Stress Costs U.S. $300 Billion a Year

jburroug writes "A new study, as reported in the New York Times claims that the stress of the modern always-on work environment is taking a far greater toll on the health of workers than previously believed, to the tune of $300 billion in lost productivity and increased health care costs in the U.S. alone."

Isn't that....

[ericdano (113424)]

Isn't that the same amount that people spend on porn? Hmmm.......

And they wonder why

[by Anonymous Coward]

Just today there was an article about hypertasking [slashdot.org].
Folks, shut off the cellphone, log out of the internet and leave work at work because you're slowly killing yourself with stress.

Re:And they wonder why

[BlueTooth (102363)]

I recently dropped a self owned startup for a "corporate" job working for the DoD...for the most part security restrictions make it dificult (i.e. a hassle) to take work home...needless to say, I'm loving it. When I'm at work, I get more done, when I'm at home I get more R&R...

Re:And they wonder why

[EvilTwinSkippy (112490)]

Um, I don't think that is really the employee's problem.

I personally have put my foot down about "expectations" on the part of management. My wife and I had a baby and I did not want to be a "virtual dad."

And frankly, even if it didn't work I was prepared to walk. If they are expecting the work of 2 people out of you, they should in fact be hiring 2 people, not making you feel constantly inadaquate.

easy solution

[Rooked_One (591287)]

just make XanaxOTC!!

great...

[dioscaido (541037)]

... now the fear of losing money @ the workplace due to stress will cause more stress, causing more money loss, and thereby creating a feedback loop that will kill us all.

By applying stress ...

[GringoGoiano (176551)]

Business gets a $2 trillion (number pulled from nether regions) boost in profits by applying stress. $.3 trillion is a small price to pay, and it's not even business' burden to foot the bill.

Get real. Stress motivates, and it's an integral part of business strategy.

Stressful

[MikeMacK (788889)]

Geez, what a depressing and stressful article.

people in the US work too much

[by Anonymous Coward]

That's because people in the US tend to work to much (sometimes for less money). Hope this shows the rest of the world not to follow that trend in favor of some inexistent productivity benefit.

Re:people in the US work too much

[Myolp (525784)]

In Sweden, and I think this also applies to several other European countries, we have laws that prevents a company from firing its staff without a valid reason. I.e., they can't fire you for arguing with your boss, or not working overtime, etc. Also, when they need to cut back on the staff, its a first-in-last-out rule that is applied to decide who will stay and who will get fired. And you're not allowed to work more than 200 hours overtime per year (exceptions can be made though). Everyone have at least 5 weeks vacation each year, and you always have the right to use at least four of these during the summer. If you get a kid, you have 1 years paid parental leave. Would you like to take a year of to study something? Sure thing, every employee can take one years off as long as they will be studying full time, and you get your job back when your done. Is your kid sick, don't worry, you can stay home and take care off him/her without risk loosing your job.

Working in Sweden is quite sweet...

Things are looking up for me

[cloudkj (685320)]

Looks like a great time to be a stress-balls manufacturer.

Go tell it to the Europeans

[Cryofan (194126)]

....with their 4-6 weeks of vacations and holidays each year. We work about 25% more per year than do most Europeans.

I really do not understand why we Americans have let ourselves be brainwashed into SweatShopAmerica.

See my sig for links on how the social democracies of Europe fought and are still fighting for a better , less stressful workplace, for universal healthcare, and for a social welfare state/safety net that lets them less afraid of losing their jobs.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[zymurgy_cat (627260)]

....with their 4-6 weeks of vacations and holidays each year. We work about 25% more per year than do most Europeans. I really do not understand why we Americans have let ourselves be brainwashed into SweatShopAmerica.

My employer does a fair amount of business in Europe or with European based companies. Everytime a customer from this continent comes up, we always talk about the numerous weeks of vacation and whatnot.

People always end up talking about the "high" unemployment rate and the "high" taxes, but they always wistfully look on the health care and 3x vacation....but then they drive home in their 2nd or 3rd car (sometimes an SUV) to a home that's twice as big as they need to their big screen TV that they paid for with a bonus check that could have been put to retirement....

