Looks like we have some hurricane residue headed our way. I am always happy to see that up here - a little visitor from Africa and the tropics. Some left-over Gustav or whatever today, and Hannah on her way up here.
So it looks like a stormy-weather working weekend. Insty picked up a Joyner piece, Rich Work More than "Working Class." No kidding. I guess I qualify as rich although you wouldn't know it: I have only one house, no time-share Citation, and not enough dough to retire at my current manner of living (nor would I want to, because I like being useful).
The quoted NYT piece in the above link begins:
What’s different from [Max] Weber’s era is that it is now the rich who are the most stressed out and the most likely to be working the most. Perhaps for the first time since we’ve kept track of such things, higher-income folks work more hours than lower-wage earners do. Since 1980, the number of men in the bottom fifth of the income ladder who work long hours (over 49 hours per week) has dropped by half, according to a study by the economists Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano. But among the top fifth of earners, long weeks have increased by 80 percent.
This is a stunning moment in economic history: At one time we worked hard so that someday we (or our children) wouldn’t have to. Today, the more we earn, the more we work, since the opportunity cost of not working is all the greater (and since the higher we go, the more relatively deprived we feel).
Read the whole thing. I work about 55 billable hrs/week - sometimes 60+, except during July and August when things slow down and clients aren't around much. Thank God we barristers aren't unionized.
Unlike the Euroweenies and the socialists, we Americans like to work. Not everybody admits it, but we do.
BTW, read Dr. Bliss' piece below about Seduction, if you missed it (scroll down). Interesting.
