I don't know what planet some of you people live in.
Apply this reasoning to the people in trades that produce services that people need. The Mechanics, Construction workers, Electricians, plumbers, tow truck drivers the list goes on. Apply this idiotic rule to these workers and get ready to take your car in for a brake job and get it back next week or have your A/C in your house fixed next month. Hire more employees you may say but since we have eliminated teaching the trades in school and the interest in manual labor is at an all time low the pickings are slim.
Our jobs cannot be shipped overseas, we don't have time for "meal prep" or "walking the dog" etc.... we are ACTUALLY WORKING, fixing and building things
And the salaried people I work with know exactly what they do every day and they earn every penny and they would laugh at your "right sizing" of their jobs.
commiebernie was kicked out of a hippie commune for being lazy. He never held a real job for any length of time and was a complete failure until he entered politics at age forty. Now he is a millionaire. politics has been very very good to commiebernie.
My experience with going from full time to part time (because I had a child) was do the same amount of work in less time for less pay. My guess is that will make some people unhappy.
Biden has caused 20% inflation over the last three years. Most wages have not kept pace with that inflation. Negotiating a 20% cut in hours for the same pay makes complete sense. I'm surprised more people aren't doing this on their own. Most jobs are makework BS, and productivity would stay the same with less hours. In professional jobs, sometimes you get full benefits at 32 hours - so you're making more per hour by working less hours even at the same pay. But people have mortgages and stupid debts to pay, so they can't stand up for themselves and get pushed around, and complain to commies. Get out of debt and you can negotiate what makes total sense, and not have to rely on a communist to do it for you.
Sure sounds like a great idea doesn't it? I'm surprised no one has tried it yet. But they have, in CA. Where jobs and businesses are fleeing the state. Not every simple solution is a good idea no matter how good it seems on the surface.
I take it you didn't read the article beyond he headline.
No, I read the whole thing. The main point was to not force it. I agree. It should be encouraged, though, just like telecommuting was encouraged a little bit before Covid proved it could be done just fine, without any drop in productivity. Productivity went up with work from home. Most professional jobs can be done in 32 hours per week. Valuable employees should insist on 32 hours. Quiet quitting is a thing for a reason. Mediocre employees who depend on the valuable can keep working 40 hours.
You appear to be a reader, which is a good thing. A reader of comments even, which I many times find even more wisdom than in the article being commented on. Man was not created for work, work was created for man. If you understand what I mean by that. The curse was that work became mandatory, a burden. But trying to remove the burden, instead of changing the attitude towards labor, will not fix anything. Somehow I suspect those in the past were as fulfilled, if not more fulfilled, that we today.
IOW, work before the fall was willing and enjoyable, but after became a labor. Few "want" to be at their jobs because they do not see the value of it, which IMO is the disconnect. Thus the appeal of socialism of whatever form it may be presented :) I once had a friend of mine say to me "I only make tires". My immediate reply was, "Can you imagine a world without tires?"
The main problem is the fake money. The fake money allows for massive malinvestment and thus meaningless, fake work that is unfullfilling (but makes more fake money). Further, if you are one of the enlightened few who understand the money is fake, why would you want to expend real effort, talent and time in exchange for fake money? I'm a professional civil engineer, IQ 140, and I get way more satisfaction out of doing projects around the house to improve my family's quality of life. Most people work and pay taxes to pay other people (who pay taxes) to do the things I do. Why pay taxes twice? My house will be paid off next month, when hopefully my wife will cut her hours for the same pay. Trust me, as a civil engineer, this economy is really not doing anything real. The whole thing is fake, because of the fake money.
False. "Biden" hasn't created 20% inflation. Work on your numbers and get back to us. And stop throwing around the Communist word. It's distracting and detracts from your already specious logic.
You're right. The Federal Reserve has created the inflation by monetizing the debt signed into law by Biden (and Trump). And I've rounded up, because their CPI numbers are a joke. I see your other comments and we probably mostly agree. Take the W instead of nitpicking. There are many reasons why a 32-hour workweek makes more sense.
Well as much as I agree with you on much of what you have written here, my big question: who is to say that the people working "forty hour weeks" are really putting in 40 hours worth of work. Every single person I have spoken to about their salaried job is usually at a loss to explain what they do with even 28 of those hours. They have time, in their work day, to meal prep, clean, walk the dog, shop online, and catch up on Traitors...which says to me that their 40 hour week is "right sized" to 32 hours, rather than being an increase in pay. It's the difference between being paid while the green light is on (in teams) versus being paid while you're ACTUALLY working.
Theoretically, I'm sure a lot of people could actually do in 32 hours what they're currently doing in 40 hours. Some would probably do exactly that. On the other hand, you'd have to expect that most people would take their same 40 hour workweek mentality into a 32 hour workweek. If they spend their mornings looking at social media and chatting at the water cooler now, there's not really a reason to think they'd straighten up and fly right if they were working 32 hours.
