Are American workers just too downright lazy?

Great Debates
41

To recap, your example has been debunked and evidence has been provided to show the high productivity of US workers. There goes your premise that they (as a group) are lazy. You have also failed to connect immigrants who “strike it rich” to the millions of unemployed in any meaningful way (ie. including both phrases in a paragraph doesn’t count).

Once we dismiss your premise all we are left with is the handwaving. What is it that you are suggesting American citizens should adapt to or make do with? What gives?

42

I realize this won’t sink in, but…

… If in fact there isn’t enough work for everyone, then you can’t solve unemployment by starting businesses. Employment and successful startups both rely on the same fuel; the demand for products and services. If there’s not enough work, then there’s not enough demand. If there isn’t enough demand, your startup business is just as likely to fail as your attempts to find work. Right now there isn’t enough demand.

Most startup businesses fail. I find it hard to believe that anyone who has ever been involved in business wouldn’t know that; if you start a business, no matter how smart or hard-working you are, you will probably fail. So your suggestion for the unemployed is one that is, in the great majority of cases, one that is not only likely to fail, but will actually make most of the failures worse off.

I’m not saying starting one’s own business is a bad idea. Right now one of my best friends AND my ex wife and doing it, and so far are having some success. But both happen to be starting businesses that have miniscule capital startup costs. If everyone tried to shoehorn themselves into those markets, inevitably almost all would fail.

A lot of the thread, with a grim predictability, has become a debate over whether people are lazy or not. I find it staggering that anyone today, even you, would fall prey to the “Folks is different today” idiocy that really should have been extinct generations ago. People are generally always the same, and will always respond to economic incentives in exactly the same way. The reason 17,000,000 people aren’t all starting businesses is because the majority of them know on some level, that if they did, about 16,800,000 of them would fail spectacularly - even most of the smart ones with fancy degrees - and would be further behind.

In fact, the jobs WILL come back. Recessions don’t last forever; this is a bad one, but in a few years things will be back to where they usually are. A small number of people will create jobs for themselves and others through entrepreneurship, as has happened since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

43

Sure you can, by the very definition of the term. Once people are consider “self employed” the unemployment numbers go down. The OP never suggested people should start successful businesses. Personally, I think he/she/it should have suggested everyone go out and get unpaid internships, or bet the last of their savings on red, but to each his own.

Wait a second: If most businesses fail, and most business are owned by conservatives, can we conclude that conservatives suck at running businesses?

44

Tobe perfectly honest, I need a telecommute job thanks to my handicaps. You generally can’t get a telecommute job until you have worked somewhere long enough to demonstrate you are dependable. Nice catch-22 action going on there.

Personally, I would take the separation from my husband and move overseas if I could get a job telecommuting for a company pretty much anywhere I can get the high speed hookup and at least a 2 year contract for a livable income and am reasonably near a NATO base so I wouldn’t need medical insurance. If I could afford to start my own business, I would. I am currently trying to get admitted to one of several universities for a degree program so I could take up writing and have the command of an actual degree so I would be taken seriously. I have put in applications and resumes until I am sick and tired of it, a year and a half of them. Nobody wants me because I have special needs that they simply do not want to try and accomodate.

To be perfectly blunt, unless you can arrange a grant or scholarship, you guys claiming that american workers are lazy are being absolutely no freaking help.

45

Because this is essentially an advice thread, I feel compelled to add:

Buy low, sell high.

That’s all you need to do. It’s so simple I don’t know why everyone isn’t doing it. Stop working and make your money work for you.

46

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html Here is an exec of a top carpet company who thinks he should do well for his employees and the environment. If you think he is a "liberal " because of it, then you are damning conservatives. Is it a conservative Tao to destroy the planet and cripple the economy so they can get rich? If that is the way they believe, we should jail them all .

47

That would certainly free up a lot of jobs!

48

I don’t think lazy is the right word. But I do think a lot of Americans are kind of soft and passive and really don’t take their careers seriously. Oh, it becomes serious when they lose their job, but by then it’s too late.

You have to be aggressive. And I don’t just mean in your job search. Again, that’s sort of like finding yourself in the water and bemoaning the fact that you forgot to pack a lifeboat, those O floaty things and planned to learn to swim next week.

Of course it is easier to respond with sarcastic comments and reasons why it can’t be done than to actually take action.

Actually, small business is the primary driver of new jobs. Read.

49

I don’t see how “being more aggressive” and being more ambitious are cures for a lack of demand. Perhaps you could explain?

50

We joked for years about a lazy Mexican sitting in the hot sun with a wide brimmed somrero, answering manana when we asked him to do something. Now He is the poster boy of a hard worker while the American worker is just a lazy slug. Lets all play kick the poor . There has to be something wrong with someone who is not well off. You are, therefore they are just lazy.
Remember when Bush talked to a woman who was working 3 jobs to keep things together ? He said how uniquely American, to work so hard and so many hours. Now, we are just lazy. What a steaming pile of arrogant crap that meme is.

