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Did Benjamin Franklin Invent Daylight Saving Time?
An anonymous reader writes "While living in Paris, Ben Franklin was struck by how many hours of daylight were being wasted to sleep during the summer months. He wrote an open letter to a Parisian journal lamenting the wasted expenditures on candlewax, and presented his back-of-the-quillpad estimates of the cost savings if the entire population arose an hour or two earlier. However, Franklin did not specifically mention moving the clocks ahead; instead, he suggested official means for enforcement (rationing the sale of candlewax to families) and encouragement (ringing church bells at sunrise). The clock-shifting technique which we know and love was credited to the New Zealander George Vernon Hudson, who proposed it in 1895. DST was first widely adopted by warring countries during World War I as a way of conserving coal needed for military purposes. This launched a debate over DST's usefulness that continues to the present day (particularly by people stumbling about in their bathrooms). Of course, Franklin is also associated with other questionable ideas, including bifocals, lightning rods, electric current flowing from the positive to negative terminal, leaking official documents to fan opposition, and an independent United States of America."
New research suggests the daylight saving time change will lead to lower productivity tomorrow as the lost sleep makes workers more likely to slack (PDF).
One of my childhood heroes - I'm not surprised that he would have questioned the custom of keeping the same hours throughout the year as the sun rises and sets at different times.
My favourite story about him: Thomas Jefferson would not allow Franklin to work on the Declaration of Independence because he feared Franklin would put too many jokes in it.
myke
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may he rot in hell ...
oh, that's right, he's in Philly... nevermind
I like going home after work and still having daylight. I can go out for a run, have a picnic, and not be fearful of vampires.
I always await DST with bated breath every year.
And I rue its passing every fall
We are so far east in the Eastern time zone, which goes all the way from Western Indiana to Maine, that we should actually be in the Atlantic time zone with the Canadian Maritime provinces.
--
GMO
Are we going to abolish the stupidity of the concept of Daylight Savings Time? It saves no daylight.
There will be a higher percentage of car crashes tomorrow due to people being awake an hour earlier. Then in fall, there will be higher suicides when there is suddenly, with no logical explanation to your circadian cycle, dramatically less sunlight.
This is an abomination and really has a horrible effect on me and other each year.
It needs to go away with other anachronisms. I mortally detest it.
This is really bad. I woke up this morning and noticed that is was noon instead of 11am like it should be. They fucking stole an hour from my life! Sure some might say I'll get it back next time we adjust the clock, but what if I don't make it to that time? It's gone, this is completely horrible.
Sleep-journal.com: "Results: There was a significant increase in accidents for the Monday immediately following the spring shift to DST (t=1.92, P=0.034). There was also a significant increase in number of accidents on the Sunday of the fall shift from DST (P0.002)."
Get rid of DST. Arizona has it right (no DST). Doesn't help that the whole world doesn't even follow the DST change at the same time.
This "electricity" is merely a fad and will come to nothing. Ha, and those bifocal things will cause the innocent wearer to become cross-eyed. Such dangerous radicals are not to be suffered in the King's lands!
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That is when summer time starts for the vast majority of sufferers.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Here in Saskatchewan we are pretty much the only province in Canada that doesn't switch time in regards to DST. So in effect we are like Arizona and don't switch.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
I read a quote somewhere (Google says it's of Navajo origin) that changed the way I thought about daylight savings time. It went something like this:
"Daylight Savings Time is the equivalent of cutting off the bottom of a blanket and sewing it on to the top because your blanket is too short."
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
C.G.P. Grey did a swell video on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4
Frankly, the system as is a chaotic mess. I find myself more and more often tempted to state HH:MM p/a GMT. It just seems like something that was good in theory about two hundred years ago, but now? Confusion. There is a reason standard time for trains considered such a great advance. DST now seems like a step backwards.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Comrade Putin used abolishing DST as a platform to run under in this recent election... Seems to have worked out well for him
The answer to all your problems
The standard for "invention" has dropped a long way hasn't it. The whole "getting up with the sunrise" idea from antiquity was the original dailylight savings time. It was only once people started working in dungeons ...er ... factories that schedules started being different from work when you can see what you're doing. You can't forget something and then remember it and replace it with a less precise system and call it an invention.
