Unions and Strikes: I'm actually not as vehemently anti-union as some might think I would be. I actually consider employees just like I would any other good or service, as anybody else should. You, as an employee, are pretty much just like the guys who make Pepsi. The guys who make Pepsi want to get as much money as possible in exchange for their product. They've got pretty much two choices for how to make more money. They can raise their prices, or they can sell more Pepsi. The problem is, people are then free to head on over and buy Pepsi.

It's the same way with you. You can either work more hours or ask for more money. The problem is, your boss is then free to find somebody else who can do the same job you're doing for the same price, since you're all just the employee equivalent of fizzy sugar water.

A union is the equivalent of an oligopoly. Coke and Pepsi get together and decide that ain't nobody going to get any more soda unless they're willing to pay a buck a can. Would anybody go for it? Should anybody go for it? Of course not. Coke remains coke, and still isn't worth a buck a can.

Now, say that since nobody wanted to pay a buck a can, Coke and Pepsi suddenly decided that, in order to teach everybody a lesson, they were going to stop making soda. No more, they say, until everybody realizes how much they miss us. Only when everybody changes their mind and decide to pay a buck a can for soda will they start making product again.

How wise does this seem? Would you, as a stockholder, put a lot of faith in the CEO if they acted like this?

So why does everybody think the Union leaders are so all-fired noble and brilliant for attempting pretty much the same strategy?

There's only one way to get more money for Pepsi, and that's to make Pepsi worth more money. If it, say, also cured cancer and regrew hair, then maybe people might ante up the extra money.

In other words, the grocer's union workers should find some way to increase the value of the work they're doing. Time it was that grocery store checking was a semi-professional job. You had to have flawless, lightening fast ten-key speed to punch up the prices of all of those items quickly and accurately, all while engaging in mindless banter with the customer.

Now, you pretty much just have to scan and scowl.

Do the grocery store clerks really think they're so irreplaceable that by standing in the parking lots they're leaving employers cowering in fear, wondering how the stores will function?

I'm sorry, but my two-year-old pretty much got it right her first try on the Barbie "Shop With Me" Cash Register.

I do feel there are unions and professional organizations that are able to exercise some leverage by unionizing, and I'm not going to deny them the right to do it.

But isn't it a little hypocritical to pick on monopolies and oligopolies as being unfair when a company is doing it, but then calling it unfair when individual people are doing it?

Actually, the person who gets screwed the most by Unions is the guy who does his job incredibly well, and competently. He ends up having to take up the slack of the less competent guy working beside him, who is making the exact same amount as him, even though he's nowhere near as good a worker.

But man, the unions sure are nice for the incompetent guy, aren't they?