[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'b')etter quality? no it's the same generic industrial crap you get everywhere else. Better tasting? Ugh, french food. No thanks. You get good quality everywhere if you pay the price.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '[')the sign at the emergency room says they can't turn anyone away so the ER room is used for treating an earache at $3k/hr at society's expense - instead of simply providing a $100/hr clinic.

[peeker01]

The town I live in built a 10 million dollar civic center, and then promptly put everyone on a 4
day work week. 7 days a week debt service, 7 day insurance, 7 day air conditioning and heating,
7 days of employee salary and benefits, 4 days a week of city services.

If you need any city services on Friday, you are SOL. They call it "Green Friday" to put a happy
face on a 20% reduction on city services. Did my property taxes go down 20%......Nope. Do
they stop collecting city sales tax on Friday? ......Nope.

They are supposed to be available from 7am to 6pm. Right. I tried several times to talk to a
building inspector at 7:15 am. Never happened.

4 day work weeks are a scam. I guess 3 days is next.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')Maybe if we didn't work so much we'd have more time to cook. More time to live, enjoy life. At the end of the day, what do you want on your tombstone?

"Here lies Joe, he worked 60 hours a week and never got more than a week's vacation per year. Which he spent cleaning his rain gutters."

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'I') fully agree with you. However let this be FREE choice. If somebody likes to work. Let him work and let him keep the money for himself, not paying for the lazy neighbour. I somebody want's to enjoy life, relax, go fishing, no problem, but pay for it yourself. It could be so simple.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('basil_hayden', 'A') 35 hour work week won't do squat, a slow week for me is already 55 hours with 15 for free and 40 underpaid.

What would make a difference is a 4 day 10 hour workweek to save 20% on auto fuel.

[Newfie]

Back in about 1900 95% of work force was engaged in food production.

In Russles' time it was like 40%. He noted that Britain went to WWI, took out the cream of the work force, and increased production. So clearly there is excess production capability.

Now we have under 5% of our work force engaged in food production.

Also, we live in the most 'productive' country in the world.

So, it only stands to reason that we should NOT NEED TO WORK 40 HOURS PER WEEK. DUH!

We only NEED to work 40 hours per week because we have bought into the BS capitalist/consumer baloney. Or, perhaps more correctly, capitalist learned how to manipulate our internal needs and created consumerism as the easiest way to have us enslave ourselves for their benefit. I don't really think it was a grand scheme, it is just how it evolved.

We don't have enough jobs because there is not enough work to go around, we get all we need without everyone working. It is a problem of wealth distribution.

Really, Russel does a good job especially with the Button Factory metaphor.

Take the Red pill, just nibble at it, read the essay.

http://www.panarchy.org/russell/idleness.1932.html

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')So you can say you like it better the way it is in the US, but you can't say that a 35 hour workweek and vacation time is impossible.

[Newfie]

Mandatory retirement after 10 years.

If you wanna work after that............YOU PAY to work.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'B')UT. Still I have one question for you. Why not 30hr/wk? Or 25hr/wk? Isn't that even better than 35?

[SeaGypsy]

Here in the Lucky country if your employer makes you regularly work overtime (38 hours+) you can sue them for the difference and if you are injured or cause an injury whilst overworking the employer is liable.

I have done about 3 hours of unpaid overtime ever. I do not 'put up' with this kind of treatment and I don't think anyone should.
The more suckers tolerating 'unpaid overtime on salary' the more mongrel employers will expect it from others. Those in this situation may try to kid themselves (or others) of their superior work ethic, but really you are victims of an unfair system and or an unfair employer. You are also part of the cancer undermining ordinary worker's rights fought for over many years.

[Pops]

Yeah, it's hard to complain about the Accumulators holding all the chips at the table when the worker is willing to send in his wife and kids and dog to the mines and work 60 hours a week himself just so he can have the latest 8-track i-Pad.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', 'T')he entire concept of government management of the economy is the province of narcissistic people with delusions of grandeur; they think they are smarter about where money should be invested, how businesses should be run, what should be produced and what people want than the collective judgement of people acting freely to make economic decisions. For you collectivists that believe in collective action, I would think you would love the free market because it is the ultimate mechanism for the collective decisions of millions of people; it is unfortunate that you don't see the current economic system for what it is, fascism, the collusion of government and corporations to rig the markets against the average man in favor of the elite.

We don't have free markets, but rather controlled markets. The solution to our economic disaster is to restore free markets, not more government control or management. The question is not what the work week should be, but should government at all have the power to set the work week. It is not that free markets can solve the unsolvable problem of overpopulation and of economic contraction driven by resource scarcity, but it can mitigate the human suffering by eliminating the additional burden of slavery for the majority, and give people an equal chance of survival.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'Y')ou see Basil, that's why you are part of the problem. Your stealing some poor blokes job!
Go read the Bertrand Russel piece, please.
I kinda got into this idea earlier in the year, we could do a whole lot of good.....if we just stopped doing.

