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This is wrong. Here is the author's main point: Policies aimed at shortening work hours can have a dramatic impact on imbalance of supply and demand. If the am

This is wrong. Here is the author's main point: Policies aimed at shortening work hours can have a dramatic impact on imbalance of supply and demand. If the amount of vacation time is increased an average of one week a year, this amounts to a two percent reduction in supply of labor. Government-mandated longer vacations are not actually reducing the supply of labor. It doesn't make people disappear. It just makes them work harder for the rest of the year to make up for the extra week of vacation. Combine that with stagnant demand (no rises in income = less consumption and also less tax money = less govt spending) and you haven't solved anything. The real cure for a sluggish economy is a large-scale, man-fought war (barring any kind of nuclear event). War simultaneously boosts demand as the government ramps up spend across a bevy of sectors (industrial, aerospace, medical, food, science, tech) and the labor force decreases for obvious reasons. Longer vacation is a much nicer and more politically correct thesis though.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
Given more vacations: Why do you assume that people who work hard already will work even harder? Why do you assume that people who slack at work will work any harder? Remember, people compete with each other, so do companies. They're not trying to hit some predetermined level of yearly productivity. If you give vacations to everybody, they'll actually spend some off time, that's that. This was actually tried. In Russia a full week of vacations was introduced, around the New Year. Did people start working harder? No. Did anything collapse? No.
warfangle 11y ago
> The real cure for a sluggish economy is a large-scale, man-fought war Only if you win, and only if nobody is actually fighting you on your soil. The only reason the USA is such a superpower now is because literally everyone else involved had their infrastructure decimated.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  The US has major geographical and natural resource advantages that make it a superpower. We fared well after WW2 for a number of reasons, not just because we lost no infrastructure and relatively few soldiers. Look at Japan, Germany, the UK, and France now. They were devastated (both infrastructure and population-wise) and now they are among the strongest economies in the world, coming in behind the US and China at numbers 3,4,5,6 respectively in terms of nominal GDP. Just as forest fires burn down old trees and put nutrients back into the soil to spur new growth, so does war force countries to rebuild and rethink. I'm not advocating for war, but it's a much more defensible thesis in my opinion (large temporary increase in aggregate demand, large permanent decrease in labor supply), much more so than increased vacation time.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Modern countries today have fertility rate around 1,4-1,9 (children per woman during all her life). USA has it aroud 1,7 for white people, I believe. There would not be any new people. They're barely replenished with all the set of tricks you can pull. Any soldier who falls in battle means, since wives need husbands and since it's customary to let youth fight, your nation is smaller by two. Permanently. That's what we have today, anyway.
    - roymurdock 11y ago
      I'm not sure what you are arguing? There's an entire generation of people (baby boomers) who were born post WW2 in a period of extremely high birth rates due to favorable economic conditions created by the war - minimal unemployment, economic expansion due to government spending, and increased spending on housing and education due to the GI Bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_boom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby...
      - guard-of-terra 11y ago
        That's ancient history by demographic standards. Modern wars don't create baby booms. People en masse don't want more than 2 children. Dead people want nothing.
  - warfangle 11y ago
    > now they are among the strongest economies in the world Yes, now. After decades of depression.
  - analyst74 11y ago
    Also, during extended period of peace, people's expectation of life increases, decent houses, good food, entertainment, self-fulfillment, etc etc. Send them all to war, half of them will come back happy to be alive. If you're a merciless dictator, that's definitely the easiest way to make your people happy.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
karlmdavis 11y ago
What evidence do you have that productivity is elastic in that way? I'm particularly curious how "far out" the effect you're describing goes: is it still elastic enough to cover an extra 3 weeks of vacation per year?
- roymurdock 11y ago
  My original comment was poorly phrased. Companies would squeeze more work from their labor pools if the government mandated longer vacations, especially from homogenous/low-wage workers due to the mismatch of labor supply and demand that points in the firms' favor at the moment. I don't think people would necessarily feel motivated to work harder for the rest of the year after a long vacation, but I think many would feel like their job security threatened by someone who was willing to put in more hours than them to make up for this new government policy.
facetube 11y ago
Advocating war in order to improve the economy is the ultimate broken window fallacy.
jpapon 11y ago
This is obviously not true for the majority of jobs. You can't work harder to make up for your vacation when the job requires your presence (eg waiter, policeman, etc...). Even for people who could work harder to make up for lost time, I don't agree with the assumption that they would. Remember, everyone has that vacation time, and is required to take it. There's no need to work harder to make up for it.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  See my response to karlmdavis - my original comment was poorly phrased. I'm assuming they would work harder not because they were happy and motivated by getting a longer vacation, but because the firm might go out and hire someone who would put in the extra work due to the oversupply of labor and the undersupply (and shrinking due to automation, mismatched skills) of jobs.
a3n 11y ago
> The real cure for a sluggish economy is a large-scale, man-fought war (barring any kind of nuclear event). War simultaneously boosts demand as the government ramps up spend across a bevy of sectors (industrial, aerospace, medical, food, science, tech) and the labor force decreases for obvious reasons. The government spends as much as they can on all those things because people believe their very existence is at stake. Too bad we can't find that sense of urgency any other way.

