From: orville%weyrich@tnet.com (Orville R. Weyrich)
Subject: Re: Why do Americans get so little vacation time?
Reply-To: orville@weyrich.UUCP (Orville R. Weyrich)
Organization: Weyrich Computer Consulting
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 08:25:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.191259.9043@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Aug29.040217.2456@weyrich.UUCP> tnet.com!weyrich!orville writes:
>>>
>>>> >If I wanted to live in a European country I would move to Europe. 
>>>> 
>>>> NOT yourself.  The EEC would not make it easy for you to work in Europe.
>>
>>Probably.  But beside the point.
>
>Hmph?  As defined by old Orville?  Explain.
1) It would probably be much easier to prevail on Congress to force 
the EEC to allow an equal number of Americans access to the European job
market as the US allows Europeaners access to the U.S. than to affect the
changes in the job market that you favor.

Use Senator Kennedy's pronounced attachment to Irish immegrants as leverage.

2) If you LIKE a Continental European style, consider Quebec Province --
free trade agreement and all that makes access fairly easy. You
get most of the blessings of living in France [if that suits your tastes,
as your previous posts would indicate.]

3) Where there is a will, there usually is a way, IF you really want it
bad enough.

>>
>>>> >a month of vacation I would look for another job.
>>>> 
>>>> Well, the fact that you're a dull chap who does not know how to have a
>>>> good time is not, in itself, an argument.
>>
>>Only that I have my own ways of pursuing happiness and would prefer that
>>you leave the free market alone so that I can continue to pursue my
>>happiness. If someone else wnats to argue for political action to
>>destroy another chunk of the free market, I have just as much right to  
>>argue to preserve it.
>
>'Deed you do, Orville.  But you are deluded about the "flea" market, in
>my opinion.  Far from being free, it's under control of the big boys.

However tight the grip the big boys have, giving the U.S. Federal
government comparable power would be far worse. Consider the power 
and compassion of the IRS, for example. :-)

>Furthermore, it has its numerous failures, of which the current
>triple-dip recession is one big example, and the fact that the

The problem is certainly with Congress, not the free-market system.

Consider for example their approach to Keynes' theories -- that Government
should increase spending in order to bring the ecconomy out of a
depression. Fine, but that's only half the story. Once out of the depression
Keynes theory says that Congress should cut spending in order to pay
back the deficit spending that pulled the economy out of the depression.

But too bad! Once out of the depression, deficit spending has historically
INCREASED, justified by the "growing economy. Just look at all these
great entitlement programs that we can introduce now that the economy
is on a roll." WRONG. TIME TO CUT BACK.

The current recession/depression is due in large part to the Federal
deficit and the tight money supply and lack of consumer confidence that
it produces.

Dramatic changes in tax laws that made many real-estate investments
worthless with the stroke of a pen certainly helped also. Not that I
necessarily favored the tax shelters, but it was stupid to shock the
economy by changing the rules all at once, rather than phasing them in.
It is only fair that "capital gains" be taxed at the same effective rate
as other income. The problem is that Congress refuses to index capital
gains to the rate of inflation, so that in many cases effective losses
are taxed as gains. This is government mucking up the free enterprise
system.

Then there is the matter of the new FASB rules regarding reporting of
the expected cost of retirement benefits on the balance sheet. The 
reporting is a good idea, because a capitalistic democracy cannot function
efficiently without access to accurate and relevant financial information.
The problem was that in many cases, due to overly aggressive Union
negoitiators, companies had made committments that could not realistically
be expected to be fulfilled. When their true financial situation became
public, there was widespread panic and massive layoffs were necessary in
some cases to improve the balance sheet. Correction of past inefficiencies
in information reporting have created short-run hardship, but prevented
more serious problems later on. Nothing the government can or should do
about this, other than to lay off with new regulations until the companies
have recovered from the shock.


>government's response to Hurricane Andrew was delayed by the need to
>kowtow to the "free" market (and wait for private bids for the
>installation of temporary plastic sheeting) is one small example.

I wonder how fast the response would have been in Soviet Russia? 
Hint -- consider Chernoble. 

When you try to protect people from too much government, sometimes it hinders
rather than helps. More often it helps. And in any event, why were Florida
officals lacking in their own preparations? They have known for many
years that hurricaines happen in Florida. Why did their contingency
planning not address such issues? Because Good O'le Uncle will kiss it
and make it all better?

>Even more perniciously, this slavishly ideological devotion, in the
>teeth of human needs, to the free market is beginning to appear to be a
>mutation of Stalinist thinking.  Let me explain.  As it became clear in
>the Thirties that Communism was not going to bring about an earthly
>paradise, its initial idealism rapidly mutated into a blind insistence
>on collectivist and Marxist solutions, and an equally blind search for
>reasons other than Communism for the obvious failures of Communism.

Rules are made to be broken, even in the U.S. But they should not be
broken without some protocol. You object to the time it took to follow
protocol for overriding rules that exist for good reason? Would you
prefer to live in an absolute dictatorship where all rules can be broken
immediately upon the whim of one small group or individual?

I see no evidence of blind insistence on "Free Market." I see evidence that
the default mode, "Free Market", was overridden in time of need, but that
a certain protocol was followed. The process could have been accelerated
by better contingency planning, but that is not a defect that is
inherrent in the free market system.


