[lit-ideas] Re: Are you out there, Didier?

  • From: Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 16:16:32 -0800 (PST)

Actually over here at least, US corporations tend to
be good employers. Good benefits, pay well, even
generous severance pay. Not any more or less demanding
on employees than any Finnish company IMO.

The red tape is something that you start talking over
beer when you hear the guy next to you ordered an
laptop for work, waited three months, got it with US
keyboard layout, sent it back, waited another three
months, and finally got it for twice the price you
would pay in the computer shop thanks to a wonderful
global centralized purchasing deal. "Hey, you must
work for an US company too!" Or did a thorough
Sorbane-Oxley compliant bidding process (roughly one
work day worth of time) in order to give the customer
a $100 discount on a $500 deal... Horror stories from
every single person I know working in computer
companies like HP, Sun, IBM or Microsoft, or AMEX, or
GE... NDAs mine and theirs indirectly stop me from
giving the truly gory details.

Basicly what Eric said about medicine is the cultural
thing I had mind. Recall the study in NEJM that the
reason healthcare costs so much is colossal management
overheard, something like one third. 

Lawyers everywhere in general. It is not entirely
unheard of that a tech company spends more on patent
attorneys than engineers, and more than a few
economists have started arguing that the whole
intellectual property infrastructure has actually
negative value. It is not so much about governments
IMO, even if EU is thankfully somewhat behind but
unfortunately catching up, but really about the
corporate culture.

Aviation is something of an exception, you know much
more about that then I do, but my friend at ATC tells
that it is very heavily regulated every place for
understandable reasons.

Oh and Italy, love the country, but politically and
economically it is a complete mess at the moment.


Cheers,
Teemu
Helsinki, Finland

--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Teemu,
> 
>  
> 
> I just heard on the radio that Chirac signed the
> subject bill into law;
> although he modified the portion under discussion. 
> He lowered the period
> from 2 years to 1 year and added a proviso that an
> employer must have a
> reason for laying an employee off.
> 
>  
> 
> What US corporation do you work for?  Does it need
> to meet the same worker
> requirements as everyone else in Finland? 
> Presumably so.  Why do they have
> a problem competing in the global market?
> 
>  
> 
> Italy a basket case?  I mentioned reading Oriana
> Fallaci's The Rage and the
> Pride.  I'm now reading her follow-up book, The
> Force of Reason.  She
> describes most of Europe as being a basket case.
> 
>  
> 
> Lawrence
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Teemu Pyyluoma
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 1:59 PM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Are you out there, Didier?
> 
>  
> 
> Lawrence, the current problems with European economy
> 
> are about German, French and Italian economy. Italy
> is
> 
> a different basket case, but German and French
> 
> corporations in general seem to have no problems
> 
> competing in the global economy, it is the domestic
> 
> demand and consumer economy in general that is the
> 
> problem. I also have to note that the companies
> having
> 
> trouble competing in the global market place are
> more
> 
> often than not big US corporations, something that
> 
> gives me no satisfaction as I work for one. I have a
> 
> cultural explanation for this and in a nut shell it
> 
> boils down to amount of red tape that makes Russian
> 
> bureaucracy look efficent...
> 
>  
> 
> But that is beside the point. As Munchau, an editor
> in
> 
> an economically right-wing business paper, notes the
> 
> Villepin proposal is economically and politically
> 
> counter-productive. It is very hard to see how it
> 
> would create new jobs, as it applies to only those
> 
> under 26. The kind of economic havoc further strikes
> 
> will cause will certainly out do any benefits. And
> 
> anyway it has mainly to do with goverment jobs,
> 
> private sector can and does fire people too in
> France
> 
> I believe.
> 
>  
> 
> The political price is far bigger. As much I dislike
> 
> the conservative left, I have even bigger problem
> with
> 
> dimwit reformists, namely because I symphatize with
> 
> their aims. We've got this cheerleader crowd who
> 
> reflexilevely supports any kind of measures to lower
> 
> employment protection, whether they work or not.
> 
> Lay-off periods, severance packages and so on are
> 
> basically part of compensation given to the worker.
> 
> From an employer perspective, that you have to pay
> say
> 
> six months salary to someone you fire has a cost of
> 
> the propability you me indeed lay him of multiplied
> by
> 
> six months salary. That we should in effect, given
> 
> alreay week domestic demand, effectively lower wages
> 
> doesn't seem particullary good for anyone involved.
> 
> And increased insecurity leads to excess savings,
> see
> 
> China and US current account deficit, which leads to
> 
> deficent demand.
> 
>  
> 
> I am in favor of the Scandinavian model, that does
> 
> seem to lead to very high employment, that is you
> 
> protect workers and not jobs (this is part of the
> 
> general concensus Blanchard outlines). High
> 
> unemployment benefits coupled with both reguirement
> to
> 
> seek a job, and help finding it, and if needed
> 
> training. The continental model of making lay offs
> 
> hard simply gets the problem wrong, that people
> loose
> 
> jobs is not that bad, that they can't find another
> is.
> 
> But the current French proposal doesn't really
> address
> 
> this in a meaningful way.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Teemu
> 
> Helsinki, Finland
> 
> 


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