4 ms·

Europeans have more time, Americans more money. Which is better?

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20240505193952/https://www.ft.com/content/4e319ddd-cfbd-447a-b872-3fb66856bb65 https://web.archive.org/web/20240505193952/https://www.ft.co...
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  That one doesn't work, because archive.org isn't great at bypassing paywalls. Use this one: https://archive.is/9DB2K https://archive.is/9DB2K Previous discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40216986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40216986
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    ok guess it's a dupe :(
latexr 3y ago
The article pretty conclusively says the European model is preferable by most metrics. Yet the author couldn’t resist ending on a “both sides” argument: > True, the US produces more innovation, some of it beneficial. There is no European Google, Tesla or Facebook. Which is such an imbecilic argument even the author couldn’t commit to it. “Some of it beneficial”. Yeah, and most of it is detrimental to everyone except the people at the very top of those companies. The biggest innovations those companies are responsible for are all the different ways they can invent to fill their pockets by exploiting workers and users.
- watwut 3y ago
  I am not sure Facebook existence is some kind of net benefit to ... just about anything. Likewise google, a companies being able to capture that much of a market and market being massively biased toward "winner takes all" instead of creating competition between many lower players is not necessary a good thing. Likewise Tesla, but for different reasons. There was a unique vision ... but also a lot of lies on their path.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    Also Tesla, while successful as a business, cannot really be describe as a champion of innovation. Electric cars did exist before and would have developed anyway because of stricter and stricter emissions laws even if Tesla never happened. What they did great was targetting the über riches instead of trying to sell inexpensive EVs for urban dwellers first. But that is more market research than innovation.
- thehappypm 3y ago
  It’s not imbecilic, it’s actually a very real effect. If you want to innovate, why bother in Europe? Taxes are high, VC funding is impossible, the workforce is going to spend half the time working as an American. A friend of mine tried to start a startup in Germany and he said his only option to raise money was to go to a bank for a loan, which would only be approved if he had a profitable company. He moved to the US.
  - grugagag 3y ago
    The siren call is entrepreneurship. But overall how many people win this game and how many people just want normal lives? We tend to hear stories of winners but not so much of wrecked lives.
  - snowpid 3y ago
    " VC funding is impossible ". Sorry but wrong.
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    On a contrary note, many more of my circle in the UK are running small businesses than their peers in the US. N.B. the distinction between startup and small business. The US is not a very friendly place to run a small agency or an artist's studio - here in the UK it costs a few pounds to register a company (or nothing as a sole trader), and doing accountancy and compliance is WAY easier. It's fairly simple to employ someone in the UK, but it's hard in the US without a league of accountants and lawyers behind you - hence why stuff like Stripe Atlas exists. I wouldn't run a business in the US with revenue below 150k.
    - iteria 3y ago
      I am so confused by this comment. Accounting software for small businesses is standard. Quick books is so ubiquitous and it's dirt cheap and supposed to be operated by a lay person. There are whole professions here are almost exclusively small businesses. Trucking being a decent call out. I know several moonlighting tech people who spun up single person businesses using a template and carried on that way for years just using very basic accounting software. They do contracts and everything on their own. I have an aunt who has spun up several businesses doing business with the actual federal government and she's never had more than an accountant she has check her receipts for taxes. She has no background in anything and somehow was able to launch these businesses. I have writer friends and artist friends who have LLCs. I've never heard anything like what you're talking about. I don't know anything about the UK, but it most certainly is not hard to spin up a business in the US.
janandonly 3y ago
As a European, I can tell from experience that my US friends are usually yellow with jealousy (in a good way) when I mention the fact that: 1. I work part-time 2. live rent-controlled 3. have an affordable healthcare insurance (€125 p/m) and car insurance (€50 p/m). 4. and have 15 holidays per year (but I only need 3 days “holidays” to take a whole week off because I work part-time). True, I earn a lot less than some California friends, I don't drive a new BMW and I don't go to Disney every month. But that's not what my life is about anyway.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  > affordable healthcare insurance (€125 p/m) you sure about that? where on earth do you live to pay this little?
