19 Comments
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Orest's avatar

what are unions, but labor monopolies. As such, they stifle innovation, as is evident in the education system, nationally and in most, non-right-to-work states.

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BillD's avatar

Market competition disciplines the excesses of labor unions within the private sector. See: GM, United Airlines. Public employee unions are a different animal and there are not any natural way of managing excesses.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

Public ought to be illegal......One point about private unions, labor regulations have made them more powerful, eliminating competition. Interesting how they work pretty well in a place like Japan. I did a business school case on personnel. company was an electronic welding manufacturer in Ohio and the union/mgmt worked extremely close to have a great relationship and turn out a great product.

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Rascal Nick Of's avatar

I have come to believe that unions can be useful if they stick to their purpose of advocacy of employees, and stay out of politics. The employees should have a vested interest in the success of the companies they work for. And of course unions wouldn’t be necessary if companies didn’t abuse or exploit their employees. The problem is union bosses want REAL power and so they get involved in politics. This should be totally illegal. The commie teachers unions have turned Illinois, California, New York, etc into dystopian hell holes.

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BillD's avatar

It's a major uphill battle. The financial sector learned in 2008 they'll be bailed out, basically no matter what. The nature of the network effects within big consumer tech sector leads to enshittification. People don't like risk, especially the well paid middle managers that make these companies run.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

Great point about 08.....

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Rascal Nick Of's avatar

I largely agree with all of this, especially the fair tax. The correct “corporate” tax rate is 0%. But tariffs are not anti-competitive, they are pro-competitive. They keep our adversaries honest. If our companies can’t compete with other country’s companies due to slave labor, our companies will fail unless they also use slave labor, which we won’t be doing anytime soon. Or our government protects them from illegal competition using tariffs. Tariffs are one of the few methods of regulating business that I actually agree with. But it has to be strategic.

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Ed Sheppard's avatar

'They don’t understand that managing it means you never stop managing it and there are always problems that need fixing"

Haha. Tell me another.

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Tom Eckert's avatar

Great observations Mr Carter!

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Poul Costinsky's avatar

"Tariffs are anti-competitive, entrenching big corporations disincentivizing them from innovating, and insulating them from competition." - unless you're facing competition from foreign corporations owned or backed by foreign governments, who don't have to turn a profit until their competition is eliminated.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

that makes blackboard sense, but not real world sense

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Herbert Jacobi's avatar

Absolutely correct. Old saying: People with power want money. People with money want power. Corporations are (legally anyway) considered to be "people", have both and want more of the same. The biggest "corporation" is Government. Doesn't matter which kind or what "ism" it runs under: Capitalism, Communism, Socialism. Fascism.

They are all Corporations in a sense. Have the most money and power and want more. And don't like rivals. Hence more regulation, more control and want less competition both from smaller government rivals (state, local governments) or business rivals. In the early days Microsoft, Apple etc did not have lobbyists in DC. That didn't last long.

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Jeffrey's avatar

Ive gotta say unfortunately that i disagree on the greed side. Rise over the last 20 years in the levels of rent seeking behavior tells me otherwise

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

Rent seeking is George Stigler.....has nothing to do with greed and everything to do with lobbying to eliminate competition.

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