Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - March 9, 2014

The conceit of Daylight Saving Time

• It's forced "saving" (everybody has to participate)
• The "deposit" made when we spring forward is returned when we fall back
• In the meantime, it accrues no interest and pays no dividends
• Moreover, it makes people cranky for a good week after the time change and leads to safety hazards: Car accidents, heart attacks, and workplace injuries all spike right after the time change
• We could equally accomplish the same goal by just adjusting our work schedules (which should be a pretty obvious choice when there are so many people who already have flex-time)
• It's a classic example of good intentions driving policy that doesn't really help in practice
• Maybe we should just go ahead and consolidate on two time zones across the contintental United States. We do a lot of it in practice already, and it might make a lot of sense to get California only an hour behind New York, rather than spanning four time zones across the country

The productivity crisis

• Economic output can be described pretty easily:
  How many people are working [x] How much each person does per hour [x] How many hours everyone works
• If you want growth, the output of that equation has to be bigger than it used to be
• We are losing tons of people from the workforce
• People aren't working more hours than they used to
• Worryingly, productivity isn't growing by much, either
• It's worrying that we're having such trouble kick-starting productivity growth

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