It's pretty clear Franklin was trolling big time with that letter.
Is that the powers that be are still scared of the dark. Seriously though, we live in a time where we have electricity and light bulbs. If you're that uncomfortable with "losing daylight", grab a goddamn flashlight. It isn't fucking sorcery.
Franklin is also associated with other questionable ideas, including bifocals, lightning rods, electric current flowing from the positive to negative terminal, leaking official documents to fan opposition, and an independent United States of America
I didn't realize he postulated (or invented) the flow of electrons incorrectly!
FYI, just to clarify for all you non electrically inclined folks out there, electrons flow from the negative terminal (where a surplus of electrons are, hense the negative charge) to the positive terminal (where there is a lack of electrons.)
Bill
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If you think productivity will go down tomorrow, wait and see what happens on the 22nd. That's when the new Angry Birds comes out.
Obviously, Ben Franklin didn't invent DST. Bobby Boucher's mother did... Ben Franklin is THE DEVIL!
The reasons for DST have changed several times in my lifetime: driver safety, encourage evening shopping, save energy, blah, blah, blah. Fact is it's just one more pointless government program that has outlived its usefulness, but will never die.
Watch Penn & Teller on the subject.
No.
My wife hates DST, so she looked into the actual law.
Here it is: The federal US government sets the days that the DST transition happens on. It's up to the individual states to go on DST or not.
So, you could work at a state level to just have your state not participate in it.
That's it.
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
We could be doing a 24 hour schedule but we still operate businesses and offices from 9-5. Why? I see no advantage.
Haha I work unpredictable hours, so DST changes mean nothing to me.
If you want a visual explanation of the purpose and result of daylight saving time, check out this graph: Picasa Web Albums - Paul Nickerson
The purpose, as I understand it, is to make the sun not rise super early against the clock during the summer. The effect is that it reduces the range of sunrise times, while increasing the range of sunset times. In a way, it normalizes sunrises while amplifying sunsets.
Oh, and while we're at it, during a non-DST period, if the time zones were evenly split and straight with no regard to human geographic borders, then at the middle of the time zone, 12:00 (noon) would be the time that astronomical noon is (when the sun is highest in the sky), varying by about 20 minutes before and after noon. If you average all the astronomical noons over the course of a year in the middle of a time zone, then astronomical noon is at precisely 12:00. During DST, astronomical noon is moved to 1:00 pm (13:00)
I'm glad I have flexible work hours, because otherwise I'd be looking forward to a 10%-increased chance of having a heart attack tomorrow or the day after. So... if there are 2 million heart attacks per year in the US, I guess that means several hundred extra heart attacks just due to this effect?
It might seem like an esoteric discussion of productivity to people like ourselves, but if your job was to dig ditches each day you would be very happy to get up an hour earlier (and hence cooler) in the summertime.
As the summary mentions, Ben's argument was basically that "early to bed and early to rise" saved energy. Getting up with the sun and going to sleep earlier in the evening reduced the need for lamp oil. And while we use electricity instead of lamp oil, this argument is still used today.
However, when you consider that lighting is becoming more and more efficient and most of our personal energy consumption now goes to heating and cooling, the picture changes. Since the Earth takes time to warm and cool each day, the daily temperature cycle lags behind the sun by a few hours. Getting up early in the winter just means more energy spent heating your home and office, and working late in the day during summer means high A/C bills.
Plus, most people want some daylight time outside the typical 8-5 work window. There's no reason to line up the work day with daylight hours; these days, most people are cooped up in office buildings and don't really care whether it's light or dark out. And commuting during sunrise or sunset is dangerous, so that's another good reason to offset the workday from the sun cycle.
Finally, studies have shown that a period of bright light, preferably sunlight, is important for our health during the winter months. So yet again it makes no sense to align the workday with the daylight cycle, since commuters at northern latitudes only see a bit of dawn and dusk during their commute and are stuck indoors during the bright part of the day.
