It's Not a Free Marketplace...

...  when government restricts freedom of action

It's not a free marketplace when a union can cry for government to use its coercive powers to tell a company that it can't open that new airplane factory it just built. That is exactly what happened in the Boeing case that was just resolved.

The National Labor Relations Board has dropped its controversial case against airline manufacturer Boeing, which had become a lightning rod for conservatives.

The labor board argued for much of the past year that Boeing decided to locate a new plant to build its new 787 Dreamliner jets in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, in retaliation for strikes by unionized workers at its existing facilities in Washington state. (The Hill - NLRB Withdraws Boeing Case)

"Retaliation" is a natural reaction to market forces

What if Boeing decided to lower all wages by 10 dollars per hour and workers quit because of it, going to a company that pays more? Why isn't that worker retaliation against the company? A better question is, why would government prevent employers or employees from "retaliating?"  Retaliation is just a dirty word for a reaction to a previous market force. If Starbucks jacks up the price of a vento to $10 dollars a cup, I ain't buyin' no more coffee there.

Coercion is the Key to Progressivism 

This also reveals the coercive mindset of progressivism. There are still people in America today insisting that our economic decline is due to the decline of unions, despite the lack of evidence to support their contention. The only way enforced unionism works is if you chain down businesses and take away their free agency.

This is why Detroit, a once-thriving union dynamo, collapsed into a liberal junk heap. Union Labor bid its prices up too high, Big Business foolishly accepted, and government failed to protect them from the free market "retaliation."  Tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs headed south to non-union climes, and foreign imports further impinged upon the Big Labor-Big Business fantasy land of price-setting insulated from market forces.

Progressives would use government power to prevent such free-market reactions, setting up trade barriers that would spark trade wars resulting in higher consumer prices, tying down companies and forcing them to "take it," which is what the big three pretty much did voluntarily, to their ultimate detriment.

Communism, Fascism, Corporatism

Back in the bad old days, raw communism would do this by expropriating the capitalists' property, eventually running the confiscated enterprises into the ground, murdering those who resisted, and miring their societies in misery.

Fascism, communism's little leftist cousin, was more sophisticated, adding some sweeteners in for the bourgeoisie. Fascists were smart enough to leave the means of capital in the hands of the business owners; it was more convenient and efficient to just shake down everybody at the factory door as they left for the day.

The modern-day way of chaining down a corporation is with state-sponsored corporatism. Businesses will stay put so long as they are protected by an archipelago of government regulations, protections, exemptions and other formidable barriers that protect them from competition, giving them free rein to continually jack up prices with government-sanctioned impunity, making consumers a captive audience.  

As an added bonus, they can freely dip into the government coffers to the tune of tens of billions when their unsustainable business model inevitably fails.

Welcome to Corporate America.

Further Reading:
Rothbard - Power & Market, Ch 6

Angry Left Shoots itself in the Face

"When you have no coherent philosophy and are merely a oleaginous agglomeration of multifarious and clashing anger-fueled agendas, such self-defeating stupidity is the inevitable result."

I find it amusing when the left ends up shooting itself in the face or exposing one of its legion contradictions.  The latest inanity is the temper tantrum boycott of Koch Industries, which will only harm unionized workers.

As an American company, Koch Industries employs over 50,000 Americans. In total, the number of American jobs that indirectly supported Koch Industries is over 200,000. In Wisconsin, Koch Industries provides nearly 3,000 jobs directly and 11,000 jobs indirectly. More importantly, many of those jobs are good-paying union jobs. So, why all the hate?(United Steelworkers Defend the Koch Brothers)

Here are excerpts from United Steel Workers international vice president Jon Geenen defending Koch industries:

The company’s workforce is highly unionized. In fact, 80 percent of its mills are under contract with one or more labor union. It is not inaccurate to say that these are among the best-paid manufacturing jobs in America.

This presents a dilemma and a paradox. While the Koch brothers are credited with advocating an agenda and groups that are clearly hostile to labor and labor’s agenda, the brothers’ company in practice and in general has positive and productive collective bargaining relationships with its unions.

While some companies are running from investment in American jobs, The Koch brothers’ Georgia Pacific just reached agreements with its primary union in the paper industry to invest more than a half a billion dollars in capital to essentially create two state-of-the-art machines that conserve fiber and energy at two separate union mills.

