The Way of the Leprechaun

And we get holidays – 18 days pa is the basic, most places offer about 21 days, on top of the 12 (?) public holidays each year. Six weeks vacation, in other words.

The first thing – quite literally – you get taught in “A” level economics is the principle of trade offs, and the way this is traditionally illustrated is the “Robinson Crusoe” trade off of work/income vs leisure.

And yet these people still refuse to understand that most people would rather be comfortable with six weeks off than filthy rich with two. What do the American right do with all their extra moolah? They have no time to spend it.

err chris, the rich american right-wingers fund megachurches, buy SUVs, invest in google, lobby to destroy the environment, and all tha funky jazz.

and it’s because they have no time to spend it that they are arguing so hard for the estate tax repeal. didn’t you get the memo?

Friedman also ignores all the lavish EU subsidies (IIRC it was something like €319 per Irishman in 2004), and, of course, a huge housing bubble that is about to burst.

“And yet these people still refuse to understand that most people would rather be comfortable with six weeks off than filthy rich with two. What do the American right do with all their extra moolah? They have no time to spend it.”

You can negotiate for more time off with less salary if you have a medium or high demand job even in America. Just a thought.

Jasper – in fairness to him, Friedman mentioned the subsidies in his first leprechaun piece this week: “By the mid-1980’s, though, Ireland had reaped the initial benefits of E.U. membership – subsidies to build better infrastructure and a big market to sell into.”

Yup. If there’s a way to get a 40-hr/wk litigation job for a salary that’s a pro-rated reduction of what big-firm high-pressure lawyers make, I don’t know what it is.

Another response to Chris’s question, “What do the American right do with all their extra moolah? They have no time to spend it.”

With so little time, they need servants. And, as Schumpeter said (I may not recall the quote quite correctly, but I think I’m within spitting distance)”A servant is worth a 1000 gadgets.” Finally, with the poor social welfare policies and ease of laying people off, good help is relatively easy to find.

What do the American right do with all their extra moolah?

According to Robert Gordon, as summarised in this article in the Economist, half of it goes mostly on air conditioning and heating, roads and gas bills, and prisons.

As to trading time off for less pay: not a problem here (HP, also full health, good salary, sick leave etc.) but I notice that lots of my coworkers never even take their 3 weeks of vacation. Some go so far as to come to work and lose their vacation when they bump up against the max. I’m sure many Americans are not in a position to negotiate their hours but many than are feel pressured to show up anyway.

Reuben: I immigrated to the UK – where, I should note, my standard of living is just as high as when I lived in the US – but with four extra weeks of holiday time to enjoy myself.

But…but…I thought the UK was one of the good, Airmiles-approved countries! Now I find out they’re all decadent spoiled crybabies too? It’s all so confusing…

c++guy: I notice that lots of my coworkers never even take their 3 weeks of vacation.

I think it’s pretty common for managerial/professional workers in the US to not take their full allotment of vacation time because their employers can’t “spare” them for that long…

You know, one could summon a good case for a hegemonic, pseduo-Chomskey view of the media, just by reading Airmiles and other ‘neoliberals’ who still make a pretense of centrism. Never getting near the vast GOP noise machine.

In short, Sebastian is either living back in the dot-com era, has had some strange experiences in the US, or is simply, how should I put it – yes – speaking from an alternate USA.

Or else he’s relying on that favourite conservative assumption: if you have the the legal right to do X then you are “free” to do X, regardless of economic conditions or social norms which prevent you from doing it.

Yes, it’s hard to tell quite what you mean to be.
My point is that someone can be rich and have free time to spend the money. And that not everyone in America works for the sake of working. Then again I wasn’t born in America, so that may have something to do with it.

Exhibit Z for Why I’d Rather Not Live in the US.
Oh come on, you don’t like star trek?

If there’s a way to get a 40-hr/wk litigation job for a salary that’s a pro-rated reduction of what big-firm high-pressure lawyers make, I don’t know what it is.

In the EU, have a kid and ask.

