![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Systems: US vs. Europe
2008-02-10 02:57Old (2005) Tony Judt column, worth a re-read/re-post -- heck, first post since joining LJ, probably. Compares US vs. European health, vacations, productivity.
"American put in 1,877 hours in 2000, compared to 1,562 for his or her French counterpart." Note that's 20% more hours.
"Whereas Swedes get more than thirty paid days off work per year and even the Brits get an average of twenty-three, Americans can hope for something between four and ten,"
"of the world's developed countries only the US and South Africa offer no universal medical coverage"
"In 1970 GDP per hour in the EU was 35 percent below that of the US; today the gap is less than 7 percent and closing fast. Productivity per hour of work in Italy, Austria, and Denmark is similar to that of the United States; but the US is now distinctly outperformed in this key measure by Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, ...and France.[4]"
"Europeans even appear to be better at generating small and medium-size businesses. There are more small businesses in the EU than in the United States, and they create more employment (65 percent of European jobs in 2002 were in small and medium-sized firms, compared with just 46 percent in the US)."
"Yes, in certain respects the UK today has real affinities with America: the scale of poverty in Britain, and the income gap between rich and poor, has grown steadily since the 1970s and is closer to that of the US than anything found in Western Europe. British hourly productivity is well below most West European rates." And the teen pregnancy rate is more like the US, too.
'The new US secretary of state was widely quoted in 2003 to the effect that the United States intends to "forgive Russia, ignore Germany, and punish France."' And the US's long campaign against democracies continued...
"a popular joke: Britain was promised that Blair's Third Way would bring it American universities and German prisons—what it is actually getting are American prisons and German universities."
"American put in 1,877 hours in 2000, compared to 1,562 for his or her French counterpart." Note that's 20% more hours.
"Whereas Swedes get more than thirty paid days off work per year and even the Brits get an average of twenty-three, Americans can hope for something between four and ten,"
"of the world's developed countries only the US and South Africa offer no universal medical coverage"
"In 1970 GDP per hour in the EU was 35 percent below that of the US; today the gap is less than 7 percent and closing fast. Productivity per hour of work in Italy, Austria, and Denmark is similar to that of the United States; but the US is now distinctly outperformed in this key measure by Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, ...and France.[4]"
"Europeans even appear to be better at generating small and medium-size businesses. There are more small businesses in the EU than in the United States, and they create more employment (65 percent of European jobs in 2002 were in small and medium-sized firms, compared with just 46 percent in the US)."
"Yes, in certain respects the UK today has real affinities with America: the scale of poverty in Britain, and the income gap between rich and poor, has grown steadily since the 1970s and is closer to that of the US than anything found in Western Europe. British hourly productivity is well below most West European rates." And the teen pregnancy rate is more like the US, too.
'The new US secretary of state was widely quoted in 2003 to the effect that the United States intends to "forgive Russia, ignore Germany, and punish France."' And the US's long campaign against democracies continued...
"a popular joke: Britain was promised that Blair's Third Way would bring it American universities and German prisons—what it is actually getting are American prisons and German universities."