The current writer’s strike is no different than any other union mob extortion scheme that I wrote about before. However, you won’t find any criticism of the writer’s union in the media or in Hollywood: either because they’re sympathetic or afraid to offend those that they must work with.

But I believe that there are a few important points to be made about the writer’s union shutting down much of the production in the entertainment industry.

• Union members pen nearly all of the entertainment you consume. This means that their fictional stories, characters, and jokes generally champion Marxist socialism and the tyranny of the mobs (sold as democracy) while stomping on individual rights, and scoffing at anyone who creates more than their “fair share” of wealth. So turning on the television certainly does not reveal an objective assessment or reflection of American ideals. It’s mostly socialist propaganda set to various plots.

• They are demanding a larger share of the income from profitable productions while absolving themselves of any risk from the majority of productions that lose money: they get paid either way, plus a share of the income IF the show succeeds. I’m sure anyone who invests time and wealth in a new business or product wishes for such a fairy-tale scenario.

I sincerely wish those who employ striking writer’s guild members would have some courage and foresight to fire these goons immediately, and to hire INDIVIDUAL writers who seek to write for whatever the market and their individual skills will earn them. Negotiating with unions today will simply reset the timer to the next extorting strike scheme.

Once again, the socialist/slavery element in our society has launched the campaign to force all people to pay for each other’s medical bills.

Since big-government socialism systematically ruined the medical free market decades ago (e.g., Medicare, HMO’s, etc.), these socialists propose more big government administrations to “improve” the situation while extorting from anyone and everyone who creates wealth to pay for it.

These days, the socialists seem to have an easier time in manipulating the public to accept their schemes mainly because of the declining ability of each new generation to use reason and concepts to identify such programs for the disasters they are. People seem less and less likely to think and question, and are willing to accept whatever empty promises politicians use to get elected. They seem to believe that believing is all that is required–and reality be damned.

Socialist keep citing the other western countries that “successfully” employ socialized medicine, but ignore the stark differences between their wealth and the wealth of the US. They pick and choose convenient longevity statistics while ignoring that these socialized systems rely on research and development done by the relatively free US medical companies, where inventing new medicine is rewarded by payment.

They keep citing the large number of “uninsured” people “living in” the US while ignoring why these people choose not to purchase insurance whether it be because existing socialist programs make health insurance unaffordable or these people choose to spend whatever wealth they create on I-Pods, beer, video games, or birthing 5 children.

If socialized medicine is installed in the US, it will certainly be a significant milestone in the decline of western civilization with all its wealth and freedom. The concept of the freethinking and free-acting human that gave rise to unprecedented prosperity in the world since the Renaissance will be further sacrificed to the whims of the mobs and to the looting gangs. One only needs to observe life in Soviet Russia or Communist China to understand what the promises of socialism eventually bring.

Anyone who prefers that future humans be free individuals instead of being chained to the roving hoards (ala Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler) should expose such social programs for the fraudulent pyramid extortion schemes that they are. Humans have a right to be left alone–free from the extortion or force imposed by other humans, not a right to enslave other humans.

I’ve updated the IPCC computer climate model again to portray the ulterior motives of many 3rd world dictators in championing anthropogenic global warming (AGW): they have realized early on that AGW translates in to guilt-payouts to them from any country’s leaders that creates wealth (e.g., the USA). They blame the US for using up all the carbon credits and demand payment in lieu of creating wealth (or allowing the citizens to be free to create and trade wealth).

http://www.rationalopinions.com/images/climate-model03.swf

President Bush is joining the media call for sub-prime bailouts and offering federal help for those who have made bad decisions. During the last 5 years, mortgage lenders chose to make risky loans to under-qualified applicants based on the speculation that real estate prices would continue to rise.

Likewise, people chose to purchase homes that they could not otherwise afford. They too speculated that they could dump their homes at higher prices when the teaser rates expired.

These unqualified buyers further inflated real estate prices beyond their reasonable value.

Now, that the bubble has burst, politicians seek to remove the risk that these lenders and buyers knowingly assumed by softening their financial penalty. The president proposes that these buyers be allowed to refinance under FHA guarantees (the feds will guarantee the loan balance to the lenders in case of default, which would be likely if these same buyers couldn’t afford the original fixed term loan payments). All taxpayers will pay for that bailout.

The Federal Reserve Bank simply prints more money to lessen the penalty to these risky lenders and to those who have invested in their businesses. Anyone who is forced to use US dollars (all US citizens) pays for that bailout. All that money you put-away for retirement will now be worth less, and you’ll have to go out and create more wealth to compensate for this increased inflation.

Bailouts always punish those who behave responsibly and reward those who behave irresponsibly. As long as the government promises a safety net, people will continue to build homes under sea-level, sign contracts they knowingly cannot guarantee, or refuse to purchase insurance.

To the extent that governments engage in this unjust, looting and criminal redistribution, societies will crumble.