As long as we Americans want our toys and things, we'll never get get 6 weeks vacation....

50% of all tax returns are less than $35K

[Cryofan (194126)]

Fact. Google it. In 2002 (or was it 2003?), about 30% of all tax return had a gross income of less than $20K. And about 50% of all tax returns had a gross income of less than $35K. That is counting BOTH single and joint filers. Those people are working the longer hours with little vacation just like the rest of America, but it is a little hard to get all those SUVs on that pay. Let's fact it: we Americans do not make as much money as we like to pretend we do.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[servognome (738846)]

Ironicly this is posted labor day weekend... why do we have labor day in september? Because the goverment felt we needed a token holiday during the 3 month period between 4th of July and Columbus day (which I think most places besides federal goverment ignore)
The US may have the most "stuff" but we pay for it with our health. We buy a $5000 plasma TV to get our minds off the stress of all the work we need to do to afford a $5000 plasma TV.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[fermion (181285)]

The interesting thing is that the number of hours work and productivity are not neccesarily related. I think in some companies at lot of hours are put in, but the results are not untilmately benificial. Enron was renowned in Houston for how hard working the employees were.

I think what we have brainwashed into believing those who work the most are the most dedicated, when in fact they may just be the least effecient, or, possible, the least qualified to do the job. Or pehaps the employer will not pay for the proper tools because he or she knows that the employee will donate the time neccesary to compensate for the substandard equipment. I am in a situation like that right now. Crappy cheap web designer are costing me a few hours a week of free time.

One last point. Healthcare and vacations should pay for themselves. A healthier worker will be more effectient. However, this only matters when the company is worried about the long term viability of the worker and has to pay for the long term care of the worker. Neither is that true in the current situation. The pay for unskilled labor is low enough so it does not matter if the worker is not effecient. Skilled labor is often on salary, so it often does not matter if all the labor is inexperienced and takes 25% more time. Health care is largely oursourced to the middle class, through taxes and insurance payments, so that is not a big issue either.

the belabored point from above is that Sweatshop America is realy TemporaryJobAmerica, in which companies hire on an as needed basis, works the employer as hard as possible, and then throws the employee away as soon as the job is done.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[Billly Gates (198444)]

It is more productive in terms of costs. Not work involved.

Efficiently is calculated by cost per work returned for that cost. I agree an overworked worker is not as efficient as working regular hours for the cost of 2 workers it just may not be efficient. Especially in this tight job market and economy.

Businesses view employers as expenses and cost centers. They need to be cut because they get in the way of profits. Sadly this is why the stock market has gone up as of recent. Its because despite the recession businesses are hiring Indians and having 1 person do the job of 3. This saves alot of money.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[FFFish (7567)]

We work about 25% more per year than do most Europeans.

And you still have to shop at Wal*Mart.

Think about it. It's not like Europeans have a low standard of living. They get paid well, they get great vacations, they get great social benefits. WTF are you thinking, working harder for less?! Something is wrong in America.

Re:Go tell it to the Europeans

[jburroug (45317)]

You're right something is wrong over here, which is why I submitted the story.

WTF are you thinking, working harder for less?!

The answer to that is simple: I want a job. It's pretty much impossible to negotiate for a shorter work week for a professional job here. Beleive me, I've tried. When I got hired on at my current job I actually asked if I could get double vacation (4 weeks) or a seven hour work day if I took pay cut, my request was met with a confused stare and a refusal. I was honestly afraid that even by just asking I'd lose the offer because management would then assume that I wasn't a 'team player.' I should point out that the company I work for is considered liberal by US standards - a paid lunch break is factored into our work schudules, which is almost unheard of in the US these days. And we get to leave early on the day before a holiday.