guard-of-terra 11y ago

Given more vacations: Why do you assume that people who work hard already will work even harder? Why do you assume that people who slack at work will work any harder? Remember, people compete with each other, so do companies. They're not trying to hit some predetermined level of yearly productivity. If you give vacations to everybody, they'll actually spend some off time, that's that. This was actually tried. In Russia a full week of vacations was introduced, around the New Year. Did people start working harder? No. Did anything collapse? No.

warfangle 11y ago

> The real cure for a sluggish economy is a large-scale, man-fought war Only if you win, and only if nobody is actually fighting you on your soil. The only reason the USA is such a superpower now is because literally everyone else involved had their infrastructure decimated.

roymurdock 11y ago
The US has major geographical and natural resource advantages that make it a superpower. We fared well after WW2 for a number of reasons, not just because we lost no infrastructure and relatively few soldiers. Look at Japan, Germany, the UK, and France now. They were devastated (both infrastructure and population-wise) and now they are among the strongest economies in the world, coming in behind the US and China at numbers 3,4,5,6 respectively in terms of nominal GDP. Just as forest fires burn down old trees and put nutrients back into the soil to spur new growth, so does war force countries to rebuild and rethink. I'm not advocating for war, but it's a much more defensible thesis in my opinion (large temporary increase in aggregate demand, large permanent decrease in labor supply), much more so than increased vacation time.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  Modern countries today have fertility rate around 1,4-1,9 (children per woman during all her life). USA has it aroud 1,7 for white people, I believe. There would not be any new people. They're barely replenished with all the set of tricks you can pull. Any soldier who falls in battle means, since wives need husbands and since it's customary to let youth fight, your nation is smaller by two. Permanently. That's what we have today, anyway.
  - roymurdock 11y ago
    I'm not sure what you are arguing? There's an entire generation of people (baby boomers) who were born post WW2 in a period of extremely high birth rates due to favorable economic conditions created by the war - minimal unemployment, economic expansion due to government spending, and increased spending on housing and education due to the GI Bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_boom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby...
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      That's ancient history by demographic standards. Modern wars don't create baby booms. People en masse don't want more than 2 children. Dead people want nothing.
- warfangle 11y ago
  > now they are among the strongest economies in the world Yes, now. After decades of depression.
- analyst74 11y ago
  Also, during extended period of peace, people's expectation of life increases, decent houses, good food, entertainment, self-fulfillment, etc etc. Send them all to war, half of them will come back happy to be alive. If you're a merciless dictator, that's definitely the easiest way to make your people happy.
- dragonwriter 11y ago

karlmdavis 11y ago

What evidence do you have that productivity is elastic in that way? I'm particularly curious how "far out" the effect you're describing goes: is it still elastic enough to cover an extra 3 weeks of vacation per year?

roymurdock 11y ago
My original comment was poorly phrased. Companies would squeeze more work from their labor pools if the government mandated longer vacations, especially from homogenous/low-wage workers due to the mismatch of labor supply and demand that points in the firms' favor at the moment. I don't think people would necessarily feel motivated to work harder for the rest of the year after a long vacation, but I think many would feel like their job security threatened by someone who was willing to put in more hours than them to make up for this new government policy.

facetube 11y ago

Advocating war in order to improve the economy is the ultimate broken window fallacy.

jpapon 11y ago

This is obviously not true for the majority of jobs. You can't work harder to make up for your vacation when the job requires your presence (eg waiter, policeman, etc...). Even for people who could work harder to make up for lost time, I don't agree with the assumption that they would. Remember, everyone has that vacation time, and is required to take it. There's no need to work harder to make up for it.

roymurdock 11y ago
See my response to karlmdavis - my original comment was poorly phrased. I'm assuming they would work harder not because they were happy and motivated by getting a longer vacation, but because the firm might go out and hire someone who would put in the extra work due to the oversupply of labor and the undersupply (and shrinking due to automation, mismatched skills) of jobs.

a3n 11y ago

> The real cure for a sluggish economy is a large-scale, man-fought war (barring any kind of nuclear event). War simultaneously boosts demand as the government ramps up spend across a bevy of sectors (industrial, aerospace, medical, food, science, tech) and the labor force decreases for obvious reasons. The government spends as much as they can on all those things because people believe their very existence is at stake. Too bad we can't find that sense of urgency any other way.