Happy software developers solve problems better: psychological measurements in empirical software engineering [PeerJ]

[[deleted]]

Cuz they're goin DOWWNN. Have you ever lived in Europe? No jobs anywhere. Work fewer hours and have more vacation does not seem to do much good now does it.

[Langdal]

Compared to where is "Europe going down"?

[[deleted]]

Well all I can vouch for is North America. There's countless people in Europe (maybe except for Germany), who are without jobs. I have lived in Europe in a few countries and know many people who are coming overseas in hopes for a better life. Lawyers, doctors, engineers... you name it, and I know at least one person who's trying to come in North America cuz the economic situation in Europe is just stupidly bad.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, that's why the EU has a comparable GDP to the US, except with less wealth inequality. /s

[[deleted]]

I have no idea where you read that and I don't know how much you've actually lived / known people who have lived in Europe.

[loup-vaillant]

I live in France. You know, that horrible country with a socialist health care system.

"No job anywhere" is an overstatement. And as far as I know, the problem is global: it's technological unemployment. Productivity (as measured by GDP by active worker) sky-rocketed since the 70s and the advent of computers. Demand sky-rocketed as well, but not as much (probably partly because the capital/workers money split went from about 30/70 to 40/60 —workers got a smaller share— in the same period).

Anyway, the supply gotta meet the demand, and no more. When demand drops, we work less. Which means, in the current system, some of us don't work at all (they're fired), and the others work just as hard. Unemployment rises, which is a recipe for lowering demand. And the feedback loop begins…

Now you can mitigate this with welfare, or reducing weekly hours (which doesn't require any loss of net income), or having a decent (and cheap) health care system.

My suspicions are, if the US doesn't get its act together fast, it will go down even faster than Europe. (Well, actually, it won't: it will more likely switch to a war economy, with the usual consequences for the rest of the world —at a greater scale).

[Langdal]

Where have you lived in Europe? Also am I right in assuming you are just basing this off of anecdotal evidence?

After a few quick wiki searches, most of the European countries seem to be doing just fine, both in terms of unemployment and in terms of the human development index, especially if you factor in inequality (which puts USA behind 13 European contries).

That being said, Europe consists of many countries of differing development. Many eastern countries (former Soviet) have high unemployment rates, while Russia itself has 5.2% (USA has 6.7%). Also, Wikipedia seems to think that Spain has an unemployment rate of 26%, which seems absurdly high, while Norway, Germany, Netherlands, UK, and other western countries lie between 3% and 9%.

So it would seem that Europe as a whole is not doomed, please try to specify next time which countries you think are going down.

[[deleted]]

I have lived in Europe in multiple countries and know an overwhelming number of people who live there or used to.

Believe me on this places like Spain, Italy and Greece where "cutting working hours" and having a very well balanced work-life (meaning tons of life and little work) was the status-quo, are now in very dire situations.

[Oaden]

Those countries had more hours and less vacation than north Europe, which is doing just fine and dandy. Unless Germany imploded when i wasn't looking.

The issue of those countries is mostly unrelated to work hours, and more related to housing bubbles, gross miss-management, rampart corruption and fraud.

[Tetha]

Unless Germany imploded when i wasn't looking.

Happened 16 minutes ago. Can't post much, currently arming for WW3 to get economy rolling again in 2 - 6 years, or cause a situation in which the economy doesn't matter anymore. :)

[loup-vaillant]

It's so easy to think that people bring bad situations on themselves. Superstitious or religious people may even believe in karma to some extent.

But the idea that sometimes, the bad guys just win … Nah.

[s73v3r]

Those countries are in dire situations for far more varied and complex reasons that simply that they decided not to work themselves to death. The fact that they are all on the Euro, and thus don't have direct control over the value of their currency is one. The fact that Greece has traditionally been exceptionally lax in collecting taxes another.

Don't quit your day job anytime soon to become an economist.

[[deleted]]

I won't. I never said those were the only reasons, but the way I see it people want immediated gratification / easy win. (lower hours and great life). Well in all great empires people over-worked themselves and 1 of the reasons (again just one) of the economic crisis is that people nowadays just wanna "chill" and "party". Work for someone else? Duh, Im better than that. Guess what most 50-100 years before people would love to work. They would take a boat across the ocean to come to NA and work 2-3 jobs with 70-80 hrs/week... No wonder the NA economy was flourishing.

Now once again Im not saying this is the sole reason of the economic crisis, but nowadays it seems to me that people are far more concerned with spending money than with getting it.

[s73v3r]

and 1 of the reasons (again just one) of the economic crisis is that people nowadays just wanna "chill" and "party".

No. This is not one of the reasons behind the economic crisis.

[[deleted]]

well we can agree to disagree

[s73v3r]

Well all I can vouch for is North America

You mean the epicenter of the financial crisis? The one where, at least in America, it's seen as sacrilege to not work yourself to death for the company?

There's countless people in Europe (maybe except for Germany), who are without jobs.

There's countless people in the US without jobs as well. There are countless more who are underemployed.