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If we had 3 year severance packages, govt assisted reemployment programs, etc it would make at-will more palatable. Because there are so few safety nets and a degreed professional can fall VERY far in the USA I see that as an issue.
I have been starting to network in Norway with Statoil as that is where my skill sets reside and Norway seems to treat its people way better than here. I have gone from a 6 figure oil and gas job to unemployed, ran out of unemployment and am now working a pedestrian job. Thats a pretty big fall that does not seem to happen in Europe.
It's an ideological difference that has ups and downs. Yes employees get more protection in these European companies, but entreprenership - the ability to create something from scratch - is stifled. Creativity is stifled as companies burdened by government regulation will be limited in starting up and growth potential. These web based businesses, Apple, Amazon, Netflix...they would never have a chance in Europe. The entire Silicon Valley and the tens of thousands of IT jobs it created would never have a chance. Instead the US might be plagued, as I said, with the constant double digit inflation rate of some of the European countries. They are also finding these social programs in Europe are unsustainable as indicated by austerity measures recently in Greece.
I like the US system, I've benefited from the US system, I've grown prosperous from the US system. I work for a European company so I hear both sides, but I wouldn't give it up for anything.
You mentioned Norway however, which is an exception as they are sitting on a gold mine of oil. They happen to have won the country lottery of prosperity due to geographical chance.
I have been starting to network in Norway with Statoil as that is where my skill sets reside and Norway seems to treat its people way better than here. I have gone from a 6 figure oil and gas job to unemployed, ran out of unemployment and am now working a pedestrian job. Thats a pretty big fall that does not seem to happen in Europe.
Have fun handing over 45% of your check for taxes like they do in Norway. Let me guess, your current tax liability is under 20%?
So what was taken away when discrimination or whistleblowing of child labor was made illegal?
Answer: Nothing. You can add exceptions as needed to protect employees, and they don't give up a thing in order to gain it.
yeah...I think, or maybe not. Are you agreeing with me? Not sure.
There are laws to protect employees of course - there are federal laws but many states have added additional protections and provisions which is up to the voters in each state to demand. The point here is we don't want the pendulum swinging in a direction that it starts hurting business or creates a burden on taxpayers. I don't agree with the European model, my company like I said has ways around that, and in some cases when we didn't get around it we are stuck with useless employees. It hurts the business, and it hurts our good employees. Also, we aren't Europe - what works there won't work here for various reasons too numerous to mention.
Have fun handing over 45% of your check for taxes like they do in Norway. Let me guess, your current tax liability is under 20%?
That is fine with me so long as the safety nets apply to me and I can do what I am good at. True piece of mind is worth an extra 15-20% to me rather than the annual lay offs and wondering if you will be going from a 6 figure professional engineering job to working at (insert pedestrian job).
Being able to sleep well at night is GOLD, christmas time lay offs ... not so much. Unless I had survived it long enough to have enough dividend producing f u money ... which I didnt.
Last edited by pittsflyer; 07-11-2018 at 04:36 AM..
It's an ideological difference that has ups and downs. Yes employees get more protection in these European companies, but entreprenership - the ability to create something from scratch - is stifled. Creativity is stifled as companies burdened by government regulation will be limited in starting up and growth potential. These web based businesses, Apple, Amazon, Netflix...they would never have a chance in Europe. The entire Silicon Valley and the tens of thousands of IT jobs it created would never have a chance. Instead the US might be plagued, as I said, with the constant double digit inflation rate of some of the European countries. They are also finding these social programs in Europe are unsustainable as indicated by austerity measures recently in Greece.
I like the US system, I've benefited from the US system, I've grown prosperous from the US system. I work for a European company so I hear both sides, but I wouldn't give it up for anything.
You mentioned Norway however, which is an exception as they are sitting on a gold mine of oil. They happen to have won the country lottery of prosperity due to geographical chance.
I live in Alaska we are also sitting on a gold mine of oil yet we have the highest unemployment rate in the USA. Its not just the oil its the political/philosphical differences. There are ALOT of people in poverty in Alaska despite the vast wealth.
