Stupid Unions - Local 5795 United Steelworkers

If a book was ever published called “Unions Shooting Themselves in the Foot”, it would probably be bigger than the Encyclopedia Britannica, and that would only cover Canada from 2014-2015. So in this particular case it’s Local 5795 United Steelworkers which operates in Labrador City working for the Iron Ore Company of Canada.

Basically the price of ore fell and the IOC asked for a small concession from workers. What do I mean by small? They asked workers to give up a 4% wage increase! Lol, they didn’t even ask for a reduction in wages.

So anyway, reading the articles about the issue, the president of the union basically said he thought the company could save money other ways. How he knew this is a mystery to me. Is he more highly trained than the CEO or other senior managers at the company whose main job is to increase revenue and decrease cost? Call me skeptical, but I highly doubt it.

So out of spite, the union voted 91% to reject maintaining the same wages. The result: 150 workers will lose their jobs. That’s good though, because they need to “Stop the Union Busting”, “Stand With Lab West”, because “Solidarity is a Weapon.” A weapon for what? Stupidity and job loss?

When daddy goes home and his little daughter asks why he’s sad he’ll say “cuz I lost my job.”

Little girl: but why daddy?

Daddy: Because they didn’t want to give me a raise.

Little girl: Now what happens?
Daddy: We go on welfare and suffer. But, my girl, I stood up for Lab West and stopped union busting.

Little girl: Will we have enough to eat and a place to live?

Daddy: We’ll have to eat mayonnaise sandwiches and live with Aunt Bertha in her tiny apartment. But you wanna know the good news?

Little girl *through tears*: yes daddy?

Daddy: Solidarity is a weapon…

Some people are now blaming the company for being “greedy”. Guess what – it’s the same company as before. The same company that was paying gigantic salaries to workers which they then used to overspend on unnecessary frivolities. The company is just as greedy as before, but greed has absolutely nothing to do with business operations, salaries, contracts, etc. The price of iron ore is not determined by the Iron Ore Company, it’s determined by the laws of supply and demand. Companies constantly try to be more efficient and save money. The salaries they were paying were necessary to get the workers they needed.

And as we see, no matter how many protests you hold, no matter how often you appear on Open Line, no matter how much you belly-ache to the government for help, none of this can change market conditions. Those workers who are “fighting for their rights” have lost or will lose their jobs. You want to call the company greedy? Go ahead, it changes nothing.

But also look at what people were doing in times or prosperity. Were they saving money in case of a rainy day? Every article on the subject talks about the huge salaries people were earning, but along with that people were spending money like it was going out of style. Huge houses, huge trucks, skidoos, quads, trips, everything you could think of. Somehow they thought their jobs were permanent. Now we hear all the sap stories about people who have “no hope”. Get over it, people lose jobs every day. You aren’t guaranteed anything and half the people working in Lab West didn’t even have much education – unskilled labour. Go find yourself a new job like everyone else has to.

But what makes this whole story even worse is that Lab West which once bragged about its unending stream of money now finds itself broke, and because it was financially irresponsible, everyone else in the province has to bail them out. The provincial government has already given this town of 9000 $3.8 million. That comes from everyone else in the province and the taxes we pay. What’s next, a millionaire loses his job but because he was wasteful and didn’t save anything, we have to bail him out? And who is bailing these people out? Other six-figure earners? Yes, but also everyday people who earn far less than this. It includes people with meager salaries who work hard to save whatever they can. Now they have to lose money to support once-rich people who squandered what they had.

Lessons to be learned:

-          Your job is not permanent. Very few people remain in the same job. Don’t spend 110% of your huge salary on “goodies” and go in to debt.

-          If you are in a union (which is probably stupid), try to be reasonable. Companies are greedy, so are union members. The members in this story were clearly greedy. Instead of accepting the same wage as the previous year, they were stubborn and lost their jobs. Greed, or self-interest, must be balanced with reality. That’s what the market teaches us, but unions think they are immune from the laws of economics. They think economics are determined by protests and squeaky wheels. Well, we all see the result.

-          It’s not everyone else’s responsibility to bail out six-figure earners or a town when people lose their jobs. Maybe the company could give the laid-off workers a flight to St. John’s to see if there are any jobs available. Don’t get me involved.

-          Companies have no obligation to take care of your every need and desire. Being hired is an agreement between employee and employer. They are not your stand-in parent or guardian. You are responsible for yourself. If you don’t like the contract, then renegotiate or leave. You have no “claim” on the money of a private company.

In a perfect world, these unions would learn from their mistake, but they probably won’t. They’re based on a flawed philosophy and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

 

Retarded St. John's Development

The development of the city of St. John’s is retarded. No, not mentally retarded, but as in the actual definition of “slowed”. There are several issues and it’s hard to know where to begin. Two of the main issues facing development are two Hs: Heritage and Height.

 

Heritage

Many, many buildings and homes in St. John’s are subject, arbitrarily of course, to heritage rules. These rules are designed to keep St. John’s looking like it’s from 100 years ago. It seems like every time someone wants to make a change to a house or building, a municipal committee has to approve it. But it goes from absurd to ridiculous when the heritage standards are applied to buildings which aren’t even built yet.

 

I was working for a company in Mt. Pearl that had ambitious plans to build a large structure downtown. They would first bulldoze a vacant, crumbling building which was styled like an 80s department store that was full of vermin. They would replace it with a state of the art edifice which would have been a great improvement. But first they had to be approved by a committee. First the committee demanded they build more than enough parking underground for its own employees. There had to be enough for probably double the number of people in the building in order to increase parking availability downtown. Secondly the building had to have a “heritage” look. What that meant no one really knew. The modern glass and steal design was unacceptable. It had to look like a small group of fishermen got together to build it. Maybe it had to be made of wood? Anyway, it had to be revised several times. Ultimately it was denied for pretty much arbitrary reasons.

 

Height

Height is another consideration that often comes up when building in St. John’s. Although there  is probably some rule somewhere about how tall a building can be, depending on area, it’s again applied arbitrarily. So back to the story I was just recounting. One of the problems with this building, as it was originally designed, was that it was too tall. I forget exactly the issue, but I think it was originally 7 storeys but the city said it had to be 5. So they changed the design to be 5 storeys, and it was of course still rejected. For anyone who doubts the process is arbitrary, I ask you one question: why is there so much debate every time a new building is proposed? Why are there community meetings? These would not be necessary if there was a clear law.

 

Higher is Better

So whenever a new building is proposed inevitably someone or some group will complain that it will block their view. They might spice up their argument by adding references to “democracy” or “livable communities” or some other vague unspecific argument. The thing about vague arguments is they are hard to argue against. But maybe not that hard. Most of the argument that happens between people is about how high buildings should be allowed to be. One group says they should be very low, others say they should be moderate, etc. I have a different approach that has more to do with property rights, but in the end I think it would work out much better.

 

Developers should be allowed to build as high as they want. This is a shocking proposal to most. But here’s why:

1)      Property rights. When someone buys land, from a moral perspective they own the land. Can we say someone really owns the land if another entity can dictate how the land can be used? This line of reasoning can sometimes be objected to on the basis that we cannot allow anyone to do literally anything with their land because it would create complete chaos in society with people building pig farms next to skyscrapers. I will talk later why this is absurd. But even with zoning, why should the height be restricted? Is there an upward limit on your property rights?

2)      From a practical point of view, allowing taller high rises would actually create MORE views of the harbour, not fewer. Skyscrapers would create hundreds of offices, rooms, and restaurants with a harbour view. If you don’t want someone blocking your view, your only guaranteed way of doing this is to buy a property right next on the waterfront.

 

I think it’s rather presumptuous for people to think they are “owed” a view to the harbour just because at the time they bought their house they could see it. If I build my house next to a vacant lot, do I have the right to complain when someone builds on it because before I had a nicer view before? Of course I don’t. You are only entitled to your own view, on your own property. I can understand people complaining about new buildings going up, especially if they have lucked into an awesome view, but what about the rights of property owners. Who has more rights to a parcel of land: the land owner, or the non-land owner who has a view? The answer is obvious.

 

St. John’s is holding itself back by disallowing taller buildings. We are listening to the complaints of people who want something for nothing. It’s easy to have an opinion on how a city “should” look when you are not paying the price for it. The major price we are paying is that of progress. Some people say the quaint, old fashioned look of St. John’s attracts a lot of people, but I’m very skeptical of this claim. People might like the old fashioned look if they happened to be here for some reason, but businesses will locate here if it makes business sense, not because of some vague concept of heritage. As for tourism, sure Newfoundland gets a few tourists, but what place doesn’t? If you were to rank St. John’s on the list of most visited Canadian cities, it would probably rank below the top ten.

 

Another ironic thing people will bring up is the so-called urban sprawl of the city. They complain that St. John’s is becoming too spread out and something needs to be done about it. I guess they don’t realize that strict zoning codes and urban sprawl go hand in hand. Although there are a couple of small condos near the harbourfront, I think a lot more people would live there if larger residential areas could be built. Plus, with these large buildings, the developer would probably be incentivized to build promenades along the harbour as well as that would increase the value of the property dramatically. Plus, we have to consider whether urban sprawl is as bad as people say it is. It’s usually a matter of people seeing a city as a Sim City game where it is up to them, through the democratic process, to decide how everyone should live, rather than seeing it as people making choices in their own best interest. If someone wants to live far away from the center of the city, why should we care about that? That’s their choice, not mine.

 

Note on Zoning:

Much of the fear of not having zoning laws comes from the idea that if we allow people to build whatever wherever, we will in fact create a sort of dystopian city where there is a slaughterhouse next to a swanky vegan restaurant or a factory smokestack in the downtown area. For many reasons this is an absurd fear. For one, factories would never locate on the super expensive land of a downtown capital city. They would never be able to compete with other factories that operate on the outskirts or completely outside the city. The same goes for slaughterhouses. The only properties that make sense in a downtown area are high-end retailers and high-density residential areas. Also, housing areas can form legal arrangements where new buildings must conform to certain standards. One way to do this is for a developer to buy a large area and any new housing development must abide by the rules. In any event, the fear of issues arising from lack of zoning laws is largely unfounded. Houston is a major city which does not have zoning laws. They are also one of the few places that has not experienced skyrocketing housing prices, even before the housing market crash. Prices have remained stable for several decades while in other places, prices shot up. The city is very large, but again, who is complaining? Probably not the people who are voluntarily choosing to live there!

 

 

 

Get Your Own Stupid Road CONCHE!

First of all, where / what is Conche? Answer: Nobody knows or cares except for the couple dozen people who live there. Why do I bring them up? Because they have their hat in hand telling everyone in Newfoundland that we have to pay for their stupid road going to the middle of nowhere. In that entire community lives 160 people. No, not 160,000, not even 16,000, not even 1600! Just a measly 160 people.

I say if you want to live there, feel free! Maybe you like being excluded from civilization, I don’t blame you with the way things are going, but don’t you dare ask me to shell out thousands of dollars for you to do so. I don’t have all the numbers here, but what we do know is that despite receiving $6 MILLION dollars from the provincial coffers, this place in the sticks still hasn’t completed the construction of its road. They still require significantly more money. By the time all is said and done, it could cost $10 MILLION!!!

Think about this for a second - $10 million for a village of 160 people. If the average family has 3 people in that community, that’s 54 families, so the cost per family is $185,000. But no, they won’t pay that themselves (I’m sure they can’t afford it anyway), they will demand everyone else pay for them.

Compare this to living in St. John’s. If St. John’s even spends $100 million per year on roads (which it doesn’t), the cost per person would be around $500-$1000.

This is why since time immemorial people have congregated in large, densely populated areas. This phenomenon has nothing to do with an increase in population as people have done this since Ancient Egypt and before. The reason is simple: when you live in a more densely populated area, there are economies of scale. A cell phone tower providing service to 100,000 people is much cheaper per person than one providing service for 160 people. A road driven on by 100,000 people costs FAR less per person than a road driven on by 160 people.

But because these people have decided to live out in the boondocks, we all of a sudden have to support them? Are they crazy?? At what point does this arrangement become absurd? What if a family of 5 decided to move to the northern-most tip of Labrador? Would we be forced to build a road connecting them to the rest of the province? Do we have to build a school for the 2 kids? Where does this nonsense end?? 160 is just as absurd. No slippery slope argument required.

And this is just the road. There are probably dozens of other things everyone is forced to pay for such as clinics, schools, police, etc. Who knows how many millions we are sinking into this place. Plus, is it fair that the government will probably spend $300,000-$400,000 per person in this community, but the average expenditure for everyone else is a small fraction of that?

Overall it probably costs $100,000 per person per year to support this crowd. It would be cheaper to pay them to live in St. John’s with personal servants at their fancy estate complete with an expensive car and a chauffeur. And they wouldn’t even have to work, and we would still save money.

To the people of Conche – leave me alone. I don’t want to give you my money, nor does anyone else. Live in a city if you want roads. I would like to live in a multi-million dollar house with all the amenities. Can you pay for it please? Didn’t think so. You know the saying do unto others – well abide by it!