Still though, I often find myself badgering co-workers to leave on time almost daily. Since I work 10-6:30 (thanks to clients out west we need extended hours) instead of the normal 8:30-5 I know when everyone leaves. Waaay too often they'll inist on staying till they finish "one last thing" which costs them an hour of personal time they won't ever get back. Thus increasing their stress, and their health care costs and raises the insurnce premiums we all pay. So sad. Also makes it harder for me to goof off ala Bonjour Paresse :-)

Garumph

[iamdrscience (541136)]

The problem about anything that surveys the economic losses caused by productivity losses is that they're all vague measurements of approxiamate things that are then multiplied by a huge group of people. Really, what this means is that while there might be truth in the idea these statistics try to show, the numbers are almost completely bullshit. For example, let's suppose 100 million workers in the united states have air blowing hand dryers instead of paper towels in their restrooms. These dryers take longer than paper towels, let's say maybe a minute instead of 10 seconds. I would think it's fair to say that on average a worker makes 1.5 trips to the bathroom per day. So if the average hourly wage of these employees is something like 15 bucks, 10 seconds of paper towels is worth $0.0417, one minute of air drying is worth $0.25. That means that we're wasting ~$31 Million per day! That's billions per year! My God! Something has to be done!

Re:Garumph

[lukewarmfusion (726141)]

"These dryers take longer than paper towels, let's say maybe a minute instead of 10 seconds. I would think it's fair to say that on average a worker makes 1.5 trips to the bathroom per day."

That's assuming that people wash their hands when they're done. If you've ever watched the people that finish up and leave, you'd know better.

Yeah, I'm the freaky guy that stands in the bathroom watching everyone else.

The Cure

[MikeMacK (788889)]

The advice that most experts offer is deceptively simple: Dr. McEwen, for example, recommends getting enough sleep, avoiding cigarettes and alcohol, eating sensibly and exercising.

How can I do all that, I'm too busy working.

on the plus side....

[brauwerman (151442)]

Fortunately, stress is proving a boon to the health care industry, motivating $600M in additional revenue!

Eh?

[edunbar93 (141167)]

How can a country lose $300 billion in productivity and still be the most productive country in the world? Americans work longer hours, spend less time on vacation, work harder, and as a result your economy outpaces countries like Japan, whom you used to believe were insanely overworked.

This is another one of those monetary statistics that we can file under "overblown."

"Mental health" day

[Therlin (126989)]

At my workplace, it is widely accepted to use a day of sick leave and call it a "mental health" day.

We all need to step away from the everyday crap and let our brain rest. Sometimes you need it and you usually come back to work energized and ready to finish the rest of the week.

This is what happens when

[by Anonymous Coward]

Decent companies are forced to drug test their employees for harmless substances like THC.

I tried my best to work in the u.s., but I couldn't hack it, just couldn't do it. Even the innocuous suggestion that we go down the pub for an ale during lunch raised some eyebrows and instilled fear in my coworkers. Why do the people working in corporate america have this attitude ? Is it just plain fear? Are you all so desperate to climb the corporate ladder that _living_ takes a backseat to it? Then the 60 and 70 hour workweeks, people taking work home with them for at least another dozen hours of unpaid work...

Absolutely ridiculous... I'm glad to be back in .AU for good this time. My advice to americans... hmmm, get the fuck out of that madhouse now.

Re:This is what happens when

[k4_pacific (736911)]

Amen to that.

Here's how I dealt with it:

1. Identify something at your company that isn't "sexy." And I'm not talking about the 50 year old receptionist. 3 years ago, right out of college, I took a job with a small software company. They make applications for point-of-sale systems, and about half of the customers are still running old hardware with MS-DOS 6.22 with no plans to upgrade. However, they still wanted new features so there was constant development in this area which no one wanted to do because the Codeview debugger sucks and putting printfs everywhere is tedious.

2. Get good at it. Ideally, you want to find a better way to do things than just do things. So I invested a bunch of time and effort into learning how DOS works at its lowest levels and memorizing the 286-protected mode extender's manual. Then I cooked up some better debugging tools. One thing I did was created an exception routine that would iterate through the frame pointers on the stack and print the address of each called function to a file when the app crashed in the field. It also saved off various variables indicating when in the transaction the crashed occured as well. I then created a script that would automagically match up these hex values to addresses in the map file and give me a human readable call stack. No more unexplainable, unreproduceable offsite crashes. Totally revolutionized how we do things. I was a hero and suddenly I am THE DOS expert. Mostly I now sit in my cube and read Slashdot, pausing occasionally to help the other developers with their DOS problems. Oh, and I write the occasional module to interface to a new device (RS-232, another unsexy area of expertise).