But I'm not talking about straightening up or flying right. I mean just the reality of the situation which is this: unless you're doing forced labor, there is nobody who is "working" 40 hours a week, ANYWHERE in the Western world. What do I mean by "working"? Focused attention on an avocation intended to produce a product of some kind, which has value to an employer. I believe that the further up the economic ladder you go, the LESS product there is, and I am certain that there is FAR less actual work being accomplished per hour of unit effort. I studied this during my graduate work. It is borne out across MANY studies. Wealthy people produce less than poor people. Because they don't have to. The poor folks do it all for them OR they feel entitled to work less which is all part of American dis-exceptionalism.
Many of the best people are actually working WAY MORE than 40 hours a week. Personally, I spent a few years where I did a call center job where I was available to take 8 calls hours per day. The days varied, but on a lot of them I was very busy 7+ hours per day. Then I would eat, work out and spend 4 or 5 hours working on my website, get a 4-5 hours of sleep and do it again. The website work continued on my off days. 7 days per week. So that's 70+ hours per week of actual work.
Clearly they did not include law firms in the studies you cite. This was a while back, now, but I remember Prof. Pugh saying to my law school class; "Sure, you can make $100K. You make 33K 9 to 5 M-F, another 33k 5 to 9PM M-F, and the rest working your weekend." I remember one time looking at the GDP of a few European countries that have a 32 hour work week. If you don't need to own a car, and renting an apartment is all you need, it might work for you, and people can find jobs like that here. But to mandate that, across the board, well that's a hard pass for me.
Heres a Post- Graduate assignment for you. Actually TALK to your Auto Mechanic or Plumber or Electrician or the manager and employees of wherever you buy your food here in the Western World. And tell them they are only "working" 32 hours a week. Then apologize and show them some respect.
And odds are the "Wealthy Owner" started the company and runs it which requires more then just counting the money.
Most of the time when I come across an auto mechanic or plumber or whatever sort of red herring you wanna throw out there, they're standing around doing nothing. That goes for just about anyone I cam think of, including people that I work with. Making me out to be some sort of an "elite" who doesn't speak to the help, well that's just more dismissing my argument because you don't have any leg to stand on. Dismissing me based on fantasies about who I am or what I believe in, instead of actually coming for me with a logical argument.
I do hear what you're trying to say, even through the logical fallacies, yet if I see people standing around chit chatting about whatever when I see them at their job, chances are they do a lot that. Ever drive by a construction site and all the yellow hats are standing in a line right next to one another? THAT is my point. Not standing around waiting for concrete to set, but just plain old standing around while maybe one or two do some task that obviously would get done a lot quicker if they all took part.
How are you measuring productivity? GDP isn't real - it's just based on fake money, debt spending, etc. You're right that poor people do actual work in services and building real things, where the higher paid makework jobs pushing fake money around isn't really work or productive, but it makes fake money so it's included in GDP. In all your arrogant and self-righteous comments you haven't really addressed the fake money. Capitalism is not capitalism if it's foundation is fake money.
What's your answer then? The 40 hour work week was the "leftist" response to the reality of labor pre-WW2..which was work, every day but Sunday. Period.
One other thing worth noting after researching this for the article is that a lot of American workers put in insane numbers of hours in a week in the 1800s. However, by the time the government put in a law in place mandating 40 hour work weeks with overtime pay if you go over, that's about what people were working in most jobs anyway. It wasn't a radical shift, it was codifying what much of the marketplace was already doing. If most businesses today had a 32 hour work schedule in place, I still wouldn't like the government mandating it, but I would at least assume the impact be much smaller because it would be a small shift in that case, not a radical shift.
Allowing corporations to farm-out their work to the third-world and pay slave wages might have something to do with it. Imagine where American manufacturing could be without giving China "most favored nation" status. Imagine if Nike still made sneakers in Italy instead of Vietnam. Our governments and corporations have sold us out, plain and simple.
Lobbyists may be the biggest culprits in this particular crime. Of course they would rather pay Uighar slaves a few pennies an hour rather than paying an American a decent wage. It's supposed to be up to our government and elected representatives to represent our will, yet they have been captured by lobbyists, FOREIGNERS, and special interest groups. Now they want you to REALLY devolve, live in a pod in a 15 minute city and eat the bugs. This is the first step.
The answer is the same things we need to begin repairing many of our problems - a return to the true FREE market, a return to Constitutional principles, and a slashing of government employees and contractors by at least 50%
The government FORCING individuals or corporations to abide by mandates thought up by politicians who don't understand the market is ridiculous. This type of government/corporate coordination and control is generally called FASCISM, albeit a lighter version of it.