They just dont have to work their fingers to the bone on their "side hustle" and risk living on the streets if their first few side hustles dont work out and their primary job lays them off.
I am ready to get on a plane to Norwary if I can get a Statoil job, my wife wont be super happy about it but I dont see any way around it. Having applied for over 100 jobs and not one offer in the USA, maybe its me, maybe its not, it really does not matter as I need a professional job to progress in my life and to develop my entrepreneurial ideas.
yeah...I think, or maybe not. Are you agreeing with me? Not sure.
There are laws to protect employees of course - there are federal laws but many states have added additional protections and provisions which is up to the voters in each state to demand. The point here is we don't want the pendulum swinging in a direction that it starts hurting business or creates a burden on taxpayers. I don't agree with the European model, my company like I said has ways around that, and in some cases when we didn't get around it we are stuck with useless employees. It hurts the business, and it hurts our good employees. Also, we aren't Europe - what works there won't work here for various reasons too numerous to mention.
My understanding (my research is only in Germany until i realized there is very little demand for my skill set in Germany) is that a useless employee can be let go, but it has to be demonstrable to the govt (my guess is that phony balony EIP's wont cut it in europe), some crass brutal supervisor cant just decree it because they have some kind of personality conflict with the employee. The protections are for, say mass laying off people and trying to include 20 year highly competent veterans .... just because ... some bean counter said so.
My understanding was that was what the european laws protected. If you employ some niche scientist or engineer who would struggle greatly if tossed to the curve the nation will not allow it. Or if they do that person will basically be supported by the govt in some sort of govt roll, etc.
I find it to be intellectually dishonest when people try to invoke imagery of the incompetent worker (usually the imagry is of some useless fast food or ware house worker) who treats customers poorly as the poster child for the "useless employee" when what we are really talking about here is mass lay offs that effect numerous families who may have to uproot and have their lives severely disrupted due to brutal and cut throat business practices that are resulting in communities being wrecked and resulting in things like tent cities and tiny homes. Where maybe some of the lay offs were legit but the rest were firings of convenience (maybe they cost to much, wanted to work less because they were getting older, etc) and because they already did their WARN why not get rid of a whole slew of them, so what if they are a few years from retirement or need just a little longer to do this or that.
But my understanding is that there are processes to get rid of genuinely incompetent or lazy employees, however, it probably irritates companies that are in the habit of force ranking and annual lay offs (which is not genuine incompetence just because your "bottom 25%", maybe the top 75% are just bad a$$, that does not make you incompetent though. incompetence has to be an objective standard set outside the business. Such as professional engineering licensing in the USA, either you pass the test or not, its not dependent on a company to decide if you pass or not nor should the definitions of competence be decided by the company. If people are doing what they are suppose to be doing and have just grown tired of working 60 hours a week and giving away all their intellectual property so they go home after 36 hours and hold back some ideas for their side hustle, that is acceptable.
The USA is just a little to brutal and cutthroat for me. When we have political discourse that have to separate what is moral from what is legal that's a pretty serious issue.
Besides being a irrelevant political commentary, what does that have to do with the topic? The unemployment number WAS 10% in 2010, now its 4%.
The measurement method has not changed.
So thank you but you are in the wrong forum - the P&C forum is in that direction (points downwards to the sewers). Please return to the sewers from which you came.
The problem is the employment numbers dont take into consideration underemployment and because our unemployment system is crap, it forces professionals to take pedestrian jobs if they are being shut out from good jobs for what ever reason.
I dont think we ever had an underemployment epidemic in the USA in the past where you had physicists and professional engineers working at starbucks. THAT is the issue.
We dont have a federal govt system that allows displaced professionals to get federal jobs non-competitively or grant age waivers for certain military service to act as scientist or engineers, etc.
