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Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leav

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

jopsen 8y ago
In my experience all Americans want to help people in need, but when it comes to footing the bill, half of the population becomes very silent. I don't mind paying 50/50 in taxes or around there.. I don't have to feel bad about not helping people in need in Denmark. (Yes, yes, taxes does alleviate my personal responsibility for being a nice person who helps other people -- but small acts of kindness doesn't scale)
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  They don’t want to help, they just want to say they do.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    I believe they are sincere..
dummyload 8y ago
US is optimized for individual gain, not societies gain as a whole. This is the thing which attracts immigrants from all over the socialist/communist republics of the world and they are the ones who make it big. No one wants to change that, there is double speak here when people do sympathize but when it comes to foot the bill, no tax payer is ready for that.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  > No one wants to change that There is a continuous stream of polls showing things like “More Americans now want to raise taxes on corporations and high incomes, than lower them”. Obviously most Americans don’t have high incomes so it’s still someone else’s bill - but sentiments are shifting somewhat.
umanwizard 8y ago
> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.
- markdown 8y ago
  > Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail. > What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. > the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues. And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    > See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have loads of problems. So I'm not sure what your point is with democracy and the space program. As for "powerful", I also don't see how that's relevant. China is extremely powerful, and Switzerland is not powerful at all. However I would bet my life that a greater fraction of Swiss than Chinese people have access to sick leave. Yes, the US is prosperous in some ways, and not in others. > And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is. Actually that was the point of my entire post. Everything else in the post was an illustration of that point. Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions. So it doesn't make sense to reason as though "the US" made some sort of irrational bad decision to be a shitty country where people can't take the day off of work. It doesn't make decisions at all in the way a human being does. It's an emergent system with no mind of its own and must be understood as such.
zeroname 8y ago
Who is paying for those five extra days? Is it the health insurance? Your cost of health care will go up or service will get worse. Is it taxes? Your taxes will go up or money will be missing in the budget (or you will need to get more debt). Is it the employer? Wage suppression. You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch. I will make an exception though: If you make people stay home when they are sick, you may reduce sickness overall. However, if people spend their entire "Family Care Leave" on rugby matches and then illness strikes, it's not going to work.
- markdown 8y ago
  > Who is paying for those five extra days? The cost is shared between taxpayers and the employer – employers get a 150% tax deduction for wages paid for family care leave. Taxes will go up, and perhaps some prices. This is good. > You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch. Workers maybe haven't gained anything, but a worker has, and that's wonderful. You can argue all you want about economic models and the absence of free lunches but at the end of the day, a parent who needs to take care of a sick child gets to do that, and having the cost paid elsewhere in taxes or higher prices is a boon.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    The cost isn't paid elsewhere. It's essentially going straight out of their own paycheck. Not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days. Remember, everyone gets those five days. Big earners, small earners. It evens out to nothing. Everyone can't live at the expense of everyone else.
    - markdown 8y ago
      An American parent has a sick child but can't care for them. A Fijian parent has a sick child and can care for them. This comes out of their own paycheck (not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days) If you really don't see how the latter position is so vastly better for the individual parent than I don't know what to say. Perhaps you've never been a wage slave.

jopsen 8y ago

In my experience all Americans want to help people in need, but when it comes to footing the bill, half of the population becomes very silent. I don't mind paying 50/50 in taxes or around there.. I don't have to feel bad about not helping people in need in Denmark. (Yes, yes, taxes does alleviate my personal responsibility for being a nice person who helps other people -- but small acts of kindness doesn't scale)

lotsofpulp 8y ago
They don’t want to help, they just want to say they do.
- jopsen 8y ago
  I believe they are sincere..

dummyload 8y ago

US is optimized for individual gain, not societies gain as a whole. This is the thing which attracts immigrants from all over the socialist/communist republics of the world and they are the ones who make it big. No one wants to change that, there is double speak here when people do sympathize but when it comes to foot the bill, no tax payer is ready for that.

alkonaut 8y ago
> No one wants to change that There is a continuous stream of polls showing things like “More Americans now want to raise taxes on corporations and high incomes, than lower them”. Obviously most Americans don’t have high incomes so it’s still someone else’s bill - but sentiments are shifting somewhat.

umanwizard 8y ago

> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

markdown 8y ago
> Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail. > What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. > the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues. And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have loads of problems. So I'm not sure what your point is with democracy and the space program. As for "powerful", I also don't see how that's relevant. China is extremely powerful, and Switzerland is not powerful at all. However I would bet my life that a greater fraction of Swiss than Chinese people have access to sick leave. Yes, the US is prosperous in some ways, and not in others. > And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is. Actually that was the point of my entire post. Everything else in the post was an illustration of that point. Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions. So it doesn't make sense to reason as though "the US" made some sort of irrational bad decision to be a shitty country where people can't take the day off of work. It doesn't make decisions at all in the way a human being does. It's an emergent system with no mind of its own and must be understood as such.

zeroname 8y ago

Who is paying for those five extra days? Is it the health insurance? Your cost of health care will go up or service will get worse. Is it taxes? Your taxes will go up or money will be missing in the budget (or you will need to get more debt). Is it the employer? Wage suppression. You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch. I will make an exception though: If you make people stay home when they are sick, you may reduce sickness overall. However, if people spend their entire "Family Care Leave" on rugby matches and then illness strikes, it's not going to work.

markdown 8y ago
> Who is paying for those five extra days? The cost is shared between taxpayers and the employer – employers get a 150% tax deduction for wages paid for family care leave. Taxes will go up, and perhaps some prices. This is good. > You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch. Workers maybe haven't gained anything, but a worker has, and that's wonderful. You can argue all you want about economic models and the absence of free lunches but at the end of the day, a parent who needs to take care of a sick child gets to do that, and having the cost paid elsewhere in taxes or higher prices is a boon.
- zeroname 8y ago
  The cost isn't paid elsewhere. It's essentially going straight out of their own paycheck. Not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days. Remember, everyone gets those five days. Big earners, small earners. It evens out to nothing. Everyone can't live at the expense of everyone else.
  - markdown 8y ago
    An American parent has a sick child but can't care for them. A Fijian parent has a sick child and can care for them. This comes out of their own paycheck (not immediately and in equal measure, but over time and on the average. It's effectively vacation days) If you really don't see how the latter position is so vastly better for the individual parent than I don't know what to say. Perhaps you've never been a wage slave.