More and more government entities are shifting to the four day work week to cut costs. Cities like El Paso and states like Utah and California are experimenting with the concept. And initial findings are promising; the financial savings are real, especially in the cost for energy.
Even automaker GM is exploring the idea of adopting the practice of a four day work week. But what if there was a widespread adoption of the four day work week? What would be the effect on our economy? Our society? The environment?
Here are some ideas to think about.
As Congress continues to debate the future of health care and as the President makes yet another compromise to motivate legislators to produce a bill he can sign, no one in the real word really knows what health care proposals are under consideration and which ones are off the table.
Meanwhile, every, and any, lobbyist who has the slightest financial, political, or religious stake in this history-shaping legislation is pulling out all the stops to make sure the new health care system is shaped in their image. Some have adopted a fear mongering “scorched Earth” approach, hoping that the average American will be so confused that they will demand nothing be done. But (using a double negative to make a point) we cannot allow “nothing to be done” because America already pays more for health care than any other nation in the developed world.
This article is not going to recount the nightmares associated with the current system if you can call it a “system.” You can go anywhere else for that. Rather, here are honest to gosh solutions. With health care, we go forward, and here’s how we do it.
The 1987 Stock Bubble. The 2000 Tech Bubble. The 2006 Mortgage Bubble. Each of these bubbles drove the economy through a manic cycle of growth to a point of irrational exuberance (quoting Alan Greenspan) only to suffer a bi-polar swing of stock market crash, job losses, and industry devaluation, along with shattered consumer confidence. The Stimulus Bubble, as some are calling it, may produce similar results.
But there is one bubble no one is paying attention to – no one except for Jenny Anderson of the New York Times. If we are to extrapolate from Ms. Anderson’s recent report, the next economic bubble is… Life Insurance!
The subprime mortgage implosion was just the beginning.
Well qualified ARM borrowers will see their loans reset soon which will make the subprime borrowers’ default rates look like child’s play. Even though recent declining mortgage interest rates have helped ARM borrowers stay afloat, the current mortgage interest rates will not last forever and will only postponing the inevitable. The next spike in foreclosures will be ARM loans, the domino affect will take housing values with it.
But that’s not even half the picture.
Students in the US educational system listen to music and watch video on their iPhones. They read news and keep in touch using Twitter and texting. Meanwhile, hardcopy newsprint is rapidly disappearing, television is no longer subject to time slotting, and devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader are driving readers away from bookstores. Yet schoolage children lug outdated, heavy, hardbound books back and forth to school each day, books that are seriously outdated, easily vandalized, and increasingly irrelevent. America’s schools need to abandon hardcopy books, now!
It’s tragic really. Millions of lost jobs. Foreclosed houses at record levels resulting in plummeting home values. Our auto industry on the verge of implosion along with 7 million related jobs. IRA and 401k values shrinking and forcing employees to work longer to retire. State and local governments teetering on bankruptcy. It’s bleak and there’s a lot of pain.
But as with any pain, there are valuable lessons for all of us and hopefully we are wise enough to learn. As our economy resets, here are eighteen good consequences that will come as a result.