Buchanan and Market

"Does he really believe that employees want to pay higher salaries to people with children but are currently not doing so for fear of lawsuits? If anything, the pressure runs in the opposite direction, married people suing because single people are paid more."

In this convoluted "rebuttal", Tucker actually winds up supporting PJB's contention that "Employers should be given tax incentives to pay higher wages to parents."

Looks to me like the libertarians over at LewRockwell have been toking on that whacky weed again.

Yes, Pat is right, the country was better off, SOCIALLY, when the tax rate was at 90% and labor unions were stronger. I don't believe he advocates a return to confiscatory 90% tax rates, but he makes a point that Marxist Economists that preach the superiority of today's economic policies, to those the past, have to deal with these contradictions. A strong economy, alone, has not resulted in a healthier society than we've enjoyed in the past.

We're witnessing the dissolution of the American Family.

Both parents are forced out into the workplace to the detriment of the Nation's children.

Unwed motherhood and single parent households have been woven into the fabric of society at unprecedented levels.

Recreational drug use is a scourge on our society.

Abortion is an accepted method of birth control.

Homosexuality and bisexuality are being promoted in our schools.

Massive, unregulated legal and illegal immigration, with no end in sight.

Our national debt is fast approaching $10 trillion dollars and our average, individual debt-load is perilously high.

Americans have very little, average personal savings.

Aids is rampant in our society and diseases like TB are making a comeback. Etc., etc., etc.!

Pat recommends the abolition of anti-family, anti-marriage federal policies like the marriage tax and the additional hit couples take, because they're considered two-income families as opposed to remaining and filing as single.

Pat advocates the institution of federal workplace policies, for the family bread-winners, similar to those that have leap-frogged women, minorities and homosexuals over them in the past. You call him a socialist for suggesting a little common sense parity for the family, so that mom can stay home and take care of the kids.

Unions were a good thing before the membership became complacent and stopped attending monthly meetings. They turned over the operation and all important decisions to a handful of union representatives that could be corrupted.

I, personally, witnessed the destruction of a good union contract right under the noses of the union membership. The union meetings, I went to, were attended by 30 union representatives and 3 members out of 10,000. Unions, like a representative republic, don't work, if the public doesn't participate. Neither institution is corrupt by it's own nature. In either case, the people reap what they sow.

Again, nicely said.

Why did you call me into this thread? I am a hold my nose and vote republican.

More than likely your name got highlighted off a list by mistake.

Unions were a good thing before the membership became complacent and stopped attending monthly meetings. They turned over the operation and all important decisions to a handful of union representatives that could be corrupted.

Unions have never been a good thing. Take any industry, any, that is unionized and compare it with a non union one.

Steel for example. Big steel has been run by the unions for decades and once again they're crying for protection from foreign imports.

Yet Nucor a non union company has been kicking ass and taking names

New research reports for NUE

Mon

12:30pm

NUE

Salomon Smith Barney Upgrades Nucor Price Target To $80 - Dow Jones

Pat's just a doom and gloomer and looks around for something to bash. While I agree with him on the immigration question, the facts are his attack on the culture is nothing new. Every generation thinks the next one is wild and out of control. I was in college not that long ago and had hair down to the middle of my back and my folks that I was wild and out of control. I turned out alright. Now I see these kids today and only shake my head.

It sounds like you might be guilty of over-generalizing.

First, I'm not familiar with Nucor. They may be a niche market manufacturer and somewhat insulated from overseas competition.

Be that as it may, the only way Nucor or any other company could keep the unions out is to offer wages, benefits and a work environment as good or better than a union shop. Say what you want, but how many employers would be behaving like that, if not for the union threat?

I had an experience, when I was working my way through college. I took a store the salaried employees, all the way up to Division, said would never be profitable and made it work. Along the way, the salaried guys used every dirty trick in the book to monkey-wrench my plans. If I didn't have the union, the ability to read our contract and the tenacity to go all the way to the labor relations board, I'd have lost my job in a heartbeat. The company was owned by Democrat, too.

Don't get me wrong. The union didn't volunteer to fight for me and a couple of my co-workers. We had to make them, but the mechanism was in place.

Unions are like government. People get out what they put in. If you turn a government or a union over to a few corruptible individuals and you become too complacent to participate, you're going to be in big trouble, fast.

Like I said before, the problem with unions is a large percentage of the membership don't participate, beyond paying their dues. It's like citizens believing that paying their taxes is enough.

It's called right to work states. The south. Ever wonder why Mercedes, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, and BMW all build their American plants in the south? New jobs in auto manufacturing are still be created, but they're all non union. Pay 18 bucks an hr or higher.

Whatever happened to the budget surpluses that were projected for the infinite future? Buchanan is right again. After being sucked into a rope-a-dope war with the Arabs, the Communists will pick up our pieces. Hell who will we import our tanks from?

Those wages are a direct result of pressure applied by the unions, Vinny.

C'mon Vinny, why do you think those automakers are paying factory workers $18.00 an hour and not $6.00? The unions in Detroit are responsible for that.

"C'mon Vinny, why do you think those automakers are paying factory workers $18.00 an hour and not $6.00? The unions in Detroit are responsible for that. "

Then thank God for unions, we still have jobs in America.

I wouldn't go that far, but you have to give unions credit for the decent wages, benefits and work environments some jobs have. Some employers willingly take care of their employees. Some employers are crooks. Screwing people over is half the fun of making the money, for them. Look at Enron.

I watched a union allow a company to renegotiate a contract to the detriment of the employees it was supposed to protect. The company got more employees at lower wages and part-time benefits and the union got more, monthly, union dues. They did it right under the noses of the employees, because only 3 union members out of 10,000 went to the meetings.

The same thing's happening to our country, today. Only 39 million people, out of roughly 100 million eligible voters, can be bothered to follow the issues and actually vote.

Unions and governments are as good as people work to make them or bad as people allow them, through inaction, to become.