While it may be a bit extreme, I think the ideal solution is to start the workday a couple hours past sunrise in the winter and a couple hours before sunrise in the summer. You'll be active during the warmest hours of winter and cooler hours in summer, you'll have free time during daylight hours year round, you'll commute to work in bright sunlight during the winter, and you'll avoid staring into the sun while commuting most of the year. Of course, nobody would want to a several-hour time change, so it would be better to spread it out: Lose a minute every night for half the year, then gain a minute each night for the other half. In addition, there could also be a couple jumps during the year to help avoid commuting at dawn/dusk. Getting people to accept waking up before dawn during summer and having sunset in the middle of the afternoon during winter might still take some work, but I think it would be safer, healthier, and more efficient for everyone.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
My respect for him just took a nosedive.
DST is stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid..
At the latitude of Paris, or New York City, in the middle of summer when sunrise is around 4:30am, and your typical city dweller doesn't rise until 7 or 8, but the burns candles several hours into the night, it makes perfect sense.
In Florida, it's just stupid. Kids are going to be dropped off at school before twilight starts tomorrow morning.
Singaporeans liked the concept of Daylight Saving so much that in 1982 they moved to it permanently. Geographically they should be UTC+7 but they currently work off UTC+8.
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Back in the days of Ben Franklin DST may have saved some candles, oil (for lamps) or gas.
In the early 20th century including both wars It saved electricity.
In the 21st century however its just stupid.
These days the majority of electricity is used for many other purposes besides lighting. The change to non-incandescent bulbs makes a significant power saving however.
Its no longer a 9-5 world. Many facilities have to operate 24 hours a day.
I work night shift (you insensitive clods)
In fall I end up having to work a 9 hr shift.
Last night I had a 7 hr shift
The only good thing was it meant that I could eat breakfast since I got home before sunrise. March 2-20th is the Month of the Fast in the religion I follow.
The average person probably wastes more than an hour in changing the clocks. Automatic setting of clocks (apart from computers and other connected devices that can have the software upgraded) didn't work because the govt changed the date DST starts and ends
Since it is election year, which candidates at a State or National level are in favor of repealing DST ?
New research suggests the daylight saving time change will lead to lower productivity tomorrow as the lost sleep makes workers more likely to slack
Slackers will use any excuse available to slack off
If they can't blame it on daylight saving time, they will blame it on something else
On the other hand, those who work hard will always work hard, come what may
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Actually at the worst part of the year (for them) they're already done with their first class of the day before sunrise in the school zone I live in. I remember some years ago a teacher made a snide comment about "getting up at the crack of dawn" which pushed me over the edge and resulted in my pointing out at significant volume that it's not the crack of dawn, and it won't be for another half hour at least so by her own logic I should still be at home sleeping.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Wasn't it Kim Jong-il who invented DST?
S
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Wait...what? Tomorrow?
Why didn't anyone tell me?
Shit! I have to get to bed!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
A better solution is not night-shifts (very damaging to longevity), but staggered work-days, with some starting at 7, some at 8, some at 9. That way there are fewer people trying to reach their destination at the same time of day. Shorter work-days would result in many people having slightly less pay, however they would have more leisure hours, and overall unemployment would go down.
I used to live in northern Western Australia which never got around to making DST permanent (they trial it from time to time). We just started school at 8am and finished at 2:30pm instead of starting at 9am and finishing at 3:30pm. That was more a result of climate than DST but it still worked just fine and meant that we could do whatever worked best for us without imposing any changes to the southern part of the state. Leaving the clocks alone and just starting your day at a different time makes a lot more sense to me.
OTOH, within a given region the service based industries need to be working at similar times to the people they service, and your proposition would increase the total number of hours they need to operate. It's not a problem without a solution though.
But I definitely agree with your thoughts on night-shifts. People need exposure to daylight during their waking hours and darkness while they sleep. Or daylight lamps and synthetic melatonin...
Huh? The only reason to work longer hours is if the country is not producing enough to feed everyone. But is that true?
If the country is producing enough to feed everyone and you have too few jobs and too many workers why not:
a) work shorter hours?
b) work the same hours, but give everyone a basic income so that the jobless don't need jobs to survive?
If the country is not producing enough to feed everyone, then it's screwed in the long run. You can hide it by going into debt or other tricks, but the real solution is to figure out a way to increase productivity.
People with no hope of finding jobs stealing stuff from me does not increase productivity.
While it may be a bit extreme, I think the ideal solution is to start the workday a couple hours past sunrise in the winter and a couple hours before sunrise in the summer. You'll be active during the warmest hours of winter and cooler hours in summer, you'll have free time during daylight hours year round,
No you would be cooped up in an office during the warmest hours of winter and the cooler hours in summer. All your free time would be during the hottest hours of summer and the coldest hours of winter. That sounds like a good way for office buildings to save heating/cooling expenses, but would increase residential expenses, and make it less enjoyable to spend your free time outside.
For someone in the warmer latitudes, what I would like to see is the opposite. Leave winter hours as they are, and then shift the clock an hour later in the summer. That way you spend the hottest hours in the office, it will have cooled off by the time you are getting ready for bed, and you have time in the morning when it is cooler to spend outside before going to work.
There are plenty of banks that have adjusted hours to their communities. Some are open as late as 8 PM on selected days, Some are even open on (GASP) Saturdays.
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Any programmer knows that you don't redefine time itself - wrong answer.
Believe it or not, there is only "one single time zone" in China.
the sun would set at midnight in the summer. how awesome would that be?
if you have to go to work in the morning, it might as well be at the coldest darkest hour, since if something has to suck, it ought to suck completely
save the daylight for when you can really appreciate it: leisure time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Since many of us are interested in shifting clocks to allow for a more productive work day, and save lighting expenses, I propose a new twist to this system: the Workweek Saving Day. It is a very simple concept, really. Each Saturday night, instead of it becoming Sunday at the stroke of midnight, it becomes Monday. How awesome is that?! This way, we can all provide one more productive day of work to our beloved employers and do busy busy things to make the big cog-wheel turn. Come on li'l gipper, ya with me?!
An old Indian chief once said that only the United States government believes that by cutting a foot off the top of a blanket and sewing it on the bottom, you get a longer blanket.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Thomas Jefferson would not allow Franklin to work on the Declaration of Independence because he feared Franklin would put too many jokes in it
Awwww... what a spoilsport that Thomas Jefferson was
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Let's stop perpetuating this myth. Benjamin Franklin DID NOT invent electricity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTADnsFrPA
Indonesia, currently on three time zones, has just announced they're looking at all going to one. It would be UTC+8, which would suit businesses and me very well personally, on permanent DST. http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/government-mulling-one-time-zone-for-all-of-indonesia/503952
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
I have a broken body clock, so random hours suit me. I sleep when I'm tired enough and wake up when I've had enough rest or my alarm tells me to, whichever comes first.
DST is a stupid idea.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
So why don't we all go back to using sundials and adjust our water clocks accordingly?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'm going to assume you're not joking:
Have you ever tried working at night, and sleeping during the day? I have. It sucks. The human body is just not 'designed' to do that.
Each to his own, I found it a quite enjoyable break. Something appealing about going home at the crack of dawn.
Let's be real, no one invented daylights savings, clocks un-invented it. We all did it quite normally prior to the interference of, clocks and other peoples greed and demands.
Just look at all the productivity gains over the last fifty years, where did it all go, not shared around at all, most of it went to feed the greed of a psychopathic minority. Reality is we should already be down to a 4 day 6 hour per day week but the greedy are never ever satiated, no matter how much they have and more importantly how little the rest of us have.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It is still a joke. Every year, the power companies announce that they haven't noticed any difference in the power consumption. The reason is simple. A 1% change in the 2% of electricity that is actually used for lighting will not have a noticeable effect. So why bother with this DST nonsense?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Paris uses CET which is 1 hour ahead of their natural time, and CEST during the summer which is 2 hours ahead
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Brit here... visited the US a year ago, Utah to be precise. In the space of two weeks, I went seven hours back, one forward, six forward, another forward. That messed me up for a good two months.
He also invented internet, socks and parachutes. All while fighting ninjas.