His bottom line? He might as well scream out to the lefty nutballs, “What the hell are you doing!?”

The "working man" is just a talking point for the left
If you claim to be for the working man, trying to close down American manufacturing is a poor way to show it. When you have no coherent philosophy and are merely a oleaginous agglomeration of multifarious and clashing anger-fueled agendas, such self-defeating stupidity is the inevitable result.

Liberals Can’t Handle the Truth

Liberals have a reality problem. They just can’t face it.

According to liberals, we're not broke, unions and government create jobs, the schools are just fine and we need to keep giving them more money, big government is great and we need more of it...  It's a catalog of lunacy.  No wonder moderates and independents last November ran screaming from the nuthouse known as the democratic party.

And the dems just don't get it.  They lost Keith Olberman's Countdown, but they now eagerly tune in each night for red-faced ranter Ed Schultz's Nightly Meltdown.

The latest spycam video showed progressive flagship NPR’s true colors, which all already knew anyway. It is a white, east coast, metrosexual effete, snobbish organization. They are anti-Jewish and anti-black. Just ask Juan Williams about the condescending treatment he received from them.

It's not about women, minorities and the oppressed--It's about advancing the statist agenda

Liberals are for women, just not conservative or religious ones like Sarah Palin, or threatened ones like Molly Norris, who is in hiding because 7th century islamists threatened to cut her head off over cartoons. They are for women standing up to powerful oppressors, unless those women live in the Muslim world. Then its ok that they’re oppressed. Liberals stand against sexual harassment and powerful men using their position to gain sexual favors, unless the man is a democrat president, then it’s ok.

Liberals are for blacks and gays, unless they are conservative or decide they want to attend a tea party rally.

You see, it’s not about blacks, or gays or women, it’s about advancing a statist progressive agenda. Minorities, the oppressed and the downtrodden are just extras, props cynically used to advance the agenda.

We want a do over!

Wisconsin is the latest theater of the absurd, where hysterical liberals display their inability to accept reality. The people voted, democrats lost, so they cried and scampered off to Illinois like the cowering cowards they are. Like petulant children refusing to take a bath, they stamped their feet and stuck out their tongues at the electorate.

Now, they are gearing up recall elections, crying “We want a do over!” They cannot accept reality, so they now seek to change it. Good luck with that, although their approach of siding with money-gobbling, capitol-wrecking unions, and standing against the taxpaying voter is a novel approach. More of that reality problem I guess...

FOX - Wisconsin

Government Unions are a Taxpayer Scam

Crossing the Mississippi heading east last summer, the Silverfiddle family van’s radio was tuned to a local Illinois station. We were subjected to angry government workers standing on the steps of the capitol shouting through bullhorns “RAISE OUR TAXES! RAISE OUR TAXES!. RAISE OUR TAXES!” Crowds of troublemakers bused in from Chicago provided the background chorus of hoots, chants and whistles.

“Of course that’s what they’d say,” my astute older daughter observed, “They get more out of the pay raise than they have to pay in the extra taxes!” I could have hugged her, but I was driving.

Government and Government Unions:  Partners in Crime

Unlike a private sector union, government unions are not adversaries of their employers. Instead they are a partner in crime of the government bureaucrats who pick our pockets:

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway: grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members' employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees' salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy "negotiations" with unions. (George Will)

They also pick the pockets of unwilling workers

The Unions have hijacked the public franchise and not only use it to squeeze increasingly more out of the taxpayer, but they turn the coercive power of the state against their own members as well.

In Indiana, a House committee on Monday approved legislation to change state law so that private-sector workers no longer would be required to pay dues or belong to a union that bargains on their behalf. Unions say this would erode union membership, and eventually their finances and political clout, if workers decided not to join or pay dues. (WSJ.com)

But don’t take my word for it!

Here are the words of a union kingpin, who explains the government-union shakedown racket better than I ever could…

Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the nation's largest public-sector union, said the moves in various state capitals to target state employees were an explicit effort to undermine a key source of Democratic funds.

"They know how much we spent in the last campaign," he said. "They're going to try and shoot us down."

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME last year tapped emergency accounts and took out loans as it poured more than $90 million into Democratic campaign efforts in the mid-term elections.

