Good Morning Middle American, your King of Simple News is on the air.

As fuel prices continue to rise, everyone is talking about ways to cut back on consumption of the now well deserved name, black gold.

The state of Utah is going to a four day work week to save their employee’s one day of transportation costs. What do you think; is this a good idea? Let’s mine below the surface.

The purpose is to save money, energy and resources. I’ll buy that and I’ll buy a four day work week. I believe that work is overrated in the U.S. to begin with. Believing that working longer hours and producing more and more until there is nothing left to produce with, has brought us to our current collision with $4.00 fuel. But will savings be the outcome for Utah?

An article by the associated press had this to say. “They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancies. They will get paid the same as before.”

“One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses,” said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director. He said he is looking forward to tackling items on his long-neglected “honey-do” list, camping, and traveling more around the state.

Help me out here. Unless these folks intend to walk to the golf course, camp and travel on foot and shop without consuming, the plan is a bust. The reality is, most of these people will use more fuel and consume more while shutting down access to the state offices on Friday.

Why do we work a standard eight hour day? Because it has been proven over and over that productivity drops after eight hours. Suggesting that productivity will remain the same working four ten hour days, flies in the face of reality.

The reality of this situation is that the energy crisis created a smoke screen for government to provide yet one more benefit for government workers while the private sector continues our march to the bottom.

The U.S. has lost jobs for the past six months, month in and month out. So what about government? One would assume that government jobs are also on the decline. But, you know how to spell assume? Government has added jobs every month during the same period. But how can that be? With unemployment rising and tax collection dwindling, where would government get the money to hire extra help? And why would they need extra help? The answer is two fold.

One, government for the most part is not held accountable for any measure of necessity or productivity. Not getting the job done? Add more help. Two, adding employees to government roles keeps the unemployment numbers from revealing the true state of our economy.

Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned.