Would You Like More Happy Time?

"One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy."—Sir Richard Burton

Americans love their vacations. I can say this with some authority as I am, in fact, an American and I love my vacations. Naturally, I would not expect you to rely on a sample of one to support such an audacious claim. I have asked several dozen other Americans as well. And, yep, they also place a high value on their vacation time. That may be because there is so little of it.

 Sunset off the deck of a cruise ship. Ahhhhh.

Did you know that the United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time? This is according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. They found that 1 in 4 private-sector workers in the U.S. does not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays. My husband is one of them. Time off equals no pay. Since I am self-employed, the same applies to me.

We are not whining, though. We are grateful to have work in these difficult times. Still, a lousy job market does not justify giving less benefits to employees, especially since these conditions also existed in the best of job markets. It is, however, a handy excuse for doing so.

Let’s go back to the report, entitled No-Vacation Nation.* This report, which came out in 2007, prior to the big economic worldwide meltdown, found that European workers are guaranteed at least 20 paid vacation days per year, with 25 and even 30 or more days common in some countries. The gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is even larger when holidays are included. The U.S. does not guarantee any paid holidays, but most rich countries provide between 5 and 13 per year, in addition to paid vacation days. Current economic conditions have not changed this.

“Too much work, too much vacation, too much of any one thing is unsound.”—Walter Annenberg

This may be shocking news to some of you, but according to one of the report’s authors, John Schmitt, “Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn’t worked. It’s a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don’t get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”

Are you embarrassed or is it just me?

To give you an idea of who has the most time to enjoy life—and who has the least—here is a handy chart of government-mandated paid time off, which was reported in the study. Notice the U.S. at the bottom.

Based on the above chart, if you want to “work to live rather than live to work,” the best places to set up shop are France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy or Belgium. They all have an average of 30 or more days off a year that are government-mandated.

“Socialism!” you may cry, worried sick about Big Business and how CEOs will ever survive. Hey, hate to tell you, Pal, but Big Business loses no sleep over you. Here’s something to think about: despite our lame economy, the 25 highest paid CEOs in this country made between 15 and 87 million dollars last year, according to the AFL/CIO website. They also have vacation packages that are guaranteed through employment contracts. Not so for the rest of us poor rabble.

In fact, for the average worker, the U.S. lags far behind the rest of the world's rich countries. The lack of paid vacation and paid holidays in the U.S. is particularly acute for lower-wage and part-time workers, and for employees of small businesses. So the people who make the least amount of money also have the least amount of time off.

Why can our European counterparts supply guaranteed minimum vacations for their citizens and we can’t? I have no idea. You may find it interesting to know that government-mandated time off is not limited to the world’s wealthiest countries, either. Here are other countries, not nearly as well off as the U.S., that provide guaranteed vacation benefits, according to CNBC (notice that the U.S. proudly maintains its position at the bottom of the chart):

So from an R&R standpoint, Brazil, Lithuania, Russia, Poland, South Korea and even India look better than the United States. Holy cow!

Again, why can European countries as well as poorer countries like Brazil, South Korea, and India provide more guaranteed time off than the U.S.? Don’t know. Maybe they just all like to goof off more than we do.

Or maybe not. A recent article in The New York Times put it this way: In Europe, people work from the time they get to work in the morning until they leave. They do not talk at the water cooler or otherwise socialize. They put in a solid 8 hours of work. Yet, when 6 p.m. rolls around, everyone leaves. In the U.S., more time is spent at work, but our productivity is much lower, since people socialize and often surf the web during their workday. Despite the different approaches, overall productivity, according to the article, is fairly similar with both approaches. Given that our work output is supposedly equivalent, it is curious that Europeans receive government-mandated vacation and holiday time and we don't.

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.”—Bertrand Russell

In Europe, people pay considerably higher taxes than we do, but in return, they have socialized medicine, subsidized university costs (varies with country), and government councils that safeguard guaranteed vacation times and employee benefits. They also have broad safety nets for extended unemployment, maternity leave and illness. Yes, this is called socialism. I am sure it is not perfect and has lots of problems, but I do not think this way of life deserves the vehement vilification that our wealthy politicians and their well-heeled lobbyists rant about. Why would our well-to-do legislators and corporate-owned media want us to hate socialism so much? Well, socialism tends to be bad for the rich and not so bad for the average person.