I've also tried it. In fact, I'm in the middle of trying it for years, now. Not only does the schedule not bother me, I prefer it.
I have the benefit of only working 4 (10-hour) days, and I actually flip-flop my schedule naturally twice a week (So I'm a awake and active during a decent part of the day), plus I tend to only sleep 5-6 hours (without an alarm) so maybe I'm an outlier, but to suggest that this schedule that I've settled on quite well goes against some 'design' makes me chuckle.
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Paris uses CET which is 1 hour ahead of their natural time, and CEST during the summer which is 2 hours ahead
Because they recognize that nobody wants to get up before 9am, but all want to party past midnight?
b) work the same hours, but give everyone a basic income so that the jobless don't need jobs to survive?
The day you do that your unemployment rates are going to rise, until you stop. What is the point of giving someone money for basically no reward?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
The evidence from the Working Time Directive in Europe suggests that it doesn't work like that. Shorter hours leads to higher unemployment.
Mama Boucher invented electricity. Ben Franklin is the Devil!
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
forms of control we must abide by.
Your lazy CEO has to make his billions while you're living in at your parents, not making enough to be attractive to any women, right?
In the US, as long as benefits - esp. health care - are connected to "full-time" employment as a binary relationship, this won't happen. It's in the interest of the employer to have as few people as possible at "full-time", and low-wage jobs are notorious for cutting off workers at 34.5 hours, or whatever the threshold is for the state.
I would GLADLY work 3/4 the hours for 3/4s the pay and 3/4s the health insurance, but it doesn't work like that.
If we had "single-payer" health insurance, you'd see a LOT more variety in working schedules, and we'd have fuller employment; the same number of hours would be worked (disallowing any network effects from single-payer insurance) but more people would be busy working them.
At this time, I can work a "natural" schedule, because I'm not serving any customers.
That means getting up at around 6AM when the birds start shrieking and the sun peeks through the windows. Here in Saskatchewan we don't follow daylight savings time; we just get up earlier if we feel like it. Nobody forces us to get up early in some vindictive attempt to get more work out of us during daylight hours.
Which is odd, when you think about it, because as a farming-dominated culture, you'd think the farmer's "crack of dawn" mentality would have won DST a place in provincial politics. Instead, the farmers are pragmatic and consider the idea of changing the clocks to be silly; they just get up whenever the sun does, regardless of the clock time, the same way farmers have for centuries.
As to Ben Franklin "inventing" DST? I don't think so. There's a huge difference between lamenting the late candle-lit hours and expense thereof and actually tabling some sort of proposal to address the problem. Franklin complained about the issue; he didn't propose a solution of any kind.
But then again, the Americans never have been content to accept that they didn't invent everything useful in the world. They've long claimed they invented the telephone, despite the clear evidence that it was a Canadian invention.
But y'all just keep go on re-writing history to make yourselves feel better about your importance in a world that cares less and less about the US and more about the interaction of a global economy free from the interference of your banking culture and government interference in foreign nation's policies. The rest of the world still has their history books, so we know it's all a lie.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Have you ever tried working at night, and sleeping during the day?
I find I'm often at my most productive between midnight and 2am. I know other people who achieve the most between 6 and 8am. Make either of us work 9-5 and you're getting some of our least productive hours.
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It's not for saving energy, it's for saving daylight, so that we can have more consecutive daylight hours after work. Anyone who seriously believes it is going to save energy is an idiot.
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Why don't we just go to DST, like we just did...and fucking leave it there from now on??
I hate the jumping back and forth....if DST is so much better, let's just leave it there....why can't we do that?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They force kids to watch twilight in Florida?
"Daylight Savings" is not a failed bank.
-- Bart Simpson
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
That may work fine for some jobs - maybe even enough to relieve traffic congestion during rush hour, but other jobs require stricter scheduling. A few years ago a group of immigrants raised hell at one of our plants because their religion dictated that they take a break at sundown during their holy month.
It was extremely disruptive to have 20% (or whatever it was) of the worforce take off at slightly later times each day.
