Sunday, February 21, 2010

Whats with the strikes?

Lufthansa employees on strike. British Airways employees on strike. Greek unions strike after government freezes pay. Boeing employees strike after threats of job cuts. Strike and what? Decrease profits even more?
Don't they know that all it will do is lead to even bigger layoffs down the road e.g. GM/Chrysler/Ford? Profitability issues slowly morph into spectacular losses and bankruptcy (or near bankruptcy as in the case of Ford.). Maybe apart from Greece, most of these countries have pretty good labor laws which really obviates the need for unions. Unions end up behaving like a cartel, basically holding the company hostage to extract a disproportionate share of economic output.
Speaking of strikes. Lets talk about a strike out. Whats with the fun crap shoot in Iraq, when it is turning out to be that the nukes are in Iran after all? All Saddam did was build big palaces, abuse the football team for losing matches and defile historical sites by having his name inscribed on every brick. It saddens me though. Countries like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan were at the forefront of art and culture for 3000 years. Why are they in such a mess now? At least India and China are coming back after a century or two of colonial dacoity.

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