11 March, 2007

Daylight saving time holiday: 2-hour tax cut.

I support the free market as much as the next guy, but I just have to say that today, omnivorous capitalist sharks had stolen one whole hour of our hard-earned day-off.

Really, why this time shift has to happen on Sunday, of all days? Why not on Monday, around 4pm? Suppose you're at the office, and it's 3.59pm and then suddenly -- ta-da! -- it's 5 already, time to go home. Hallelujah!

But no, instead we're losing one Sunday hour. In the beginning of the 20th century people had died fighting for these precious day-off hours, and now we're just giving one away.

What about the fall time shift, some may ask. Aren't we getting that hour back on one glorious Sunday in October? We do, but that extra hour is well earned: productivity has also grown dramatically in the 20th century, so don't you think we could work one hour less -- per year?

And it's not like the government can't just order this change, it has no problem telling people what to do in other areas. But being a free market advocate and all, I propose an economic solution: 2-hour tax cut.

The idea is to reward companies that let the workers go home one hour earlier once a year. By doing that, they are going to loose 1 hour of their output, right? So, the new cool tax cut would allow them to write off profits of 2 hours. That is, divide the whole year's profits by the number of hours operated and deduct 2 such pieces.

This way daylight is going to be saved and people will be happy. It is a win-win for everyone!

/Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

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