5 ms·

It is wishful thinking that policy makers understood (or even understand today) the 'tradeoff' or have any real awareness of the systematic effects of said labo

by jariel 6y ago

It is wishful thinking that policy makers understood (or even understand today) the 'tradeoff' or have any real awareness of the systematic effects of said labour policies. Many of the 'side effect' realities, for example as cited by the OP are very real, and go somewhat unmeasured or sidelined. Europe is not doing very well, it's treading above water, fumbling from crisis to crisis without any obvious pathways out. After the US-driven 2008 crisis, there were years of serious problems with the Euro, to the point wherein Italian banks (and others) were teetering on failure, two national governments were overthrown by the EU (Greece, Italy) there was a major migration crisis ... and then COVID hit. All of this with very problematic demographics, a rising China and an antagonizing US - it does not bode well. That France (and arguably Spain and Italy) did not undergo similar labour reforms similar to 'sick man of the 1990's Germany' has created ongoing damage. It's not all a 'one sided story' but there need to be intelligent labour reforms. The commenter echoes real sentiments across the business community with respect to hiring, even if it's not so perfectly accurate - 'firing' people in France is actually very difficult and a legit barrier to anyone wanting to expand there, among other things. People don't need to take a year off when they have children. They can, at some reduce pay perhaps, that would be a nice option, but the community doesn't need to share most of that burden.

brnt 6y ago
Those policies are discussed in the open, don't generalize your countries dysfunctional political culture to the rest of the world. Also, don't assume then that your legislators considered the externalities such as poverty and working poor of such a disparate society. Europe is fine, don't confuse the absence of tophits for an absence of a strong middle class. I'm tempted to say Europe is in fact one of the most resilient economies at the moment for this reason, but that is not a very relevant debate here. What people need should be for them to decide. Staying with your newborn until the age of 1 does not seem wildly out of the ordinary for us a species (we notably born prematurely anyway). And then requiring equality also does not seem unnecessary to me ( in order to give families the choice of whose career to sacrifice). You couldnt demonstrate better why I will never leave Europe for work, I just don't share that Protestant work ethic to which so much seems to be sacrificed. There are other things in life. Perhaps not yours, but certainly in mine. I wish everybody to opportunity to have a life outside of work, even if they decline to make use of the right.
- jariel 6y ago
  "Those policies are discussed in the open, " It's the opposite. French labour policy for example is a giant political boondoggle. It's one series of short-signed populist back-room deals after the next. What 'serious reform' looks like is the 'Hartz concept' [1] - nothing like it exists really in the rest of the EU. The results of French labour policy mean consistently almost 2x the unemployment rate of US/UK/Germany, for example. [2] This is not an example of 'strong' it's an example of 'very weak' and it hurts quite a lot of people. A perfect example of shortsighted, populist, untenable policy: Hollande's 'Supertax' on the rich [3]. This was an an act of self-destruction, not construction. While Hartz is widely viewed as being a giant success, none of the French economic reforms made sense, and none of them have helped. And FYI Europe doesn't have a middle class, and remember includes places like Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Greece, S. Italy which are actually quite poor. European nations individually have 'decent' Gini coefficients, but if you do the 'EU-wide' coefficient it's quite bad. Average Slovak is nowhere near the average Swede. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept [2] https://data.oecd.org/unemp/unemployment-rate.htm https://data.oecd.org/unemp/unemployment-rate.htm [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-75percent-supertax https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-7...
  - ebalit 6y ago
    The EU gini coefficients don't seems that bad [0]. Did you take into account the difference in the cost of living in the different countries? [0] http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?lang=en&dataset=ilc_di12 http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?lang=en&data...
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  "Europe" in the sense you speak of just isn't. EU as an economic space has huge internal periphery with all the typical problems thereof (high unemployment, flight of young qualified workforce elsewhere). It is quite easy to visualize, actually. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics_at_regional_level https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... My wife is a huge fan of Spanish culture. We travel there often (pre-Covid, but hopefully also post-Covid). Andalucía is by far the worst region in Western Europe I have seen, as far as hopelessness and lack of future prospects goes.

by jariel 6y ago

brnt 6y ago

Those policies are discussed in the open, don't generalize your countries dysfunctional political culture to the rest of the world. Also, don't assume then that your legislators considered the externalities such as poverty and working poor of such a disparate society. Europe is fine, don't confuse the absence of tophits for an absence of a strong middle class. I'm tempted to say Europe is in fact one of the most resilient economies at the moment for this reason, but that is not a very relevant debate here. What people need should be for them to decide. Staying with your newborn until the age of 1 does not seem wildly out of the ordinary for us a species (we notably born prematurely anyway). And then requiring equality also does not seem unnecessary to me ( in order to give families the choice of whose career to sacrifice). You couldnt demonstrate better why I will never leave Europe for work, I just don't share that Protestant work ethic to which so much seems to be sacrificed. There are other things in life. Perhaps not yours, but certainly in mine. I wish everybody to opportunity to have a life outside of work, even if they decline to make use of the right.

jariel 6y ago
"Those policies are discussed in the open, " It's the opposite. French labour policy for example is a giant political boondoggle. It's one series of short-signed populist back-room deals after the next. What 'serious reform' looks like is the 'Hartz concept' [1] - nothing like it exists really in the rest of the EU. The results of French labour policy mean consistently almost 2x the unemployment rate of US/UK/Germany, for example. [2] This is not an example of 'strong' it's an example of 'very weak' and it hurts quite a lot of people. A perfect example of shortsighted, populist, untenable policy: Hollande's 'Supertax' on the rich [3]. This was an an act of self-destruction, not construction. While Hartz is widely viewed as being a giant success, none of the French economic reforms made sense, and none of them have helped. And FYI Europe doesn't have a middle class, and remember includes places like Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Greece, S. Italy which are actually quite poor. European nations individually have 'decent' Gini coefficients, but if you do the 'EU-wide' coefficient it's quite bad. Average Slovak is nowhere near the average Swede. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept [2] https://data.oecd.org/unemp/unemployment-rate.htm https://data.oecd.org/unemp/unemployment-rate.htm [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-75percent-supertax https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-7...
- ebalit 6y ago
  The EU gini coefficients don't seems that bad [0]. Did you take into account the difference in the cost of living in the different countries? [0] http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?lang=en&dataset=ilc_di12 http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?lang=en&data...
inglor_cz 6y ago
"Europe" in the sense you speak of just isn't. EU as an economic space has huge internal periphery with all the typical problems thereof (high unemployment, flight of young qualified workforce elsewhere). It is quite easy to visualize, actually. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics_at_regional_level https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... My wife is a huge fan of Spanish culture. We travel there often (pre-Covid, but hopefully also post-Covid). Andalucía is by far the worst region in Western Europe I have seen, as far as hopelessness and lack of future prospects goes.