Does the Constitution give them the power to determine how long a person must work? Of course it doesn't. We keep looking to the federal government to somehow fix problems that it creates itself. There wouldn't be a need for all this welfare, immigration, and shorter work weeks if our government hadn't allowed OUR free market to be relocated to the third-world for purposes of greater profits for shareholders. All of this is a response to the problems that their GLOBALIST policies have resulted on.
The Constitution and the free market are the answer, NOT more socialism and government overreach.
What do you mean Constitutional principles? What does a "free market" mean?
We live in a capitalist society, but many social and ecological norms are incompatible with capitalism. This includes capitalism itself, which relies upon constant growth and a linear economy. Nature works in a circular fashion. Capitalism CANNOT work in a circular fashion. So I fail to see how a free market could possibly work for your argument since it relies heavily upon an unnatural construct that has already proven to be the downfall of three civilizations of Earth's past, and is shaping up to be the demise of our current, modern civilization as well.
The supreme court knows nothing of environmental realities or ecological principles....and knows nothing of why a woman might need an abortion. Yet they made decisions recently that brought about sweeping changes to both concepts. Do you disagree with this governmental control. Or "fascism" as you put it?
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations served a purpose at the time of its writing. It no longer does, especially when placed in the context of NeoCon foreign policy and the GOP's standard bearer planning on taking over the country as a dictator.
I am no more alarmist regarding the climate than the next guy. However I am fat more informed, having researched and collected my own data in a Master's program. I have seen the data. I understand the data. You do not, and your making me out to be uneducated, poorly read, or in possession of "not quite all the facts" shows that your argument had little to stand on. Spouting off the Constitution or Smith as means by which to understand...well...reality, shows you have a patent misunderstanding of the same. The gaslighting only serves to drive the point home...and honestly, makes you sound like a typical GOP cry baby...where before you dismissed me, I was actually having a good conversation, now it's just "Conservative throws a tantrum" time here on Substack.
New doesn't always mean better. In fact, it rarely does these days. The principles haven't changed, we just stopped following or enforcing them after the banksters took over and created the (privately owned) "federal" reserve.
I'm honestly nit trying to be dismissive, but I disagree on basically everything. We need to stop trying to invent new regulations and laws and go back to what made us great - constitutional principles, a truly free market, and less government.
You can take your masters degree and do whatever you want. It doesn't make you right, it just means you learned the wrong things from the wrong people. I'm no economist, this is true, but these are common sense issues, not overly complicated problems that can only be fixed with more government, more regulations, and less freedom. Simple tariffs and taxes could redirect those manufacturing jobs back home, but the people in charge don't want that. They're doing quite well with the globalist ponzi scheme. The rest of us are not so lucky.
BTW, you keep arguing for more government despite them racking up unprecedented amounts of debt with little or nothing of value to show for it. Why would we keep doing the same things that have failed again and again? Why would we keep passing out foreign aid like candy when we're 34 trillion in debt? Why would we pit more restrictions on energy production when we have seen that it only leads to more debt, more inflation, and more pollution thanks to us farming out the work to third world countries that aren't burdened by our ludicrous regulations?
Nothing you advocate for works. It's all a shell game.
Facts! What a novel concept! Unfortunately we are allowing our brains to disregard logical (and experienced) basic events/economics. We just want to be entertained (bread and circuses)!
We would do better to make all overtime tax free. That should include business owners, salaried workers, and substack writers. Any work in excess of 40 hrs per week would be income tax exempt. This would increase overtime income opportunities for hourly wage earners as dropping the taxes from 1.5x overtime pay would cost the business about the same per hour. Salaried workers and business owners who put in 80 hrs a week would see a 50% drop in their income tax burden and businesses would not have to pay their half of FICA on those extra earnings. This would free up more money for businesses to hire entry level workers, pay everyone else higher wages/paid vacation, or buy nicer equipment for the company break room.
This would incentivise hard working people to work more/earn more instead of the status quo which punishes people for earning more.
Individuals working multiple part time jobs that exceed 40 hrs would get the benefit but individual businesses who are hiring the part time workers would not. This would encourage more companies to hire full time employees vs part time.
People don't need more time in their week to watch tik-tok or keep up with the Kardashians. They need less money grubbing IRS employees reaching into their pockets every time they put in an extra couple of hours of productivity.
If Bernie Sanders is so concerned about poor wage earners, he should sell off his million dollar homes and redistribute his equity to those who are unable to hire family members to grift off of campaign donations via percentages on multi-million dollar add buys.
Sounds like a good idea. I used to tell my employees they could work more than 40/wk for straight pay if they wanted. If I asked them to work overtime I would pay time and a half. Illegal perhaps but that was the agreement that benefitted both of us.
If they needed extra cash they could work over 40 hours/wk. I normally would not be willing to pay time and a half unless I was in a crunch. So it was a win/win. I hate the IRS.
I already wait WEEKS for my car to be repaired, or to have plumbing or electrical work done at my home. This has been blamed on supply chain issues for far too long now. Pandemic-related supply chain issues have been caught up with, yet they are still being blamed for much of the American slow-down across several sectors of the economy. The reality: many businesses don't want to hire more people even though they desperately need them, having the ability to continue putting up signs saying "understaffed, please bear with us" is just BS. Corporate greed even eats into their own interest when they realize they don't have to hire...they can just hike up prices. Yet still I see SO MANY people standing around not working when there exists a backlog in their office or their company...resulting in, you guessed it: far less than 32 hours worth of work being done anyway.
You can not consume what is not produced and no amount of accounting can change that.
The fundamental problem socialists have is that they visualize the economy in terms of money instead of in terms of production and consumption.
If we work 20% fewer hours there will be about 20% less "stuff" for us to consume. Even if we imagine a world in which your paycheck stays the same, what are you going to buy with it? You go to a starbucks to get a coffee, but the lines are super long... why??? Because they only have 20% of the servers. You go to buy a car but you can't get one... why? Because 20% fewer cars were built.
And then.... obviously... the prices of all these things has to go up. The grocer says "these things are flying off the shelves like hotcakes!" That's because there are 20% less of them! So the limited inventory sells out very quickly. Prices inevitably rise.
(Or, sometimes, the moron socialists put in a price controls and we have permanent shortages. So then they put in rationing. Then they blame "hoarders".)
"Money" is fundamentally accounting. It is important, but it's not the real thing. It's how we keep track of the real thing. The real thing is production.
You can not consume what is not produced and no amount of accounting can change that.
20% less stuff? Most of our American economy isn't based on "stuff" its based on thought and service instead...and the 20% fewer hours? Well that is easily absorbed by middle and upper management learning which meetings could have been done by email, and the entire work force spending less time on managing people, and more time on actually doing their job.
That has to be some of the most magical thinking I have ever heard.
Well, since it is so easy to increase productivity by 25% by... (checks notes)... "management learning which meetings could have been done by email", then lets do it, regardless of how long the work week is.
Then we can all be 25% richer.
And if all that money is just going to go to management instead of workers....
Also, did I say anything about management reaping any increase in pay? Shows again how your leaps of (flawed) logic don't apply to my opinion...because that's not what I said or implied. So instead of magical thinning on your part, how about you just start with some plain old "thinking".
I never said productivity would increase by 25%, so how about you don't make leaps of logic in my writing, then in turn, blame me for them not making sense. The global workforce is already at a productivity level < 100%...which is the intimation implied by my writing. Have you heard of writing? Maybe expressing an opinion that is your own? Putting your neck out there and having something to say that isn't just tearing someone else down? When you do, let me know. I'll respond with as much nuance and clarity of purpose as you've given me...oh wait...no. I'll give you better than that and actually engage with you and your writing and respond with an actual refute of what it is AS WELL AS my replacement for your idea that I don't agree with. Weird how that works.
You said the 20% decrease "is easily absorbed by middle and upper management learning which meetings could have been done by email"
In order to absorb a 20% decrease, you need 25% increase in productivity. When 5 goes to 4, you have a 20% decrease. If you want that 4 to go back to 5, you need a 25% increase.
So yeah, you did say that. You said you there was a 25% increase lying around that could in your words "easily" be done by moving meetings to email.
I love that you wrote about this crazy idea, John. I was recently ranting and raving to my husband about it. Much along the same lines as your well expressed piece. I will be Substacking my own thoughts about the subject hopefully soon. But I agree it is a very bad idea, will ultimately not help out the average worker and inflation will go off the charts. Folks look at "big" companies and all they see is "all that money" the company is making. They don't see all that money the company is paying out or even losing. I've seen both sides as a 9-5 office worker and then as a small business owner. I better start writing! Enjoyed your thoughts very much. Thank you.
American manufacturing's return to American soil would require anyone who took a job in those positions to take a cut in their standard of living....and talk about causing prices to go up! That would be an immediate inflation for all the cheap plastic wrap we buy from China, as well as clothing, home goods, and many other "bread and butter" items.
I can tell you from my own family history that many people were working far more hours a week than this 40 you speak of, especially the poorest among us.
Sanders is a Jew, and like a significant majority of them across the West - 70-75% - yearns for the "good old days" of their Messiahs - Lenin and Stalin!
I don't know what planet some of you people live in.
