Posted on 04/26/2024 5:35:46 AM PDT by Cronos
Europeans are less ambitious and don't work as hard as Americans, said Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of Norway's $1.6 trillion oil fund.
"There's a mindset issue in terms of acceptance of mistakes and risks. You go bust in America, you get another chance. In Europe, you're dead," Tangen told The Financial Times in an interview published on Wednesday.
"We are not very ambitious," Tangen added. "I should be careful about talking about work-life balance, but the Americans just work harder."
Tangen made these remarks as he gave an overview of his firm's push toward investments in the US, which now make up half of the equities held by Norges Bank.
Norges Bank is in charge of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which manages revenue from the country's massive oil and gas reserves and holds some $1.6 trillion in assets.
"We just invest in America in great companies for the long term. It won't have any implications for how we allocate our capital," he said of the election, per the FT. "We have nearly half the assets in America, we will stay invested in America."
The CEO added that US shares have been beating Europe's because American companies are innovating and growing technology faster than their European counterparts, telling the FT that he felt the trend is "worrisome."
...The average polled US worker said they worked 1,811 hours a year, or about 35 hours a week, compared to an average of 1,571 hours a year among workers in European Union countries. That's also compared to a total average of 1,752 hours a year documented by the OECD.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
That is the problem with statistics, it only gives part of the picture. I was unable to give overtime without going through a multi day process, but many times we had a problem pop-up. All of those on salary worked some extremely long hours to meet mission, but I did not track their hours, so if the work load was light and they missed a morning, why should I care.
My hourly workers got comp time (unofficial but common knowledge), and they would work an extra 30 minutes or so, knowing that if they needed to leave early for an event it was easy to get permission- "a nod of a head." And most times when a problem popped up, 30 minutes or work after work today saved an hour the next day.
Don't get me wrong, we had an ever increasing workload where employee increases lagged behind workload, but we all knew that if you needed time off, it would be given. Our employee turnover was extremely low, which made life much easier. However, if you looked at the official labor logs, we all worked pretty much 40 hours per week minus standard time off rules.
Having lived and worked in Germany....
It does not pay to work hard in Europe. The taxes are so high and the welfare is so generous it doesn’t pay to work harder than the minimum needed to pay a few bills.
The private sector, anyway.
If you own your own business, I'm not sure if perks provided by the business, like housing or a car, are considered taxable income. So small and medium sized family firms can produce a much higher effective income for their owners. In Poland, for example, I think owner-operated businesses have much lower tax and social security type contributions.
Investors in the US do have to worry about out of control executives who run their companies like a cash-extraction colonial operation, focused solely on extracting max pay, bonuses and stock option pay-offs over the short term by stiffing R&D, capital investment, and even sharing core tech with competitors simply to grab more cash. See Boeing, GE, etc.
I’m sorry to hear this and it makes me absolutely sick how this has been going on for decades destroying people like you just trying to make a living.
The neoCONs don’t care about hard working Americans like you - they only care about ‘muh corporations’ and if it’s good for ‘muh corporation’ to get cheap labor, then that’s all they care about.
Closets are very American.
Im certainly no expert on all the old tax laws of every European nation but I do know that many places had laws based on square area and or number of rooms which would include closets.
Maybe you could buy a home with more cells than needed and add enough armoires to one cell to create a walk in closet. Add mirrors/dressing tables as suits Mrsbutcher.
Looking more toward Northern Europe and Asia might help. In Northern Europe they dont just use armoires as wardrobes. They have expanded the idea into things like the schrank/klaedeskab that are designed for every room. Wardrobe/bookcase/portable bar/entertainment center/china hutch/display case/etc all in one type of furniture, obviously preferrably not at the same time. Each is designed a little bit different and suitable for their role and when you find one you like your closet for that room moves with you. Just close the door, chuck it in the wagon, and scoot. Im not saying Mrs should necessarily redo her entire decorating aesthetic necessarily but find correct pieces that mimic the furniture from elsewhere. A Japanese todana (like the old apothecary style) make nice end tables/coffee tables etc for rooms where a larger towering piece wont work.
Its nicer for you that way too. When you have to move between places or even just rooms, things are already all encased together. Repairs/remodeling? Snip, snap, slide, the room is now empty and everything is protected, hidden from contractors, and ready to go back when youre done.
Small rooms equals small costs for resources. Whether youre cutting the wood or using your retirement savings its far more economical to have small rooms. Saving time and money just equals more time and money whether its cannolis or catamarans. Open concept is about to bite a lot of Americans right in the ass.
The other interesting Italian housing concept was the cucina(kitchen) was in the basement or first floor.
Where the cooking was done over a fireplace.
The cooking was also done down on the first floor because that way it would not heat up the rest of the house.
They also do not have a living room with a sofa and TV in most older houses. They had a room with a big table where all the family would get together to manga manga.
The only houses that are made to be more Americanized are up in northern Italy or Tuscany. There have been a lot of Tuscan farmhouses that have been renovated over the years by wealthy Americans/Brits and others. Even in those it is rae to find a house with a Master bedroom and Master bath attached.
Dont feel sorry for me. I am doing fine because I offer high quality. I am almost always in demand. I loose a lot of work because I am to busy.
I feel sorry for the younger generations that must establish themselves in this mess. It is much harder to raise yourself up when you are competing against your own government and the criminals they allow to break the law.
It is now much harder for the youth to get established. The cost of everything is going up except the wages of the lower skilled labor.
It is not just in construction but across the board. No one wants to roof at a cheap hourly rate. So they move to other easier jobs that pay the same low wages and compete with the people in those jobs. That forces the wages there to be lower since more people are competing for those low skilled jobs.
It just makes it harder for people to raise themselves up when our government stacks the deck against the new citizen workers.
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