Tuesday, June 20, 2006

What is "Liberal" ?

I have been following a couple of blogs recently, and they are written by liberals. Ok, good. I am liberal, too. But some of the ideas that keep getting thrown in and pounded out of the woodwork I have problems with.

One is the idea of Unions. Well, not the idea, really, I can see the benefits of the idea, but the reality of them is something quite different.

The talk in the one referenced above has to do with Walmart, and Big = Bad, etc. But before long, unions popped up in the thread.
"Probably the best way to deal with the Wal-marts of the world is to get some real striker protection laws passed like every other industrial democracy has and for big labor to go after them in a big way. Now if a store goes union they just close it(except in China). Think they would close all their stores in California or New York to keep the union out?I doubt it."

Now the problem with that, as I see it, is that once unions enter the mix, prices go up. It's inevitable. While protections, fair work practices, safety, etc. will be the good results of having the watchful eyes of the unions around, the increase in prices which would inevitably result from the increase in wages would not help ME at all!

One of the "problems" pointed out in the quoted response was that, in talking to Walmart employees and seeing what they thought was a good salary, it was said "they will probably never be able to buy a new car let alone a home." Ok, I guess I agree. At minimum wage to start (or however close to that it is), there is no way those things will ever be affordable. But the real problem is, those things cost too much! A car costs more than a house used to, and houses have just gone through the roof. Will it ever end? Will they just go up forever? It's a Catch-22!

Higher wages to afford the higher prices, higher production costs because of the higher wages, higher prices - over and over.

I think the Unions are too narrow minded in their approach to member protection. They, in all their gargantuan hugeness with the resulting demadability, should find a way to work with someone to make lower priced cars, lower priced houses, lower priced everything!

Get some Real R&D going in those Union organizations rather than just the lockstep "higher wages" demands. Do some REAL good.

posted by DadEO @ 7:29 AM