I wouldn’t call 3 extra days “much better”.

You’re talking about the Netherlands? It’s 5 days fully paid.

I can take several months if I want it, but I have to take a 30% pay cut, which we can’t afford. Paternity leave in the Netherlands sucks.

I taught English in Japan (JET) for one year, and at the end I said what a lot of people say: I’d love to visit, but I’m never going to work here again.

The work culture in Japan is fucked. The fact that the amount of time you spend at work, not your actual output, determines how “productive” you are is so fucking stupid. I worked my contract hours and I was seen as lazy. Despite the fact that everything I was asked to do was always done and done well, the fact that I didn’t come in 2 hours early and nap at my desk meant I was lazy. Add onto that the fact that I only got a (generous for Japan) 15 days of nenkyuu (paid days off), which you can’t actually use because what happens if you get sick. Sick leave exists, but does it? Does it really? The one time I tried to use it, I was told “it’d be better for everyone if you didn’t”, and then had to use my nenkyuu anyway.

And that was me working a pretty privileged position! If I was coming from Vietnam to work in a retirement home, I’m sure the working conditions would be far worse with the threat of deportation looming over my head. Immigration is a band aid at best. As soon as immigrants have the opportunity to move somewhere better, they will of course take that.

In contrast, I now live in the Netherlands, which shockingly has some of the least generous child benefits in the EU. And yet, we get about 100€/month from the government in support, plus about 50% the cost of childcare paid for. My wife gets 4 months of maternity leave at full pay (I only get 5 days which is super fucked), with up to 3 years at 60% pay with a guarantee of her job being there when she gets back. We each have 25+ days off a year, which are actually used for days off, if the kid gets sick, we can use sick leave to care for it, and sick leave is unlimited. Also, healthcare for children is 100% paid by the government. And with all of that, we’re barely in a position to be able to consider having children.

This is poorly written at best and outright misinformation at worst. But maybe don’t source news about Dutch politics from an Indian news source?

Anyway, Rutte resigned the cabinet, he didn’t personally resign. He said “my government can no longer do its job” not " I can no longer do my job".

The way this is written it makes it sound like the latter, where Rutte personally resigned, which is definitely not the case. Especially considering Rutte is blaming literally everyone else for his cabinet collapsing.

I live in the Netherlands, where a huge percentage of people commute by bicycle.

People also don’t want to go back into the office here either. My work has been begging people to actually come back into the office (another advantage of NL is that worker protections make it really hard to fire people, and firing people who are working hard just not from the place the employer wants is unlikely to be successful).

So I think this idea is largely irrelevant to cars/driving.

In some areas of some cities, yes. But that’s not entirely what’s at issue here (though this is what many companies will claim).

Some US cities are dealing with opiod and homelessness crises which are on a scale that most cities have never faced. The complete lack of a social safety net is creating areas that are, for lack of a better word, overrun. Those areas are functionally devoid of commerical activity.

I want to be clear that the fault of those who are homeless and those who are suffering from addiction lies predominately with the government and shitty policies enacted over the last 50 years. With that said, it is understandable that people are only going to be in spaces with a lot of homeless if they are 1) homeless themselves, 2) helping the homeless in a humanitarian capacity or 3) harassing the homeless (talking about cops here).

Combine all of that, and you have areas of cities where customers aren’t going to go (because they don’t feel safe) and that have a higher proportion of crime (due to the lack of priority of law enforcement).

I’ve left the US, by my home town (city) has areas that are just no-go zones. Like, you only go there if you’re desperate. And the McDonald’s in that areas has long shuttered because they weren’t making any money and they were dealing with a bunch of issues caused by vandalism and attacks on their employees.

The US is showing what happens if you have no social safety net.

I was also a mod over there (recreated the same community here, but it’ll take time to fill in if it ever does). In that sub, despite well over a million subscribers, less than 200 people wrote the valuable comments. If a sizable chunk of those 200 leave, then the sub dies. And several wrote to modmail about the fact that the sub did not participate in the blackout and that they were done with the sub (and frankly, I don’t blame them, I’m also out).

A million members doesn’t matter if the couple hundred experts pack up and leave.