I read your response to my boyfriend and I am still trying to digest what he said. I think I will go eat something and get my brain working better.
Meanwhile, however, I would like to postulate something that I have been thinking for some time. It seems as though Americans have been buying so much STUFF, that we have become rather saturated with it. In addition to the really cheap stuff from China, this has caused a real reduction in the buying of stuff made in the USA. Also well made stuff is lasting longer. For example my 1986 Caravan began to need lots of replacement parts around 100,000 miles, but I am told my 1996 Caravan will probably by economically viable for many more miles than that. When people refuse to bow to “planned obsolescence”, then manufacturers don’t sell as much and don’t need as many workers.
I am wondering if with the more recent efficiencies in manufacturing we don’t need to reduce the standard working hours. In the period of great manufacturing advances during the period 200 to 100 years ago, working hours were gradually reduced from 70 or 80, or even 100 hours per week to 40 and 50 hours per week. Perhaps the 35 to 40 hour week with 2 or 3 weeks of vacation is becoming obsolete.
My thought is that if this is true, then it would probably not make sense to cut the work week by much, but rather have much more time off. This could enable the vacation and recreational sectors of our economy to expand and hire more workers. For example, people could plan long vacations in one area and spend less on gas making repeated trips to and fro. More and larger home improvement projects could be planned and executed. I could go into more detail, but my stomach wants to go to the kitchen.
I agree with you, but that is a tough sell in our society that believes if you are not at work doing your useless little bureaucratic job you are not productive. Funny how the Germans have 6 weeks of vacation a year, including the entire month of August. France is similar, but in addition has a 35 hr work week. And their nuclear power electric production is at about maximum useful capacity of 85% of total electric demand.
We Americans could learn a lot from others.