3. Live below your means. As I live in the midwest, housing is cheap to begin with. I shopped around until I found a house that needed some work and had a motivated seller. It was $45K (less than I make a year!), has three bedrooms plus a large finished attic, and is located in a reasonably decent, working class neighborhood. A little paint, a new roof on the garage, and some carpet and its good to go. I've almost got it paid off.

4. Don't get married for a while. For me, this was easy because most of the women I dated up until now have been psychos. Ideally, you want to find a mate that's not horribly materialistic. See that girl with the nice hair and make-up and the designer clothes? Ignore her. She's hugely materialistic and probably a total flake to boot. Instead look for someone that at first glance you wouldn't ordinarily glance at. She's the one wearing the T-shirt and blue jeans and hastily combed hair that likes to stay up all night watching Monty Python. (They do exist, I'm dating her right now. I love you honeybunny.) She may not be as attractive initially but, I've noticed that, if I date an attractive woman with no personality, she quickly becomes less attractive. On the other hand, a relatively unattractive woman with a great personality will become more attractive as you get to know her. (Subjectively attractive that is, they don't let themselves go or anything.)

5. After establishing yourself as the resident expert in something, be sure your boss knows you are living well beneath your means. But don't tell him outright. You don't want to come off as cocky. Instead, drive a shitty car to work as your primary vehicle or casually discuss how you spent the weekend re-roofing the garage. He'll get the idea. Once your house is paid off and you got it fixed up (and it will be soon within a few short years if you do most things yourself and don't spend a ton of money on a new car or other luxuries), you'll be able to quit any time you want and go to work at the local Dairy Mart and your boss will know it. Suddenly, he's kissing YOUR ass. You won't be asked to work 80 hours a week anymore. You might even get to telecommute.

Oh, and as for the THC thing, shave your head and keep a sample of clean urine handy.

So to recap,

It's all about balance.

[Soko (17987)]

The Buddists have one thing right - there is a Yin and a Yang to everything. Call it a dual edged sword, whetever - in our world, there is an upside and a downside to everything.

There will enevitably be many +5 (Insightful) comments about how we're being mowed down by "the Man, squeezing more blood out of us to make more money", but when you think about it, the reason for that is we all, in reality, want to be "the Man". We want the things they dangle in front of us, that require disposable income to acquire. "Ooooh, Shiny iPod/Beemer/Opteron" crosses our lips and we've bought into this system. Work more to get more things for our "leisure time", which ends up being non-existant. "If work hard, I'll get promoted and get that raise - then I'll get a life" used to be my mantra. Now, after my good paying job was killed and in essence just moved out of province in the name of profits, I'm fed up enough to say "Fuck you - as long as my family is warm, healthy, clothed and fed I'm happy".

Capitalism is good, it's the best system we've got, but like all things it can go too far. Don't forget why your toiling away - it's to make a life, not make money. Remember, there is a downside to everything - no exceptions.

Meh. Just Crown Royal influenced ramblings from a slightly bitter old man. On to our regularily scheduled bashing of "the man"...

Soko

I Am the man

[NotQuiteReal (608241)]

At least for myself. And I am a harsh boss - no drinking until at least 3pm! My stupid dot-com went bust, like so many others, so, now, I work for myself.

When I am not working I relish the fact that I am saving thousands ($USD) per month in taxes, so the lack of income really isn't that bad, since I don't aquire every "Ooooh, Shiny iPod/Beemer/Opteron" piece of crap that passes in front of me.

When I am working, I can easily take in $10 - $12K per month. Taxes eat almost half of it, but I always stash plenty away as a "stress reducer", for later.

There would be a lot less stress in the world if people didn't buy more than they could afford. I have zero credit card debt, and own my cars. I could have bought beemers, but paying cash for Toyotas is so much less stress. Plan to live on a "flippin burgers" income and just think of all the stess-reducing beer money you will have when you earn more!