  - linschn 3y ago
    I dont know about OP, but here in France I pay 40€/month, and my children are covered too.
  - mr_world 3y ago
    In NL healthcare I pay about €150 p/m, covers everything except dental and vision, which you can add for a bit more
  - t_von_doom 3y ago
    When I read the post, my initial thought that 125 p/m was on the expensive side!
  - navane 3y ago
    I pay about the same, slightly west of Germany. One of my tropes is that breaking bad couldn't have been written in Europe, as the cancer treatment is covered for everyone.
  - arethuza 3y ago
    "where on earth do you live to pay this little?" Not being from the US I'm slightly surprised that you are surprised!
fire_lake 3y ago
In the UK we have neither :)
- user90131313 3y ago
  yes but at least Brexit really happened.
  - michaelteter 3y ago
    That has worked out well for you...
- switch007 3y ago
  We don't have time in the UK? Average hours worked per week 39.6. Annually we're pretty far down the rankings Many salaried jobs give 20-25 days holiday in addition to public holidays (another 8/9/10 days) WFH and hybrid is still quite popular, reducing time spent commuting. Average daily commute is around an hour in total.
KenArrari 3y ago
In jobs where people get paid hourly and have access to overtime, they compete with each other to get those extra hours. Revealed preferences say they want the money more than the time.
- Scarblac 3y ago
  In the US, or in Europe?
- yungporko 3y ago
  that's most likely because the people who work those jobs are usually struggling to make ends meet and desperately need every penny they can get. if their needs were met, i'm certain that would change.
  - KenArrari 3y ago
    Well that amount of money is what Europeans are living on (even with typically higher costs of living), so it's still not a tradeoff people would make.
    - yungporko 3y ago
      that statement is absolute gibberish. "what europeans are living on" and their cost of living varies massively by country or even by town/city.
  - PopAlongKid 3y ago
    >the people who work those jobs are usually struggling to make ends meet You are omitting the large swath of government and civil-service type employees - cops, firefighters, transit workers, utility field workers - whose base salary alone avoids "struggling to make ends meet", but they still want that overtime because time and a half or doubletime at their income level is quite lucrative, plus it helps to spike their eventual pension amount (although lawmakers are slowly wising up to that and cutting off the opportunities for new hires, although they can't change the deals the current workers already negotiated).
- 3y ago
vouaobrasil 3y ago
It kind of depends on how much you are willing to "hack the system". If you just want a job for life, the European system is way better. But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit, move to a very cheap area, and become an independent with a passive income stream. Of course, that mainly works if you do something like STEM (high-paid programmer, finance, etc.) But since the article is about having "more money", I thought it was worth mentioning.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit That accounts for about 0% of the population. Well, probably many people want to retire after a few years, but almost no one actually can do it. So saying that it's better for those people at the expense of everyone else is pretty much just saying it's worse.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    I didn't say retire, as I mentioned in the rest of my post that you left out. I just said start your own independent thing (like small business, passive income, content creator, etc.)
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  To be brutally honest, only the Wall Street elites can effectively pull that off. But then finance guys in Europe don’t do that bad either. Other than the frantic pace of innovation, there is nothing to brag about the American system. It is glorified servitude for the majority, where the real “winners” are at the top and even they aren’t “happy” by any measure. Financial freedom alone doesn’t equate to living and contentment - that requires a shift in the “I need to X so I can do/have/feel Y” mindset. Sadly, American economy thrives on this - the people pulling all the strings show carrots to the masses because it serves their purpose. The masses keep falling for it and the cycle repeats itself in perpetuity. Like I said, this is great for innovation (to motivate people towards a capitalistic endeavour) but is absolutely soul crushing and mind numbing. Burnout is imminent.
grugagag 3y ago
I basically work to buy myself time to be with my family and in the US that is so expensive that after bills all I’m left with is about 2 weeks a year. And when I go on vacation I go outside of the US as I get a lot more for the money and it is cheaper.
PeterStuer 3y ago
You can't buy more lifetime.

archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20240505193952/https://www.ft.com/content/4e319ddd-cfbd-447a-b872-3fb66856bb65 https://web.archive.org/web/20240505193952/https://www.ft.co...

