[traditional1]

Or, to put it another way, Country #1 has Union labor, which hikes its benefits and wages and overhead (Union Bosses/Political Contributions) so high that the company moves to where there's super-cheap labor, has to pay a lot of transport costs, and STILL delivers the product at lower cost and at a reasonable profit.

Meanwhile, back in Country #1, the Unions decide to infiltrate government at ALL LEVELS, so they can continue their extortion, this time at the un-limited upside potential at the command of Taxpayers (simply by paying off politicians through contributions and quid pro quo Legislation to protect the money machine).

Is this a grand idea, or what?

[DannyTN]

I’m not fond of unions, but you could roll back all the salary gains attributed to unions and we still aren’t going to compete with billions of Chinese willing to work for $2 a day.

Only 11% of the U.S. workforce is unionized and only 7% of the private sector is unionized. You make a good point about unions taking over government, but unions are simply not the real issue causing this economic crisis. Neither is government taxes and regulation, although everyone would like to see less of both.