Good and/or bad

[mnemonic_ (164550)]

Mod me down if you want. I'll use my karma bonus this time to fend off your savage attacks. Ha ha! Take that.

Anyways...

What I find interesting is that if this were about another country, such as Germany, people would be speaking highly of the German people's work ethic, their productivity and their strength. When it's about America though, it's because we're greedy and don't know how to enjoy life (regardless of the fact that for some, work is enjoyable).

Now what if this article stated that the U.S. had the least stressful workers with the most leisure time? There would be endless comments citing this as evidence of American laziness and preoccupation with entertainment. No matter what, it is possible to interpret the data however one desires, to fit any man's personal slant.

Temporary effect of capitalism?

[Pingla (64700)]

It seems quite evident that stress is a result of stronger pressure regarding performance, and this is again a result of tougher competition between companies. So naturally the employers try to squeeze out as much as possible out of their employees as they see it most beneficial. But what I cannot grasp is why they continue to do se even when it has been demonstrated again and again that having overworked and stressed employees doesn't improve efficiency! It may look like it in the short run, but at a point it turns, drastically.

If a company needs more work done, why not hire more qualified people and keep the working hours down? Overtime is compensated quite heavily and by hiring an extra person instead of all the compensation the company will not spend more money on the work force, more people will be working, and there would be less stress. Can it be this simple, or is there something that I am completely missing? If this had been the most efficient solution one would think it had been adopted as a standard in the constant fight in our capitalistic environment.

Re:Temporary effect of capitalism?

[benna (614220)]

I'd say its more of a permanent effect of capitalism. Capitalism is all about people constnatly trying to do more and more, and make more and more money, and get higher and higher positions, and get better and better grades and a million other things. No wonder people are stressed. If people would just sit back and realize that they are ok right where they are they would be alot less stressed. Life is like a dance or a song. You wouldn't dance to get to a spot on the floor or play to get to the end of the song.

Re:Temporary effect of capitalism?

[boomgopher (627124)]

If people would just sit back and realize that they are ok right where they are they would be alot less stressed. Life is like a dance or a song. You wouldn't dance to get to a spot on the floor or play to get to the end of the song.

You don't have a family and kids do you?

Working hard to buy a home so your family can have stability: good
Working hard to live in a good neighborhood so your family doesn't live next to drunk homeless guys: good
Working hard so your wife doesn't have to work (and keeping kids out of daycare): good
etc...

That's not capitalism, that's common sense and being responsible.
And sorry, I don't trust the government enough to let them try and provide those things for me via social programs.

The Perfect Solution!

[Clark_Griswold (692490)]

Outsource our stress to India! They'd be glad to stress out at 1/3 the cost.

- Primary numbers are out to kill me

Greed

[sbillard (568017)]

Out of touch executives are running the country (US) into the ground from within. They percieve a need to squeeze every penny into their quarterly EPS reports. CxOs will stop at nothing to look good on paper. Their shortsighted strategies combined with an out-of-touch lifestyle make life a living hell for a vast majority of their collective underlings. Their only concerns in life are:
1. Where do I park my boat? What? No valet service?!?
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!!!

If executives were more entrenched and had more at stake there would be more coherent operations at work. CxOs need to have their livelyhood at stake in the same way the rest of us do in order to make the right decision. Nothing trickles down to the underlings. You might survive in this corporate culture by sucking up. 1 minute of "face time" has become much more important than fixing a problem or making an improvement. God help us all.

Re:Greed

[dhalgren99 (708333)]

Out of touch executives are running the country (US)

You mispelt Ruining...

So Slack!

[DaHat (247651)]

Want to avoid stress while on the job?

Just don't care!

Yea... that deadline is coming quick, but who cares? Which is more important? Some product getting out the door or your sanity and full head of hair?

Nice to see a verification.

[geekwench (644364)]

Interesting article, but it's not anything that I hadn't already figured out - a long time ago.

