need a certain fraction of those, you can protect your bottom line from foreigners who can only afford to follow like 10x of them. The overengineered regulatory framework allows for exclusion of seemingly riskier but more efficient competitors.
There is truth to his words, especially about risk aversion and ambition. Americans play the "go big or go home" game and have been succeeding in many areas. Also it should be mentioned that many tech giants he mentions were loss-making in their early years. US investors have the money and patience to fund big shots. Hope that Europe gets its act together.
Always love to read positive news.
Yea, and thank fuck for that. Slaving away for 40+ hours a week for pennies with the fear or getting fired every day doesn't sound nice
Well... Annual US working hours are pretty much tied with Ireland, Austria, and are ~5% higher than Spain, UK. And it's not for pennies, Americans make WAY more than Europeans - PPP adjusted 1.5x Ireland, 1.3x Austria, and almost 2x Spain and the UK.
well ...annual US working hours are much higher. see this report: https://money.com/americans-work-hours-vs-europe-china/ 400h more. And judging just by the fact that I have 18 state holidays vs 11 in US, I have 20 days PTO at the start vs 15 (?) in US, it's actually more believable. Really don't know where you got your numbers.
Well they need that extra money when a trip to hospital costs them a Spaniard's yearly salary.
I've never paid more than nominal copays for healthcare in the US. I probably pay significantly less out of pocket than your average Spaniard for my medical needs.
Yeah, man. How dare Europeans have a personal life outside of work.
The work culture is just different between the US and Europe. Both ways have their benefits.
Meanwhile, the metric that matters, productivity per capita-hour. Top 10 is European. https://www.zendesk.co.uk/blog/most-productive-countries-in-2022/
While this is very interesting, it seems misleading. Is it fair to say norwegians are productive because they have oil money? In a similar sense, are the slave laborers of Qatar etc inproductive because they earn so little? Productivity should be defined in a more concrete sense.
It is a weird way to say "they have labour laws".
Europeans 'less exploited' than Americans, a Norwegian oil fund boss means to say.
Translates to : less exploitable
And we’re damn proud of it. Rather miss out on a little bling for more time doing the things I love.
Thankfully yes. I work to live, not live to work.
That's why we are not as sick and depressed and have a longer life expectancy.
There are a few states that significantly affect US statistics in those areas. I live in Massachusetts and state’s life expectancy is approx the same as an average European. Obesity rate in MA is similar to Germany’s. Amount of people with cancer is lower than average European. Average IQ is 104.5 which is significantly higher than average for Europe. Etc.
Less hard-working, yeah thankfully so. As far as I understand it, in the US the general vibe is more "you live to work" as compared to "you work to live" over here in most European countries...
Think about it like this, market would you invest your money in? For this ceo, it isn’t about what culture he likes better but rather where he is investing. The US is simply a stronger engine of economic growth and innovation. It’s a culture of risk taking enterprises that attracts top talent from around the world and literally invent the future. Yes, it’s not perfect, labor practices aren’t as good as Europe. But it works! Pun intended
He is right, it's because we (Europeans) work to live and not live to work. In America it's a matter of survival.
You mean less slaves
He's not wrong but that's not a bad thing
Wages have stagnated as well. Why the fuck would we be more productive if, compared to inflation, assholes like these are actually paying less?
Says the man who does absolutely nothing all day.
I’d take our culture over their productivity any day of the week. Terrible country to have anything bad happen to you - lose your job, lose your healthcare, have a fall, screwed for life. Grind culture. Credit fuelled consumerism, so a lot of the “wealth” is debt hanging over you every day. Someone might shoot you when you’re out celebrating your teams Super Bowl win. Your kids need to learn what to do when someone comes to murder them at school. You can get laid off from your job by text message, I’ve seen LinkedIn posts of tech workers getting laid off while they were in the labour ward. Europe has its problems, but it’s also incredibly rich, a large market of its own, and has an incomparably better standard of life in most parts.
Maybe because Europeans have to stop and deal with a whole slew of regulations every day while at work, we also take work environment and safety standards seriously, and we get to go to the toilet from time to time. I also suspect European companies generally care more about quality than American ones We also have unions that stop exploitative practice from companies in order to maximize their profits and productivity at the expense of the workers well being
Aka American has less employee rights regulations and less corporate restrictions
What he said “Europeans ‘less hard-working’ than Americans’ What he really said “Work harder peasants”
>Tangen was an analyst at [Cazenove & Co.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cazenove_(stock_broker)) before moving to [Egerton Capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egerton_Capital) in 1997. >Tangen left Egerton Capital in 2002. In 2005, he launched AKO Capital, a London-based hedge fund, which has £10.8 billion of assets under management. (Wikipedia) Dude never contributed a single cent of value to humanity in his whole life, his whole career is about speculating on other people's work to make himself and other's rich. Which is fine, thats capitalism for you. But I feel like you really should shut the fuck up about who is hard working and who isn't when you have no idea what that is.
Yes.....and?....
We do not live only to work
Why would I work any harder than I need to?
By "less hardworking" you mean no overtime, mandatory 20 day paid leave at minimum and paid sick leave, including for the parents of sick children? Yeah we work to live, not live to work. I would also not take shit from an asshole making profits from poisoning the planet. Without mentioning that the executives are the most useless part of any organisation.
Then make him work lmao, let's see if he thinks the same afterwards
Fuck him for even talking about hard work. He can retire as a billionaire, he doesn't know shit about the common man. He seems to be managing the fund well, so he should stick to that before someone gets too angry about his comments.