So on the one hand, the Muslim immigrants were screaming that we discriminated against them but when we tried to accommodate them many other workers complained about special treatment and violation of union rules. Management just wondered why they couldn't shut up and get back to work. I just wondered why the US government thought it was a good idea to bring a bunch of Somalis over and dump them in small pockets across the midwest.
Shorter work-days would result in many people having slightly less pay, however they would have more leisure hours, and overall unemployment would go down.
Though couldn't slightly less pay lead to slightly less consumption, which means slightly less demand, which could mean slightly less production (or slightly lower prices and profit), which means slightly less need for workers, which could increase unemployment?
I'm actually posing this as a sincere question, as I'm no economist.
Looks like the driver ran into a bridge and killed himself and one kid.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
What is the point of giving someone money for basically no reward?
How is society going to cope when everything, food included, is made by robots or can be printed on a 3D printer? Can't you envision a society where the only people who work are working because they want to?
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Just look at all the productivity gains over the last fifty years, where did it all go, not shared around at all, most of it went to feed the greed of a psychopathic minority. Reality is we should already be down to a 4 day 6 hour per day week but the greedy are never ever satiated, no matter how much they have and more importantly how little the rest of us have.
It continues to amaze me that NOBODY is talking about shortening the work day/week to fix our unemployment problem. The other thing we need to do is fix the broken overtime laws. At some point the corporations successfully lobbied to have anyone who has any decision making powers at all be considered a "manager" and as such not be subject to overtime regulations.
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Ahhhh, because I don't. But you didn't answer the question, you just brushed it aside.
Why not feeding everyone then and let the ones that want to work do so. Sounds on par with your belief that "put the value of human life above just about everything else".
Do you think its a viable principle? Remember, humans are lazy.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Well, we'll get there eventually. But in the meantime, most of us *have* to work in order to feed out families. So if I get busy at work, it really is for the money. If I didn't have to, I'd drop it in a heartbeat.
I'd do something else entirely, I'd not just sit idle in front of TV, although it's fair to assume that my TV time would go up.
So now, since I work, what is the rationale in taxing me to feed people that don't want to work?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
You drive home tired as can be, directly into the sunrise.
Unless, of course, you don't live east of the city.
I don't know about other people, but I am plenty tired of my drive IN to work, probably more so than my drive home. i don't really get going until I have been awake for an hour or two. When I used to live near Chicago, I had to drive into the sun at about 6:00 in the morning in order to get to work by 7:30. That was absolutely miserable. Nowadays I have moved to a smaller city and I will never go back to sacrificing 4 hours a day to commuting. I am certainly a lot less tired on my drive in now that I leave the house at about 8:30 in the morning.
Oh, and just to keep on subject, I am vehemently opposed to ever switching the time on the clock. I really doubt that there is any kind of energy savings any more, and it is not worth the disruption of sleeping schedules.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
In December, the sun rises at 9am and sets at 5pm. Unless you make daylight be 8-4 you're always going to have kids going one direction in the dark.
Pish, we'd have maximum sunlight if we always rose at dawn. But dawn time keeps changing. So if we redefined the day to start at dawn rather than midnite, and workday clocks were changed to always measure from there, the problem would be solved. (Yeah, penguins and polar bears WOULD have problems...)
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He claimed I'm wrong. He can provide evidence of that.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, he did some good stuff that compensates for it.
Unfortunately, you make no useful or interesting point. Arbitrarily changing time zones twice a year is an idiotic pain in the ass. I will complain far and wide, endlessly. It is a dumbass imposition and a throwback to a bygone era. If it is ever gotten rid of, I for one will not miss it.
How would shortening the work day or week help with unemployment?
If you, personally, don't need the salary that your current hours provides, go ahead and find a new job with fewer hours.
The problem for the rest of us is that we know that if our hours go down, so does our pay (and benefits). If it were forced on us, we'd just have to find better jobs, or take on additional jobs. Either way, the demand for jobs goes up, but the supply doesn't, or not as significantly. Thus, unemployment is likely to rise, not go down.
What if we just ended it altogether, like so many other civilized countries already have?
