EDITORIAL: Unions and the Big Three

Some say that the CEOs of The Detroit Drawfs have caused this problem by conceding so much to the UAW over the years. The reality is that the US auto makers would have gone under long ago due to the UAW strikes. The UAW was willing to risk putting each company out of business with their demands and strikes when the companies did not immediately cave. By caving each time, all the companies managed to do was put off for a few more years what the strikes would have done anyways. It has been a very long time since shareholders have benefitted at all from their holdings in these companies. There just isn't enough return that justifies the risk. The stock market knows this, which is why none of the companies can even think about a market approach to help them out. The UAW killed these companies a long time ago. They just didn't know they were dead yet. If we keep the companies going now, the UAW will simply return like Jason from "Friday the 13th" to continue their deadly assault. Only from this point forward, it won't be the stockholders that get bloodied up, it will include the tax payers too. And like with Friday the 13th, there will be sequels. Tax payers already have to support the workers via social security and medicare in their retirement. There is no reason why we should have to supplement their income by paying for lavish pension and health benefits the companies were forced to agree to in order to avoid going out of business years ago. Especially since one can retire at so young an age with all those benefits.

This is such a difficult issue, but it appears that the time has come to bust the UAW, lest they continue to negatively effect our economy and ultimately go belly up because they cannot make a profit or compete with with Japanese. There is no longer a need for the unions and American can do without the inflation they continually cause. We have grown tired of their one sided, strong handed politics which help deliver negative growth politicians.