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On the Other Hand, This Just Might Work

Let it be said right here, at the beginning of this piece, that I am not an economist. I don't know trickle down from eider down, market price from Vincent Price or gross national product from gross national politics, although I have seen a lot of the latter. I don't know anything about the Law Of diminishing returns -- although I am familiar with Nordstrom's policy on all returns.

Because of all that ignorance about economics, I am not bound by the economists' compulsion to qualify each and every economic pronouncement. I can make statements about our nation's economy without having to temper what I write by saying, "On the other hand."

On the other hand, I do have powerful ideas on the nation's economy and propose to state them here and now with the certainty and indisputability only the ignorant can muster.

What you are about to read is the Larry Miller formula for bringing the United States out of its present economic doldrums and into a new era of wealth and prosperity. Out of its unemployment problems and into a time of achievement and affluence for everyone. A time which will last not 10 years or 20 or 50 years, but as far into the future as mankind can conceive.

To understand the basis for this hypothesis, we must look to the past and adapt the lessons learned from those times to the present and the future.

There was a time when the labor force worked 60, 70 and 80 hours a week. A concomitant of that circumstance was that there was massive unemployment. Those jobs which were available to the common man was filled by him 14 to 16 hours a day. Unemployment was rife.

Then came the eight-hour work day. The 40-hour work week. And suddenly twice as many men were put to work to fill the same number of jobs.

Women were yet to enter the work force in any significant way, which was a good thing because men were the breadwinners in those days and if women had competed for the same jobs, who knows who would have brought home the bacon? Or the bread, for that matter.

In time, Social Security came into being and people retired at 65, making room for younger employees in the work force.
That worked well, because when men worked 60 to 80 hours a week, their jobs killed them off. With a benign 40-hour week, men could have worked well into their 80s and 90s. If that had been the case, where would the working woman be today? At home taking care of the kids and their husbands.
And we wouldn't want that to be the case, would we?

By now, you have the general idea of where I am heading with this theory. The fewer hours anyone works, the more work there is for more people.

Other contributions were made to the health of the economy when holidays were declared and people got paid for not working on those days. But the potential contributions of holidays to the national welfare have hardly been utilized.

There are holidays yet unthought of which should be made official so that workers will get more days off at full salary, making more time available for the unemployed to fill.

What follows are a few days and weeks officially designated by Congress or the White House:

National Park Week will not only make friends of the environment happy, but will provide seven days of work for new job seekers. Kraut and Frankfurters Week will honor picnickers everywhere.

And let's not forget National Potato Lovers Month. Thirty more days of not working in order to help the economy.

It seems that the less we work, the better off the nation is.

So let's begin with our elected officials. Let's make sure that there are lots more days off for Congress and the folks who work in the West Wing. Then we can get to state and local politicians. Wow! This is better than I thought it was going to be.

Wait a minute. Forget what was said above. This is beginning to make sense, and we can't have that as part of this theory, can we?.

Humor columnist Larry Miller is a former television writer who has penned lines for Dick Van Dyke, Ed McMahon, Jack Paar and many others, and for shows including "The Dating Game," "Beat the Clock" and "Petticoat Junction." In 1985, he began his weekly newspaper column on the lighter side of getting older.

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