Lately all I hear talk of in the entertainment industry is executives bemoaning their dwindling market share. Translation: too many leisure time activities are available to the American citizenry, causing our interest in them (in terms of dollars and time spent) to be divided up into ever smaller fragments. Americans only have a limited amount of time and money they can spend on leisure activities, and with so many different ones to choose from, it is getting progressively harder for media executives to ensure that their product will sell. Well, I have an answer that I am sure will please Americans and media executives alike:

MAKE OUR WORKWEEK SHORTER!

Just think about it: if the mandated American workweek was 32 hours/4 days a week, we would have 24 more hours weekly to spend shopping, going to movies, playing video games, watching television, downloading songs legally on the internet, and doing god knows what else to help fuel one of the largest industries in the country - the entertainment industry. Since America is already moved to being a primarily service economy, this will have the added benefit of reducing unemployment, since stores that are open all week will have to hire additional employees. As far as I can see, this is a win-win situation. Who is with me?

Of course, another approach would be to increase wages, which would also make Americans spend more money, but I don't want to push my luck. I think it should be fairly obvious by now that "trickle-down" (or to use George Bush I's term before he got co-opted by Reagan, "voodoo") economics doesn't work.

On an unrelated note, it is a good thing for me that logical inferences are not a punishable offence; as in, the logical inference that if I suddenly and dramatic slow down right before I am about to pass in front of a police car that is obviously "radaring," I must have been speeding to begin with. This has been happening to me all too often recently...