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AVeRAGe WeeKLY WoRKiNG HouRS IN EuRoPe...
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Bertha * Deadicated * Los Lobos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CDuQmhTyD4
.
....
Grateful Dead - Bertha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaYfA7tfT1g
The Grateful Dead - Blues For Allah (Album, September 1, 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE_hm9qKRyc
.
Mink DeVille - Spanish Stroll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5LveBIjg3o
"work is for people who can't fish." ?
They get up at twelve and start to work by one,
Take an hour for lunch and then by two they're done,
Jolly good fun!
/Wizard of Oz
great work these last several days, WB.
i wanted to add something of some sort to many of your recent threads (particularly marathon man) for all ZHealots of every variety, but janus has for most of the last week been oscillating between 3 distinct modes of being -- pissed-off, sauced-up & hung-over (and was often afflicted by an uneasy admixture of all 3 at once). in that my disposition has of late been decidedly apocalyptic, janus reckoned it best he leave-off Hedging for a few days. not wanting to sour amorica's celebratory spirit, i took the high road such that the lower orders may engage in their orgy of star-spangled jingoism without suffering any singes from the heat in my passion-pit. but now i'm back to merrily stoke the embers of armageddon into a white-hot pique of wrath with the twin bellows of janus' rapier wit and winsome malevolence.
it has of late occurred to me that many do capriciously and thoughtlessly appraise janus an irredeemable bigot, or racist; or perhaps that i engage in some illicit 'ism' or the other...nothing could be further from the truth. such accusations are slanderous assaults, and they hurt. being the sensitive-type, instinct impels that i go some ways in striking back -- in hurting these judgmental vermin who so hastily impute unto janus all manner of sin and then demand that i in some way atone for crimes and charges i do not comprehend.
in my brief existence, experience has invariably to me demonstrated two things: 1) human beings have both the knack for and inclination to amity. 2) tptb find this instinct in mankind to be a most undesirable attribute, and so they never cease in creating and then aggravating tensions amongst them.
for much of the modern epoch, tptb has successfully sown discord throughout our species' brotherhood by stoking various sensitivities to animate the victimization narrative, which informs the perspective of our age's inhabitants. and inasmuch as janus is a victim of the victimizers' victimization balderdash, i feel that my insights are of specific and definite import. and, look, i simply refuse to apologize...when people are flim-flammed into some silly sensitivity predicated on their very being, well, you can expect a good laugh at your expense, courtesy of janus -- arch-villain par excelance of the modern epoch.
july 2nd was a date to go down in infamy; for it was on that day janus successfully added another stripe to his rainbow flag and did seal a certain cavity that has for so long ached with deficiency.
early in my life, the world was colored in the basic hues of simplicity. white/black/brown/yellow. with respect to brown, all were mexicans. and the luxury of this reductive simplicity was for so long most comforting. over time and with experience, janus began to understand that there were seemingly endless permutations of 'brown'; and, most disconcertingly, i came to observe an odd and consistent phenomena: when one confuses a mexican for any of its other permutations, one ends in innocently offending the non-mexican of tawny skin.
why, say, a pueta rican would take umbrage at your confusing his origins with that of the mexican remains for me an inscrutable conundrum...but they do.
moreover, and with respect to puerta ricans, i always found it fascinating that this island's inhabitants would take such pride in their particular permutation of 'brown'. i mean to say, from my vantage, 'puerta rican' is like a condition one should strive to overcome...not something suited to parading and flag waving. still, they seem intent on celebrating their affliction and aggressively adverting their association with an identity that janus would, except in court of law, strenuously deny.
the events of 7/2 were for janus bracketed by puerta ricans. it all began with an uber alert in south-west boston. for those of you unfamiliar with boston's burbs, it's south-by-south western corridor is 'colorfully' referred to as the 'hood'; and that is because it's choc-a-bloc full of hoodlums.
okay, so, i pick up this jewish guy and his rican bride. both lovely individuals and great in the ways of conversation -- the two were highly intelligent, too. in any event, the jewish guys sez to janus, "you okay with where we're going? you & i will be the only two white guys in four blocks."
janus replize, "i'm very comfortable in the hood. it's like tossin brer-rabbit in the brier-patch."
jewish guy, "why, where are you from?"
janus, "the big hood."
jewish guy, "where's that?"
janus, "dixie."
janus then proceeded to spool-off a litany of grievances to this charming couple, itemizing recent events that have him mighty-sore, highly-pissed and a little shook-up. church burnings, church shootings and swelling racial enmity in dixie do not a happy janus make. nobody really understands the south save for its native sons, and most of us don't really feel like explaining or justifying its dynamics to the rest of you. most of you imbeciles have a collage of german-shepherds, water-hoses and segregation signs sloshing around in your narrow little minds...what most fail to apprehend is that there's lots of love in dixie; only, we have this queer habit of respecting each other's spaces and boundaries. we prefer to get along with one another on our own terms, not those dictated from on high within the bowels of some insipid 'think-tank' or do-gooder ngo. fuck you agitators.
{yeah, dick cohen, i heard your smarmy little interview on npr. don't think for one second janus don't know what you and the rest of you communists at the splc are up to. you workers of iniquity will be the ones to atone -- that's not a threat, it's a fuckin promise.}
my sentiments were especially charged because, not 3 minutes prior picking them up, janus spent some 40 minutes catching up with a dear friend in south carolina. this particular friend just so happens to live in a tiny community adjacent to the savanna river, this picayune little hamlet was the scene of south carolina's church fire. i was furious.
as a side-note, it was during a late night conversation with this friend, upon the occasion of my last visit to south carolina, that janus found the title of his chapter assessing amorica's putrescence. for you see, one of my closing chapters is a diagnosis of the amorican disease, it is entitled "Failure To Thrive"; it was the term she entered on Strom Thurmond's death certificate at the coroner's orders. and, aptly, none can rightly argue that amorica is at present thriving...and it continues to fail in this respect.
anyway, in no time flat janus had picked his way from the hood, on to hyde park and then finally into boston's glistening epi-center. with thoughts of sundry minorities, agitators and puerta ricans coalescing in my mind, i suddenly found myself side-by-side in downtown boston with 'mr. important' sitting in his convertible white bently seated beside a very young mistress of black hair and tawny skin.
this particular 'mr. important' was a baby-boomer of the most despicable variant, not only because he was driving 'my' bently seated next to 'my' tawny mistress, but mostly because he hadn't the faintest idea of what to do with either of them. for the purposes of this narrative, i think it's safe to assume that this tawny mistress was pueta rican; because, by the looks of her, we can additionally assume that she'd be offended by any associations with mexicans.
nevertheless, this boomer in a bently kept creeping up as i tried to get right next to him and hit on his mistress. the nerve of this boomer! denying janus the opportunity to flirt with his girl right in his face! and so, i tapped my prius 'power' setting and decided to box this boomer out...teach him some 'defensive' driving techniques and force him to endure my game as i played it on his rican mistress.
fucker blew right through a red-light rather than doing the gentlemanly thing and permitting me access to his mistresses' affections. it's probably for the best, this guy was a legit big-wig; and had this charade gone on for two more lights, he would've found himself suddenly deprived of both the bently and mistress. then dhs would've gotten involved, and independence day would've been a bust for much of metro boston...the sacrifices i make for this country on an on-going and regular basis boggle the mind.
obviously, janus was at this point dead-set on a pueta rican adventure -- but there were to be other obstacles still.
after completing about 10 hours of ubering, i decided to take one last fare before going to pick up my bar-tender buddy and raise a bit of hell. so this chic had just left her boy-friend...she was emotional, vulnerable and voluble in declaring her thirst for alcohol. i know what the reader is thinking, and i too was stirred by similar thoughts.
such scenarios are, for some reason, a very common occurrence for yours truly. i don't know what it is, but fate has a way of delivering to janus a non-stop parade of emotional, vulnerable and alcoholic cock-tail waitresses, hair-dressers and whatnot who've just broken things off with their paramour and want to take some frustrations out on him. look, we all have our burdens to bear in life -- one of mine just so happens to be vulnerable girls who're to looking to lustily celebrate emancipation.
over time, i've discovered that this enterprise can be a mixed bag. on the one hand, they're easy and eager to please; on the other hand, they can readily leak with weepy tears and entangle the sensitive-types in the most tedious of conversations...like, for example, the reasons they're leaving mr. vulnerable.
we parked and sauntered into a local bar. i let her buy me a few drinks and then decided that this lil vixen was not only unworthy of my efforts, but that she was impeding my puerta rican adventure with the maudlin delineation of her personal melodrama -- bummed me out in every way. even so, the fact that she changed clothes in my back seat earned her a few minutes of company and the opportunity to kick-start my buzz.
and so it was that i left her and sped over to another bar and picked up my bar-tender buddy. janus helped him break-down the bar and get the place spic & span...then we went back to that very same bar janus just departed to start hunting for an amiable gang of puerta ricans, such that janus could prove, once and for all, that he is 'mr. multicultural' by ticking-off this last box in his rainbow to-do list.
happily, 'mattie' & janus espyed a pool table suitably infested with puerta ricans. we made our way over to the table and janus asked 'mattie' (his bar-tender buddy) if he'd like to play a game or two of pool with the puerta ricans.
mattie answers, "how we gonna do that, those puerta ricans have it?"
janus confidently told mattie that we shall be taking the table from the puerta ricans by beating them at the game they're playing. 8-ball.
it's sorta like that boomer in the bently. some are content to let that fucker cruise around in a machine he does not understand with a girl he could not possibly please...this, to me, seems like a violation of The Natural Order. and in the same way janus thinks that boomers should be divested of bentlys they do not deserve, i similarly think pool tables are there for the taking -- as they say, may the better man win.
okay, before concluding, i want to dedicate a song to that tawny mistress in the bently whilst i smoke a cig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl1iSJg3WUQ
puerta ricans are just like all other pool players -- you earn their respect by demonstrating adept and acumen with a cue. it just so happened that the moment janus sunk the 8-ball and won the green rectangle that the bar's lights began to flash...last call.
janus, mattie and the ricans had by now bonded; and they did then invite mattie & janus over to their 'crib' to 'chill'. invitation accepted.
the long & short of it is, janus & mattie spent the next four or so hours rappin and chillin with a house full of puerta ricans...and never once did it cross my mind to shoot them, burn their churches nor 'victimize' them in any way. what is more, it is my suspicion that they all, to this very day, retain a positive opinion of this 'racist' and 'bigot' -- public enemy #1: janus publicus.
janus & mattie next made our way to IHOP to stuff our maws with piles and piles of protein. sitting there, in the bright light of the eastern dawn, i thought about all this mess, the divisiveness inherent in 'equality' and in what way i can be of some service to its denouement.
let me tell you this much, amorica. you keep up with this agitating, and you are not going to like the fixes i have in mind. because, call me a 'bigot' or what-have-you, i do not begrudge the puerta rican his identity nor his pride in it (misplaced though it may be)...i happen to like the puerta rican and most other of the permutations comprising 'brown'. furthermore, i do not feel obliged to continue allowing a bunch of do-gooders to mediate our relationships...just what constitutes neighborly comity betwixt i and ricans, mexicans and all the rest is our fucking business -- and you can all kindly butt the fuck out.
other than that, i suppose i'll just meekly go about my business prying boomers from their bentlys, bangin their mistresses, soothing vulnerable hairdressers and schoolin rican on felted tables of green, from sea to shining sea.
God bless america.
ZHealots, it is my hope that your forth was as enjoyable as my own. thanks to a gang of rowdy puerta ricans, i've decided to fore stay my curse on this blighted land. the Grateful Dead played their last show at soldier field last night, and i'm still feeling all sentimental and neighborly because of it. it was a great show. i listened to the whole thing on sat radio. this song didn't make it into last night's set, but it should've:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdPOAhBp2Ag
i'm uncle sam/
that's who i am/
been hidin out/
in a rock & roll band/
i'll drink your health/
share your wealth/
run your life/
steal your wife/
...rock the boat/
skin the goat,
janus
my friend, you need to publish and
get paid for these adventures in prose.
i have had nearly enough of
finding the near/best writing of my time
in a comment section on wb7's secret corner
dedicated to visual combat. the "rolling stone",
the "guardian"?
maybe a comic book format? years ago i completed
a collection of 30 or so issues of "beautiful
stories for ugly children". there was something
i had never seen before, hilarious and wonderful prose
peppered with startling illustrations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Stories_for_Ugly_Children
.
or not.
i saw that dead show on pay per view with my son.
the poor guy sat 2 feet from the screen so his mother
and i could share his couch in comfort. billy k. and mickey h.,
living the dream........percussion.
Only 53% of the working-age population in Greece works.
And about 20% of that works for the government (tax leeches).
So only about 30% of the Greek working-age population has a real, productive job.
In the US we students have to get by by working around the clock all year round. The pay is not bad but the hours suck.
Also, remember that Greek govt workers get 14 months pay for every 12 months of "work".
"You can be "at work" without producing anything"
Describes much of the Finance and Banking industry perfectly. It's no wonder the Greeks have pissed off the Banksters, they're encroaching on their turf, money for nothing....
How dare those lazy Greeks refuse to pile on more debt to these hard working investors!
You can be "at work" without producing anything. Especially if you are a govt worker. You can also work many hours but still outspend your means. Also, your workers can work many hours, but if too many other people are on the dole there aren't enough hours than can be worked to make up the drag from the unemployed.
Friendly reminder: acquiring capital makes you rich, not working hard. If you're working hard for others, you're making them rich and you poor. Acquire capital.
So much wrong with that.
Acquiring capital does nothing if you don't do anything with it and the Greeks are notorious for hording capital in the form of currency rather than declare income (which then gets taxed), buy things under the table rather than over (sales tax/VAT), store wealth in the bank (taxes and capital controls), or invest (and more taxes).
The Greeks are neither poor nor rich from working hard. Are they productive? They happen to be near the bottom of that statistic for the OECD. This stat also comes from the same country that has difficulty in collecting taxes and declaring their real financial condition. This is a sympton rather than a problem. When you have a recession/depression the part time staff is the first to go.
Maybe if the Germans didn't treat beer like a softdrink, they'd make it beyond a 35.3 hour work week. Same goes for a lot of these other countries. Most of them aren't commuting two hours a day and eating lunch at their desks.
You touch upon another prevalent stereotype, those lazy assed Americans.
i thought the stereo type was hyperactive overworked americans, workaholics, dilbert, etc
Not if you are outside the US.
Outside the US the meme is, Americans are fat, lazy and in debt and that is why they are falling from the pinacle so quickly. I know, I have to put up with listening to this shit while maintaining a smile.
The Japanese underestimated Americans too. You may want to point that out to your foreign "friends". Don't get me wrong, Americans are fat, lazy, and stupid for the most part..........but no more so than the other flavors of human.
The ones making these kinds of remarks are never Asian, they would never have the nerve to say such a thing openly, it is the Europeans.
Moreover, as a people, it is pretty fucking difficult to argue we are not fat.
Yep, nothing will ever beat French in this.
Greece is kind of interesting. It's like an entree. But I'm really holding out for the main course, a larger economy to fail. I'm excited about the U.S. 4.5 trillion on the FED balance sheet, FED rate at 0-0.25%, the end of a bull bond market, over valued stock market, the end of USD hegemony. To be honest, I can't fucking wait. China's central bank is fighting the market too. Fuck there is some money to be made if you have the connect. So many idiots in the world.
If I throw someone a book on corruption, politics, money, banking, etc, and they don't read it and promptly go back to their comfortable little television induced bubble reality of illusion, 'should' I really care when they inevitably get thrown in the plastic crusher?
How about I write and scream and protest and plead and nobody gives a fuck? If people prefer ignorance, apathy, despondence, indifference, normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance, mental lethargy, logical fallacies, then they can have it. You can't cure stupid.
"But I'm really holding out for the main course, a larger economy to fail. To be honest, I can't fucking wait." --mojojojo
A lot of people seem to get positively giddy with the thought of economic collapse, like it's going to be this really exciting thing to behold. Put me down as one who thinks it's going to be hellish, and will result in a shift to an even larger, more oppressive system. Seriously: when's the last time the elite lost and the common people won? It was pre-18th century for sure, at least...
Americans only waste their time if they bother to learn about the system. They are saddled with single-selection two-party voting, and lack strategic score voting. And now voting machines, etc. It can't really be their fault.
I suppose one factor to consider is which economies are relatively more agrarian in nature. One may surmise that an agrarian economy closer to the Equater will generate longer daylight hours of work than a factory economy farther North (shorter daylight).
Alternatively one can consider that someone has to tend for all the Northern European holidaymakers who essentially shut down for the entire month of August.
Or one can just say those "lazy assed Greeks" just have to work twice as hard to repay their debts. Arbeit macht fiat...
"An agrarian economy closer to the Equater will generate longer daylight hours of work than a factory economy farther North (shorter daylight)." --WB7
Higher latitudes do receive shorter daylight than the tropics between the equinoxes centered around the winter solstice, but these high latitude countries get LONGER daylight hours between the equinoxes centered around the summer solstice. Right now, the northern US, UK, Benelux, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Scandinavia, Baltics, Belarus, Russia, and Canada are getting far longer daylight hours than the equatorial regions. It'll flip on the other side of the September equinox, of course.
The "Troika" pretended to lend the money to the Greek people, but rich bankers got 90% of it.
However, the Greek people are the ones required to pay it back, mostly by selling off their water supplies, etc.
Same thing here except we do it all in-house via "quantitative easing."
Basically public assets are being "transferred" to wealthy bankers.
Greeks at 42 hours per week.
Perhaps for those that DO work
Those working 42 hours are mostly government workers making life harder for everyone else.
Those working 35 hours are mostly government workers making life harder for everyone else. FIXED-it
I know as i was one for a short time.
4 weeks vacation first year. You could double that because they did not pay OT. So you got paid to stay home a lot !
My boss was a receptionist that became the network administrator because her father was county da for many years. Funny she also had a brother and a sister working there too! She never worked a full week and I was there two years! Seemed to be a lot of relatives working there bothers and sisters,husband and wives the kids.
The dumbest Mother fuckers for co-workers, I couldn't take the retardation. Would not know how to wipe their own asses unless they were told how.
A government worker on 42 hours a week?
Sorry - you must be confused.
My thought precisely. Don't they shut down at 3?
They have to leave early to make up for coming in late.
Greeks at 42 hours per week.
Perhaps for those that DO work
this chart needs a couple banzai girls
Perhaps some young Greek ladies to stimulate the economy
Confusing "work" with "productivity" does not help here
'working' time not necessarily equal to clocked in time.
Christ on a pogo stick.
If we worked only 37.2 hours a week in the VFX industry like the EU average, everything would look like shit or never get done.
Uhmmm...and productivity stats?
How are we defining work. Showing up and collecting a paycheck doesn't necessarily quality.....
Remember the phrase from the 90's in this country: "They sweat, we think." Productivity needs a more meaningful link to today's reality.
Look what all that thinking got us.
but most of them are just watching the goats.
I'm afraid they are doing more than that to the goats.
ZH, I come for the articles
I stay for the humour
work smarter, not harder