Re: [OT] Lazy Inefficient European Socialist Losers?
From: Mark Fergerson (nunya_at_biz.ness)
Date: 08/12/04
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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 06:22:00 -0700
Scott Stephens wrote:
> Thanks to Stu at misc.survivalism;
>
> http://tinyurl.com/48zy9
>
>> The grass is not greener Bruce Bartlett (archive)
>>
>> August 10, 2004 | Print | Send
>>
>> Europeans are frustrated. They have been behind the United States
>> economically for years and thought this was due to lack of economic
>> integration. So they created the European Union, with a common
>> currency and virtually free mobility of goods, capital and labor
>> throughout the continent. Yet Europe continues to lag.
But not necessarily solely because of the naive
cost/benefit analysis workers are assumed to perform
presented here. There are more differences between Europe
and America than the "work ethic" assumed herein.
<snippage here and there>
>> ... living standards are much lower in Europe than most
>> Americans imagine. This fact is highlighted in a new study by the
>> Swedish think tank Timbro. For example, it notes that the average
>> poor family here has 25 percent more living space than the average
>> European. Looking at all American households, we have about twice as
>> much space: 1,875 square feet here versus 976.5 square feet in
>> Europe. On average, Europeans only live about as well as those in the
>> poorest American state, Mississippi.
There's also the _perceived_ population density issue.
Most European cities have much narrower streets and fewer
lawns than do American cities for historical reasons, and
the more that people are crowded together, the more
psychological "turf competition" stress they feel. More
Americans have lawns, which provide (IMNSHO) a purely
psychological buffer zone, a personal piece of the "wide,
open, spaces" to separate them from their neighbors.
Some of that is offset by the fact that Socialism is more
accepted in Europe (not its economic aspects, the literal
social aspect) and crowding is more acceptable, but our
hindbrains want a certain amount of space that just isn't
available in those old cities.
>> Where Europeans are better off, perhaps, is in terms of leisure --
>> they have a lot of it. According to the Union Bank of Switzerland,
>> the typical European has two to three times as many paid days off per
>> year as Americans. And according to Eurostat, Europeans don't put in
>> much of a workday, either. According to the report, the typical
>> European only does a bit more than five hours of gainful work per
>> day, with Norwegians at the low end at four hours, 56 minutes per
>> day, and (surprisingly) the French at the high end at five hours, 44
>> minutes per day.
Well, if you spent most of your time in an anthill,
wouldn't you want out of it as often as possible?
>> One reason for the short workday is that Europeans seem to get sick a
>> lot more than Americans. According to a July 25 report in The New
>> York Times, on an average day 25 percent of Norway's workers call in
>> sick. A 2002 study in Sweden found that the average worker there took
>> more than 30 sick days per year. Makes you wonder just how good their
>> health care systems really are.
Disease transmission is easier in crowded conditions too.
>> The OECD blames the unwillingness of Europeans to work as the
>> principal reason for the lower output per worker and their lower
>> standard of living compared with Americans. "Research has clearly
>> established a remarkable fact: namely, that the sizable U.S.
>> advantage in real GDP per capita ... is largely due to differences in
>> total hours worked per capita," the report states. It urges European
>> governments to reform their labor policies to increase work hours, a
>> recommendation seconded in a recent report from the International
>> Monetary Fund.
Yeah, just make the cogs spin faster.
>> Unfortunately, neither the OECD nor the IMF has any real explanation
>> for why Europeans take so much leisure time. However, a new study by
>> economist Edward Prescott of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
>> provides the answer. He says that Europe's higher taxes explain
>> almost all the difference in labor force participation rates between
>> Europe and here. He notes that when European tax levels were
>> comparable to those here, work hours were similar. But as Europe's
>> taxes have risen, workers responded by working less.
Yet another example of planners not having to live under
the conditions they prescribe for others.
>> In short, Europeans don't work because it just doesn't pay to work
>> after the government takes its cut. And because welfare benefits are
>> so high, the cost of not working is low. Thus, when workers compare
>> what they make after-tax with what they can make by doing nothing,
>> the gap is very small.
This is all very interesting, but it ignores social and
cultural biases that affect productivity.
Got a similar analyisis comparing American and Asian
productivity?
Mark L. Fergerson
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