Is superior or anything to be emulated.
John Mace your arguments indeed ring true for the Ireland of the early 1990s. But via the springboard of inward investment, innovation was sparked and continues, with a net gain to the country. I personally work for a cutting-edge tech company that’s producing its own products and leading its field, and it’s 100% Irish. There are lots of other companies like us in this country.
International countries are still locating here, even though the unemployment rate is now close to zero.
And of course Ireland is also driven by growth - indeed every capitalist country is.
One of the attractions of inward investment into Ireland has been the high education level of the workforce - something that wouldn’t have happened with private tertiary education.
:smack: “International companies are still locating here”
I agree on the pensions issue crisis. People in the Netherlands are [as of a month ago] told to work longer than the original 57 years. Too many old people, not enough money.
I also agree on Europeans leaning heavily on the Americans for technical and military support.
Ireland excepted, apparently, Europe isn’t doing all that great. No matter what the Euro says.
What interest me enormously is this:
Originally posted by ** BrainGlutton**
I have no clue. I know that more than half of our country is atheïst or agnostic.
Some catholics, some protestants, some other and a lot of muslims.
If your idea is correct, BrainGlutton, then I guess I have to find me a god of some sort, in order to get our country on it’s feet again? 
Drat.
You seem to have your “a lot” in the wrong place.
Are you suggesting that we could get Americans to work less by raising marginal tax rates, or work more by lowering tax rates? I’m not convinced it would be that simple. Correlation does not always imply causation.
Most of this sounds pretty good, but what about a 35 hour week would be dangerous? I work a 40 hour week, plus occasional overtime as needed. But, some of that time is unproductive. I take my rest breaks, stretch my legs, have the occasional bull session etc, as most people do. Then factor in the nature of my work… sometimes everything happens at once and sometimes it is pretty slow. It runs in cycles I suspect. So, just because I am at work for 40 hours does not mean I am working hard for the entire 40 hours. We do have occaional slack time and as long as the work is being done, the boss doesn’t worry. Shaving some time off the work week would not have any impact in my case (which is probably typical of a lot of ofice work).
I just looked into the link. I think you reproduced that portion of the article fairly accurately. It is simply a list of things at which America is the best (in the top 3) and worst (in the bottom 3) amongst advanced democracies. Again, I wonder what woul happen if the socio-economic strata of the United States were more closely modeled by including more of Eastern Europe. But perhaps you are right, the items listed are not intended to demonstrate paradoxes. That, of course, diminishes the title of the piece a bit.
What I’m suggesting is that we may not have to trade high productivity for high income disparity. They may be indepeneant variables.
Well, if it’s that important to you, I’ll volunteer! 
BrainGlutton, God of the Netherlands! You’ll find me easy to please! All I demand is occasional offerings in the form of cash, gouda cheese, buds of whatever kind won at this year’s Hempfest, and five teenaged Dutch virgins a week. Eh? What do you mean, you don’t have that many?
Mostly, restrictive immigration and work policies, for many people. Unless the person you were addressing this to is independently rich, how would they live in Europe without being allowed to work?
I could be wrong, but it’s my understanding that decades ago, there was some talk of America being in the EU when that got started. How I wish, oh how I wish, that had been the case. It’d be nice to be able to consider living there as an option, instead of only rarely visiting as a weak currency tourist.
I wanted to also say that the American vacation of two weeks only is something of a shibboleth. Many of us get more than that after we’ve been on the same job for awhile; I work for a large company, and having been there over five years, accrue four weeks of vacation a year. In addition there are nine official holidays.
But it is true that virtually nobody ever takes their entire yearly allotment of vacation at once. For most white-collar, professional employees–programmers, accountants, and such, it’s a rarity to have competent backup for all your job responsibilities while you are away. So usually we take a couple days here, and a couple of days there, or perhaps a week. If European business are better at managing and organizing things so that people can go off for a month without disrupting the operation, perhaps we can learn a thing or two from them.
[aside] jjimm, The country has a total area of 16,485 square miles, and its population is approximately 16.2 million. Approximately 31 percent of the population consider themselves Roman Catholic, 14 percent Dutch Reformed, 6 percent Muslim, 6 percent Calvinist Reformed, 3 percent non-Christian (Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist), and 40 percent atheist or agnostic.
The number of Muslims continues to rise steadily primarily due to Turkish and Moroccan immigrants marrying partners from their countries of origin.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35475.htm
&
http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Nieuws/1997/06/19/Vp/01.html
RIJSWIJK, 19 JUNI. De islam kan in 2020 de tweede godsdienstige richting van Nederland zijn. Zeven procent van de bevolking hangt dan de islam aan. Daarmee staat deze religie dan onder de rooms-katholieken (10 procent) en boven de hervormden (4 procent) en de gereformeerden (3 procent).
I find that a lot. [/aside]
BrainGlutton hehehehe at the virgins. Five a week, huh. How about one a year? We can manage that. Extra buds if you’ll agree, Oh great Glutton god.
What has your surface area to do with anything whatsoever?
So the stats have changed by less than two percentage points since the figures I quoted. Whatever.
What you did is to choose in your post to label one of the smallest religions in your country as “a lot”, and to label the vastly preponderant religion as “some”.
Now why on earth would someone make such an irrelevant and disproportionate distinction?
