Just Circling the Drain Isn't Nearly Fast Enough! We Need A Vacuum Pump!

Some people think that Europe is a bloated, worthless bureacratic state that has managed to transform an attitude of self-important entitlement amongst its citizenry into some of the most inflexible labour regulations on the planet.

Some people may think that such regulations, making labour ever more costly and ever more difficult to fire, contribute to the massive unemployment and economic stagnation that has seen large parts of Europe unable to repay their national debt, thereby threatening the existence of the Euro and the economic security of European countries.

Some people may think that as the Euro, and European economies, appear to be on the brink of collapse, it would behoove any sensible leaders to be doing all they can to address these problems.

Some people may think that Europe's leaders, institutions, and ultimately, voters, have proven themselves unwilling or unable to address these issues, and would rather vote for more government-provided lollipops even as their countries collapse around them.

Such people are clearly nothing but embittered, Euro-hating capitalist pigs. And here to prove this to them comes the European Court of Justice! Their latest ruling is, as the New York Times puts it:

[W]orkers who happened to get sick on vacation were legally entitled to take another vacation.

Yep, that's going to be just the shot in the arm that sluggish European economies need. All those unemployed citizens who were afraid to take jobs because they worried that being sick might eat into their holiday time will now flood back into the labour force, reinvigorating national output and tax coffers.

Master of moral hazard, these clowns at the ECJ don't appear to have considered the possibility that claiming you were ill while in Tahiti is very difficult to disprove, and thereby easily allows workers to effortlessly expand their vacation time. Which, in case you Yanks had forgotten, currently is between four and six weeks.

Somebody give these countries a bailout!

At least the New York Times Reporter seems to have a sense of humour about the whole thing, evidenced by his closing line:

The ruling does not apply to the 25 percent of the Spanish labor force that is currently unemployed.

Ha! You don't say.