The 6 hour workday is still a bad idea

I saw this posted as a serious argument today by an adult who should really know better.

The idea is to change the standard workday from eight hours to six. This is a pretty old, dead idea once championed by labor unions to "spread the work." The idea is to make people work 30 hours a week and hire more workers to fill the gap, and increase everyone's pay 33 percent so they don't lose any income.

Henry Hazlitt demolished this argument about 70 years ago, reminding people that if we increase the labor cost by that much, the products and services will get more expensive as well. Once again, there is no free lunch.

But this author tries to dazzle the reader with new scientific-sounding idea, but they all fall flat when one tries to take them serious. We're told that workers are the most productive two to four hours after they wake up, so starting the workday later will make them more productive.

I wonder if the author has ever interacted with college students. When you start later in the day, you tend to go to sleep later and wake up later. There goes that idea.

That wasn't the only productivity-increasing argument.

A shorter workday works particularly well for knowledge workers - people in creative or professional jobs - who can work productively for about six hours a day, compared to the eight hours manual laborers can churn out, according to Salon. Unlike machines, humans operate on a cyclical basis, which means our energy and motivation fluctuate in peaks and troughs. Cognitive workers tend to be more focused in the late morning, getting another energy boost in the late afternoon when lung efficiency peaks.

The unstated major premise here is that productivity will more than compensate the loss of one-quarter of the workday. There's no evidence that this difference in productivity per hour is particularly large. It would need to be 33 percent just to break even. The differences in productivity- if they actually exist - might be so small to the point that they are unnoticeable, and even then they only apply to a limited number of jobs. Productivity would fall, not rise, under this scheme.

Losses to productivity and/or higher prices equal a fall in real wages. That doesn't help anyone.

Another benefit of the shorter workday, Kellogg’s discovered, was that employees were happy to work less when they were paid 12.5% more per hour, meaning the company was able to offer more jobs. Maybe the six-hour workday could be a solution to the US’s current minimum wage debate.

Maybe not, as this last paragraph practically proves the scheme will make workers poorer. The union activists from a century ago had the good sense to demand a 33 percent increase in wages so their paychecks don't change. This scheme is asking for the same reduction in hours, but a pay increase of only 12.5 percent. That's nearly a third less.

Cutting supplies, increase the cost of goods and services and reducing how much each worker receives is not only a bad idea, it's an unoriginal one.
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Has Peter Morici ever been told?

Once again Peter Morici, who is commonly introduced as an economist because he teaches some economics classes at the University of Maryland, has written a bogus opinion piece claiming that a disaster is good for the economy. That is, the unwanted destruction of valuable resources leads to a greater number of resources in the same area.

Morici has been penning articles like this for a long time, and he's immediately smacked down by people like Don Boudreaux and Mike Munger. What's different this time I noticed is that the commenters to the original article tore it apart right away.

Boudreaux has called Morici out on these claims before. Henry Hazlitt even wrote a book about why Morici is wrong in 1946. They are far from alone in their criticism.

What I don't understand is why Morici keeps on trucking like nothing is up. Does he know that he's a court jester? Has no one told him the gaping flaws in his arguments so he can respond to pick up the remains scraps of his dignity?
I don't advocate violence or criminal activity, but since Morici is claiming it's in everyones interest to destroy, why hasn't he asked anyone to burn down his house?
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I saw this posted on Facebook today:

More jobs lost! Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, maker of the military Black Hawk helicopter, became the latest defense contractor to announce that they will be cutting 570 jobs in Connecticut due to the defense budget cuts imposed by the Obama administration. "It’s a real blow to the community because they were a major employer," Chemung County, CT Executive Tom Santulli said. Are you concerned that defense spending cuts are cutting jobs and affecting the military as other countries are increasing their militaries?

A quick Google search showed the plant is actually in New York state, but the rest of the details line up.

The fallacy we're seeing here is the old ruse that because spending cuts always costs someone their job we should never issue then. It's the same bogus logic if the supposed victims are soliders or firefighters.

