Unions are stupid.

St. Louis is a strong "union town," and while we were living there I got to see just how out-dated, foolish, and delusional unions are. A couple of years ago the grocery store union (it had a fancy name, I just don't care enough to find out what it is) went on strike because they wanted something like a nickel-an-hour raise for everyone across the board, and they were offended because the grocers were changing their health insurance plan to a $500 per family deductible and 80/20 co-insurance up to $1,500 per family after that.

The grocery workers' strike lasted for almost three months and, frankly, it was a great three months with the management employees working the union employees' jobs. The clerks actually looked at us while they were speaking instead of talking to each other as if we weren't there. They smiled, didn't chew gum, and didn't have piles of visible piercings. It was almost as if they cared about the company they worked for and wanted to see it succeed. A novel concept, I know!

What blew me away at the time was the thought that people would DEMAND a raise of a nickel an hour for a job that I did (and did well) as an uneducated 10th grader. Simple supply and demand forces explain why someone who does a job that anyone else can do won't get paid very much. Bagging groceries? Somewhere near 95% of the population can do this job. Hitting major league pitching? Ask Albert Pujols how many people can do that. If 95 out of every 100 people can do your job, you probably shouldn't walk away from it.

So today I hear that the United Auto Workers have called for a nationwide strike against GM. Brilliant, says I. Their number one reason for going on strike? You're not going to believe this… "job security."

This might be news to the folks who run the machines in Detroit, but there are millions (billions?) of people in the world who are willing and able to build cars. On top of that, many of them live in countries where the idea of HAVING A JOB is enough of an enticement to get them to stand on the assembly line. You want a pension? You want health insurance? You want "job security?" Well, mi amigo, there are plenty of people who will do your *old* job without all that stuff. And, this is probably the excuse GM needed to justify moving their production facilities to Juarez, or maybe even some nice little city in Indonesia.

The good people of the UAW might want to reconsider their little escapade here, especially since it's going to get cold soon. While they're all standing around a burn barrel this fall outside of a shut down factory, they might want to think of the nice, tropical climates around the world since they'll probably have to relocate to one of them if they want to get their old job back.