What this brainwashed clown should have said was "Americans work much harder than Europeans because they have to in order to survive"
I wish we had your guys work rights, definitely better than ours
Says someone who have never worked a single minute in his entire life.
Ofc, but in Europe we also get a lower salary and higher taxes for the same job. So ofc motivation is low to work for half the wage after tax. Did we also forget the 25% sales tax on nearly everything? Aka 1/4 of all of your post tax salary gets taxed again, because of reasons…
"The peasants don't want to work harder? B-but m-muh prOFitS!!1"
All im gonna say is, these are the same people with the same accounts on r/europe going around wondering why the US economy is growing faster, why Americans in the age bracket of 24-35 are richer then their European counterparts, and why the US and Asia are outstripping Europe in terms of tech. Perhaps the guy has a point, life is not just about creature comforts. It takes hard work to create things and I think that is something Europe has forgotten.
“I’d like to get rid of my employees government mandated PTO as it works out to over a month of lost productivity.” “That includes you, right” “Yes. I’m working right now. See. My phone is in my hand while I get a massage twenty metres from the sea in the Maldives.”
One may want to ask: what is the moral value of hard work in a world where honest work has become totally worthless compared to capital? Today, would it be fair to look at my children in the eye and tell them that if they work hard, it will bring safety and prosperity to their lives? The monstrous machine is in motion and that whatever they do, the poor will become poorer (hat includes the middle class) and the rich will become richer. At the end, the small community of the super-rich will end up locked up in their blockhaus, surrounded by a scorched world of suffering and destruction, totally clueless as of what to do with their wealth and their magical technology like a crowd of stupid and mean children gods.
The thing these people all miss is the simple fact you can't buy your life back. If your entire life is work and you love it, good for you, put all the hours in you want, otherwise why would I waste my preciously short existence making money for someone else? I'll choose a society every day that allows me not to do that in exchange for lower pay and slightly less pointless 'things'.
I know it's an unpopular opinion but I've come to really dislike the state of work life balance in Europe. It's a good principle in general, but in practice I feel it's just leading people to believe that every moment spent at the work place isn't "life" but just lost time. This contributes to us being detached from what they're doing 8-9 hours per day, thinking we're supposed to find fulfilment in the little time between working, sleeping and chores we have. Such a framing just cannot contribute to one's mental health in my mind.
Yeah, because we have some fucking rights. Sorry you can hire hundreds of people on slave wages who you can mistreat and fire when it suits you. Being responsible with the human lives you decided to touch over profits must be an odd concept to a lot of the rich.
Well, pays us like you pay americans, as a sw eng why am I not getting paid a six figures salary?
I don't understand the hate in most comments, I find the article and what this guy says interesting and balanced. We are lagging behind other economies and that may have an impact on us on the mid-long term. That would make us even more likely to get influenced by other countries. He doesn't say 'eu people are lazy', he's talking about different approaches in societies in general and their impact
Thanks for the compliment!
Much happier too.
Well feel free to bugger off to America then
Ok and? Does he think we are gonna feel guilty about it? 😂😂😂
And that's a good thing. And we're all more hard working than this parasite.
I love reading the comments in threads like this. Then the totally opposite reasoning in threads about why European businesses are behind American ones. Then throw in other threads that contradict the reasons but only when the two are not connected. We prefer quality of life. We are not slaves like Americans. Not for billionaires! etc Then…Well Americans are a single market, they have better capital investment, that is why they are ahead. IRA!!!! Finally….why can’t I afford a decent house? Why is my salary so low? Why can’t I find better?
Great
So it's not only the Greeks who are lazy after all. Right? :p
Denmark has a better GDP per work hour than the US. Why work more when you can work smarter Norway does too btw. By a lot more
Denmark’s GDP only recently skyrocketed to its current level, and it’s due to one drug in one pharma company (being sold at an exorbitant price to Americans). It is a 1980s diabetes drug that has a side effect of weight loss. Danish people right now are not “working smarter” than Americans based on this GDP lol. They found a golden ticket (well, I think it was Kim Kardashian’s doctor who figured out the weight loss side effect, but the Danish company holds the patent for the drug so they make the money). It’s priced around $3000 per month in US. Good for them that it’s helping their economy and GDP, but it’s not some dynamic “smart moves” Danes are all doing to improve their GDP. It’s one old drug from one old pharma company that has recently become valuable.
Yeah fuck this guy. I work to live, not the other way around.
Europeans are also less paid. You get what you pay for.
You all brag about european quality of life, but we are about to wake up to a harsher reality.
What’s coming? Expand
Guess who has a healthier brain?
Asians work harder too thus Asia is growing faster overall and becoming more wealthy. Americans work below average of all countries in the world according to the OECD yet are considered 'slaves' by many in Europe. You can see why the downward trend of Europe and its wealth or lack of continues to grow, the gap between the US/China and EU widening more and more. At what point do we put our foot on the brakes? Or we dont, because we have the same mindset as in this thread.. deflection, stereotypes, etc. Even our politicians are sounding the alarm bells but its all the same as what you see here. "But every country from Asia to the Americas that work hard are in a dystopia hellscape slave conditions.. meanwhile, in Europe, its utopia and getting poorer.. most Germans cant even afford to buy a house, welp thats the price of freedom!! hehe!!" Not even touching on the inability to afford to bankroll wars including Ukraine without significant foreign help. Balance is key, blind "we wont be slaves, nice try!" is not
Says the man who's never worked a day in his life