I recently made a purchasing decision to add a second phone line to our home based on the quoted rate at AT&T’s web site which was about $7/month based on the minimal options (hook-up fee excluded). Based on the first bill, I will be paying over $16/month for this service. Why the difference? Mostly “Surcharges and Other Fees,” according to the AT&T bill. These are not taxes (which add up to about $1.10 on a separate line-item), but rather AT&T’s own “surcharges.”

We’re all aware of the increasing deception in price quotes in various industries using this “surcharge” tactic. The $39.95 mobile phone plan rarely costs under $55.00. Concert tickets always have mandatory service fees added by the likes of Ticketmaster. However, the so-called public utility phone company almost doubling my bill is excessive.

I chose to add the line based on the quoted amount and expected to pay another, say, 20% from taxes and surcharges (which are always mentioned in the fine print). Had I known that the rate was $16/month, I would have simply kept my $13/month email/fax service and not paid the $35 (plus, you guess it, surcharges) for hooking up the phone line or spent hours rewiring my home to use the new phone line. So now, I’m still better off canceling the low-ball AT&T line and getting a fax service again.

I’m not sure what consumers can do except expect the worst up front, and be pleasantly surprised if the surcharges aren’t doubling the quoted amount. I wish that those who engage in this deceptive advertising would be financially penalized by their bad reputations, instead of rewarded to the extent of their success in deceiving their clients.

If anyone knows of any good resources for combating this trend, please leave feedback.

Update: AT&T claims that these surcharges are in fact FCC Fees (i.e., taxes) that they pass on to subscribers. However, these are still not added to the advertized price when shopping or subscribing (except for the typical “surcharges and fees extra” fine print). A baker does not add a “yeast surcharge” to the advertised price, so why should the phone company get away with this?

The US minimum wage recently rose again. The US government forces all people to use at least this minimum wage for employment compensation. This is regardless of what the employee and employer would have otherwise agreed to in the free market.

Supporters naively champion increases in the minimum wage as help for the poor. Summed up in the adage “let’s make the minimum wage $1000/hr, then we’d all be rich,” minimum wage laws attempt to achieve a fantasy.

More important than the number of dollars in one’s pocket is the buying power of those dollars. When a loaf of bread costs $300, $200 is not much money.

Yet many minimum wage supporters expect the poor’s buying power to increase while ignoring the increased costs of all goods and services that result from forcing the minimum wage upon all wealth creating businesses. After the market prices stabilize after a minimum wage increase, the poor are in the same position as before, but instead of paying $1.50 for a loaf of bread, they pay $2.00.

Their buying power is unchanged. The only effect of the minimum wage is to reduce the buying power of those who are not poor (i.e., those who create more wealth and/or spend less of their earnings).

This should be so obvious to adults, especially to politicians, that their motive must not be to help the poor but to attack anyone who creates wealth.

Socialists tend to not look at real wealth and quality of life improvements, but at relative wealth. They would rather force squalor upon all wealth creators than to allow the quality of life of all people to improve proportional to their productivity.

The minimum wage law should be recognized for the fraud that it is.

I occasionally listen to Leo Laporte’s technology shows. On today’s AM radio show, he ranted about the injustice of the RIAA success in enforcing “small web radio stations” to pay royalties for songs they play. He labeled the RIAA “greedy” and slammed them for not allowing “freedom” for web radio–essentially causing the Internet radio stations to shut down because they’d not be able to afford the royalties. He then cited an anecdotal reference to an actual musician who claims to want his music to be freely distributed without payment.

This stance is purely Marxist and is a blatant ploy to smash and grab the unearned.

“Free” Internet radio exists by offering value in exchange for web visits and traffic and exposure to advertisements. The value that these “free” Internet radio sites offer is music that they did not create, did not commission, and did not pay for. Yet, somehow, they believe it’s morally right to reap the benefits of using this unearned value. Even if these people choose to pay the operating costs without income from advertising, they are still giving away the unearned.

In exchange for creating music, the recording business has offered musicians wealth and perhaps fame. The recording business takes on the marketing, production, risk and all the other costs associated with selling music to the public. Most music that people enjoy has been a result of marketing by the recording industry–they get the music in to the ears of the public by radio play, organizing concerts and producing polished CDs. The demand that the public has for listening to most music comes from the recording industry.

Left to their own devices, musicians would generally reach very few people. If it weren’t for the gamble of the recording industry, they would offer their few customers relatively shabby products.

Generally, the recording industry pays the musicians for their music. The musicians agree to sell the rights to their music in exchange for a lump sum payment and many times, royalties. They have sold the music that they created to the recording company. So the musician that Leo says wants his music to be given out for free doesn’t mention that he has sold the songs long ago.

Leo also doesn’t fault the greed of the free web radio operators who get advertising income for giving out others’ products. The popularized version of a Marxist premise is “everyone who makes more than I do is greedy.”

While the RIAA has endorsed some intrusive methods to protect its products from mass theft and has not offered convenient transactions in the digital world, everyone should recognize what the facts of the relationships are, and recognize the right for a company to own music as a result of voluntary free trade with musicians. Those who wish to steal music that was originally sampled freely on commercial radio should be treated like the thieves they are.