I was going to write a little bit on this, just on the subject of “overseas investment”. The whole point about Ireland is that it’s attracted loads of overseas capital. The whole point about France and Germany is that they’re not in the position of needing overseas capital. etc etc.

Do you dress as a Klingon?
I dress as a borg, Thank you. And there’s more fun in Vegas for a 24 yo than just Star Trek conventions.

I cannot speak for any firm but the one I work for. Here, though, several people have cut deals under which they work a bit less for a bit less pay. However:

– It’s quite rare.

– I am not aware of anybody having done this recently. In 1999 any of us could have cut almost any deal we liked. It is no longer 1999.

– There is a general perception (whether right or wrong, I cannot say) that cutting such a deal would not be career-enhancing. The few people who have done so are, with only one exception to my knowledge, all married women. Women in the firm I work for very often have husbands with similar jobs, and may feel that going off-track (if indeed that is what happens) is a luxury they can afford. The one man I know who cut such a deal did so under circumstances in which it would have been breathtakingly scummy and heartless, even by the standards of our profession, for the firm to have refused.

– ‘Working a bit less’ is a highly relative concept.

I know! And that implies that they stopped twenty years ago, rather than still flowing our way…

He also implied in his last article that the introduction of free university education in the mid-1990’s massively boosted the country by ‘creating an even more educated work force’.

He didn’t force his point, possibly because to advocate free university education for all might seem a bit left-wing, but more probably because I don’t think that Ms Brennan’s legislation made a jot of difference except to make it cheaper for people to go to university who were going anyway.

It was our system of maintenance grants that needed reforming if poorer people were to be encouraged to go to university – and as far as I know it’s not much better now than it was when I was home.

But yes, by far the biggest problem with these articles, is the fact that the various partnership agreements that have held the country together since about 1987 are given only the most cursory nod. Plonker.

“the systematized concertation between trade unions, management, government and other social actors – that was at the heart of Ireland’s economic success”

Yes a ‘systemated concertation’ that reduced the size of government by 50% (26 points of GDP) … and slashed taxes by a third (corporate tax rate from 40% to 12.5%) to the lowest level in the EU, while deregulating markets and major employers … with the result that GDP growth tripled and GDP per capita zoomed up from 65% of the EU average to 120%, and #1 in the rankings (excluding Luxembourg, which doesn’t really count), while unemployment dropped from 17% to 4%.

Now it’s true that labor unions elsewhere don’t generally actively participate in such “systematized concertation” regarding such policies, taking a full partner role in planning them out and pushing them through the legislature. So this is not exactly a “British model”, it’s sui generis. But if you want to place it somewhere on the Continent, it’s obviously a heck of a lot closer to Britain than to Italy, Germany, France … though somewhere out in the ocean, maybe.

“Friedman implies that the subsidies have stopped when they obviously have not.”

No, but they’re down to 1% of GDP — compared to 6% of GDP back in the 1980s when unemployment was 17%, government spending was 53% of GDP, taxes were at Scandinavian levels, the country was broke, and the unions joined the “systematized concertation” of economic reform to make Ireland the richest country in Europe as it is today.

Wrong thread, but right thought – Friedman, in terms of economics, ranks with Andrew Sullivan.

Even though there is on this page a collection of anecdotal accounts of whether people have labor flexibility, a data set anecdotes does not make. Being a statistics kind of person so I remain a bit agnostic. Yet since as a student I can’t even contribute a lowly data point of my own, let me instead offer a few ideas and see if I can encourage a bit less argument and a bit more discourse.

To begin lets consider a completely unregulated market: no limit on hours per week or overtime compensation; lets throw out minimum wage. Nothing. Would this market be the most efficient, or better yet would it create the most happiness? Even given the difficulty in answering this question in a well-defined way, I want to say clearly not, but I’m not so sure what’s so clear about it. I just don’t buy the argument that the powerful have unfair leverage. Unless there is threat of violence against labor mobility (which was hardly uncommon), two people voluntarily entering into a contract is the definition of fair.