Apply this reasoning to the people in trades that produce services that people need. The Mechanics, Construction workers, Electricians, plumbers, tow truck drivers the list goes on. Apply this idiotic rule to these workers and get ready to take your car in for a brake job and get it back next week or have your A/C in your house fixed next month. Hire more employees you may say but since we have eliminated teaching the trades in school and the interest in manual labor is at an all time low the pickings are slim.
Our jobs cannot be shipped overseas, we don't have time for "meal prep" or "walking the dog" etc.... we are ACTUALLY WORKING, fixing and building things
And the salaried people I work with know exactly what they do every day and they earn every penny and they would laugh at your "right sizing" of their jobs.
Shawn you need to get out more
commiebernie was kicked out of a hippie commune for being lazy. He never held a real job for any length of time and was a complete failure until he entered politics at age forty. Now he is a millionaire. politics has been very very good to commiebernie.
My experience with going from full time to part time (because I had a child) was do the same amount of work in less time for less pay. My guess is that will make some people unhappy.
Biden has caused 20% inflation over the last three years. Most wages have not kept pace with that inflation. Negotiating a 20% cut in hours for the same pay makes complete sense. I'm surprised more people aren't doing this on their own. Most jobs are makework BS, and productivity would stay the same with less hours. In professional jobs, sometimes you get full benefits at 32 hours - so you're making more per hour by working less hours even at the same pay. But people have mortgages and stupid debts to pay, so they can't stand up for themselves and get pushed around, and complain to commies. Get out of debt and you can negotiate what makes total sense, and not have to rely on a communist to do it for you.
Sure sounds like a great idea doesn't it? I'm surprised no one has tried it yet. But they have, in CA. Where jobs and businesses are fleeing the state. Not every simple solution is a good idea no matter how good it seems on the surface.
I take it you didn't read the article beyond he headline.
No, I read the whole thing. The main point was to not force it. I agree. It should be encouraged, though, just like telecommuting was encouraged a little bit before Covid proved it could be done just fine, without any drop in productivity. Productivity went up with work from home. Most professional jobs can be done in 32 hours per week. Valuable employees should insist on 32 hours. Quiet quitting is a thing for a reason. Mediocre employees who depend on the valuable can keep working 40 hours.
Mr. Black:
You appear to be a reader, which is a good thing. A reader of comments even, which I many times find even more wisdom than in the article being commented on. Man was not created for work, work was created for man. If you understand what I mean by that. The curse was that work became mandatory, a burden. But trying to remove the burden, instead of changing the attitude towards labor, will not fix anything. Somehow I suspect those in the past were as fulfilled, if not more fulfilled, that we today.
IOW, work before the fall was willing and enjoyable, but after became a labor. Few "want" to be at their jobs because they do not see the value of it, which IMO is the disconnect. Thus the appeal of socialism of whatever form it may be presented :) I once had a friend of mine say to me "I only make tires". My immediate reply was, "Can you imagine a world without tires?"
The main problem is the fake money. The fake money allows for massive malinvestment and thus meaningless, fake work that is unfullfilling (but makes more fake money). Further, if you are one of the enlightened few who understand the money is fake, why would you want to expend real effort, talent and time in exchange for fake money? I'm a professional civil engineer, IQ 140, and I get way more satisfaction out of doing projects around the house to improve my family's quality of life. Most people work and pay taxes to pay other people (who pay taxes) to do the things I do. Why pay taxes twice? My house will be paid off next month, when hopefully my wife will cut her hours for the same pay. Trust me, as a civil engineer, this economy is really not doing anything real. The whole thing is fake, because of the fake money.
Agreed.
False. "Biden" hasn't created 20% inflation. Work on your numbers and get back to us. And stop throwing around the Communist word. It's distracting and detracts from your already specious logic.
You're right. The Federal Reserve has created the inflation by monetizing the debt signed into law by Biden (and Trump). And I've rounded up, because their CPI numbers are a joke. I see your other comments and we probably mostly agree. Take the W instead of nitpicking. There are many reasons why a 32-hour workweek makes more sense.
Well as much as I agree with you on much of what you have written here, my big question: who is to say that the people working "forty hour weeks" are really putting in 40 hours worth of work. Every single person I have spoken to about their salaried job is usually at a loss to explain what they do with even 28 of those hours. They have time, in their work day, to meal prep, clean, walk the dog, shop online, and catch up on Traitors...which says to me that their 40 hour week is "right sized" to 32 hours, rather than being an increase in pay. It's the difference between being paid while the green light is on (in teams) versus being paid while you're ACTUALLY working.
Theoretically, I'm sure a lot of people could actually do in 32 hours what they're currently doing in 40 hours. Some would probably do exactly that. On the other hand, you'd have to expect that most people would take their same 40 hour workweek mentality into a 32 hour workweek. If they spend their mornings looking at social media and chatting at the water cooler now, there's not really a reason to think they'd straighten up and fly right if they were working 32 hours.
Bingo!
