Newt: Economic Liberty Means No Annual Vacations For American Workers

[kpete]

I opened the chapter on “Work” in my book A Nation Like No Other with this anecdote because I believe it cuts to the core of what makes America exceptional. While other countries have enshrined 35-hour work weeks and 60 days’ paid vacation in their laws, America remains one of the few developed nations that have declined to restrict these economic liberties. Here, we value hard work and free enterprise as the substance of opportunity.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48134
via:
http://www.echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2011_12_11_archive.html#3574877136199263843

[DJ13]

1. So working people to death is now defined as an economic liberty?

LOL

[zbdent]

2. Arbeit macht frei, mein freund ...

Arbeit macht frei ...

Wait ... wasn't Newt the guy who said "I'm the only thing standing between 'us' and Auschwitz!"?

[JHB]

6. Actually, yes, that's what he does.

And if you don't like it, go work for someone else (who would be under pressure to do exactly the same thing).

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. Sure

Death=Freedom!

[FSogol]

3. When will Newt propose poorhouses and workcamps? Newt's "ideas" are the ideas

of a Dickensian villain.

[Solly Mack]

4. Fart noises.

What a load of bullshit.

It's true economic liberty that allows workers in other countries to take those much needed, much deserved and very much earned vacations.

Quality of life...it matters.

[JHB]

5. He's really tripling-down on his eliminate child labor laws bit, isn't he?

Amazingly, the average worker in those countries is doing better than the average worker here.

And just to note, we haven't "declined" these restrictions. Wealthy interests have beaten them back.

[redqueen]

16. Yes he is.

And well said re: American workers supposedly 'declining' to improve their quality of life.

The GOP field is downright farcical.

[City Lights]

7. Keep it up, Newt! The end zone is in sight!

He is such as ass.

[hifiguy]

8. Newty is still looking for loopholes in

the Emancipation Proclamation. I think he and Scalia get together over a high-calorie meal a couple times a week for that very purpose.

Slavery is liberty!

[immoderate]

9. "Freedom is Slavery!"

The first time I read 1984, it was as a satirical fantasy. That was in high school. The next time, it was a stark warning. And then it came to be the operant plan for governance.

Witness the effects of implementing double-think and newspeak on the population.

"WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"

It's working.

--imm

[Capitalocracy]

34. See, Orwell got it backwards

Now, Slavery is Freedom.

[ihavenobias]

10. Recommended, I want people to see this. n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. Damn that Bob Cratchett for expecting Christmas day off

Arbeit macht frei

[hfojvt]

12. "Query: Is work good for you?"

"Cursed by our (expletive-deleted) Pilgrim founders ... we have been programmed to believe that work for work's sake is an intrinsic human virtue. We've been taught that all human progress to date was the direct result of innovation, sweat equity, and hard work. Relaxation was merely an unpleasant precursor to what really mattered - work. What were we thinking?" Ted Rall "Revenge of the Latch-key kids" p. 68

[Cal Carpenter]

13. Productivity goes up, wages go down

Benefits? What are those?

Being in the belly of the beast while capitalism sputters and dies isn't gonna get any prettier. We are moving in one direction, and one direction only.

While Gingrich is a tool and a great target to get pissed at, the truth is true whether or not he is blathering on about it. It's a symptom of the global economy and goes far beyond Gingrich or one party or one nation's boundaries at this point.

[truth2power]

14. This "cleaning bathrooms" thing. I don't know why he's so obsessed with it...

Cleaning your family bathroom, where you know the people who use the facilities, is not the same as cleaning a public bathroom.

Newt is a moron.

[sinkingfeeling]

17. I like how he attributes the 30% drop in summer employment between 2001 and 2010 to Obama!

[Kingofalldems]

18. Is there a country with 60 days paid vacation?

[Kingofalldems]

19. It looks like Newty is lying about vacation

I did some internet research and no nation has 60 days paid vacation. The highest was around 40. The lowest was the good old USA at 13 days vacation. And 1 in 4 American workers get no paid holidays or vacation.

[JHB]

21. It's not like that would be out of character for him.

His decades-long track record it that he will say absolutely anything to get his audience's blood up and running in the direction he wants.

[Selatius]

25. If it's legally mandated paid vacation days, the US is actually at 0 days paid vacation.

Of the major OECD countries, the US is the only one among them that doesn't mandate by law paid vacation days. It doesn't even possess paid maternity leave for women. The US is run by people who call themselves "pro-family."

[HughBeaumont]

28. The US has zero.

13 days is what an employer chooses to give you, not what they're required to give you. Not only is vacation not mandated here, but neither is maternity leave.

And yes, Newt is definitely lying about the 60 days. 35-40 is the maxium any country gets by law.

[JHB]

20. I don't recall him criticizing Bush for his more-than-60 days vacation time n/t

[Odin2005]

22. Somebody tell this moron that "Work makes you free" is what the Nazis...

...put on the entrance to the concentration camps.

[Nancy Waterman]

23. From the guy who goes on cruises

In between his $60,000 speaking engagements.

[aletier_v]

24. The amount of work is finite

Work is finite because consumption is finite.

Consumption finite because our time is finite.

Working more increases production and decreases consumption.

Working too hard creates an imbalance, too much stuff, not enough purchases.

Look at our economy.

Do you see shortages?

Or do you see reduced consumption?

[Douglas Carpenter]

26. it's always enjoyable to read an article by Newt

Last edited Thu Dec 15, 2011, 09:10 AM - Edit history (1)

It's like a trip into fairy tale land where every authoritarian cliche is true and all the complicated problems of the world can be fixed so simply. He would have made a great Maoist.

[JHB]

29. If you don't mind, I'm going to steal that line...

It goes well with my "things I was taught that were wrong with the Soviet Union but became US policy under Bush" spiel.

[HughBeaumont]

27. Geez, when is "I think America VALUES puppy-shooting" next?

Every statement this corpulent, scrunch-faced, beady-eyed philandering turd makes only endears me to him more.

Newt, there's a REASON these countries don't embrace our ever-sacred and stupid Puritan/Protestant work ethic Americans wear on their sleeves: it's because they value PEOPLE over PROFIT and want their PEOPLE to live longer, not die at their desks/stations (which I've witnessed two people DO, thanks).

Nice to know that we have presidential candidates that take the time to insult other nations for the way they do things rather than (God Forbid LEARN something from them) concentrate on the problems in AMERICA that his party had a giant hand in creating.

Oh, and if you read further (not that it's really necessary), he goes on to mention the coordinated talking point "Obama Depression". Uh, Newt? Calling it "Obama"s depression is about as large a leap in logic as blaming the guy who happened to walk by the just-robbed appliance store for the crime. Your party's 30-year whiskey throttle bullshit way of economics created this crapcake. You subscribed hook, line and sinker to the worst parts of Milton Friedman's theories . . . just like the 70s Latin American dictators did before us. Just because you refuse to own up to it is not President Obama's or our problem . . . it's YOURS.

[w8liftinglady]

30. Oh,I posted this to facebook...along with

yeah,how soon we forget why Labor Unions formed.

[Lunacee2012]

31. Didn't he take a vacation

in the middle of his campaign?

[spanone]

32. fuck newt. he doesn't exist in my world.

[lunatica]

33. Opening his yap only proves what we all suspected. He's stupid