Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the
past are certain to prolong reaching the future.
I remember my fourth grade teacher giving us a glimpse of
the future. We were told that things would be so modernized when we grew up
that we would have much more free time on our hands than our parents.
My father, like almost everyone else in the 1950’s, was
working 40 hours a week. My mother was being a 1950’s mother, staying at home to
take care of the family. I was relieved to learn that I wouldn’t have to put in
that many hours when I was my parent’s age.
But it never came true.
More than a half century later, Americans are still stuck in
the rut of a 40-hour workweek. In fact, Americans now average more hours per
week than they did fifty years ago and have less vacation time than any other
industrial nation in the world. And in many cases, both parents are forced to
work just to stay even.
The average American family pays more in taxes than food,
clothing, shelter and transportation combined. Either we are incapable of being
personally responsible for our own welfare or government has gotten vastly out
of control.
Nearly 50 percent of our income goes to government. This
includes federal & state income tax, social security tax, Medicare tax,
real estate property tax, personal property tax, state & county & city
sales tax, self-employment tax, gasoline tax, liquor tax, cigarette tax,
federal excise tax, import tax, luxury tax, gift tax, inheritance tax, hotel
tax, transportation tax, federal & state & county telephone tax, etc.,
etc.
We’re stuck at 40 hours per week of labor with nearly 20 of
those hours going to government coffers.
This is insane.
Instead of finding a rational solution to this tedious work
load, the federal government keeps churning away trying to find new ways to fit
everyone into a 40-hour per week job to keep the giant economic engine going.
They are stuck with a 1950s model of the way things ought to be, rather than
figuring out ways to lesson the tax burden on the people and lower government
spending.
The government assumes the solution to unemployment is to
create more jobs into a full-time 40-hour week paradigm. Instead, it would make
much more sense to be flexible with the 40-hour per week system. If the work
week was shorter, more people would have jobs, creating the same amount of
output.
For example, if you have 80 people working and 20 people on
unemployment at a 40-hour week, you have an output of 3,200 man-hours of
production. But if you reduced the work week to 32 hours, all 100 people would
still create 3,200 man-hours of production per week. Flexibility of hours
allows everyone to work and shortens the hours, without any loss of
productivity.
An even more radical solution is a 3-day work week of 9-hour
days. This would allow half of the work force to work 27 hours for 3 days and
the other half to work 27 hours the next 3 days. This would increase overall
output from a 40-hour week of productivity to a 54-hour per week productivity,
whereby we would actually produce more while working less individual hours,
plus there would be “jobs” for twice as many people as before.
Nobody, with the possible exception of Hugh Hefner, goes to
their grave wishing they had spent more time working at their job. Recent
surveys show that most Americans don’t really like their jobs. They’re working
jobs they hate in order to buy things they don’t need, and half of what they
earn is confiscated from them for various dubious government adventures that
are overly costly and almost always include unintended adverse consequences.
A prime example of the wastefulness and sheer ignorance of
consequences of the federal government was the Cash for Clunkers program in the
early days of the Obama administration, which they naturally claim was a
smashing success.
A clunker
that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A
vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. Thus,
the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles were involved
so that's 224 million gallons saved per year, which equals about 5 million
barrels of oil. And 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350
million dollars. Therefore, the government used $3 billion of our tax dollars
to save $350 million, which amounts to costing $8.57 for every dollar saved.
This is the
same government that creates a penny at a cost of 1.7 cents per penny.
And everyone
keeps grinding away, 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, pouring money down a
rat hole, while their inefficient central government is having endless meetings
trying to think of ways to create more 40-hour per week jobs.
If we reduce the workweek, more people will have jobs. Plus,
everyone will have more free time, which in turn will create more job
opportunities in various travel, recreational, vacation, entertainment, hobby,
crafts, art, and environmental sectors.
Instead of trying to maintain a 1950s model of existence, we
should endeavor to improve our quality of life. We need to work less and enjoy
life more. As predicted, everything has been modernized. My fourth grade
teacher would be amazed -- electronics, robotics, improved vehicles, computers,
Internet, satellite communications, i-pods, e-mail, cell phones, laser
technology, medical advances, etc.
A rigid 40-hour workweek contributes to the “unemployment” problem,
not the lack of jobs. A shorter workweek is the solution, not creating more
tasks for people to do. Flexibility and adaptability is the key, not trying to
fit the modern world into the distant past.
The wasteful, ever-growing federal government intrusion in
the economy is beyond the scope of their function and will only make matters
worse. Their task is to ensure a level playing field, protect individual
rights, maintain a common infrastructure and allow the freedom of the
marketplace to flourish on its own. It is not within their purview to define or
maintain or manipulate or manage the private jobs of private citizens.
An administration that attempts to solve the over-spending
of the past by excessively over-spending even more in the present and the
future is not to be trusted with the economy, or anything else.
Plunging the nation into unprecedented debt may be the
governmental prescription for keeping its citizens enslaved into working
full-time forever, but it’s not much fun for the slaves.
The USA
is based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have a long history
of sacrificing lives to maintain our individual freedom. Yet, we are being
treated like cogs within a monolithic, socialistic central government machine.
Planet Earth is slowly becoming a prison planet. And if we
stay the course, it will culminate in a monolithic, socialistic one-world
government.
The struggle for freedom never ends.
Instead to rallying for more jobs, we should be rallying for
less work and more freedom.
___________
Quote for the Day -- “The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Thomas Jefferson
___________
Bret Burquest is the author of 10 books. He
lives in the Ozark Mountains with a couple of dogs and where
modernization includes such luxuries as electricity and indoor plumbing.
___________
-
-
No comments:
Post a Comment