But I'm not talking about straightening up or flying right. I mean just the reality of the situation which is this: unless you're doing forced labor, there is nobody who is "working" 40 hours a week, ANYWHERE in the Western world. What do I mean by "working"? Focused attention on an avocation intended to produce a product of some kind, which has value to an employer. I believe that the further up the economic ladder you go, the LESS product there is, and I am certain that there is FAR less actual work being accomplished per hour of unit effort. I studied this during my graduate work. It is borne out across MANY studies. Wealthy people produce less than poor people. Because they don't have to. The poor folks do it all for them OR they feel entitled to work less which is all part of American dis-exceptionalism.
Many of the best people are actually working WAY MORE than 40 hours a week. Personally, I spent a few years where I did a call center job where I was available to take 8 calls hours per day. The days varied, but on a lot of them I was very busy 7+ hours per day. Then I would eat, work out and spend 4 or 5 hours working on my website, get a 4-5 hours of sleep and do it again. The website work continued on my off days. 7 days per week. So that's 70+ hours per week of actual work.
Clearly they did not include law firms in the studies you cite. This was a while back, now, but I remember Prof. Pugh saying to my law school class; "Sure, you can make $100K. You make 33K 9 to 5 M-F, another 33k 5 to 9PM M-F, and the rest working your weekend." I remember one time looking at the GDP of a few European countries that have a 32 hour work week. If you don't need to own a car, and renting an apartment is all you need, it might work for you, and people can find jobs like that here. But to mandate that, across the board, well that's a hard pass for me.
Heres a Post- Graduate assignment for you. Actually TALK to your Auto Mechanic or Plumber or Electrician or the manager and employees of wherever you buy your food here in the Western World. And tell them they are only "working" 32 hours a week. Then apologize and show them some respect.
And odds are the "Wealthy Owner" started the company and runs it which requires more then just counting the money.
Most of the time when I come across an auto mechanic or plumber or whatever sort of red herring you wanna throw out there, they're standing around doing nothing. That goes for just about anyone I cam think of, including people that I work with. Making me out to be some sort of an "elite" who doesn't speak to the help, well that's just more dismissing my argument because you don't have any leg to stand on. Dismissing me based on fantasies about who I am or what I believe in, instead of actually coming for me with a logical argument.
I do hear what you're trying to say, even through the logical fallacies, yet if I see people standing around chit chatting about whatever when I see them at their job, chances are they do a lot that. Ever drive by a construction site and all the yellow hats are standing in a line right next to one another? THAT is my point. Not standing around waiting for concrete to set, but just plain old standing around while maybe one or two do some task that obviously would get done a lot quicker if they all took part.
How are you measuring productivity? GDP isn't real - it's just based on fake money, debt spending, etc. You're right that poor people do actual work in services and building real things, where the higher paid makework jobs pushing fake money around isn't really work or productive, but it makes fake money so it's included in GDP. In all your arrogant and self-righteous comments you haven't really addressed the fake money. Capitalism is not capitalism if it's foundation is fake money.
The problem is the MANDATORY part. Leftist "populists" always run back to the government to enforce their terrible policies.
What's your answer then? The 40 hour work week was the "leftist" response to the reality of labor pre-WW2..which was work, every day but Sunday. Period.
One other thing worth noting after researching this for the article is that a lot of American workers put in insane numbers of hours in a week in the 1800s. However, by the time the government put in a law in place mandating 40 hour work weeks with overtime pay if you go over, that's about what people were working in most jobs anyway. It wasn't a radical shift, it was codifying what much of the marketplace was already doing. If most businesses today had a 32 hour work schedule in place, I still wouldn't like the government mandating it, but I would at least assume the impact be much smaller because it would be a small shift in that case, not a radical shift.
Allowing corporations to farm-out their work to the third-world and pay slave wages might have something to do with it. Imagine where American manufacturing could be without giving China "most favored nation" status. Imagine if Nike still made sneakers in Italy instead of Vietnam. Our governments and corporations have sold us out, plain and simple.
Lobbyists may be the biggest culprits in this particular crime. Of course they would rather pay Uighar slaves a few pennies an hour rather than paying an American a decent wage. It's supposed to be up to our government and elected representatives to represent our will, yet they have been captured by lobbyists, FOREIGNERS, and special interest groups. Now they want you to REALLY devolve, live in a pod in a 15 minute city and eat the bugs. This is the first step.
The answer is the same things we need to begin repairing many of our problems - a return to the true FREE market, a return to Constitutional principles, and a slashing of government employees and contractors by at least 50%
The government FORCING individuals or corporations to abide by mandates thought up by politicians who don't understand the market is ridiculous. This type of government/corporate coordination and control is generally called FASCISM, albeit a lighter version of it.
