I am a retired union employee who carried a tool bag and spent my 45-year career on the Labor side of contracts, observing picket lines and cheering for union negotiators. But I have never been employed by anyone outside the so-called 1% and when they suffered financially, so did we. There was a fine balance between their fiscal health and ours; as our wages went up, more contractors turned to non-union workers.
Soon, we had priced ourselves out of the market for individual customers who needed skilled work in their homes and our only market virtually became bigger companies.
Our enormous hourly scale translated into below-standard yearly earnings because of layoffs and a slow economy. Most of those shops who would hire us were owned by families whose yearly earnings would place them in Obama's despised "millionaires and billionaires" class that earned over $250,000. Many of this hated class would do all they could to keep us working, even at a financial loss to themselves and I knew a number of business owners who too often made less on the year than did their employees. Once when my wife was ill and I missed several days of work, my next check had the full 40 hours pay on it. When I pointed this out to my boss, he told me just to keep quiet about it. Yet they were the "rich 1%" and we were the revered "99%".
Business owners are despised by economic ignoramuses who know nothing of the delicate balance that is inherent in a prosperous economy. The US economy was vital and healthy while the socialistic structures in Europe and elsewhere struggled. The American free-enterprise system built continental railroads and freeway systems, then it geared up to defeat the Axis nations and the forces of Communism.
But the "occupiers" and their cheerleader-in-chief understand nothing about this magnificent system called capitalism; they seek to vanquish it in favor of economic philosophies that brought only dreariness to half the world for nearly a century. The Tunnel Dweller
The Moral Case For Capitalism
"Voters will be hit with a blast of
weaponized ignorance* in 2012, and told to forget everything that has actually happened since 2008."
"But these elements are not the core of the President’s re-election strategy. They’re meant to confuse voters and soften them up for the real sales pitch, which will be entirely moral in character. It doesn’t matter if the things Obama has done didn’t work, or even – as in the case of ObamaCare – achieved exactly the opposite results from what Obama promised. We are morally obliged to follow such policies in the interest of “fairness,” “compassion,” and so forth, even when their failure is obvious. "
....
"Betraying the morality of capitalism, and denying its unbreakable connection to
liberty, has empowered the State to become its own special interest. When property rights are fully respected, and all other rights are thus properly illuminated, public officials become public
servants. Have a look at the
full transcript of Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview, and ask yourself if the man considers himself a “servant” in any meaningful sense."
*Emphasis added because I love that term. "Weaponized ignorance". Beautifully put.
We hired the wrong man
Neal Boortz: Taxes, they matter ..."Americans are leaving states that have high taxes and forced union membership for states with lower taxes and right-to-work laws. This confounds libs and progs. They just can’t understand why people, businesses and wealth are repelled by higher taxes and forced unionization. So their solution was to have a liberal think tank work on this issue. Somewhere, somehow a different explanation for these migrations had to be created. It just can’t be taxes, and it certainly can’t be the wonderful unions … so come up with another reason!"...
Walter E. Williams: Economic Fairness "...and that includes 35 percent of Congressional Black Caucus members, who tend to vote against school choice. Their actions are dictated by what's good for the National Education Association, not low-income black children. Do you think that's fair? By the way, teachers at public schools are twice as likely as other parents to send their own children to private schools. That ought to tell us something."