Neither the U.S. nor European systems is flawless. I am certainly no expert on either. I must confess, however, that whenever I consider the 30 days of vacation my European, Brazilian, Russian and Lithuanian counterparts enjoy, I suffer from an incredible case of leisure envy.

*No Vacation Nation is available for your reading pleasure at: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/no-vacation-nation/

The Good, the Vlad and the Ugly

(Dedicated to E Muraskin, Purveyor of PR)

Back in the days of the Cold War, he would have been the man dangling James Bond over a pool of hungry sharks. Today, he drives Formula One race cars, rides a Harley Davidson motorcycle, fights forest fires, saves tigers, plays the piano and croons to audiences at children’s benefits. Is this the same Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin who worked as a ruthless KGB agent, was associated with many shady business dealings and is thought—but not proven—to secretly hold more wealth than any other man in Russia? Is it possible that this Bond villain has turned a new leaf?

Putin lives dangerously, riding his Harley without a helmet.

Who knew, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) back in 1952 that little Vlad would grow up to rule Russia. Not bad for the son of a naval man who worked for the forerunner of the KGB and a mother who worked in a factory. Before Vlad grew up and made good, the only claim to fame his family had was that his grandfather was the cook for Lenin, and later, for Stalin. While Vlad is no longer President of the Russian Federation, due to term limits, he is still considered by many to be the most powerful man in Russia. These days, I guess you could call him the man behind the scenes.

At some point, ambition gives way to wanting to develop a legacy. So if you’ve directly or indirectly been associated with kidnapping, murder, corruption and other not-so-great stuff for many years, how do you clean up your image? Why through the miracle of public relations, of course!

If anyone can create revisionist history, then someone at the head of a communist propaganda machine should be able to make it happen. And the general public's lack of attention span is there to help him out. His “gotta-love-me” photo opts have included driving a Formula One race car to speeds of 240 kph (dare-devil Vlad), fighting for the endangered species of the world (environmentally conscious Vlad) and performing for charities (humanitarian Vlad). Perhaps in recognition of this media-darling coup, in 2007, Time magazine named Putin Person of the Year.

Despite that honor, I think that I, and many other women, first noticed a more human and accessible Putin during his fishing trip in 2009. That is when news outlets worldwide pictured our man stripped down to his waist, fishing pole in hand. There he stood, as nature intended, revealing previously undivulged biceps and washboard abs that would have easily qualified for the cover of any romance novel. Hubba, hubba.

Russians thought so, too. So they released a plastic model of the half-naked Putin tugging on his fishing line. This was a sexier, outdoorsman Vlad, but was he more accessible? President George Bush thought so, years earlier in 2001, when he said that looking into Vlad’s deep blue eyes left him with “a sense of Putin’s soul.” How many women would have liked to have shared that experience?

Vlad-gone-fishing plastic model.

More recently, a kinder and gentler Vlad came to the rescue with endangered felines. He won the heart of many environmentalists including celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio when he attended the International Tiger Conservation Forum which met in his hometown of St. Petersburg. There, he professed his love of the natural world and sense of immediacy for preserving it, making many climate-change believers and Sierra Club advocates weak in the knees. Ah, Vlad.

Just the other day, I saw a video of Putin playing the piano and singing at a children’s cancer charity benefit in Russia. It was attended by many U.S. celebrities such as Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Paul Anka, Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner and Mickey Rourke, as well as European actors Alain Delon, Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel. As he sang a questionable rendition of Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill in thickly accented English, they all smiled adoringly at him. What better international press endorsement?

In real life, Vlad is married to Lyudmila, a former flight attendant and language teacher. They have two daughters who are in their twenties and a black Labrador Retriever named Koni. The family accommodatingly stays out of the limelight, so we can get a better view of Vlad. And speaking for the female half of the world, I am looking forward to seeing what more Prime Minister Putin will reveal in the future. Maybe he could don a towel, step into a shower and do a follow-up campaign for Old Spice aftershave. “Hay-lo, leddies, eem Vlad, hur tuday to tock to yew abot Old Speece….”

Ahhhhhh, sweet détente….