I'm tired of the blame the unions meme. Honestly. If the cost of labor is too high invest in robots. The Japanese do it. Or stop building things at a loss, call

I'm tired of the blame the unions meme. Honestly. If the cost of labor is too high invest in robots. The Japanese do it. Or stop building things at a loss, call it quits and go home. I know everyone loves Ron Paul on the Internets, but one cannot seriously argue in favor of market solutions to problems and somehow believe labor agreements reflected anything but a supply/demand equilibrium price between capital and labor when made. Collective bargaining secured lower labor costs up front in return for imposing obligations on companies to invest a certain amount of funds to cover worker benefits in the future. And yes... many companies have gutted their pension funds, or entered bankruptcy to foist their obligations onto the government. And others have deliberately underfunded plans to increase short-term profits and management payouts.. The anti-union bias in these comments is a right-wing talking point, and not a very good one unless people really believe that debt obligations on capital are somehow more sancrosanct than similar obligations made to labor. And frankly, when the senior management at General Motors starts spouting right-wing talking points I consider that prima facie evidence that the company is managed by a bunch of idiots: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN22372976 http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN22372976 There is a cost to having major sectors of your economy run by a bunch of idiots. This is it. If there's a lesson relevant to this forum, it's to ask for your cash up front, and start your own business so your pension isn't in the hand of someone with short-term managerial incentives and the ability to screw you.