An Open Letter to Bob Beckel

I was watching The Five on the Fox News Channel yesterday and heard, again, Bob Beckel singing the praises of unions. (Although he thought that the Bakers Union should give a bit so Hostess--and Twinkies--would not go out of business.

Dear Bob Beckel:

I got to thinking, what would the U.S. be like if, somehow, every business could be unionized. I mean, the union hierarchy would love that, billions of dollars to flow into their coffers for them to use ... well, however they wanted. I'm sure it would all go to help union workers.

So, every workers who is not a business owner or part of management is a union worker getting maximum pay and maximum benefits, right? Cool! A virtual paradise on Earth, right?

There is just a small problem with that scenario. With businesses having to pay all workers union-type wages (above average) and union-type benefits (again, above average), then the costs for the products and services that all businesses provide would necessarily have to go up ... way up. We, the U.S. would quickly become the most expensive place in the world to live.

That would kill tourism, although I doubt the U.S., overall, depends that much on tourism, but several businesses do. So they would be out of business, except for those catering to the rich. They would still be working because the rich of other nations would be able to afford the cost of coming to America.

Then there are the unemployed and the elderly on fixed incomes. Would they be able to buy enough food or pay for enough heat in the winter? Maybe the government could print up some more money and give it to the poor and those on fixed incomes. Of course, with everyone being a union worker, making more money, the government would be collecting more taxes, right? So, between more taxes and more money printed the government could take care of those in need.

But what of the union workers? Would their lot be any better? Probably not. Everything would now cost a lot more and so their increased wages wouldn't go any further than before, maybe not as far. Health care, what with their wonderful union benefits package? But with hospitals and clinics and pharmaceutical companies all being unionized, those cost would go up too. So that would probably be a wash.

But, wait, retirement! Yeah, the retired union workers would be on east street, right? No, because, they would be on fixed, retirement incomes and costs would continue to climb as the unions demanded more and more pay and benefits from the evil capitalists to keep up with the costs created by every worker getting union wages and benefits.

Of course, it's the evil capitalist that provide the jobs in the first place, not unions. No union ever created a job for any union worker. Unions only create jobs for union leaders and union leaders are takers, not makers. At least the union workers are making products or providing services, like cars, or shoes, or food, and other goodies that we need and want. Not so the union leaders.

So am I against unions? Not in theory. Sometimes workers need to organize to get better wages, working conditions, benefits. But so often the union leaders take the issues beyond the point of reason and logic and hurt, rather than help, the economy and society in general. Union leaders act like the top management of evil capitalists, or at least, that's how it seems to me, Bob.

All in all, I don't think a totally unionized nation would be a good thing at all. And there are some evil capitalists who pay good wages and provide good benefits without the unions. Of course, you never said that you wanted every non-management worker unionized. But it just seems to me that you would like it to be that way. But then, now that I think of it, why not unionize management too? Yeah, that's it! That's the ticket!

Obama's Energy Policy and the Possible Effect on the Poor

I don't believe in human-caused global warming/climate change. I've been researching for over three years now and there is plenty of evidence to show that. CO2 has little to no effect on global warming. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that  heat always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature, and never the reverse.

So what has the higher temperature, the surface of the Earth or the upper atmosphere? The upper atmosphere is extremely cold, of course. Yet we are supposed to believe that the CO2 in the upper atmosphere will radiate heat back to the warmer surface of the Earth thereby breaking the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

CO2 is absolutely necessary for plant growth and the more the better. Without CO2 plants die and then everything else dies, including people. Plants, if you will remember from your middle school science classes, produce oxygen, which is what humans, and other animals need in order to survive. Simple, right?

Ice core samples have shown that in the past CO2 levels followed the warming of the Earth, not the other way around as we have been told and as Obama obviously believes. (Of course, if he really doesn't believe that then ... well, I really don't want to go there.)

Also, it's been hotter in the past with lower CO2 levels. Humans, it seems, have short term memories or don't bother to check on what happened 50 to 100 years ago.

We are also near the end of an inter-glacial period. Over the last several hunderd thousand years, there have been major ice-age glaciations of the northern hemisphere. Each ice age lasted about 100,000 years and the inter-glacial period last between 10,000 and 12,000 years. That along with the fact that sun spot activity is low (more sun spots means more energy output from the sun, means more energy--heat--received by the Earth) among other factors, means that we could be just around the corner from a full-blown ice age or, at the very least, a mini-ice-age, which would mean longer, harsher winters across most of the northern land mass of Earth.

Okay, that's the basics. So, if we don't have global warming to the point that Obama, Gore, et.al., believe, we will, eventually, have global cooling. There are some who are predicting a mini-ice-age beginning in 2014. But the Obama policy, if carried out in full, will raise energy prices and raise them substantially. Those on fixed incomes and the poor in general, will not be able to afford to properly heat their houses or apartments. That means we will have a higher than average death rate from pneumonia and other cold-related disease, including some who will merely freezed to death if they don't starve to death first. What can they afford to pay for? The choice will be between food and heating costs.

Of course, if the global warmist are correct that we are going into a severe warming stage on Earth (but, surely not from CO2), then the higher energy prices means that the poor and elderly on fixed incomes will die at a higher rate from heat exhaustion because they won't be able to afford to properly cool their homes or apartments.

Either way, it looks like the Obama energy policy is design to harm those on the lowest end of the economic scale in America. The middle class will struggle with higher energy prices, but will be able to manage it, and the rich, of course, won't have any problem at all paying to keep their houses warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

This begs the question: Why is Obama and the liberal left so set on harming the most vulnerable people in our nation?