El Duce

Threxx, you should know that you can't reason with a union hack. They actually believe they're on a mission from God or something.

Sax1031

Alan Mulally is worth every penny that Ford pays him.

Threxx

Inflation has a compounding cyclical effect. Nearly everything you spend money on is at some point processed by people making significantly lower wages than they would if they were part of a labor union.

I'm over simplifying things here, but let's say the entire US becomes unionized. Everyone's wages go up significantly. So now everything costs more to make and process. So now everyone's wages that went up end up being a wash because everything they buy costs more. We're right back where we left off except the US dollar is now worth less than it was. But that's not where it stops. Now that everything costs more, company profits are right back where they left off, so now the unions demand more money, which means things cost more, which means the companies bring in more money, which means the unions demand more.

Artificially inflated wages cause inflation.

You're comparing our country's current economic state to its previous economic state and acting like that's all that has changed. That's far from the case.

But regardless, one of the main reasons we don't have many manufacturing jobs here anymore is because unions drove those jobs out to foreign countries. Granted, some of those jobs would have left regardless of unions, but many more could have been saved if people were willing to compete fairly.

One of the only reasons we still have union manufacturing jobs here at all is that our government has compensated for the over-demanding and under-performing union labor workers by making it more expensive for manufacturers to use foreign labor and import their products via various taxes.

So you're acknowledging that your self-described 'ideal scenario' where your employer's competitors would be unionized as well, is anti-competitive and as a result would be naturally harmful to our domestic economy, but you're shifting blame to the government for theoretically allowing you to achieve your ideal scenario?

Just because there's a governing body that should stop you from engaging in anti-competitive practices (that often will not, because they're essentially being bribed by unions), that does not make your ideal scenario any better for the economy. That's like me admitting that admitting that stabbing you isn't good for you, but then acting like if I DO stab you, then it's the fault of the nearest police officer and not any fault of my own.


And who is to say how much work it takes to earn a given amount of money?

Again, I will go back to my anti-competitive example from a corporate level. Let's say all of the gasoline companies in the US agree to double the price of gasoline because they feel they've earned every cent the increased price would be charging. Or if the same thing happened with your cell phone provider or all the grocery stores? Somehow I don't think you'd appreciate that as much as you appreciate telling a company how much they're going to pay you if they don't want to suffer the consequences of a strike.


You missed the point of that paragraph entirely. Forget I said merge, just pretend we're talking about an oligopoly of companies being anti-competitive.

But regardless it's interesting to know that you think if two companies merge that it's wrong for them to eliminate redundancies. Again, let's flip this around on you and think about corporate anti-competitive practices. Let's say you have AT&T cell service and your fiance has Verizon. Let's say you two end up getting married, move in together, and realize that getting on a family plan with one company or the other would save you money. What if AT&T and Verizon formed a 'union' and told you that you both had to stay with your current respective companies or else they'd raise rates on you or deny service entirely to your family.

You cannot be sitting there with a straight face telling me that it's better that we have a nation comprised primarily of uneducated people than to have a nation of educated people.

The answer to staying relevant and competitive on a global basis is to strengthen our workforce by making it better educated, more skilled and more competitive than ever. Not to give people a greater incentive to be lazy by promising everyone a minimum of middle class wages while reducing the incentive for people to succeed beyond the middle class because they'll see hardly anything for it.

I mean seriously... how do you see us competing against the very up and coming nations you just mentioned when we would have so much incentive to be lazy and uneducated?

Z28Wilson

To be fair, even though we've very recently been passed by China we're still in the top 2 or 3 in the world both in manufacturing and exporting. It's another myth to say we don't make "anything" here anymore.

Bingo.

In closing I'll say this, one of the biggest problems we have as a nation is that there are some people who confuse equality of wealth with equality of opportunity. It's been on display here anyway....

soul strife

That's interesting. I was in college and I went to school with this guy from Central Africa. He said, "this (usa) is my favorite country. I love this country." I asked why and said, "you have the oppernunity to do suceed. If you work hard enough, you can be quite comfotable. If you invent something, you can reap the reward."

Just thought I'd share some different perspective.

94LightningGal

Now take the dream of this man from Africa, and tell him "yes, and when you reap the rewards of your hard work, we will tax you at a 90% rate, to punish you, and give that money to people who wish to do little to nothing."

What do you think that would do to his view of America??

I cannot believe that anyone would advocate a "wealth tax."

TOO Z MAXX

So much ignorance in this thread. The reason why the middle class was strong in the 50's had nothing to do with taxing the rich at an insane level of 91%. Its because we were the only country left with a manufactuing base. Remember that big event called WWII which destroyed thecrest of the world. They also had 90% tax rates in the 20's and 30's and we all know what happened then. Outsourcing is what is hurting the middle class not tax rates.
I think these union guys should push for better profit sharing and take some risk with the company they work for.

TOO Z MAXX

One more thing I want to add, back in the day with 90% tax rates, nobody paid those rates. They had so many loop holes, tax shelters, credits, and deductions nobody paid those rates. Where do you think the old saying "the rich dont pay taxes" came from, when in fact the rich pay most of the taxes in todays world.

TrackMagicWS6

I'm not going to respond to the rest because obviously I am not going to change your mind. The average chinese worker at foxxconn makes something like 292 dollars a month, works 18 hour days, seven days a week.

I sincerely hope your job gets outsourced so you can compete with those "fair wages".
Afterall who is to say what is fair? Why even have minimum wage when an illegal will do it for half, while they pop out 10 kids that taxpayers pay for.

TrackMagicWS6

I was unaware that the rest of the world was just composed of nations impacted in ww2. What about Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, Spain.

Their tax rates had nothing to do with WW2, Paying reparations for WW1 did.

TOO Z MAXX

Those countries dont even come close to the manufacturung base this country had after WWII or even before it.
My mistake on the tax thing, i meant America had tax rates as high as 90% in the 20's and 30's then the depression hit.

Sax1031

Even combined could not even come close to the manufacturing ability of the US post WW2.

5thgen69camaro

EXACTLY!!! Unions are like parasites. The best they can offer is to ease up a bit so as not to kill the host.

What Mulally makes is between him and Ford. I am not a Ford guy, but God bless him! If Ford feels he is worth tons of money and are freely willing to give it to him great! If Ford wants to replace him, then that is fine by me too.

Now the unions and union workers like you said hold the business hostage when they strike. If you could, and should be able to replace a union worker, like any worker, for refusing to work then the salary agreed on between the business and the worker would be no ones business. Its not though, because the whole point of a Union is to be able to bargain with the threat of shutting down production.

5thgen69camaro

Tax rates aside, the US did not get itself out of the great depression. We were on the path to the country collapsing. WWII pulled us out when our main global competitors Japan, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, most of Europe were bombing each others manufacturing plants to ruble. A large portion of their work force were either in those plants which were producing war material and therefore no longer profitable, or in the field fighting each other, also (while bravely defending their countries) not doing anything to turn a profit....

Of the Major economy countries before WWII, the US was one of the few and definitely the biggest relatively untouched. As tragic as Pearl Harbor was, it was not a manufacturing plant or corporation. No other country in the world had as much of a benefit on that size as the US did...

I find it hard to believe Unions were ever good for business or our economy, and at best did relatively less financial damage.

latinspice-94T/A

This is a very big issue, it's been covered by The Economist and others that CEO's, especially in America are paid too much money (far more than European CEO's) and not at all related to their actual performance. It's more a good 'ol boys circle jerk.