Same Day, Different Sh*t: Economists Design Never-Changing Calendar Year

As you hang up that new Beefcake Men of the Australian Outback or Adorable Kittens Doing Adorable Things calendar you received as a Christmas present on this first day of the year 2012, mathematicians and economists from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, have devised a new calendar for the world: one that always remains the same!

The economists claim that having a standard year without a leap day added would save the global economy billions of dollars each year, due to the predictability of when a date falls, such as Christmas, New Year, as well as personal dates such as anniversaries and birthdays.

Under the new Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, if Christmas fell on a Sunday in 2011 it would also fall on a Sunday in 2012 and every year after. This would be a big change from the current Gregorian calendar the world uses, which adds an extra day to the calendar month of February every four years. (2012 will be a Leap Year, by the way).  The Gregorian calendar was first introduced by Pope Gregory XIII and has been in use since the year 1582, replacing the earlier Julian calendar.

Using the Hanke-Henry permanent calendar, each year would be only 364 days long, with a week-long "mini"-month being added to the calendar every five years to keep in tune with the solar cycle. This would give workers an extra-work week...and an extra week of pay every five years. 

It sounds like a good plan, but I'm sure those calendar designers won't be very pleased...