A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
That one doesn't work, because archive.org isn't great at bypassing paywalls. Use this one: https://archive.is/9DB2K https://archive.is/9DB2K Previous discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40216986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40216986
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  ok guess it's a dupe :(

latexr 3y ago

The article pretty conclusively says the European model is preferable by most metrics. Yet the author couldn’t resist ending on a “both sides” argument: > True, the US produces more innovation, some of it beneficial. There is no European Google, Tesla or Facebook. Which is such an imbecilic argument even the author couldn’t commit to it. “Some of it beneficial”. Yeah, and most of it is detrimental to everyone except the people at the very top of those companies. The biggest innovations those companies are responsible for are all the different ways they can invent to fill their pockets by exploiting workers and users.

watwut 3y ago
I am not sure Facebook existence is some kind of net benefit to ... just about anything. Likewise google, a companies being able to capture that much of a market and market being massively biased toward "winner takes all" instead of creating competition between many lower players is not necessary a good thing. Likewise Tesla, but for different reasons. There was a unique vision ... but also a lot of lies on their path.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Also Tesla, while successful as a business, cannot really be describe as a champion of innovation. Electric cars did exist before and would have developed anyway because of stricter and stricter emissions laws even if Tesla never happened. What they did great was targetting the über riches instead of trying to sell inexpensive EVs for urban dwellers first. But that is more market research than innovation.
thehappypm 3y ago
It’s not imbecilic, it’s actually a very real effect. If you want to innovate, why bother in Europe? Taxes are high, VC funding is impossible, the workforce is going to spend half the time working as an American. A friend of mine tried to start a startup in Germany and he said his only option to raise money was to go to a bank for a loan, which would only be approved if he had a profitable company. He moved to the US.
- grugagag 3y ago
  The siren call is entrepreneurship. But overall how many people win this game and how many people just want normal lives? We tend to hear stories of winners but not so much of wrecked lives.
- snowpid 3y ago
  " VC funding is impossible ". Sorry but wrong.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  On a contrary note, many more of my circle in the UK are running small businesses than their peers in the US. N.B. the distinction between startup and small business. The US is not a very friendly place to run a small agency or an artist's studio - here in the UK it costs a few pounds to register a company (or nothing as a sole trader), and doing accountancy and compliance is WAY easier. It's fairly simple to employ someone in the UK, but it's hard in the US without a league of accountants and lawyers behind you - hence why stuff like Stripe Atlas exists. I wouldn't run a business in the US with revenue below 150k.
  - iteria 3y ago
    I am so confused by this comment. Accounting software for small businesses is standard. Quick books is so ubiquitous and it's dirt cheap and supposed to be operated by a lay person. There are whole professions here are almost exclusively small businesses. Trucking being a decent call out. I know several moonlighting tech people who spun up single person businesses using a template and carried on that way for years just using very basic accounting software. They do contracts and everything on their own. I have an aunt who has spun up several businesses doing business with the actual federal government and she's never had more than an accountant she has check her receipts for taxes. She has no background in anything and somehow was able to launch these businesses. I have writer friends and artist friends who have LLCs. I've never heard anything like what you're talking about. I don't know anything about the UK, but it most certainly is not hard to spin up a business in the US.