Overall, unions put around $400 million into the 2008 campaign to help elect Mr. Obama and other Democrats.

Big Money in Politics?  "Unions are Big Money"

You don’t blow that kind of cash for nothing, even if you're Charlie Sheen. It’s not a contribution, it’s an investment. They put in $400 million with the expectation of receiving much more from the democrats they elect. Here’s something else to consider the next time you hear some liberal whining about “big money” in politics:

But the unions are big money. Five of the top ten contributors to congressional and presidential campaigns since 1989 are labor unions according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the last election, 10 of the top 20 PACs were union PACs. (Washington Examiner)

The unions and our governments are running a scam on us, and honest governors with the help of conservative legislators are blowing the lid off and smokin’ em out! That’s why the idiot astroturfers with beet-red faces are shouting themselves hoarse in the streets of state capitals while liberal lawmakers scamper and scurry for cover like the rats and cockroaches they are.

We’ve got ‘em on the run, folks!

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703800204576158851079665840.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22union.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Unions: A Progressive Assault on America

President Obama Calls Wisconsin Budget Bill "Assault on Unions"


He's wrong, as usual.  Unions are an assault on America.  They've destroyed Detroit, and they turned America's industrial heartland into a rust belt.

"We've got a right to organize!"  they shout.  Sure, on your own damned time and your own damned dime!  You've also got a right to STFU, and get back to work doing what the taxpayers are paying you to do.  And while you're at it, could you explain to us why you are more entitled another dollar than the taxpayer that earned it?

Why should laid off workers fund your pension plan and your health care?
Why should private sector workers pay your pension plan, when we have to fund our own?  Why should people who have taken 5, 10 or 20% pay cuts fund you health care when you don't chip in a dime?

The private sector unemployment rate is 10%, what is the government sector unemployment rate?

In the 90's, over 100,000 active duty personnel were unceremoniously tossed from the public payroll.  Where was the outcry?  These same troops also went years with no pay raises.  Where was the liberal concern?

I'm not complaining.  This is how over 80% of us live, and we were doing just fine until the government blew up the economy.  My company simply announced two years ago that they were cutting in half their 401K matching contribution, and pay raises were a fraction of what they were in previous years.  No arbitration, no collective bargaining, just an announcement.  Each worker was free to like it or lump it or take it down the road and dump it.

We have labor laws and contract laws in this country, so lets drop the crap about government workers being abused, not having adequate representation, bla bla bla... 

How do the 80% of us not covered by unions have a “voice?”  Simple.  We talk to the boss and ask for a raise.  If we ask for more than we are worth he tells us no.  If he values us, we strike a deal mutually beneficial to both.

How do you justify a government salary? 
Government makes no profit that workers can demand a share of, as in the private industry.  That's why government unions are an abomination anyway.  FDR knew that and he was opposed to government unions.

Unionism is a fundamental mistrust of the free market place.  Union workers are afraid of getting paid what they are really worth.  It's especially absurd to see credentialed professionals band together in unions, which serves only to protect the shoddiest among them.  Most professions aim to expel the bums from their ranks in order to raise the worth of each professional; teachers unions do the opposite.

Wisconsin Looks Like Egypt, Turned into a Third-World Country by Screaming Idiots in the Democratic Party

Yeah, it's Egypt, and Obama is Mubarack.  The citizens of this country, and the residents of Wisconsin, voted to throw off the shackles of progressivism last November, and the rioting astroturfers in Madison are the government cronies straining to prop up the tyrannical status quo.  We have a president who lost big time in the last election but he refuses to accept the will of the people. Simple-minded liberals transparently capture a meme and then abuse it.  They view themselves as heroic democracy demonstrators in the public square, but it's just the opposite.

Democrats are the party of statism, Republicans are the party of the people

The Democrats are the party of yesterday, staunchly screaming themselves hoarse in defense of a rotten, outdated system that has ushered us to the brink of failure.  Now we have a sitting president unleashing his rabble of community activists, poverty pimps, professional troublemakers and race hustlers upon the capitols of various states.  Yes, the President himself has been implicated in mobilizing the red-faced, rioting hordes that are demanding a deeper reach into the taxpayers' pockets.

Welcome to the third-world.  Brought to you by the statist progressives of the Democratic party.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-union-20110217,0,7977108.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021707325.html