Except several EU countries which have that as the legal minimum…
(e.g. France: 35 hr legal working week, 25 days holidays and ~ 13 paid public holidays per year)
And it's not as if we have less welfare, healthcare, worse education, low productivity, or an instable economy. In fact, in pretty much all rankings Western European countries are doing fine.
Unfortunately, government policies that make such thinks possible are called 'socialist' on the other side of the pond.
They are called 'Socialist' here (EU) aswell.
* The 2nd largest political party in the European Parliament is.... "Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats".
* The UK Labour Party (many times in government) has a footer to "Affiliated socialist societies" in it's homepage ( http://www.labour.org.uk/home ) (Though it's not really viewed as socialist party in UK as much now that it's "New Labour").
* The "Core Party Principles" of the Irish Labour Party (which is in government) starts with: "The four principles on which Socialism is based are …" ( http://www.labour.ie/principles/ )
The difference is that "socialist" isn't a dirty word in European countries.
All of the EU gets 48 hours maximum working time per week, that's the European Working Time Directive again. The UK has a sort of an opt-out to it. Some member states have a lower maximum.
Fun Fact: I'm from Ireland (20 days holidays per year). Talked to some Germans, and they were shocked I could get by on 20 (they got 30).
What's interesting is I work for a large multi-national (listed on NYSE and TSX) - local expectations override the rest of their US-centric culture.
Your point still stands, but student loans from med school are nothing to brush aside.
E.g., in Belgium, any year spent studying at college- or university-level costs €550 (±$720), plus the cost of the books. If your parents earn less than a middle class income, you pay significantly less.
The major difference that does hold true everywhere, is the fact that doctors start earning a salary much later.
Oh, I see, you're having an issue where you're executing 10,000 queries. Let me just open up this book and copy/paste the solution to you.
#2 Yes you are. It's called StackOverflow and a million other sites on the internet where you can google for an answer to your question.