How to spend if your time is all occupied by work?

Singapore seems to be living somewhere that is detached from the world. Whenever I read news about the United States, the Euro zone and Japan, I can see that all these 3 biggest economy zones that consume the most are having trouble.

I've long ago written many posts about the ill effects on just relying on trade to power the economy because I firmly believe that we work for the sake of living, and not the other way around. Now that the consumption is reduced for the 3 biggest economy zones, there is no other zone, or country to pick up the slack. Export growth for Asia, including China, is slowing and will continue to slow as long as there is no domestic spending.

There comes the problem. How to excite domestic spending? This is a big problem because many companies, at the expense of boosting profits (not that they are not making any), are pushing more work to lesser people. Yes, they may be giving them a raise but let us be realistic. If you spend 10 hours working every working day, the only thing that you're going to spend on is food and beverage. What else can you spend on? Does food and beverage help the economy? Not really because like it or not, the whole world is mostly powered by manufacturing and services. Buying a product, engaging services to renovate a small section of your home perhaps, etc. These kind of domestic spending are the ones that power the economy, not buying food and beverages.

As long as worker rights are not being enforced, we'll be forever stuck in this age of slow growth. Any worker, be it the boss (yes, some bosses work their butts off) or people working in the line units, deserve to live a normal life. Sleeping 8 hours a day, working 8 hours a day, and having 8 hours of free time.

That's the whole point of the magical number 8. Sadly though, in the name of profits and not sure what, this is no longer true. Cost must be enforced if we go beyond the working hours. Otherwise, workers will forever be exploited. Sad fact of life.