I have been thinking about all these fears of contraction of the economy and loss of jobs and was wondering why not just take this and let it happen. I'm not unread I have a grounding in anti-work and philosophies that support reduced work. And have to admit its not a bad idea in my view say the economy and prices forcibly contract to half what they are now and we accept that couldn't we look to redesigning how the country lives and we function as people. As a thought experiment assume we had to meet real needs and wants with goods and services, with a standard work week for every adult of say 25 hours. Part-Time work in effect as the norm. That would in Florida be on a typical wage low end of $1200 a month for a two income hosuehold $2400 a month. How would that effect how we live? I suspect national health care would like be demanded with real reforms on delivery. Education would with modest taxes have to be rethought with likely more practical considerations on everyones part. And I suspect there would have to be other simplication of the fundamentals of how we live in the United States. That doesn't mean its a bad thing we would just have to learn to live and maybe ,gasp, enjoy ourselves more. Maybe instead of stimulating the economy with more debt we should rather simplify our lives, accept we cannot have all the fun high tech things and large houses and accept a reduced standard of living. Which might in effect increase the quality of life in many other areas of recreation. We can just call it a shift in priorities from work to recreation where work if not enjoyable can at least be limited in the amount. Just some thoughts I've had thats all but it might make an interesting area to talk about.