Does the Constitution give them the power to determine how long a person must work? Of course it doesn't. We keep looking to the federal government to somehow fix problems that it creates itself. There wouldn't be a need for all this welfare, immigration, and shorter work weeks if our government hadn't allowed OUR free market to be relocated to the third-world for purposes of greater profits for shareholders. All of this is a response to the problems that their GLOBALIST policies have resulted on.
The Constitution and the free market are the answer, NOT more socialism and government overreach.
What do you mean Constitutional principles? What does a "free market" mean?
We live in a capitalist society, but many social and ecological norms are incompatible with capitalism. This includes capitalism itself, which relies upon constant growth and a linear economy. Nature works in a circular fashion. Capitalism CANNOT work in a circular fashion. So I fail to see how a free market could possibly work for your argument since it relies heavily upon an unnatural construct that has already proven to be the downfall of three civilizations of Earth's past, and is shaping up to be the demise of our current, modern civilization as well.
The supreme court knows nothing of environmental realities or ecological principles....and knows nothing of why a woman might need an abortion. Yet they made decisions recently that brought about sweeping changes to both concepts. Do you disagree with this governmental control. Or "fascism" as you put it?
If you don't understand the basics, I'll not waste more time.
Read the Constitution.
Read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"
Your climate alarmism is irrelevant. We need much LESS regulations and government interference, not more.
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations served a purpose at the time of its writing. It no longer does, especially when placed in the context of NeoCon foreign policy and the GOP's standard bearer planning on taking over the country as a dictator.
I am no more alarmist regarding the climate than the next guy. However I am fat more informed, having researched and collected my own data in a Master's program. I have seen the data. I understand the data. You do not, and your making me out to be uneducated, poorly read, or in possession of "not quite all the facts" shows that your argument had little to stand on. Spouting off the Constitution or Smith as means by which to understand...well...reality, shows you have a patent misunderstanding of the same. The gaslighting only serves to drive the point home...and honestly, makes you sound like a typical GOP cry baby...where before you dismissed me, I was actually having a good conversation, now it's just "Conservative throws a tantrum" time here on Substack.
New doesn't always mean better. In fact, it rarely does these days. The principles haven't changed, we just stopped following or enforcing them after the banksters took over and created the (privately owned) "federal" reserve.
I'm honestly nit trying to be dismissive, but I disagree on basically everything. We need to stop trying to invent new regulations and laws and go back to what made us great - constitutional principles, a truly free market, and less government.
You can take your masters degree and do whatever you want. It doesn't make you right, it just means you learned the wrong things from the wrong people. I'm no economist, this is true, but these are common sense issues, not overly complicated problems that can only be fixed with more government, more regulations, and less freedom. Simple tariffs and taxes could redirect those manufacturing jobs back home, but the people in charge don't want that. They're doing quite well with the globalist ponzi scheme. The rest of us are not so lucky.
BTW, you keep arguing for more government despite them racking up unprecedented amounts of debt with little or nothing of value to show for it. Why would we keep doing the same things that have failed again and again? Why would we keep passing out foreign aid like candy when we're 34 trillion in debt? Why would we pit more restrictions on energy production when we have seen that it only leads to more debt, more inflation, and more pollution thanks to us farming out the work to third world countries that aren't burdened by our ludicrous regulations?
Nothing you advocate for works. It's all a shell game.
Facts! What a novel concept! Unfortunately we are allowing our brains to disregard logical (and experienced) basic events/economics. We just want to be entertained (bread and circuses)!
We would do better to make all overtime tax free. That should include business owners, salaried workers, and substack writers. Any work in excess of 40 hrs per week would be income tax exempt. This would increase overtime income opportunities for hourly wage earners as dropping the taxes from 1.5x overtime pay would cost the business about the same per hour. Salaried workers and business owners who put in 80 hrs a week would see a 50% drop in their income tax burden and businesses would not have to pay their half of FICA on those extra earnings. This would free up more money for businesses to hire entry level workers, pay everyone else higher wages/paid vacation, or buy nicer equipment for the company break room.
This would incentivise hard working people to work more/earn more instead of the status quo which punishes people for earning more.
Individuals working multiple part time jobs that exceed 40 hrs would get the benefit but individual businesses who are hiring the part time workers would not. This would encourage more companies to hire full time employees vs part time.
People don't need more time in their week to watch tik-tok or keep up with the Kardashians. They need less money grubbing IRS employees reaching into their pockets every time they put in an extra couple of hours of productivity.
If Bernie Sanders is so concerned about poor wage earners, he should sell off his million dollar homes and redistribute his equity to those who are unable to hire family members to grift off of campaign donations via percentages on multi-million dollar add buys.
Sounds like a good idea. I used to tell my employees they could work more than 40/wk for straight pay if they wanted. If I asked them to work overtime I would pay time and a half. Illegal perhaps but that was the agreement that benefitted both of us.