[prajeshbhat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', '
')
I suggest you read "The Fourth Turning" by William Strauss and Neil Howe for historical support for violent resolution of crisis periods similar to that which we are now enduring. The authors in 1997 predicted the current crisis period to begin about when it did, 2006-2007. Similar crises preceded the 1775 American Revolution, the 1861 Civil War, and WWII (1941). The regularity of these crisis periods followed by violent resolution is one of the phenomenon they reveal in their analysis of history, and the effect of generational attitudes. I am sure that the majority of people were taken by surprise when these periods of violence erupted; it is just human nature to expect tomorrow to be like today, especially when long term forces are at work, and the pressure slowly builds until there is a sudden perceptible event which even the most unaware notice.

You might also want to read "Civil War Two, The Coming Breakup of America", by Thomas W. Chittum, who addresses the ethnic divisions in the US and predicts civil war based on the changing ethnic demographics which will create the conditions that historically worldwide lead to race wars. He suggests that the Southwest will break away to become part of Mexico and the South will break away to become a new Black nation, leaving the Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast as a Caucasian enclave. Because there seems to be a taboo about discussion of racial division, some people discredit this book as racist; I think his analysis is credible and any racial motives he may have are overshadowed by the analysis itself.

To my mind the convergence of cyclical forces described in the Fourth Turning, the changing ethic demographics, and the massive economic contraction that energy scarcity will bring (is bringing) falls into the category of a perfect storm, and I can easily see civil war / revolution over the next decade or two. This is hardly a fantasy of mine.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '
')the solution to our problems is to jettison the entire market system.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'O')bama is soon supposed to make a speech on the Dismal Jobs Depression and what he is going to do about it. Honestly decisive action is needed NOW and it wouldn't cost the Government a dime.

Shortening the Workweek to 35 hours would have immediate and drastic effect on the US jobs market.

This is a no brainer the math is simple.

Current US law sets the workweek at 40 hours and any hours worked after that must be paid at time and a half rate. So for example a small business with 10 employees that each work 40 hours would log 400 hours in paid hourly labor.

Under the new law the workweek would be set to 35 hours and any hours worked after that must be paid at time and half rate. So in the same example the same small business with 10 employees working 35 hours would only log 350 hours in paid hourly labor. In order to keep their operations up they would have to either pay for 50 hours of over time for the existing 10 employees or hire two new workers.

Either decision will create more jobs because you will either end up with 10 better paid employees which means more cash for the economy or two new workers which is means to its own end in terms of solving the jobs depression.

[Quinny]

OS - what exactly are you searching for?

[SeaGypsy]

There are how many jobs left in the USA waiting for how much cost rise before being offshored? The thinking there is squewiff.

For over a decade, to do any degree in productive enterprize at any serious university in the world, a major component of study has been in offshoring.

Do you think those manufacturers left in the USA or other 1st world countries are there for the low costs? Or xenophobia? General hatred of Asians or perhaps patriotism?

If any of the above, you are deluded. The reasons for staying put in high wage countries will not dissolve over a 10 or 20% labour cost rise. Incentives from western governments are major motivation, so is security of title, along with proximity to market.
Then there are intangible social reasons; hence so many major offshorers maintaining some skeleton manufacturing quadrant left 'back home'.

Keep in mind that for many manufacturers and primary producers, energy and material cost fluctuations have much more serious implications on productivity than incremental wage rise or even chunky mark ups such as Novus proposes here.

The suggestion that health costs overall would do something terrible is laughable strawman baloney. A worker in a proper occupational health environment is a much healthier human being than one hanging about doing nothing.

[NickyBoy]

My European based company is in direct competition with American companies. We have a significantly shorter effective working week then our slave-driven American counterparts and we produce a better quality product at a lower cost.

Our managers long ago figured out the negative effects of forcing staff to endure longer working weeks over a prolonged period.

I don't have the exact numbers here to hand but they were something like:

35 hours work a week results in 35 hours of highly effective output from an employee. They remain fully focussed and enthusiastic.

-55 hours can be maintained for 2 weeks with no noticeable drop in employee output, competence or enthusiasm.

-The third week of 55 hours will result in only receiving around 45 hours of effective output when measured on the same standards as the first week. Employees will occasionally make mistakes, think slower and work slower.

-The fourth week of 55 hours will result in only receiving around 35 hours of effective output when measured on the same standards as the first week. Employees will make multiple mistakes, think slower, struggle to maintain focus and work slower. This is the break even point where an employee is working 55 hours a week but only producing the same amount of high-quality output as someone kept on a 35 hour week.

-The fifth and following weeks of enforced 55 hour weeks will see less than 35 hours of effective output when measured on the same standards as the first week. Employees kept at a permanent 55 hour working week will at this point onwards produce less output than an employees kept at a 35 hour working week.

These were the results of an internal investigation by our management team, kept hidden from the staff. Managers now keep us on a 35 hour working week, pay us the same as we would get for working a 40 hour week and get more effective work out of us than our slave-driven American competitors who force their workforce to do a 55 hour working week (with a big chunk of that unpaid )

Silly Americans.
Land of the free? Heh.