Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...
EDIT: And how much more holiday/vacation time we'd have if it was mandated at the federal level.
Stocks or bonds => income tax + capital gains tax
Real estate => property taxes + capital gains tax
Cash => taxed by inflation
Metals => capital gains tax
Don't forget truly rich have plenty of completely legal companies that advise them how to 'optimize' their taxes. Companies smarter and better equipped than your average lawmaker. I mean look at the presidential candidates - obviously both are doing it. Everybody rich is doing it.
EDIT: Links:
- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-t...
- https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs...
Where are all these 60+ hour workers? Are they making even MORE money?
Silicon Valley and Seattle/Redmond are probably the most cut throat areas you could work in. It gets really nasty there.
(I realize this Bloomberg article has slightly different figures than the one I remember from another study. Maybe they used different ways to measure this, maybe the situation changed. I think the former.)
The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.
I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.
Have you ever actually worked on a farm? Its not fun either, its actual hard work. Most farmers don't retire either. The historical way this worked was as you got older your family helped more on the farm until one of them took over. You worked till you died though.
> The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.
You think your medical bills are bad now, wait until you start dealing with industrial machinery and hard work. Not to mention the fact that your insurance will come out of your pocket directly instead of being employer provided. Your college loans are a pittance compared to what it would cost to buy an economically feasible farm in the USA right now.
> I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.
I'd recommend trying it for a summer before you burn your bridges in Software (which for the record, might be the cushiest way to make a living of all time).
Source: grew up on a farm.
I have no desire to sit in a "cushy" job just because it is one. That lifestyle may be harder, but I strongly suspect I'd get to the end of my life with less regrets about the whole thing.
Source: I grew up on a farm, too.
My first job at 13 was on a farm and I lasted about a week before I realized I wasn't made for that life and I started planning on going to college. There is a long tradition of people claiming that life is for them without having ever actually done it successfully (I'm looking at you Thoreau).
If you think that you'd be happier living that way I don't see much reason not to go do it. But the complaints in your comment don't seem to be addressed by your desire to work as a farmer. Your debt levels, insurance rates and chance for retirement are all likely to be much, much worse as a farmer (subsistence or otherwise) than as a software developer. In fact, right now, you would be hard pressed to find an occupation that optimizes for those 3 things better than working as a software engineer.
But, of course those things don't have to be tied to someones happiness. If they aren't tied to yours, don't conflate them.
By all means if this is what you desire, go for it. It just doesn't seem like a smart move to many here, me included (but we have very few info, so whole picture might be different)
Just save 50% of your money, retire cheaply at 45 or 50. It's not that hard to do with 100k+ salaries.
Once you get in the mind-set, the job becomes more fun. You know there's an end to it, and you have enough cash to walk at any time.
It's not hard to "work less" like that.
Maternity leave is much longer than paternity. And is paid for in full at my company for a time. FMLA allows 12 weeks total but it can be unpaid.
The main difference I've seen with the Europeans I work with is, they take big chunks off at a time in summer. They pay more taxes but have more time off. Most likely don't get full pay for Maternity/paternity leave.
All the money in SV could never make me go there if I never have time to spend it.
If I include national holidays I get 22 days off. No set sick days unless you're out for more than 5 consecutive days.
I'm not sure why you'd move to SV, startup life's seems like hell.
UK: 28
Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden: 25
Iceland, Malta: 24
Portugal, Spain: 22
The EU mandates a minimum of 20 days, so all other EU member states have 20.
Of course, these are just the mandated minimums. Many employers will give more to be competitive.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Most companies I've worked for offer a little more than the minimum, for example I get 23 days excluding bank holidays and that generally increases by a day per year you've worked at the company or something like that.
The legal minimum in Europe is 20 days' vacation plus national holidays. Competitive employers offer more.
I don't know about mountain view, but on Google's software dev salary you should be able to live within 10 minutes of pretty much all of their US offices. I know for sure it's possible in nyc.
Er... I think you accidentally dropped a bucket of green paint on the other side of the fence :-)
In France, you can have up to 10 weeks of paid vacation (that's a bit extreme, but they are western europe commies after all).
Not sure about pleasantness of the cities, each is different, but one feels generally safer here.
They aren't that richer either -- if anything the majority is less rich in standard of living than most western European and nordic countries. Getting some more money in your salary is not worth much if you have to give most of it to medical coverage and basic services.
It's borderline useless for determining the wellbeing of the average worker.
Blatantly false (see the other comment re: GDP). With a few exceptions[0], the US is very close to the top in terms of overall standard of living.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Even regarding GDP per capita, most the "few exceptions" you mention that trump the US are western European and nordic countries with the exception of #4 Qatar.
1 Luxembourg 102,717
2 Switzerland 80,603
3 Norway 74,598
5 Ireland 61,206
6 United States 56,084 <---
7 Singapore 52,888
8 Denmark 52,139
9 Australia 51,181
10 Iceland 50,277
11 Sweden 50,050
We live more-than-comfortably and are able to save and make stupid impulse buys occasionally. We genuinely love where we live and are happy. For us, it seems just as insane to jeopardize that just for more cash and cheaper rent prices.
Is it even measurable? Some try. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report Americans don't do badly - on par with Germans (who are close to the top as far as Europe goes) and ahead of the UK, France, Italy, Russia (to name the 5 Europe's major economies).
Switzerland is the happiest country but works the second most hours Belgium works the third least hours and is at 19 on the happiness chart * The US is still in the top 15 happiest countries
Then when the .com bust happened, everybody started tightening their balance sheets, and huge piles of unused vacation time was an easy liability to get rid of. So they reduced the max vacation accumulation to 3 or 4 weeks over your yearly accrual in a year (but left you what you had, so you wouldn't gain new vacation if you were at the cap, but you wouldn't lose it either).
Then they tightened further, so you'd only accumulate 2 weeks, then 1 week over your yearly allotment.
It's possible that habits built when vacation was easy to hold on to die hard.