>     *  In a recent edition of Byte, Jerry Pournelle makes the
>        ridiculous claim that increasing government regulation
>        is the reason for the lack of an increase in white-collar
>        productivity, in spite of massive introduction of personal
>        computers into the workplace.  He does this in the teeth
>        of the facts: that since Reagan's election in 1980, policy-
>        makers have been deregulating and cutting reporting 
>        requirements with a vengeance, sometimes (as in air safety)
>        with deadly results.

When considering opposing forces, the balance is very delicate. Both 
the force of increasing government regulation of MANY aspects of the
workplace and the force of computerization are very powerful, and
in opposition. There is no doubt that in other areas, deregulation has 
increased productivity. It is not completly clear what effect deregulation
has had on the number of deaths per passenger mile traveled, but the cost
per mile HAS decreased. Perhaps you have some statistics?

>
>     *  In one and the same recent edition of the Wall Street Journal,
>        a staff reporter describes how Rich Miller destroyed Wang
>        Labs by treating its minicomputer business as a cash cow and
>        ignoring his own technicians' calls for developing PC connec-
>        tivity tools, and a book reviewer makes the claim that Rich

So Wang Labs goofed. Not nearly the disaster that might happen if
the central government had controlled the planning for the entire
computer industry and had made the same mistake. The more centralized the
control, the bigger the mess when central authority makes a mistake.

>        Miller "free market" behavior is what's needed in universities.
>        The reviewer praises the government's vicious lawsuit against
>        Ivy League universities on the basis of a lie: that antitrust
>        law applies to nonprofits.  The lawsuit has further degraded
>        the ability of poor students to get a quality education.

But the antitrust laws are another example of government interference in
the free market. Are you arguing in favor of a free market or against it?

Many feel that the anti-trust laws are sometimes useful, but also that
sometimes they cripple the U.S. in foreign competition. I have yet to
reach a universal opinion on the subject.

>>
>>My  idea  of a good time? International Folk Dancing or American Folk
>>Dancing. Great way to spend an evening. Go to a "coffee house" and listen
>>to some folk/jazz/blues/country. But it's hard to find a non-smoking
>>coffee-house, however and I have allergies. 
>>
>>You may find these dull, however :-)
>
>On the contrary, Orville.  But isn't such dancing a waste of time and
>indeed the Devil's workshop when you could be writing More Code?  :-)

No, the point that I was trying to make was that there are many evening
or weekend recreations available to let off steam, and that a 1-month
block was not really necessary to let off steam. I do not hesitate to 
go home after 5 hours of work when faced with a nasty problem that will
seem clearer the next morning after I have let off a little steam. The
little breaks have a much higher ROI than the long ones.

>>Maybe we need a mass movement to petition the government to force
>>employers to sponsor Folk Dancing  for a month each year? Just kidding.
>
>Employers often find on their own that providing their people with
>recreational opportunities results in a happier and more productive
>workforce.  However, the employers able to do this in the absence of
>government regulation are those employers with a technological or
>commercial edge, and such "edges" are remarkably evanescent.  Thus, Bell
>Northern Research Mountain View was able to sponsor a health spa and
>recreation club for its employees in the early eighties when its major
>products were in demand, but these opportunities declined precisely as
>BNR and its parent Northern Telecom failed to keep up with the
>technology.  Pullman-Standard was able to be a sugar daddy as long as
>Pullman cars were in demand on the railways.

What you are saying is that even though there are observable increases in 
productivity, the increase doesn't repay the increased costs. Or to put
it another way, while the productivity as measured by work accomplished
per person-hour may increse, the productivity as measured by work
accomplished per dollar spent decreases. Someone has to pay for that
decrease -- loss of foreign market share, reduction in quality, reduction
in pay, or something else undesirable has to happen. 

>The tendency, especially marked in the current recession, is to
>gradually destroy fringe benefits in the teeth of their secondary
>benefit to the employer because increasing competitition means that the
>employer who DOESN'T offer good bennies beats the employer who does.
>Eventually, it does indeed make sense to look to government, not to
>"force employers to sponsor flok dancing", but to enforce wage, hours
>and benefits legislation that HELPS business by forcing unethical
>employers to treat their employees better.

If it lowers productivity [measured in output/$] then somebody has to 
pay for it -- and it will be the people living and working in the U.S.

The only possible way to even hope to get a "free lunch" is to make the
pie bigger. I see no evidence that your proposals will make the pie larger.

If you DO want to work within the system, then the appropriate way is to 
restructure the tax laws to FAVOR changes in employer-employee relationships,
while remaining income-neutral. This leaves the ultimate decision in the
hands of the marketplace. For all its faults, I think that the marketplace
makes fewer errors than powerful central government.

Or if you insist on forcing the employers to do something, force them to
give all employees 2 weeks worth of continuing education each year. That
would benefit the country far more than 2 more weeks of idle time. And
that's what you seem to want to do with the time, anyway? 


orville

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Orville R. Weyrich, Jr.                          Weyrich Computer Consulting
Certified Data Processor                       POB 5782, Scottsdale, AZ 85261
Certified Systems Professional                      Voice: (602) 391-0821
Certified Computer Programmer                Internet: orville%weyrich@tnet.com
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