I suppose the central assertion of why this ‘no-regulation’ approach is undesirable is that there is an over supply of low-skill labor. Or said differently (assuming a ‘fair’ market), human productivity has an extremely skewed distribution.

Another important effect might be the non-divisibility of work, i.e. the boss knows that hiring two people at half the price and half the hours will result in less than full production.

So what is my point? My point is that in my opinion criticism of a free market system must be coupled with a discussion of how the market being discussed is inefficient. Once this is identified this will lead into how the government can implement regulation to produce a new market with some quantifiably better distribution.

Of course this essentially is what everyone assumed without feeling the need to say it, and just got straight to voicing their opinion on what type of government regulation is optimal. Only I feel that there is an abundance of certainty (as is common in the blog-o-sphere) when in the face of truly complex questions a bit more humility would perhaps be more conducive to a reasoned debate.

Though probably less fun…

Talking about literally tiny economies (such as Ireland) is essentially useless. There are only 4 million people in Ireland (and roughly the same in Israel – the two economies function somewhat similarly). The effective labor force size ends up being in the range of 2 million (in Ireland, that number was 1.8 mil in 2001). In an economy that small, a US firm opening up a relatively small branch of only 2,000 people increases employment by 1/10 of 1% by that act alone. 10 companies doing the same – 1% less unemployment for the entire country.

And, in the cases of Israel and Ireland, the growth has come from (largely) US firms opening up operations in those two countries – organic internal economic growth has not been the main driver in either country.

Conversely, that much job creation likely wouldn’t even register in the data in a single major US urban area (NY/LA/Houston/Chicago), much less the nation as a whole. The same goes for the other large EU economies.

what about quality of leisure? there is nothign that says more “leisure” time is automatically better. that is a huge assumption. Am i the only one who has forgotten that in America “work hard, play hard” is a common idiom.
I would also like to see what the satisfaction level is with their jobs. If I enjoy my job, why is it bad to work more hours?
These type of articles are simple minded and short sighted. They also ignore the societal impact of a slower growth economy on living standards.
here, people can chose to work fewer hours. People are doing it everyday. All the so called liberals, can choose to work fewer hours.
I dont think looking at numbers mostly from the 90’s gives any true indicator of an economy. The world experienced an economic boom, the US carried many countries with our high growth. You have to let time pass, at least look at 20 year numbers.
i also would like to point out population numbers and factors. The US economy has had to absorb millions of immigrants, on top of a population that is growing faster than France. Therefore the real growth is even greater than just the numbers show.
I do think its misleading to point to small countries, and ignore the equivalents here in the US. Why is so much done to show the difference among the states? I would like to see how the recreational number changes depending on location. (Do Floridians spend more time doing recreation, than Ohioans?) I would bet, Floridians probably enjoy more recreation than most other states.
Yet Florida has a very low unemployment rate, even thought they have no state income tax, and a large elderly population. Lets look at our own examples within our borders; i know this is not what many liberals want to think about.
Just having more vacation days does not automatically mean more recreation time. What about company outings, and trips? What about the way many white collar workers leave eraly for apointments, take long lunch breaks, etc.
In other words, those simple numbers can be made to say whatever a person wants them to say.

What do we Americans do with all that extra money we earn for having only two weeks of vacation every year? We

(1) Use it to pay for medical care for all the extra stress-related illnesses we get in comparison to Europe,

(2) Pay for unworkable fad diets to lose all the weight from the obesity that results from not having enough time to exercise,

(3) Pay up into trust funds to subsidize our kids’ education since unlike in Ireland and France and Germany, we don’t have much state support of higher education,

(4) Pay to clean up the environmental mess left by corporations who are all but encouraged by the Executive Branch to dump their crap in our local streams, and

(5) Pay into our kids’ trust funds to prepare for the day when the real estate bubble crashes and we actually have to pay for our country’s $10 trillion or so national debt, racked up in part by stupid wars that our people are just too busy working to notice and protest against.

See, we Americans do wonderful things with our extra money.