There is just ... well go work at mcdonalds, I got mine. That will have political consequences. The only reason Trump got in was for 1. elimination of most visas (no matter what you want to call them H1B, H1A I dont really care) 2. MASSIVE tarrifs SPECIFICLY on China (still has not happened, 50% or a full naval blockade embargo is what is needed for corporate behavior modification) 3. Increased corporate taxes to fund govt.
With the massive tax cuts I think trump is done and the overton window is going to move far enough to allow someone like sanders in, people are not going to vote themselves to continue living in their cars or tent cities or living in annual fear of their jobs.
Unfortunately for me my time has run out and the first nice offer I get else where I am going. Trump has got 2 more years to basically do nothing which is going to be a lot more suffering.
The problem is the employment numbers dont take into consideration underemployment and because our unemployment system is crap, it forces professionals to take pedestrian jobs if they are being shut out from good jobs for what ever reason.
I dont think we ever had an underemployment epidemic in the USA in the past where you had physicists and professional engineers working at starbucks. THAT is the issue.
We dont have a federal govt system that allows displaced professionals to get federal jobs non-competitively or grant age waivers for certain military service to act as scientist or engineers, etc.
There is just ... well go work at mcdonalds, I got mine. That will have political consequences. The only reason Trump got in was for 1. elimination of most visas (no matter what you want to call them H1B, H1A I dont really care) 2. MASSIVE tarrifs SPECIFICLY on China (still has not happened, 50% or a full naval blockade embargo is what is needed for corporate behavior modification) 3. Increased corporate taxes to fund govt.
With the massive tax cuts I think trump is done and the overton window is going to move far enough to allow someone like sanders in, people are not going to vote themselves to continue living in their cars or tent cities or living in annual fear of their jobs.
Unfortunately for me my time has run out and the first nice offer I get else where I am going. Trump has got 2 more years to basically do nothing which is going to be a lot more suffering.
You have a series of threads all over the place here, not sure where to start:
1.) Unemployment numbers - certainly you know there are different rates measured. U1 to U6. U6 measures part time workers seeking full time employment as well as discouraged workers. The U6 rate has been dropping similiarly to the U1 rate.
2.) Sander - socialism, true socialism, is a obsolete political structure that died out with the collapse of the USSR, the death of Castro, and the chaos that is Venezuela. Basically a prior century failed and obsolete political concept. As Thatcher said: "Socialism works, until you run out of other peoples money". It's a non-starter in the US.
3.) Alaska vs. Norway - lots of differences here, first being that Norway is a nation were Alaska is merely a state within a nation and thus shares the wealth with the lower 48. Second is that Norway has much more oil, and they have an easy and close by market to deliver the oil - the rest of Europe, while Alaska will always be plagued with the additional cost to transport oil - extended pipelines or shipping.
4.) American vs. European entepreaunurship - I glanced at your article, didn't have time to read in detail, sorry. But it seems to address the Nordic model only and doesn't really discuss the ability for entrepreneurship, in fact it seems to agree with my summation. It also says the European structure will not work here in the US, for various reasons. I see there is also a linked article "why can't Europe create it's own facebook, apple, Netflix, google". I am going to read that when I have some time, might be interesting.
5.) US is "brutal and cutthroat"...maybe so. US is not for the meek, never was, it's not designed to be. What Europeans will never understand is our focus on individual, not collective rights. Where you can essentially do anything (within reason) and thus be anyone. It's still unique. Americans will never want the government telling us what to do, which is why the European model won't work here. But with personal freedoms come personal responsibilities - I think that's what we have lost, the sense of personal responsibility (not that it applies in your case).
If you have a job offer in Norway with Statoil I would be all over that. Cost of living is outrageous but I am sure the salaries and benefits will make up for it. And as added benefit Norway is beautiful. Good luck with it.
Besides being a irrelevant political commentary, what does that have to do with the topic? The unemployment number WAS 10% in 2010, now its 4%.
The measurement method has not changed.
So thank you but you are in the wrong forum - the P&C forum is in that direction (points downwards to the sewers). Please return to the sewers from which you came.
Daddy, I want to stay in the swamp with you.
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