jc, it was because of the Dragon Wagon I thought perhaps you were a car afficionado. St. Jo mentioned it once, affectionately. I am not talking about snobbery- would I cast nasturtiums on you?
Sure, if you thought you'd get away with it!
I am talking devotion. The fact that you drive a car with a name suggested to me a man with High Ideals when it comes to cars.
High ideals when it comes to $800 cars, anyway. And sadly, it's my brother who named it. It stuck.
I believe that the purpose of unions -when they are doing their jobs properly- is to make sure workers do not get done over. Not to restrict trade.
Well, yes, but the one tends to follow the other. "I want to make sure Jim keeps getting $X per hour, but if Joe enters the labor market, he and Jim will likely end up making $X-Y. Jim's paying me dues to do what's best for Jim, so let's keep Joe out."
So often, when people talk about competition in business, what they really seem to be talking about is "More Money For Me and Stuff Everybody Else".
That's true. The thing is, that's usually what they mean when they talk about eliminating competition, too.
Does this mean that the person providing you with the product has to suffer? This is the basic conflict of capitalism, it seems to me - consumerism vs citizenship.
That's a fine way of putting it. But unions are playing the same "optimize for my interests" game.
There have always been individuals/companies who fancy a bit of union-busting. It just doesn't seem right to me that the government of a democracy should do it.
Well, that's the ever-threatening tragedy of democracy. If you can convince 50.1% of the population of a thing (or, more frequently, game the system so you can convince far less than that), you can pretty much do whatever you want and feel justified in doing so.
The minimum wage here is about $14 AUS. I think.
I found AUD$12.30, which is about US$9.25.