As ludicrous as the title of this post sounds, that rationale is precisely what Venezuela just did.
Bloomberg reports Venezuela Declares Two-Day Work Week in Bid to Save Electricity.
Venezuela declared Wednesdays and Thursdays as non-working days for government workers, making for a two-day work week aimed at saving electricity amid a drought that threatens the country’s power grid.
“Along with Friday, which is a non-working holiday to try saving energy, it has been decided to add Wednesdays and Thursdays as non-working holidays for the public sector,” Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz said on state television. He said that President Nicolas Maduro had made the decision.
Maduro ordered the country’s time zone changed this month to save energy, reversing the decision by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, to set back clocks 30 minutes in 2007 to ease daily predawn commutes for school children and the poor. Clocks will be moved forward a half hour May 1.
The president decreed Fridays as holidays for state workers through May as part of plans to save power after ordering a week-long break over the Easter holiday last month. Maduro said those efforts saved almost 22 centimeters of water at the Guri dam in the southern state of Bolivar.
Why not a zero-day work week in which public servants are paid to do nothing?
At this point, how can it possibly matter?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