Once upon a time, I worked for the Company Formerly Known as USWorst. That experience left me with more knowledge of both their database and their employee benefits program than I ever wanted to know. The stress of that position also left me with carpal tunnel syndrome, the beginnings of a whopping good ulcer, and stress-related dissociative attacks. (Literally, my brain was going on mini-vacations, and neglecting to take me along with it.)
Now, I own my own business. The pay isn't as regular, but my schedule is my own, and the unreasonable request list is pretty minimal. The carpal tunnel still flares up form time to time, but it's in remission without surgery. (Since I use my hands a lot, this is a critical point.) The other problems started to heal as soon as I escaped the toxic work environment. I'm not spending as much time sitting in a doctor's office, and nowhere near as much money on things like Pepto and pain relief nostrums.

So, yeah; not exactly news, but it's nice to see that somebody has quantified the impact that work-related stress has on people's lives.

Death is Nature's Way of Telling You to Slow Down

[Detritus (11846)]

You are not indestructible. I've seen too many friends and coworkers die well before their time. I have chronic health problems that were caused or aggravated by high levels of stress.

You only have one life. Do you want to spend it working overtime, putting cover sheets on TPS reports and dealing with control freaks in management? Working excessive hours will not make your penis/boobs larger or make you a better person.

someone who spent two months proving the obvious--

[jswatz (99824)]

That's me, the reporter who wrote the story. What fascinated me about this is that everybody knows that workplace stress is a problem, but you rarely see the dots connected. There's a lot of fascinating research out there -- especially the Scandinavian studies showing links between change in the workplace and illness. Anyway, I didn't mean to stress y'all out. But I have to say that I did think of slashdotters often while I was writing it...

You people have it all wrong

[rsilvergun (571051)]

Saying stress cost us $300 billion a year assumes our economy exists to maximize overall wealth and happiness. In point of fact, our economy is built around making a select few staggeringly wealthy. All enonomies throughout history have been. Right now we're not really noticing this because Globalization has allowed most people in developed countries to be comfortable w/o having that 1% of the populace who won't settle for less than their every desire compromise a few of the more extravagant ones.

But as the rest of the world developes, we're running into serious resource shortages. As these shortages start to be felt, the greedy won't scale back their extravagance, so the rest will be made to suffer. The stress will be increased, your health will go to hell. But it won't matter, since there are plenty of fresh bodies to replace you, just waiting to be used up. Right now this is an issue because society can afford to coddle it's workers while letting that 1% live like they always have (the phrase 'live like a king' didn't just come out of nowhere). Wait and see. The response to a study like this won't be treating workers better, it'll be discarding them faster.

i'm a conservative

[HBI (604924)]

Seriously.

However, I have to wonder what a high GDP growth and near-full employment are worth if you are dead.

Obviously there is a problem with ANY form of social engineering - it's untested, and has unpredictable results on society. We conservatives say this in response to welfare programs and affirmative action. Modern capitalism and the downsizing trend have social effects. That's not subject to argument. Instead of a knee-jerk conservative 'but it could damage productivity' response, how about taking a look at the problems instead?

Re:i'm a conservative

[by Anonymous Coward]

I consider myself fiscally conservative (if that matters). I am a self-employed consultant in two different fields (digital imaging and programming). I work hard when I'm working, but when I'm not working, I don't even check my email. I like to work a few hours a day including weekends, but I don't like to work more than 7-8 hours a day.

My view is: nobody forces you to work as hard as you possibly can. So if you don't want to, don't. You're not lazy, or "French", or whatever, as long as you are making enough to keep from depending on others for anything, and you lead the lifestyle you want.

Sure, some might look down their nose at you if you "only" work 35 or 40 hours a week, or if you take every Friday off. But you shouldn't structure your lifestyle to suit your friends. Find friends that understand your lifestyle. The more people that do this, the more employers will support it and you don't have to resort to being self-employed if you don't want to do that.

I think that's the conservative viewpoint: don't like working so hard? Then work less!

Unemlpoyment is OK when you have good benefits

[Cryofan (194126)]

France and most other European countries will give you far more unemployment benefits than American workers gets. In many EU countries, one could drawa years of unemployment if laid off. Try that here.

