American Unions: Go to China

Now that we have a global economy, it should not be surprising that disparate nations such as the United States and China are equalizing. China is getting rich and the U.S. is getting poor. People blame Walmart for this, but it is the American unions who should take the most blame.

Don't get me wrong: American unions have served a very important role in protecting the rights of labor. But they then kept going, greedily taking far more than is justified. Now American industries are horribly crippled by the unions, who demand insane privileges from the companies who hire them.

Is it any wonder that American companies want to go to China, where the labor is cheap and powerless? Is it any wonder that Americans buy Chinese products, which cost far, far less because of their cheap production costs?

An ironic consequence is that Americans are losing their jobs to Chinese workers. So, why don't people realize the core problem here? It is American unions which are destroying American jobs.

If the American unions really wanted to serve the American worker, they would go to China and fight to get rights for Chinese workers. (And India and Viet Nam, etc.) Not only would this be good for American workers, it have many, many other benefits. Obviously it would be good for Chinese workers. And it would be good for the American economy, for the environment, and in the end for all humanity.

So, American unions: are you ready to go back to your days of real labor organizing? It's dangerous in China, but if you actually want to serve your core mission, it is your duty to move almost all of your efforts overseas. NOW.

Energy Is a Problem of Consumption, Not Production

There is no such thing as clean energy. First, there are always costs to energy production, even among the so-called green sources. Hydro power destroys estuaries. Solar power robs the land of heat and sunlight. Wind energy kills birds.

And generally, the use of energy itself is a problem. Generating electricity adds heat to the Earth's system, or at the very best, moves heat from one place to another. Taken on a large scale, this alters climate patterns.

Instead of looking for cleaner sources of energy, we should be looking for ways to use far, far less energy. Converting to alternate energies costs a lot in terms of both money and resources (which then has other environmental impacts). Conserving energy can cause an immediate reduction in emissions without any investment of money or resources.