32-Hour Work Week is on The Way

Search for "32-hour work week" on Google today and you'll find about 15,000 entries. Google "40-hour work week" and you'll find about 435,000 entries. Lets get those search result numbers for the 32-hour work week to go up. Below I describe a possible path to a 32-hour work week for most people that would also motivate universal health care.

A friend and I were discussing the failing economic paradigm, which led me to describe the huge loss in our standard of living over the past few decades. It generally goes unrecognized. When I was a kid "dads" worked and "moms" maintained the homestead. Then, moms started entering the workforce driven both by interest and economic need. Now, it's a given that both parents in a traditional family must work to maintain the middle class living standard. Single parent families struggle to get by. Again, we've witnessed a huge loss in our standard of living. Beyond this obvious perspective, the numbers are documented.

But there is a contradiction. Automation of production has reduced the workforce need. There aren't enough jobs for everyone who wants one. As an aside, the unemployment statistics are misleading. The statistics only count those who are actively looking for work. Including the people who are unemployed, but have given up on finding a job, unemployment is running at about 12%.

Before the Wall Street scam imploded, economic statistics suggested the "National" economy was growing at a reasonable pace. I put "National" in quotations because only a small fraction of the people in the nation were gaining more wealth from that economic growth. The US economy, in which financial services made up around 20%, was funneling wealth to a tiny fraction of people.

That system is coming unhinged, despite establishment law maker's attempts to salvage it through bailouts. But as many have observed, facts on the ground might dictate systemic changes. One of those changes could be an economic system that distributes wealth more fairly, rather than the insider takes all system we have now.

I have an inkling of how this might come to pass. First, we're living in a context in which more and more people recognize the value of time spent with their families. This reorientation of lifestyle is related to the movement to simplify life and the locavore movement associated with increasing numbers of farmer's markets.

Second, if people work fewer hours for livable incomes and good benefits, then wealth is being more broadly distributed. This happening in an incremental way today, not by choice, but by demand. State governments are instituting furloughs in which state workers are being required to take several days off without pay. Although the number of people employed isn't increasing as a result of this, it represents an acceptance of fewer hours shared among the workforce. This same philosophy is being adopted in the private sector too.

Third, furloughs are intended to be temporary; however, this economic slump is going to go on for more than a year or more. The furloughs could go on for a number of years. In that time, people might discover they don't mind a little less pay for a little more time to live their lives.

The current furloughs could be a back door to shorter work weeks in the long run, particularly if working people like the idea and push for it. If that were to happen, we could find ourselves adopting a 4-day work week as the norm within the decade. If the economy recovers, and social expectations insist on a 4-day work week, the effect will be more people employed representing a massive sharing of wealth among more people. It would blend well with a medicare-for-all plan in which private businesses are no longer directly burdened with paying for employee's health care costs.

In short, if we have the vision and unity of voice, we could parlay this economic down-turn into an opportunity to secure shorter work weeks and universal health care for all Americans.

Psssst... Do Something

• Contact the Broadcast Media
  
• Contact the Newspapers
  
• Contact the US Senate
  
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Is This the Economic "Big One"?

George Soros made his money by understanding the dynamics of speculative bubbles. He understood "herd mentality" and observed that many speculative bubbles had two peaks. The dip following the first peak was a "testing" phenomenon; that is, some investors get a little wary of the staggering heights and pulled out their investments. If the bubble didn't collapse, they would re-invest, along with others, creating a second larger peak. The bubble would eventually burst signifying the end of the second peak.

The whole US economy might be operating according to Soros' observation of multi-peak bubbles. If this is the case, one question is, "What peak did we recently observe collapse? Was it the first peak or the second?"

One view is that the end of the first peak was signified by the 2000-2001 stock market crash and that we are now witnessing the end of the second peak. This is shown in the graph of the Dow Jones stock index below. Keep in mind the Dow Jones is not the economy, nor even a good reflection of the economy. But, it is a pretty convincing picture, no?

Is this a classic Soros double-peak speculative bubble bursting?

Despite the convincing picture above, another perspective holds that this is not the "big one." This perspective crossed my mind when I read the following about Obama inviting former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head his newly created Economic Recovery Advisory Board:

Volcker is no stranger to economic crises, having led the Fed under two presidents from 1979 to 1987. Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation's worst recessions.

I thought, as many have, that the debt-based US economy is still a house of cards, a fact being hidden by government bailouts. The Federal Reserve has stealthly pumped over four-times as much money into failing Wall Street institutions than the US Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout package is poised to do (This doesn't count the US tax payer "guaranteeing" of potential future losses, which brings the total tax payer obligation to over $7.7 trillion).

To put it in perspective...

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

Some of the new money being created by the Federal Reserve appears to be disconnected from the issuing of Treasury notes. If true, this is a money printing process that could be highly inflationary.

Under the alternative line of reasoning that says "we are not currently experiencing the big one," the collapse of the dollar signifies the remaining "bubble" that has yet to collapse. According to this view, Team Obama will work some magic to "stabilize" the situation. Money will flow back into the stock market. A third peak in the big bubble will be created. It might not appear as a Dow Jones bubble, but will be a bubble in the form of an over-valued US dollar. We'll have runaway inflation and remember the line above?

Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation's worst recessions.

It won't be Volcker who'll do the deed, but the deed will be done. That's when the third peak in the speculative bubble will come. Then we'll really find the bottom.

Psssst... Do Something

• Contact the Broadcast Media
  
• Contact the Newspapers
  
• Contact the US Senate
  
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Associated Press, Obama reassures nervous nation on ailing economy, November 28, 2008.

Bloomberg News, U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit, Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry, November 29, 2008.