From: tom@europa.lonestar.org (Tom Kimball)
Subject: Re: Why do Americans get so little vacation time?
Organization: Moria Mining Guild (BBS) -- Dallas, Texas, USA
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 00:59:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.151053.274@weyrich.UUCP> tnet.com!weyrich!orville writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.031756.4282@europa.lonestar.org> tom@europa.lonestar.org (Tom Kimball) writes:
>>
>>>>Companies will have more money to hire workers and -- guess what?  We won't 
>>>>have to pay as many people not to work.
>
>The "unemployment tax" that employers have to pay is only on the first few
>thousand dollars of pay earned by an emplyee each year. Anything that 
>increases the "head-count" at a company increases the unemployment tax.
>Giving more vaction would increase the tax if employees on vaction had to
>be  replaced. If they didn't have to be replaced, what good are they to the
>company anyway?
>
>Any argument that giving more vacation would reduce unemployment is 
>based directly on the premise that it would increase the headcount, and
>hence it follows that it would increase the taxes the companiues would
>have to pay.
>
>Of course, if the general level of unemployment fell, then the unemployment
>tax rate could  also fall (but  don't hold your breath as long as the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Make that "tax rate will also fall"  By the way, this fact makes everything 
you say in the first two paragraphs irrelevent.  Common sense tells us that
the economy will benefit if unemployment is lower.  I can't believe you are
attempting to argue the reverse.


>tax-and-spend sugar-daddies are in control of the country).

So if the government discovers a way to save, say $20 billion a year it is
imposing through a special tax on business, it should not bother saving 
the money because you think it will just will just spend the money anyway
instead of returning it to business.  By your logic government should never
bother to try to save any money because it will just get spent anyway.


>If I wanted to live in a European country I would move to Europe. If I had

If you don't like the idea of having more vacation time than I've got a
simple solution for you.  Just dont take it.  Work instead.  I don't think
the rest of us will mind.

I am beginning to learn that even the 3rd world gets more vacation than 
Americans get.  (Can someone post any figures on this?)  There are almost 200 
separate nations in the world.  Does anyone know of ANY OTHER NATION IN THE 
WORLD whose full time workers get less vacation than the two weeks Americans 
have?  It looks like as far as vacation goes, Americans have fallen behind 
pretty much everyone else on the planet.  So much for being #1. 


>a month of vacation I would look for another job. I would NOT spend my month

Well this tells us a lot about about yourself.  I will resist commenting 
further.  A much more common occurance than yours is for people to switch jobs
for the purpose of giving themselves an extra month or so off.  Yet another
inefficiency in the economy caused by lack of vacation time which some people
can't stretch their imaginations enough to think about.


>paying some tourist trap my hard-earned money so that I could "vacation."

Who says you have to go anywhere on your vacation?  A lot of people spend 
vacation time working on/learning about things they want to but don't get
a chance to on their jobs.  Alternatively, just spend more time with your 
family or friends.


>[I seem to recall Pope John Paul I complaining that Italians had to pay
>too much to "vacation" -- they're Europeans with European style legislation,
>right?]

Vacation doesn't have to cost anything.


>I also seem to recall that when I was in France that the little sole proprietor
>bakeries and cheese shops were REQUIRED BY LAW to CLOSE THEIR DOORS for
>one month each year. Can you say FORCED UNEMPLOYMENT?  I don't  need that
>kind of government interference, thank you.

Yet another paragraph that's not relevent.  I don't recall anyone advocating
that here.
-- 
Tom Kimball  			tom@europa.lerctr.org    
tom@europa.lonestar.org		tom%europa@egsner.cirr.com