janandonly 3y ago

As a European, I can tell from experience that my US friends are usually yellow with jealousy (in a good way) when I mention the fact that: 1. I work part-time 2. live rent-controlled 3. have an affordable healthcare insurance (€125 p/m) and car insurance (€50 p/m). 4. and have 15 holidays per year (but I only need 3 days “holidays” to take a whole week off because I work part-time). True, I earn a lot less than some California friends, I don't drive a new BMW and I don't go to Disney every month. But that's not what my life is about anyway.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
> affordable healthcare insurance (€125 p/m) you sure about that? where on earth do you live to pay this little?
- linschn 3y ago
  I dont know about OP, but here in France I pay 40€/month, and my children are covered too.
- mr_world 3y ago
  In NL healthcare I pay about €150 p/m, covers everything except dental and vision, which you can add for a bit more
- t_von_doom 3y ago
  When I read the post, my initial thought that 125 p/m was on the expensive side!
- navane 3y ago
  I pay about the same, slightly west of Germany. One of my tropes is that breaking bad couldn't have been written in Europe, as the cancer treatment is covered for everyone.
- arethuza 3y ago
  "where on earth do you live to pay this little?" Not being from the US I'm slightly surprised that you are surprised!

fire_lake 3y ago

In the UK we have neither :)

user90131313 3y ago
yes but at least Brexit really happened.
- michaelteter 3y ago
  That has worked out well for you...
switch007 3y ago
We don't have time in the UK? Average hours worked per week 39.6. Annually we're pretty far down the rankings Many salaried jobs give 20-25 days holiday in addition to public holidays (another 8/9/10 days) WFH and hybrid is still quite popular, reducing time spent commuting. Average daily commute is around an hour in total.

KenArrari 3y ago

In jobs where people get paid hourly and have access to overtime, they compete with each other to get those extra hours. Revealed preferences say they want the money more than the time.

Scarblac 3y ago
In the US, or in Europe?
yungporko 3y ago
that's most likely because the people who work those jobs are usually struggling to make ends meet and desperately need every penny they can get. if their needs were met, i'm certain that would change.
- KenArrari 3y ago
  Well that amount of money is what Europeans are living on (even with typically higher costs of living), so it's still not a tradeoff people would make.
  - yungporko 3y ago
    that statement is absolute gibberish. "what europeans are living on" and their cost of living varies massively by country or even by town/city.
- PopAlongKid 3y ago
  >the people who work those jobs are usually struggling to make ends meet You are omitting the large swath of government and civil-service type employees - cops, firefighters, transit workers, utility field workers - whose base salary alone avoids "struggling to make ends meet", but they still want that overtime because time and a half or doubletime at their income level is quite lucrative, plus it helps to spike their eventual pension amount (although lawmakers are slowly wising up to that and cutting off the opportunities for new hires, although they can't change the deals the current workers already negotiated).
3y ago

vouaobrasil 3y ago

It kind of depends on how much you are willing to "hack the system". If you just want a job for life, the European system is way better. But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit, move to a very cheap area, and become an independent with a passive income stream. Of course, that mainly works if you do something like STEM (high-paid programmer, finance, etc.) But since the article is about having "more money", I thought it was worth mentioning.

thfuran 3y ago
>But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit That accounts for about 0% of the population. Well, probably many people want to retire after a few years, but almost no one actually can do it. So saying that it's better for those people at the expense of everyone else is pretty much just saying it's worse.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I didn't say retire, as I mentioned in the rest of my post that you left out. I just said start your own independent thing (like small business, passive income, content creator, etc.)
sheepscreek 3y ago
To be brutally honest, only the Wall Street elites can effectively pull that off. But then finance guys in Europe don’t do that bad either. Other than the frantic pace of innovation, there is nothing to brag about the American system. It is glorified servitude for the majority, where the real “winners” are at the top and even they aren’t “happy” by any measure. Financial freedom alone doesn’t equate to living and contentment - that requires a shift in the “I need to X so I can do/have/feel Y” mindset. Sadly, American economy thrives on this - the people pulling all the strings show carrots to the masses because it serves their purpose. The masses keep falling for it and the cycle repeats itself in perpetuity. Like I said, this is great for innovation (to motivate people towards a capitalistic endeavour) but is absolutely soul crushing and mind numbing. Burnout is imminent.

grugagag 3y ago

I basically work to buy myself time to be with my family and in the US that is so expensive that after bills all I’m left with is about 2 weeks a year. And when I go on vacation I go outside of the US as I get a lot more for the money and it is cheaper.

PeterStuer 3y ago

You can't buy more lifetime.