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ORIGINAL: inthysite

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Now, for anyone other than terminally-obtuse Dem-bashers, the current five-day-eight-hours-a-day workweek has EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER of work hours as the proposed FOUR-days-a-week-TEN-hours-a-day workweek. (Hint: They both total up to forty hours per workweek.)

I never asserted that they would work less, my point was and still is that their answer to the energy crisis is to save themselves money on gas and figuring that by them using less gas it will reduce demand and we will all benefit from lower prices.

Absurd!

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Your theory of economics being, then, that reducing the quantity demanded has NO affect on the price offered?

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ORIGINAL: Rufas2000

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Your theory of economics being, then, that reducing the quantity demanded has NO affect on the price offered?

No, he doesn't think the measure will reduce demand because:

A) it is too narrowly defined, its point of impact (federal workers only) is too small to have any real affect on demand and

B) He does not concede that people drive less on their days off.

I wholeheartedly agree with A. If we expand the measure to include most jobs that now have a five day week then we should attempt to study B, whether people drive less on their days off. I suspect that it is true but its not a no brainer.

BTW: I think its a good idea (the overall change, not the grandstanding, symbolic but nearly meaningless change Congress is proposing) but I'd want to study it more before changing to it.

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You DO know the difference between "change in demand" and "change in quantity demanded", do you not?

See, reason I ask is, your *reply* indicates that you think the two terms to be the same.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Actually, if anyone is interested in the actual facts of the issue, as opposed to inthysite's and Jhud's deliberate misunderstanding of it, here is the story: Now, for anyone other than terminally-obtuse Dem-bashers, the current five-day-eight-hours-a-day workweek has EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER of work hours as the proposed FOUR-days-a-week-TEN-hours-a-day workweek. (Hint: They both total up to forty hours per workweek.)

Actully, I was simply expressing the utopian hope that congress would work less.

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ORIGINAL: inthysite

Here is some more information that the Washington Post left out of their article:

Hoyer wrote to the the Office of Personnel Management early this month to ask give a report on the requirements needed for Congress to implement a four-day, 10-hour work week for federal employees.

The policy has been adopted by state and local governments. Federal agencies have the prerogative to choose alternative work schedules under a federal law.

In her letter to the OPM, Hoyer said, "Adopting a compressed work week would take approximately 20% of federal employees off the roads on any given week day, generating significant cost savings for the American taxpayer without a drop in productivity or decrease in service."

House Republican Leader Calls Plan For Four-Day Work Week "An Insult To American Workers"

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ORIGINAL: Rufas2000

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You DO know the difference between "change in demand" and "change in quantity demanded", do you not?

See, reason I ask is, your *reply* indicates that you think the two terms to be the same.

Enlighten me, economics isn't my strong suit.

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That much is obvious.

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ORIGINAL: Rufas2000

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That much is obvious.

So basically what you are saying is that a change in demand is much stronger because its a fundamental change in why or if the product is useful. And because that is the case, this change to a four day work week is completely useless as it will only lower the quantity demanded slightly when what we really need is a change in demand to a fuel source we have more of and are in more control over.

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"it won't make a BIG difference",