The Labor Pains Megathread

[Sheilbh]

I wonder what Marti's reading at the minute, anyone have an idea?

[DGuller]

"I did not read Pasternak, but I'm outraged by his works". 

[garbon]

I wonder what Marti's reading at the minute, anyone have an idea?

For some reason he thought he excused all this summarizing by prefacing that he would be posting arguments from it while he reads it.

[Tamas]

Tamas, read the book.  You are making assumptions which are not accurate.  His conclusions are not based on ideology nor are they in any way contraversial.  Unless you think that creating a better education system is a bad idea or that governments should not be better at cracking down on tax evasion.

And yeah, you are an idiot for thinking you know the book from such widely varying secondary sources.

Fine, I will read it

Still don't appreciate being called an idiot.

[Tamas]

"I did not read Pasternak, but I'm outraged by his works". 

I did not read the official Democrat memos but you and Raz always do good executive summaries.

[DGuller]

"I did not read Pasternak, but I'm outraged by his works". 

I did not read the official Democrat memos but you and Raz always do good executive summaries.

That wasn't clever the first time, and it's not getting any more clever with age.

[Tamas]

"I did not read Pasternak, but I'm outraged by his works". 

I did not read the official Democrat memos but you and Raz always do good executive summaries.

That wasn't clever the first time, and it's not getting any more clever with age.

Persistence prevails.

[Jacob]

That wasn't clever the first time, and it's not getting any more clever with age.

I didn't read the post you responded to, but it was idiotic.

[crazy canuck]

Still don't appreciate being called an idiot.

On languish? 

[PJL]

There should be tax breaks from pubs to get people to stop drinking at home and drink out instead. For the good of society and all that.

Personally, I don;t have a problem with introducing the minimum alcohol levy of around 40p  / 50p per unit that has been talked out, as it will actually help even out the price difference between the supermarkets / off licences & the pubs & clubs, and make going out more attractive.

[Martinus]

With few exceptions (police, fire departments, hospitals ...) working on Sundays is not permitted in Germany. The states are permitted to add more exceptions if required to maintain a certain level of infrastructure that's indispensable.

Hessen's law in that regard has now been cancelled by a federal court. The court finds that video stores, libraries, and customer service hotlines are not worthy of exemption. Also not permitted: working production plants for beverages or ice cream on Sundays.

This will have repercussions for similar laws in other German states.

Poland, despite being a religious country, has no such thing. There are occasional attempts (from an exotic coalition of socialists and religious right) to ban trade on Sundays, but so far our entrepreneurial spirit/jungle capitalism (depends whom you ask) has won each time.

There are only 13 days in a year (public holidays) when trade is not permitted, but even then there are exceptions (self-owned businesses, restaurants, cinemas, etc.) so in practice the only days in a year when there are no restaurants open in my neighbourhood are the Christmas day (25 December), the New Year and the Easter Sunday.

[Duque de Bragança]

I can't help being pretty prejudiced against Piketty on account of coming from a communist family and supporting Hollande.

He's not supporting Hollande anymore and described him as "fairly worthless". Hollande once advocated measures from Pickety but did not implement them.

[Martinus]

Restricting store hours means fewer jobs and also inconveniences those workers when they want to shop/eat/etc. I really don't see the advantage of having the government step in and enforce such restrictions.

I agree with you. I prefer the Polish system, where (except for emergencies) you have to provide employees with 2 free days per every seven days - and even then when they are required to work on their free day, you have to give them a day off. This way people can still work on Saturdays and Sundays (which I think is a good thing as it helps the economy) while not overworking employees by having them work 7 days a week or so.

The ruling coalition has mused recently about a possibility of replacing the mandatory day off policy with an option to pay the employees for such day instead but this was widely criticised by the opposition and some members of the coalition (and rightly so) as doing away with a 5-work-day week.

[Sheilbh]

There are only 13 days in a year (public holidays) when trade is not permitted, but even then there are exceptions (self-owned businesses, restaurants, cinemas, etc.) so in practice the only days in a year when there are no restaurants open in my neighbourhood are the Christmas day (25 December), the New Year and the Easter Sunday.

So jealous. We've only got 8 bank holidays

[Martinus]

There are only 13 days in a year (public holidays) when trade is not permitted, but even then there are exceptions (self-owned businesses, restaurants, cinemas, etc.) so in practice the only days in a year when there are no restaurants open in my neighbourhood are the Christmas day (25 December), the New Year and the Easter Sunday.

So jealous. We've only got 8 bank holidays

Well, at least in my line of work, because I have many international clients, I very often have to work on the extra Polish/catholic holidays - although now that I have more French and German clients (as opposed to just American and British) this is getting better, since they often have the same holidays.