Plus, welfare is far more generous there.

PARENT IS A TROLL

[Ralph Spoilsport (673134)]

Parent IS a troll.

for one thing: I'll take the 35 hour work week.

Also, they did NOT have negative GDP in 2003. It's close to zero, but it's not negative. Don't believe me? ask the spooks:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ fr.html

thirdly, their unemployment rate, while high, is not 15%. In 2003 it was 9.6%, again per the spooks.

Parent is a TROLL.

RS

Re:Meh

[jd (1658)]

When you factor in all the unemployed who aren't counted (unemployed "too long", don't have a permanent address, past employer didn't pay unemployment insurance, aren't bothering to claim, not employed long enough, etc), the US might easily beat France on the REAL unemployment figures.

Those people living like moles in the New York subways sure as hell aren't counted in the unemployment statistics, but equally they sure as hell aren't "gainfully employed" by anyone. That's a few million, right there.

The European Union may not have the perfect system (and most of Europe holds to the 35-hour week) but they do seem to be more honest about the real cost of their system.

If we're spending 300 billion dollars from overwork - money we're no longer earning, because a certain US President just eliminated overtime rules - then we're just burning money we don't have. We'd be better off banning the overtime and putting the money into better healthcare. We'd be paying the same, it's just that we'd be in better physical shape when we do fall ill, and the health system would be in better shape to take care of us.

Of course, you could argue that the country is overcrowded anyway. True enough, but I'm not sure that involuntary euthanasia by excessive workloads is really the way to deal with the problem.

I guess this could be taken by a cynic as confirming previous Slashdot articles which claimed that Republicans were mentally ill and had deficient brain activity.

Re:Meh

[Artifakt (700173)]

Unfortunately, the US is rated 38th in business efficiency among the 188 nations recognized by the UN. Several countries with features like 35 hour work weeks, twice our number of government recognized holidays, Manditory minima of 2 weeks vacation/year, and so on are doing about as well as us

(England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark)

or actually better

(Australia, Holland, Germany, Sweden, and some smaller nations such as Iceland).

We rank 7th in average prices, while France, for all the problems you point out is at least 15th, partially though not completly offsetting that high unemployment. France has a much higher average income tax rate (They're 5th, with an average of 50.5%, while the US is 26th, with an average of 30.5%), and I'd argue that that extra 20% is quite enough to give them their unemployment rate.

Are the French, over all, doing worse than us? Probably yes. Are we doing the best? Probably not.
Where did I get these numbers?

http://www.nationmaster.com/ [nationmaster.com]

(On the economic menu, several of these are in the section under ... more economic stats, instead of the main menu. Nationmaster gets its numbers from multiple sources, including the UN councel on economic development, but also the CIA's world factbook.

Re:Meh

[Romothecus (553103)]

GDP can be easily shown to be a falsely inflated measure of economic value and production. If one country gives mothers maternity leave, and mothers stay home and raise children, this lowers GDP in comparison to a second country where there is maternity leave and babies are cared for by hired professionals. The act of hiring and paying a professional increases GDP by the amount the professional caregiver is paid. However, all other things being equal, the actual amount of work done is no greater. All that has happened is social capital has been internalized by the market in one instance, and GDP looks higher. This is not necessarily better unless you think GDP is some magical number that makes everything better.

In another example, let's say I spill a tanker of oil off the New England coast. Damage to the economy and value of lost oil will be arbitrarily set at $50 billion dollars. If, however, the cleanup costs are $60 billion dollars paid out to various workers to clean up the mess, then the GDP will actually increase by $10 billion dollars, despite the fact that nothing actually got produced - some idiot just made a big mess and then someone cleaned it up.

GDP is big fat lie.

Less stressed, but just as industrious, Europe

[Cryofan (194126)]

But what about Europe: they are less stressed, but the Industrial Revolution started there!

The reason they are less stressed is because their governments have restrained the amount of leverage that employers may apply to the employee.

You're making the broken window fallacy

[guybarr (447727)]

Lookup the Broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org]