With Ezra Klein on Sicko, Scooter, and segregatin’ Supremes. Memo to self: Lighting. Also… what in God’s name happened to four years of college debate training? I swear, it took two years to cure me of that fucking eyes-floating-up-when-I’m-thinking tic. Anyway.
Addendum: Judging by the comments, my point about mandating vacation time may not have been clear. It’s just this: Legislating paid time off imposes a real cost on employers, and that money’s going to come out of somewhere. If you mandate that every employee get a TV, the price of it is just going to be translated into a decrease elsewhere in wages or benefits, which employees who don’t want or need a TV might not appreciate. Obviously, we don’t live in some blackboard-econ fantasyland where everyone has a full range of employment packages to choose from, with different balances of vacation vs. other benefits. But under a mandate, nobody gets to make that trade-off below the legislated threshhold. And, you know, maybe there’s someone, somewhere in France who’d like to make more money—or just be able to find a job—and be willing to work more than 45 weeks of 35 hours each to do it.
Kerry Howley wrote last year about research suggesting that one way this tradeoff works is that people use income to “purchase” more leisure time in the form of services or labor-saving appliances. And as commenter Chris observes, data suggest that the most “workaholic” Americans are the affluent ones who do have options, and have decided to take their piles of cash now and their vacations later.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Jul 11, 2007 at 1:46 pm
re: American workaholism, you should have mentioned the fact that the lowest income quintile in the USA works fewer hours (35) than the lowest income quintile in France (39). the reason that americans on average work more than the french is because the rich in america work more then the rich in france.
see Table 4.5 in the appendix:
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2001papers/HIER1933.pdf
2 Patrick // Jul 11, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I’m no libertarian, but I thought you were quite good. And the fact that you listen to Janacek makes you the shit in my book..
3 Patrick // Jul 11, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Also you’ve been listening to “Jazz at Massey Hall” and Schoenberg! Wow!
You are one of the first libertarians I’ve seen that doesn’t listen to Dream Theater and Rush.
4 AC // Jul 11, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Two points: You were great on BH. If there’s Julian bashing to be done, kindly let your viewers do it.
The most workaholic Americans won’t be taking their vacations later. They’ll be working. Whee!
5 michael farris // Jul 12, 2007 at 6:02 am
Weird lighting and filmed with the same filter Joan Collins used in latter seasons of Dynasty…
Does this signal a descent into full-blown divahood?
6 FinFangFoom // Jul 12, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I’d say that you were . . . better than Ezra.
Oh sorry.
So sorry.
Was the sound issue just my computer or was that a technical problem with the BH people.
7 Anthony C // Jul 12, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I’m puzzling (it’s 4am here and I’ve have the best part of a bottle of wine) over whether you’re wearing a cardigan or a VERY…er… festive shirt during it.