I’m not certain how long this has been the case, but apparently, news reporters are now stating in the tone of factual reporting that humans are causing global warming. In one article I read about the doomsday report from a “union of concern scientists,” AP writer Angela Delli Santi states “The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and gasoline, are a leading cause of the heating of the planet, known as global warming.”

Possibly, this reporter believes that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a fact beyond question. It would be important to ask her why she believes this to understand how this hysteria is spreading throughout the pop culture. Another possibility is that she wants her readers to believe that AGW is a fact beyond question.

Reality doesn’t care what people believe, it keeps on behaving according to its identity or nature. What does matter is a how human belief affects everyone’s political freedoms and individual rights. When the Christians were acting in accordance with the “fact” of their god’s wishes during the dark ages, there was tyranny and misery with little advancement in technology. Witches were burned at the stake for mystically hurting others. Today, those clamoring for power or envious of the unprecedented success and wealth of the free market seek to force people to submit to the “fact” of AGW.

There is little appeal to science and reason, and those politicians who choose to cite scientific studies (e.g., Al Gore) pick and choose those papers that support their agenda while shamelessly ignoring papers that blatantly contradict the entire premise of AGW. They are not interested in knowing reality, but rather the conquest of humanity. After all, environmentalists operate on the premise that humans are innately evil because of their ability to create more wealth than primates. Interestingly, this is not too different from the Christian belief in original sin. 
 
Unfortunately these days, humans have increasingly fewer supporters. The political culture will progressively reflect this trend.

With Southern California grocery workers planning to strike soon, I thought it an appropriate time to review the state of the unions and their role in the economy. Essentially, modern unions use political pull and extortion to get the unearned.

Summarized in their slogan “live better, work union,” union bosses lure new recruits by offering unearned wages in exchange for dues. They know the value of votes in our unfettered democracy, and seek to stockpile them for use as ammunition against others. Historically, unions have successfully infiltrated US laws through their political activities. Although many of these laws have weakened since their heyday, businesses are still forced to respect union extortions and treat them like valid and lawful requests.

For their part, unions only offer more extortion. Instead of seeking to improve their value, union members choose to gouge employers. Instead of using union dues to create competing businesses, they choose to invest in political pull to help force more unearned money from businesses. While businesses must constantly adjust their tactics to stay profitable in changing markets, unions seek to shield themselves from changing labor markets and force businesses to handle all of the risks.

Essentially, the union credo is “we want more money, and we’re going to destroy the business (and our own jobs) to get it.” Government unions are much worse in this respect. Their parasitic hosts are not businesses, but rather all taxpayers who don’t have a choice to shop elsewhere.

Properly, in a free market, people are compensated according to the value that they create. This is why engineers and architects are compensated more than janitors.

An engineer with a broom can sweep a room, but a janitor with an aircraft wing will produce disaster. A janitor with a broom can sweep a room, but an engineer with an aircraft wing can help quickly transport people and products to the far reaches of the world.

In spite of the obvious difference in value, the established compensation is still a wonderful property of the free market that achieves the maximum efficiency. Just like movie tickets cost whatever most people are willing to pay for them, employees should be compensated according to what salary other people are willing to do the work for. If a dozen people are willing to sweep a room for $10, it would be inefficient and wasteful to pay another person $20 for the same job. Likewise, if very few are willing or able to sweep a room for $10, then the market price increases to the proper level. Furthermore, if janitor Jimmy creates a way to sweep a room in half the time, he can charge $9 and still be more profitable than the others.

I worked at several smaller grocery and retail stores in my late teens. It was essentially unskilled manual labor requiring basic skills that anyone could do. Now with labor saving devices like laser barcode scanners and self-checkout aisles, the skills needed from today’s grocery store workers should be less, not more.

In the coming weeks, the liberal media will certainly run “balanced” stories about poor grocery workers who claim that they need more money to support their lifestyles (especially their hungry children) while grocery executives and stockholders are accused of greed for their large compensations. No reporter will ask grocery workers if they can make a business profitable in the free market while navigating countless laws and regulations. Instead, union bosses will be on camera screaming Marxist slogans to help maintain their worthless political pull.

Please treat these people and their ideas accordingly.

Politician Al Gore continues his war against humanity this weekend by organizing “Live Earth” music concerts to promote his totalitarian agenda without the need for rational argument. It can be safely assumed that virtually nobody attending these concerts understands the science (or lack of science) behind the IPCC’s fantastic claims.

However, these concerts will likely prove successful because, in part, (a) young people are taught by teacher’s unions that reason is not necessary to live, (b) those wishing to behave morally for the first time will latch on to this, or any, self-sacrificial hysteria, (c) young people are highly impressionable by music (when I was a child, I though that Iron Maiden was a way of life).

Even though the climate has always been changing, and there are countless studies that refute claims that humans are affecting the climate, politicians continue to trumpet a new socialist/fascist/communist/totalitarian world in which government power structures control the lives of all in the name of all that is not human.

It’s not difficult to understand why politicians seeking more power love environmentalism.