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Wouldn't you have even more time wasted in 'busy work', with each of the 'new' people taking a certain percentage of their time getting up to speed each day/shift change, rather than the one person doing it as part of their job?
That is, it might work for assembly line jobs, but it seems to me in most other jobs, it would be a "too many cooks spoil the broth" or the "mythical man month" problem.
If you're in the US, very little of your tax money is going to people who "don't want to work." The 8% who are counted as unemployed are actively looking for work and can't find it. I take it you've never been in that situation -- you're lucky.
There is no more AFDC. That was abolished in 1996. It was replaced with TANF, and its objective is to get people into the workforce and has a two year time limit.
Most of the who recieve SNAP (formerly food stamps) are employed. Your taxes aren't going to feed someone who doesn't want to work, they're feeding McDonald's and Walmart's CEO's greed.
Your ire is aimed at the wrong class. Me, I'm incensed that oil companies and rich farmers and other corporations get government subsidies. Feeding the poor? I have no problem with that, or paying taxes. You may not be, but I'm a Christian. Christians are commanded to pay their taxes and also to feed the poor. Greed and selfishness, otoh, are forbidden to us.
Free Martian Whores!
A better solution is not night-shifts (very damaging to longevity), but staggered work-days, with some starting at 7, some at 8, some at 9. That way there are fewer people trying to reach their destination at the same time of day. Shorter work-days would result in many people having slightly less pay, however they would have more leisure hours, and overall unemployment would go down.
Businesses, people, and governments all got together the last time the Olympics were held in Los Angeles, and, guess what? It worked. Traffic was less congested than normal.
Don't know what it has to do with Daylight Savings Time, though.
If you're in the US, very little of your tax money is going to people who "don't want to work." The 8% who are counted as unemployed are actively looking for work and can't find it. I take it you've never been in that situation -- you're lucky.
There is no more AFDC. That was abolished in 1996. It was replaced with TANF, and its objective is to get people into the workforce and has a two year time limit.
Most of the who recieve SNAP (formerly food stamps) are employed. Your taxes aren't going to feed someone who doesn't want to work, they're feeding McDonald's and Walmart's CEO's greed.
Your ire is aimed at the wrong class. Me, I'm incensed that oil companies and rich farmers and other corporations get government subsidies. Feeding the poor? I have no problem with that, or paying taxes. You may not be, but I'm a Christian. Christians are commanded to pay their taxes and also to feed the poor. Greed and selfishness, otoh, are forbidden to us.
Hmm. Interesting comment. Let's see.
A/ Your assumption is false, I have been laid off and then unemployed for some time. I know what it's like. And I wasn't eligible for any money as I was not in my country of origin.
B/ " The 8% who are counted as unemployed are actively looking for work and can't find it.". Hmmm, are you sure? Did you check them all? Noone faking the search for a job? Come on, wake up. I dunno if it's a lot or not, but it's certainly not 0%.
C/ "Your ire is aimed at the wrong class" My ire is aimed at politicians, contrary to your thinking.
D/ "Feeding the poor? I have no problem with that" Helping the poor, I have no problem with that. Blindly throwing them money I have a problem with.
E/ I live in a (mostly) socialist country. You can apply for the RMI (Minimum revenue for insertion (into society)) and most get it quite quickly. Then, you basically get a little less than the minimum wages which are not as low as in the US. What incentive is left to look for a job? You'll earn slightly more but you'll have to wake up every morning. I wasn't talking about the US specifically. Throwing money away should always be done cautiously, because people get used to it in no time.
F/ I'm a Christian too. Why bring religion in this? Religion has nothing to do with the matter. Bringing it here is as best disingenuous, trying to award yourself the higher moral ground.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Well, your being in Europe makes quite a difference. In the US we just throw the poor to the wolves and say it's their own fault the corporates aren't hiring.
I'm a Christian too. Why bring religion in this?
I made the false assumption that you were an American "conservative". They act as if we actually have a safety net and people don't have to work, and without exception they're bible thumping hypocrites who give you and me a bad name.
Free Martian Whores!
Because they don't want to be in the same timezone as London (Greenwich) because the world chose the Greenwich meridian over the Paris meridian ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis