Cheap credit allowed Americans to maintain their quality of life while wages continued to stagnate and their real purchasing power declined. Then the train rain out of steam.
I usually worry about the same thing -- starting and ending years getting cherry-picked to make headlines -- but this time the first graph I could find (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...) makes it look like 2005 is about the same level as 1998, definitely not the height of either bubble.
The Conference Board Total Economic Database May 2016 release, table "Labor productivity per hour worked in 1990 US$ (converted at Geary Khamis PPPs)" For 2015, France 37, USA 40. [1]
Wikipedia, List of countries by GDP (PPP) per hour worked, methodology appears different than previous citation. France 59.24, USA 67.32. [2]
OECD, GDP per hour worked, 2014. France 60.3, USA 62.4. [3]
In each case the data seems to show that workers in the US are more productive per hour worked than those in France.
Source on productivity? And whether or not individual workers are more productive, French mega-corporations seem to have much less of a global reach than American or German ones. I can't think of many French products that are common in the US other than cosmetics (that's an anecdotal argument though).
Another possible angle (to be mixed and matched with the original):
French guy works 35 hours (ok really 38) and is busy all the time at work.
Korean guy works 60 hours (ok really 55) and spends much of it 1) recovering from semi-mandatory drinking with the boss and colleagues, 2) browsing / shopping online, 3) chatting on KakaoTalk, often while 4) waiting for his boss to leave so that he can also, or 5) if working diligently, often on polishing pointless powerpoint presentations.
You forget that the American is working 50-60 hours, and only being paid for 40.
"Adults employed full time in the U.S. report working an average of 47 hours per week, almost a full workday longer than what a standard five-day, 9-to-5 schedule entails. In fact, half of all full-time workers indicate they typically work more than 40 hours, and nearly four in 10 say they work at least 50 hours."
