As ludicrous as the title of this post sounds, that rationale is precisely what Venezuela just did.
Bloomberg reports Venezuela Declares Two-Day Work Week in Bid to Save Electricity.
Venezuela declared Wednesdays and Thursdays as non-working days for government workers, making for a two-day work week aimed at saving electricity amid a drought that threatens the country’s power grid.
“Along with Friday, which is a non-working holiday to try saving energy, it has been decided to add Wednesdays and Thursdays as non-working holidays for the public sector,” Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz said on state television. He said that President Nicolas Maduro had made the decision.
Maduro ordered the country’s time zone changed this month to save energy, reversing the decision by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, to set back clocks 30 minutes in 2007 to ease daily predawn commutes for school children and the poor. Clocks will be moved forward a half hour May 1.
The president decreed Fridays as holidays for state workers through May as part of plans to save power after ordering a week-long break over the Easter holiday last month. Maduro said those efforts saved almost 22 centimeters of water at the Guri dam in the southern state of Bolivar.
Why not a zero-day work week in which public servants are paid to do nothing?
At this point, how can it possibly matter?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
A 4 day work week in the US should be enough with all the labor saving devices of the past decades (not to mention all the jobs out sourced to China and Mexico)
It would easily be, were it not for inflation, regulations and zoning nonsense keeping people artificially impoverished.
Why is this ludicrous? I would love a two day work week! Hmm…so far no offers.
Venezuela has two large turbine generators rusting in their shipping containers. No money to install is the excuse.
They have no money for fuel oil.
Would that translate into equally reduced wages? or worse, a lot less tax revenue? Maybe you’re right Mish, at this point, does it really matter?
Government workers don’t generate tax revenues. They are net consumers of taxes, not net producers of taxes.
On the state and local level that is true. On the federal level its not.
On a “per-capita” basis, we already have a three day workweek, if you take into consideration the labor force participation rate. Of course it’s not evenly distributed.
Okay, I’ll take the bait.
First, when the horse (of society) has lost its head and is running crazy, sometimes the best thing a government can do, is to drop the reins (drop the reigns? there’s a pun in there…). So in line with that, Gorbachev was probably the best president the Soviet Union ever had, all the disorder and misery notwithstanding.
I see the government as shutting down 5/7 to be a version of that. In line with that, I absolutely agree.
But now, let me get on to a deeper point, here. I think that this might be a great response for the US, as well, and not just in government, but in industry too. Here’s why:
I really agree with Mish that automation can be good not bad; on the other hand, income redistribution has taken a toll on the wealth distribution of our nation, and has brought it to its knees. As a result, working for wages robs a man of better than 90% of his life, one way or another. If the workweek were cut to two days, it doesn’t mean that people would stop working for the other five. Rather, it would force people into internalizing their efforts, and working for themselves. Moreover, it would force wages up (and profits down) until it brought the huge fraction of nonworking people into the job market.
So immediately, you would have an industrial crash, and the markets would plummet, and civil disorder would break out — that’s all bad, and a sign of clumsiness. Do things with a little care [maybe that means NOT doing it through government action at all], and you might avoid some of that. However, after that initial phase, you’d level out the income distribution, while also stimulating “1-man-operation” small businesses. You’d also make it tons easier to hire and fire, and thus move people from jobs where they were destructive, to jobs where they were productive. Why? Because the loss of a job would only be a small portion of the week, and with a little warning, the person could be job hunting before they ever lost their job (3 days out of 5).
So… not leaning towards government processes, but I could actually see this being good overall. Just sayin….
Take your social engineering to Venezuela. Get it to work there before trying it in the US. Worst idea ever!
You’re all nascent social crediters. Nearly all of you here are caught up in the irrational belief that government is ALWAYS bad. Imagine if the government were to provide you both economic security and systemic economic stability even in a modern technologically advanced economy that couldn’t provide enough jobs to make the economy stable….and still be a profit making system….by issuing a universal dividend and a discount to retail prices.
Just how tyrannous is that????????????????????? The short answer: It isn’t. In fact it is the definition of sovereign governmental grace-graciousness. A = A. Check your premises.
The above is the sane and consciously profit making system that we must demand….not the terminally orthodox and actually unconsciously socialistic one that anyone who advocates doing nothing while inevitable decline and chaos ensues.
Try Freedom
I’m trying to figure out how to have a negative work week. That would be to save electricity, of course.
beautiful
Well I work for an income and my wife doesn’t work and spends my income. So she may have it figured out. But, um, don’t tell her I said this…
Excellent Idea. Now, the Electric companies can send YOU money every month. You should get the Nobel Prize is “Economics”.
What are you not supposed to bathe on your paid holiday to save water too?
You’re supposed to be a dirty commie, no?
No, silly. Just like royalty, your bathe once a month whether you need it or not.
Green energy revolution at work right there. I bet they would give anything for a fossil fuel fired power plant right now.
Madura should just declare that the day has only 6 hours in it. That should save some electricity.
Are the government drones only being paid for 2 days of work, or is it the full 5?
I can’t pass the opportunity to point out that during the stone age hunter-gatherers used 20% of their time getting food in the table. We use considerably more.
Granted that they lived shorter lives, as well.
When you don’t have to pay rent for what you need, you don’t need to work much. And there are a number of observations of stone age folks living well into their 60s. Though generally in cultures that lived fairly peaceably with their neighbors. Though I’m not aware of finds where folks were in their ’80s at the time of death.
At one stroke, he has done what every Republican Politician has promised in every election since the turn of the 20th Century.
“As ludicrous as the title of this post sounds, that rationale is precisely what Venezuela just did.”
Actually it makes sense … you just need to change your perspective. Reading your snippet I thought Venezuela ripe for an economic “Confessions of an Economics Hit Man” intervention. Your link did not disappoint (you left out the best part!).
…
Venezuela is requesting emergency international help from the United Nations for public works construction to help the country recover from an “extreme situation,” Maduro said.
…
Maduro is going to enslave his country in $billions of debt (IMF wears brass knuckles) … but not before getting his “cut*”
*at least several hundred $million in kickback/bribes.
One option is to have wealthy parents who will give you a fortune. I know lots of rich kids who work less than 2 days a week. Somehow, society continues to function.
Wonder what the odds of the Presidential security detail working 2 days a week is…..
“… to ease daily predawn commutes for school children and the poor.”
Doesn’t that describe the entire population of Venezuela?
If they shut down 7 days a week, they would save 100% !!! Now that is Economics.
Didn’t somebody write a book, around 1955, titled “ATLAS SHRUGGED”, where something like this happened?
They can always migrate to America, and vote Democratic, and then all of us can have a 2 day work week.
Why not just turn the electricity off everywhere except government offices of course and save all the energy.
Google Great Britain “three day week”
Cannibalism is coming to Venezuela. Half the problems are solved after half the people eat the other half