Yes. I am saying precisely that – or, conversely, that European governments could get their citizens to work more by lowering marginal tax rates – and that it is that simple. In fact, it’s very, very simple – if you tax something less you get more of it, whether it’s labor or capital or consumption or, believe it or not, land (OK, developed land). To be sure, the relationship is not linear across the board; there is a tail on both sides. But overall, there’s literally no controversy about whether higher taxes decrease the incentive and propensity to work.
What’s so astonishing about the Minny Fed study is how closely correlated tax rates and labor supply are and how far the relationship holds linear. Close enough to render a lot of other possible candidates for variables essentially irrelevant (level and duration of unemployment or welfare benefits, for example). About the only things which throw it off are massive political or economic instability and availability of child care when marginal rates are very high.
Posted by jjimm
Maybe because we are in deep shit over some of that “small number” [1 million muslims on 16 million people] right now, don’t you think, jjimm? Would that be natural for me to feel? Or not quite PC enough for ya? Perhaps my thoughts ought to go to - let’s see - a nice blondie for a while, huh. Would that appease you, jjimm? I’ll try to remember when it was the last time a nice blondie shot and stabbed someone, nearly decapitated him and left a letter pinned with a knife in his stomach, okay, jimm?
BG: I think you’ll find the Euros clamoring to move here are highly-educated or highly-skilled professionals (no cite for that, but people often speak of a “brain drain” moving west across the Atlantic). The reason for that would be obvious: Such people can make a lot of money here, and America is a very good place to be rich. But that does not mean the things that make it so are good for the rest of us.
JM: *Even if this is true, it only goes to illustrate the point. You want to design a society in which the most productive members would tend to want to leave. *
You’re overlooking the fact that quite a few American “highly-educated or highly-skilled professionals” emigrate to Europe as it is. The highly educated and highly skilled in all societies tend to be more internationally mobile than the rest of the population. In fact, AFAIK, emigration rates for Western European countries are not much higher than for the US, and in some cases lower than for Canada. (And when you take into account the fact that many emigrants from Western European countries move to another Western European country, the effective migration rate from W. Europe is even lower.)
Sam Stone: Work has its rewards. Work harder, and you make more money.
Not necessarily. Sometimes you have to work harder just to stay in place, and sometimes you even lose ground. Unfortunately, this is happening to a lot of American workers; average hours worked per family have been increasing (especially because of the entry of women into the workforce), but family incomes have remained nearly stagnant and household debt has significantly increased.
Sam Stone: * Make more money, and you can afford things like big militaries, space programs, health care spending, education, etc.*
More and more American families are unable to afford health care or education, while they rack up ever more household debt even while working more hours. Obviously, your simplistic picture of “more work = more affluence” is missing the truth for a whole lot of people.
If that’s true, then given those same conditions, if people worked less they would be losing ground instead of hanging on to what they have - which is the case in Europe.
I’m not sure we’r talking about the same thing. I’m not talking about just adding up the number of expats in both places, but about people who actually become citizens of their new, resident country. I’ve looked for this data quite a bit and have not been able to find it, but I’d be VERY surprised if the number of Americans who become citizens of an EU country is anywhere near the number of people from the EU who become citizens of the US. And, if you like, we can restrict that to the more afluent EU countries like the UK, France and Germany, since some of the newer members of the EU have significantly lower standards of living and would artificially skew the results.
Sam Stone: If that’s true, then given those same conditions, if people worked less they would be losing ground instead of hanging on to what they have - which is the case in Europe.
But we don’t have “those same conditions” in Europe and the US. In particular, a better social-services system in Europe means that families can continue to afford decent healthcare, education, childcare, etc., while still having reasonable amounts of leisure and vacation.
I’m not holding the European system up as perfect: the economic problems that have been mentioned are real, and they will doubtless have to cut back on their social services somewhat in dealing with them (and let’s face it, eight weeks’ vacation a year is too much for anybody ;)). But that doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn from them. IMO the US and Europe are going to have to move towards each other, economically, in order to attain the combination of a healthy economy and a decent standard of living for most of the population.
JM: I’ve looked for this data quite a bit and have not been able to find it, but I’d be VERY surprised if the number of Americans who become citizens of an EU country is anywhere near the number of people from the EU who become citizens of the US.
As far as taking citizenship goes, I’m sure you’re right, but that’s partly because it’s easier to acquire citizenship in the US than in many W. European countries. As for just living in a foreign country to work, I think the migration rates are closer (though you’re right that it seems to be damn difficult to find conclusive stats on it).
From what I have read on happiness and quality of life research income does not produce any real psychological benefits unless you are wealthier than your neighbors. If the median household income is 12k in 1950 and 45k in 2004 both households will be equally content just as long as their neighbors make the same income. So assuming quality of life is tied into income is not true at all.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/13/1031608327871.html?oneclick=true
“The most devastating research finding - which isn’t particularly new, but one which economists prefer not to think about - is that the considerable growth in real incomes in the developed economies since World War II has done little or nothing to raise self-reported levels of happiness (“subjective wellbeing”), contrary to the economists’ most fundamental assumption that increased consumption of goods and services increases people’s “utility”.”
I personally think the marks of a good developed nation are affordable healthcare, affordable higher education, tolerance for cultural diversity (within reason), high levels of contentment with employment and high spending on scientific R&D. On these fronts the EU has the US beaten hands down.