It's bogus to criticize President Barack Obama's policies for the destruction of obsolete or low-priority positions. However, President Obama only has himself to blame for pushing a mythical economic model where the economy is helped by using taxpayers money to keep people busy with worthless chores and creating jobs is a goal unto itself. His foolish critics are just spooning his own idiot porridge back to him.
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Vacations don't pay for themselves

I've heard that Robert Reich is a smart guy, and he probably is in some dimensions, being a Rhodes Scholar and all. Economics just isn't an area where he has any real expertise.

Unfortunately, economics is the subject Reich keeps commenting on and his latest idea is particularly comical. Much like the bastardized, straw-man version of the Laffer Curve states all tax cuts will increase tax revenue, Reich said giving all workers paid time off will increase profits:

A mandatory three weeks off would be good for everyone — including employers. 

Studies show workers who take time off are more productive after their batteries are recharged. They have higher morale, and are less likely to mentally check out on the job. 

This means more output per worker — enough to compensate employers for the cost of hiring additional workers to cover for everyone’s three weeks’ vacation time.

This was not a parody. This is a real suggestion from the nation's former labor secretary who is occasionally given airtime on NPR to spread his economic musings.

After the vague hand-waving "studies show" remark, Reich made it clear he was talking about all employees, not just professional ones who make complicated decisions. I'll give him the doubt and assume he means full-time employees, but I still have trouble believing a cashier at a chain store is going to be more than $1000 more productive because of a vacation.

Commenter Kebko at Mike Munger's blog realized a fatal flaw in Reich's idea:

My head just exploded. If workers are so much more productive that you'd have enough additional output to compensate additional workers to cover for vacations, why would you need the additional workers? Never mind. Needing more people to do the same amount of stuff lowers unemployment!

Reich's point about increasing employment by lowering the amount of work each employee is allowed to do is a very old idea popular with labor unions called "spread the work." Henry Hazlitt dedicated an entire chapter to it in Economics in One Lesson. In order to pay a larger pool of workers the same amount each to complete the same limited tasks currently performed, labor costs must increase, and therefor customers will have to pay more.

Why three weeks? He gives no justification why that number hits some kind of magical sweet spot. He reminds us that some workers don't get any paid time off, but he doesn't explain why giving them two weeks off would be insufficient.

I'm taken aback by how infantile Reich's idea is. Stating confidently on blind faith that the economy will be improved for all participants if we just require paid vacations is something I'd expect from a pothead English major, not an adult who wears a tie on a regular basis. Why aren't employers doing it now? Well because man, the system, ya know?

I think one way to improve the economy is to require Robert Reich to take 52 weeks of vacation every year from commentating and stop spreading his pseudo-intellectual ideas. That would truly be a win-win-win.
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The return of the defense Keynesians

About six months ago while watching a conservative video I spotted in the background a tri-fold display about how cuts to the military budget would harm certain towns and cities that depend on them for jobs. The clip never got into the details of the subject, but I got the gist of it and knew one day I would have to fight those arguments

That day is today.

House and Senate Republicans are saying a stalled budget discussion that would result in a $55 billion cut to next year's defense budget is going to harm local communities in their districts that are built around military bases or arms companies.

There are two major ways to tackle claims like these. One is to challenge those assumptions and say the position is based on faulty logic, while the other is to say, "So what?" This is a "So what?" argument.

Spending cuts always cost someone their job. I think the Republicans are correct that there are specific communities that will shrivel up and die when the paycheck is yanked out of their war factory, but why should that stop us?

When a town or city dies, the people living there are not summarily executed. They are free citizens able to find a home elsewhere. It can be expensive, and it's not a pleasant experience, but what is the alternative? Why should we prop up zombie towns that no longer have a foundation?

If a community sprung up around the logging trade because it was near forests and strong rivers, the march of progress eventually made those features obsolete. If that community can't find something new to do and has nothing going for it, what use is there to keep people wandering aimless inside? That community is dead. Just because it was fruitful at once doesn't mean the outside public has an obligation to maintain it as a mausoleum for all eternity.

I can understand someone having an emotional connection to the town where they grew up, and of course, I can understand a politician wanting to bring home the bacon for his constituents. However, the rest of the country is not entitled to pay for those fancies. That is a parasitic relationship.

If we need that military spending, argue that the military spending itself is good for the county. Don't say it's worth wasting money to prop up dead communities.

