Saturday, August 24, 2013

SEIU: The 21st Century's Jack Cade

William Shakespeare's plays always featured some sort of comic relief to appeal to the groundlings: lower-class Britons who had to sit on the ground because they could not afford theater seats.  These members of his audience had enough common sense to laugh, for example, at Jack Cade's outrageous propositions in Henry VI.  Fast food workers will, hopefully, have enough sense to dismiss similarly the equally outrageous promises by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony to drink small beer... and when I am king, as king I will be, there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.

Even the groundlings knew what would happen if the King decreed that bakers must sell seven half-penny loaves for a penny.  Bread would quickly become available only on the black market, if it was available at all.  Henry Ford said explicitly that it is not possible to legislate prosperity, but he proved that his universal code of economic, scientific, and behavioral laws can create almost limitless wealth.  Ford's industries, and those that developed to support them, created high-wage jobs while they made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

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