51

This is a good point. The economy collapsed in part because of poor money making schemes (banks making bad loans to an overheated housing market as an example) backfiring.

This world has serious problems. Health problems, environmental problems, sustainability problems, human rights abuses. And corporations and the wealthy have tons of cash, while a workforce of hard working, educated people sit unemployed and underemployed.

The capital is there, the talent is there, the demand is there. But they aren’t being connected together to create problem solving jobs.

52

THe problem is understaffing, if you go read on customerssuck.com, people are overworked because employees leave/quit and are never replaced so 1 person is doing the work of several. If the companies would simply hire back to the staffing of 10 years ago, there would be people wiht money to spend, who would inject said money into the economy. Better money flow into the economy, is better for business. Or at least that is what all of you are claiming. Yet you dont seem to give a shit that the jobs created are overseas.

I certainly can not move to Mumbai, they don’t want to deal with an american handicapped person that needs wheelchair access and that means EVERY freaking door has got to be powered and openable by button. Is someone going to arrange a job for mrAru? At least where we are now he has a steady job that is just managing to pay the bills.

I run into a fucking wall with that little issue. You know how many fucking buildings I cant get into because the door isn’t button activated, or once in the lobby all I can do is ride an elevator up and down because all the other damned doors in the buildings are not button activated? In my last damned building I couldn’t operate the front lobby doors, and other than the damned elevator the 2 button doors were the mens bathroom and the womens bathroom on the ground floor.

I can’t report every single damned office building in Connecticut to the ADA compliance people.

53

Well, first of all people like you an I are dependent on people who are more aggressive and ambitious to start companies that we can work for. Plus you can’t control the economy or outsourcing or all the other crap people bitch about on this board. Spend less time bitching about it and more figuring out actions you should be taking.

And if you are out of work, how do you look for a job? Do you just send resumes on Monster.com or are you out there pounding the pavement (so to speak)? You know, making calls. Networking like every single job guide tells you to do. No one is going to hire someone who is like “I’ll take any job” or “throw some work my way”. You have to approach people and sell them on what you can do for them.

Being out of work does suck. It’s very easy to become discouraged and sort of drag your feet and stop looking. Doing nothing won’t get you work though.

54

Defeat…

Defeat…

Defeat. Wow. You’re buying into defeatism as if it’s the next Tickle Me Elmo craze or something. This is what I’m talking about with regards to America. My grandparents came here when things were supposedly down and made themselves prosperous. What in the world is up with all this defeatism among Americans?

There is plenty of demand out there. The fabulously and evil rich people have managed to find it and make billions in this down economy. You just have to be innovative.

So instead you try to get a job when no one’s hiring? You beg someone else to provide work for you?

A higher percentage of Americans used to own their own businesses in the past compared to now.

And yet immigrants come here from even poorer countries, with no money, and manage to strike it rich. What you are describing is the problem of a self-defeating mindset. If you KNOW you’ll fail, you most certainly will.

Not like they came back before. This is a major structural change in the economy. We’re heading into an age where we simply don’t need so many workers to service the new economy. Or just about all the labor can be done overseas or in Mexico for cheaper.

My son uses customer service outsourcing for his small business, but he’s smart and he’s a “new” kind of thinker - damned smarter than me, even. He doesn’t need as many American employees as a result. At some point this and automation will both mature to a point where startup costs will drop and this will allow more Americans (even those with defeatist mentalities) to start up their own businesses. The wave is coming and the smart people will ride it.

55

See? It’s the entrepreneurs at fault. Even Roark’s son doesn’t need as many American employees. Find a way to employ more people, you unpatriotic moneybags!

56

We are. In other countries that offer cheap labor. :slight_smile:

57

A recent study found that economic mobility was lower in the United States then most of the other countries in the study. It’s very difficult to start poor and become rich despite your claims. Anyone that understands statistics also knows it’s impossible for everyone to do it.

You can also Google “intergenerational mobility” to find that someone that starts in the bottom 20% has less than a 10% chance of moving into the top 20%.

I’m waiting for you to try and get us interested in selling Amway at this point.

I thought you said the problem was laziness, then you said it was defeatism, now only smart people can take advantage? Which is it?

58

This is actually a terrible time to risk starting a business. Most fail anyway, but now it would be much harder. The economy has not bottomed out yet. I see many businesses that have been around a long time with doors shut, businesses that have been around for generations.
It would be interesting to see. there are millions unemployed. So we get millions of people starting brand spankin new businesses. I suppose Mr. 43 will finance these startups, because banks wont.
This whole idea is insulting and very poorly thought out.

59

That’s the unpatriotic part of it. Find a way. Innovate. It’s the American Way.

60

You mean to tell me you don’t understand the basic relation between defeatism and laziness? Laziness is what causes defeatism. Truly smart people on the other hand can take advantage of any economic situation and triumph.

Did you seriously not see the obvious connections?