As if that wasn't enough nonsense for one flawed political position, these Republicans have to go further and make classic Keynesian arguments that defense spending creates jobs, so we need to waste money on the military for the sake of the economy.

This inconsistent vision was already lampooned last year as "Defense Keynesianism" by Matthew Yglesias, where politicians who normally reject the aggregate demand model are willing to invoke it to protect military spending. Consistency aside, the counterargument was already laid down in 1946 in chapter nine of Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
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My greatest intellectual influences

Not too long ago Kevin "Angus" Grier and Tyler Cowen wrote about the books that influenced them the most and I feel inspired to do the same. The catch is that my generation also learns a lot from videos, podcasts and essays, so I've included them as well.

• Politics and the English Language by George Orwell. This brilliant essay introduced me to six of the seven rules of writing I live by (the extra one was provided by a high school English teacher - put the focus of the sentence at the beginning, and not the end). In addition, Orwell mocked the blocky, obtuse writing of eggheads - something I have never stopped doing. A companion influence is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White.
  
• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. A research trip to Papua New Guinea for bird physiology lead to Diamond's provocative explanation for international inequality and provides powerful examples of how innovation, trade and specialization all create wealth. I confess to never reading the book and only watching the National Geographic documentary.
• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. This taught me the Broken Window fallacy, and it's countless forms. Fallacies have an eternal nature and its important to recognize all their mutations. Companion influences are essays by Frédéric Bastiat; both That Which is Seen, and That Which is Unseen and the satirical Candlemakers' Petition.
• Milton Friedman. His entire body of work is so important to me that it's hard to find a single lecture, essay, book or video to link. Hopefully this 1978 exchange does the trick. There has never been a greater champion for the rights of the individual than Friedman. He taught me that trying to save a society directly will destroy it, while empowering the common man will save the society at large.
• Economics for Dummies by Sean Masaki Flynn. I was concerned I was learning too much of economics from libertarian sources, so I went out of my way to learn the basics from a neutral source. Flynn was the right man for the job - a Keynesian who wasn't shy to call Karl Marx discredited. Flynn reminded me that reasonable people can disagree.
  
• Pop Internationalism by Paul Krugman. I'm a Krugman hipster - I like his old stuff better. David Henderson called this the best book on trade around. Krugman outlined the case for free trade and dismantled a number of economic fallacies in a short, accessible format. This is a lively book and I still enjoy thumbing through it. A companion influence is Krugman's 1997 article In Praise of Cheap Labor which nailed the moral argument in support of sweatshop labor.
• Cornucopia: The Pace of Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong. Originally, I started referencing Krugman and Delong because their status as loud left wingers made my economic points appear stronger and universal. Today I link them because they have produced some amazing work. This essay on how much wealthier we are today, and how hard it is to measure that wealth, is nothing short of astounding. It's easy enough for anyone to read, and absolutely everyone should read it.
• The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. The best introductory book to scientific skepticism around. Chapter 18, The Wind Makes Dust, taught me to appreciate Yankee ingenuity for what it is: people learning science the moment it becomes practical to their lives. A companion influence is the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast.
• Seanbaby. My favorite internet comedy writer. He shaped my sense of humor and steered me towards appreciating the hokey, the kitschy and the unintentional.
• The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich August von Hayek. This book solidly trounced the concept of central planning. However, it suffers from the strained writing style of Austrian-born Hayek. George Orwell reviewed this book, which tells us he read it. Unfortunately, Hayek couldn't read Politics and the English Language before he wrote this important book; this book predates that essay by two years.
• The Myth of Violence by Steven Pinker. This 20 minute lecture is the ultimate answer to anyone who argues that modern society have brought about an epidemic of violence. Pinker demolishes that idea, shows its quite the opposite and makes a strong case for the peaceful effects of international trade.
• EconTalk hosted by Russ Roberts. I found this podcast when I wanted to find out what economists think of "buy local" campaigns - and boy did I get an answer. Roberts has a constant stream of fascinating and counter-intuitive guests. When I was a kid I always saw intellectual programs as stuffy and dull. I've learned this is seldom the case, and when Roberts invites Mike Munger onto the show I know I'm in for some solid humor as well as economics.

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