Not long ago I was having dinner with a few people and one was an engineer. With VW in Chattanooga, many workers are meeting Germans moving here to work. The conversation was loosely gravitating towards how much Americans work. The engineer was talking about how his German peers will just go home at a certain point when theyve worked their quota of hours for the day. I thought, Good for them. But I sensed in the engineer a hidden or maybe not so hidden pride about how much Americans are willing to work away for the elite. What a strange thing to be proud of, I thought, ...life long slavery and no existence beyond life as a worker for the profit of a few. Here are some thoughts about the difference between the US work force and the German workforce Matthew Scott posted to a recent status: The average German worker puts in 394 hours less than an American each year -- the equivalent of nearly ten fewer weeks. The country is far smaller than the United States in area, population and resources, yet still manages to compete as the fourth largest economy and third largest exporter in the world. Rather than cutting the work week gradually over time (like the Europeans did), productivity gains have fueled a consumerism boom in the United States. So instead of taking time off, Americans are just buying much more stuff. Did I mention 75% of the electricity comes from solar owned by coops and communities?
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 21:36:09 +0000
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