it’s a fallacy to think that when rich get tax relief, they’re going to invest in creating more jobs as opposed to taking more vacations or buying more luxury goods–it’s only “trickling down” to the merchants who they patronize.
I 100% agree. My point was in responding to someone who said that only in a “very socialist” society would wealth spread out like this; I was arguing that even in Reagan’s world, the idea that wealth should spread in that way is a good thing (even if Reaganomics calls for government to turn a blind eye while the rich build gutters to ensure that nothing ever “trickles down”).
Fear. Some of it justified, some of it not justified. Fear that if you work the normal hours you’ll fall behind, never get a raise, or be the first to be laid off.
Fear that means that companies with no-limit vacation policies have fewer people taking vacations, since you don’t get in the use it or lose it situation. Fear that means men (and some women) with maternity leave don’t take it for fear of falling behind.
In Europe as I understand it you are on a contract, which may or may not be terminated when it runs out, but you can’t be fired for no good reason.
My son-in-law is German, but working in a high level position at a very big company. He takes his vacation. He takes his paternity leave. That’s the culture he was brought up in, and it hasn’t hurt him at all. When I visited a factory in the Netherlands all the engineers left at the normal quitting hour. Our factories in the US were not full of people after nominal quitting hour. In the '50s, without the fear of being fired, people worked more normal hours.
What happened when the fear was reduced? The great resignation.
A lot of that is coupled to obsolete US labor laws about which jobs are paid hourly with extra pay for overtime and which are “exempt” all from that and can be paid by a salary.
The original intent was that everybody except the owners & executives must be paid hourly, and only the C-suite execs would be salaried. That has been systematically reinterpreted gutted as ever greater swathes of the working population ends up in a job with little autonomy or influence over their workload, but are treated as “exempt” and hence salaried with no compensation for overtime work. Much less the statutorily required 1.5x pay for overtime.
Change that and we’d change the face of work in the USA.
Probably. And you make the case for why that more here too.
But I suspect that’s not all of it.
I know quite a few people who have no fear in their positions and who choose to be on the workaholic side of the spectrum by choice.
I put some onto the immigrant experience ethos, especially from those who opened up their own small businesses. Those values I think are transmitted intergenerationally. I suspect few work longer hours than the owner of a new business trying to make the business a success.
As a culture we seem to especially admire success born of hard work and putting in the hours. And the cultural mythos is that hard work brings rewards, the American Dream. Which is sometimes true. And sometimes true for the employer but not the hard worker.
The lack of hard work so seldom succeeds that it’s reasonable to conclude that long hours are a necessary condition of success.
The failure occurs when people assume it’s also a sufficient condition and then learn much too late that it is not.
Sure there will be a few who just like to work forever. Some may be afraid, but won’t admit it. Some might prefer to be at work than at home.
My parents generation and my generation are more likely to be the children of hard working immigrant small shopkeepers than those growing up today, but my father worked reasonable hours and so did I at the beginning of my career. And I think that seeing your father never be home would as likely cause you to want reasonable hours as it would make you work longer. Assuming they haven’t taken over the business in which case they of course work crazy hours.
My father was a blue collar operator in a chemical plant his entire career. He retired at 55 with a full pension plus savings. He worked overtime occasionally, but not overburdensome. He lived another 26 years after retirement.
I on the other hand, I have had a professional salaried career, primarily working at a desk. Early in my career I worked on average about 55 hours a week, never receiving any overtime pay. Today I’m older than my father when he retired by few years. I probably work on average about 45 hours a week. I’m in a much better position financially to retire than my father was, but I don’t want to. I enjoy my job/career. My wife and I have discussed me working for at least another 6-7 years before I would consider retiring. Even then, I’ll continue my board positions, to keep my brain active and engaged.
Trickle-down theorists would point out that taking more vacations or buying more goods is how they create more jobs — jobs in travel, hospitality, manufacturing, retailing. The trickle-down argument has never rested on claims that the rich invest their tax rebates in providing seed capital for startup companies.
Right, that’s precisely the issue. When the poor get a sum of money, it gets spent right away because they need all of it for food, etc; that’s not true of the very rich.
Or even the moderately rich. A much smaller percentage of increased income for those well off goes into purchases than less well off. I always heard that the remainder was supposed to go into investments that improve productivity, but it actually appears to increase stock prices which improves the position of the well off still more.
This is a case of the rich spending money on hookers and blow being better for the economy than what they do now.
This isn’t correct. Trickle down theorists do argue that tax relief will encourage entrepreneurs to create more jobs by expanding their businesses or starting new ones.
and
As long as the hookers and blow are locally sourced. It doesn’t benefit us for them to travel internationally to find them.