Vacations are a necessity. That's one area where the US does lag - Prager's privileged situation aside, it isn't surprising that so few Americans travel broadly with only twoi weeks a year leave. Who wants to spend a day or two traveeling out of such a meager allotment.
Personally I favour longer breaks - the productivity payoffs are worth it.
There are many jobs in America that provides heaps of leave days. But it is on the employee's part to negotiate - hard. Work culture wise, the US has more similarities with productive and East and Southeast Asia - whose people work really hard - and less like lazy-bums like Europeans or us Kiwis when it comes to attitudes towards holidays (or what North Americans call vacations).