I just finished this book by T.R. Reid and it was really good. It tells a lot about the European Union (which I never knew much about), how it was formed, what motivated it, and how it affects America and the way we do business.
It's a pretty fair book and the author did a lot of research into how many Europeans feel about Americans and vice versa. Some interesting distinctions included how Europe feels about capital punishment. And how it makes headlines clear over there whenever it's done here. Or how Europe is actually quite proud of their welfare state and how healthcare and higher education is mostly free. And sure they pay a lot more taxes than we do and their poverty is apparently not as bad as some may think. Since they have different standards of what it means to be in poverty.
Another thing I found interesting was in Norway when a women has a baby, she is paid what her annual salary is to stay at home for a year to raise her kid. And when she is ready to come back to work, her company is required by law to bring her back to work. Though they say this system is not perfect since it makes it harder for women to get jobs because of this. And companies can still not hire them back and claim it was for other reasons.
One of the most interesting parts I read about was how it is illegal to downsize in Europe. For awhile all the Burger King restaurants were owned by this British whiskey and beer company. During a really bad year they were losing a lot of money and knew they had to cut some corners to save some money. They would've considered shutting down some Burger King chains in Britain except that that was against the law to just lay people off like that. So instead they shut down a bunch of them in America because it's perfectly legal to do here.
Anyway, just thought I'd recommend this book to anyone who might be interested.
It's a pretty fair book and the author did a lot of research into how many Europeans feel about Americans and vice versa. Some interesting distinctions included how Europe feels about capital punishment. And how it makes headlines clear over there whenever it's done here. Or how Europe is actually quite proud of their welfare state and how healthcare and higher education is mostly free. And sure they pay a lot more taxes than we do and their poverty is apparently not as bad as some may think. Since they have different standards of what it means to be in poverty.
Another thing I found interesting was in Norway when a women has a baby, she is paid what her annual salary is to stay at home for a year to raise her kid. And when she is ready to come back to work, her company is required by law to bring her back to work. Though they say this system is not perfect since it makes it harder for women to get jobs because of this. And companies can still not hire them back and claim it was for other reasons.
One of the most interesting parts I read about was how it is illegal to downsize in Europe. For awhile all the Burger King restaurants were owned by this British whiskey and beer company. During a really bad year they were losing a lot of money and knew they had to cut some corners to save some money. They would've considered shutting down some Burger King chains in Britain except that that was against the law to just lay people off like that. So instead they shut down a bunch of them in America because it's perfectly legal to do here.
Anyway, just thought I'd recommend this book to anyone who might be interested.