If they needed extra cash they could work over 40 hours/wk. I normally would not be willing to pay time and a half unless I was in a crunch. So it was a win/win. I hate the IRS.
I already wait WEEKS for my car to be repaired, or to have plumbing or electrical work done at my home. This has been blamed on supply chain issues for far too long now. Pandemic-related supply chain issues have been caught up with, yet they are still being blamed for much of the American slow-down across several sectors of the economy. The reality: many businesses don't want to hire more people even though they desperately need them, having the ability to continue putting up signs saying "understaffed, please bear with us" is just BS. Corporate greed even eats into their own interest when they realize they don't have to hire...they can just hike up prices. Yet still I see SO MANY people standing around not working when there exists a backlog in their office or their company...resulting in, you guessed it: far less than 32 hours worth of work being done anyway.
You can not consume what is not produced and no amount of accounting can change that.
The fundamental problem socialists have is that they visualize the economy in terms of money instead of in terms of production and consumption.
If we work 20% fewer hours there will be about 20% less "stuff" for us to consume. Even if we imagine a world in which your paycheck stays the same, what are you going to buy with it? You go to a starbucks to get a coffee, but the lines are super long... why??? Because they only have 20% of the servers. You go to buy a car but you can't get one... why? Because 20% fewer cars were built.
And then.... obviously... the prices of all these things has to go up. The grocer says "these things are flying off the shelves like hotcakes!" That's because there are 20% less of them! So the limited inventory sells out very quickly. Prices inevitably rise.
(Or, sometimes, the moron socialists put in a price controls and we have permanent shortages. So then they put in rationing. Then they blame "hoarders".)
"Money" is fundamentally accounting. It is important, but it's not the real thing. It's how we keep track of the real thing. The real thing is production.
You can not consume what is not produced and no amount of accounting can change that.
20% less stuff? Most of our American economy isn't based on "stuff" its based on thought and service instead...and the 20% fewer hours? Well that is easily absorbed by middle and upper management learning which meetings could have been done by email, and the entire work force spending less time on managing people, and more time on actually doing their job.
That has to be some of the most magical thinking I have ever heard.
Well, since it is so easy to increase productivity by 25% by... (checks notes)... "management learning which meetings could have been done by email", then lets do it, regardless of how long the work week is.
Then we can all be 25% richer.
And if all that money is just going to go to management instead of workers....
... even more reason they should do it!
LOL
Also, did I say anything about management reaping any increase in pay? Shows again how your leaps of (flawed) logic don't apply to my opinion...because that's not what I said or implied. So instead of magical thinning on your part, how about you just start with some plain old "thinking".
Hard, isn't it?
I never said productivity would increase by 25%, so how about you don't make leaps of logic in my writing, then in turn, blame me for them not making sense. The global workforce is already at a productivity level < 100%...which is the intimation implied by my writing. Have you heard of writing? Maybe expressing an opinion that is your own? Putting your neck out there and having something to say that isn't just tearing someone else down? When you do, let me know. I'll respond with as much nuance and clarity of purpose as you've given me...oh wait...no. I'll give you better than that and actually engage with you and your writing and respond with an actual refute of what it is AS WELL AS my replacement for your idea that I don't agree with. Weird how that works.
Yeah you did.
You said the 20% decrease "is easily absorbed by middle and upper management learning which meetings could have been done by email"
In order to absorb a 20% decrease, you need 25% increase in productivity. When 5 goes to 4, you have a 20% decrease. If you want that 4 to go back to 5, you need a 25% increase.
So yeah, you did say that. You said you there was a 25% increase lying around that could in your words "easily" be done by moving meetings to email.
LOL.
I love that you wrote about this crazy idea, John. I was recently ranting and raving to my husband about it. Much along the same lines as your well expressed piece. I will be Substacking my own thoughts about the subject hopefully soon. But I agree it is a very bad idea, will ultimately not help out the average worker and inflation will go off the charts. Folks look at "big" companies and all they see is "all that money" the company is making. They don't see all that money the company is paying out or even losing. I've seen both sides as a 9-5 office worker and then as a small business owner. I better start writing! Enjoyed your thoughts very much. Thank you.
American manufacturing's return to American soil would require anyone who took a job in those positions to take a cut in their standard of living....and talk about causing prices to go up! That would be an immediate inflation for all the cheap plastic wrap we buy from China, as well as clothing, home goods, and many other "bread and butter" items.
"Most jobs".
I can tell you from my own family history that many people were working far more hours a week than this 40 you speak of, especially the poorest among us.
Sanders is a Jew, and like a significant majority of them across the West - 70-75% - yearns for the "good old days" of their Messiahs - Lenin and Stalin!