A lot of people will still not be convinced by my arguments. They’ll say some socialist feel-good thing like “we deserve to be all taken care of by our government” or “it is the government’s responsibility to build roads”.

First of all, what is “the government”. Well, really it’s a handful of authoritarians who do things considered illegal for everyone else such as theft and expropriation. But really the government has no money of its own. They must steal it from everyone else. So when some self-righteous do-gooder proclaims that a road “must be built”, they are really telling the military to make sure that everyone pays up against their will to build a road to the middle of nowhere. Is this really any way to organize society? Again, there are many things many people want. I want a helicopter to pick me up and bring me to work every day. That doesn’t mean I should get it. But that would probably still cost way less than this Conche road.

The only moral way to live is on a voluntary basis, not using government to force people to do your whims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alberta Goes Socialist

People are starting to give up entirely on this country after Alberta has decided to go full socialist on us. We used to think of Alberta as our conservative sister in the country, but now they’ve turned orange, which is really just a shade of commie red. That’s because deep down people aren’t really conservative in that province. It’s just that when things were going well they didn’t have to live at anyone else’s expense and they were afraid of having their money taken away so then they were “independent”. But now that things are a little shakier, they feel it’s okay to live at others’ expenses.

I would say a lot of people bought expensive things like cars and big houses, went to fancy restaurants, etc. and would spend all their money. Now that things aren’t looking so hopeful, they’re afraid and they are running to their government overlords for help like little children.

This is a sad day for Canada.

Uncompetitive Hotel Cowards Looking for Mommy-Government to Come to Rescue in Newfoundland

In an all-out assault on our accommodation freedom, Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador is appealing to government to make many voluntary lodging arrangements illegal. Authoritarian Rex Avery, the head of HNL, believes he is more of an adult than everyone else and that he needs to treat everyone as children. He doesn’t believe free people should be allowed to make voluntary choices as to where they stay on vacation, but rather he and his government goons should force people to stay where they decide. “Avery says the Newfoundland and Labrador government should follow Quebec's footsteps by making moves to fine anyone who attempts to rent out their homes as hotels.” But we live in a free country right?

Because Mr. Avery cannot actually compete and loathes the idea of a free market where he is forced to offer a compelling sales proposition, he instead relies on the force and coercion of the government to do his bidding. It’s just an old ploy that uncompetitive businesses and industries are fond of using. It goes like this:

1.       Establish a business, make some money

2.       Competition enters which is more competitive, offering either higher quality or lower prices or both

3.       Run to the government to demand protectionism to make competition illegal and refuse to innovate

4.       Claim you are just a really caring person who cares about the “health and safety” of people and you are really just a consumer advocate! Balk at any suggestion that you are pursuing selfish interests.

This is just a textbook example of businesses seeking special protections against competition. The only people better off for this arrangement is the businesses receiving this protection, never the consumer. Usually it’s the big guy trying to trample the little guy which is why governments often side with the big bully. The bully can provide campaign contributions and they are an organized and unified voting block – something very attractive to politicians.

The canard that is nearly always used is that the competition is “unsafe” or “dangerous” in some way. At least Rex Avery was somewhat honest by admitting that he is concerned about “his” industry and his revenue potential.

Let’s translate some of the stuff Mr. Avery is saying:

 

What Mr. Avery he says:	Analysis
“Airbnb is a business where it's unlicensed, they don't collect taxes, they don't pay taxes, they don't support the economy.”	I really have no idea what this even means. So unless a business is “licensed” or “pay taxes”, it doesn’t support the economy?? What is the economy in Mr. Avery’s opinion – tax collection? But Airbnb does in fact pay taxes. And what does being licensed have to do with supporting the economy? Absolutely nothing. This sentence is completely nonsensical. The “economy” is all financial interactions of people in a given area. It’s not paying taxes and being licensed.
“You may pay more but you're protected, your experience is what you'd expect and there's no hidden surprises.”	No surprises? Has Mr. Avery ever even been in a hotel? Hotels are full of surprises! Dirty bed sheets, dirty towels, bugs, poor service, overbooked rooms. What kind of dream world does Rex Avery live in to believe there are never any hidden surprises with hotels. Again, just a form of verbal advertising for the hotel industry that has no reflection on reality.   Another interesting question is how many people have had negative experiences with airbnb. They have had thousands of tenants and exchanges, yet when something bad happens like the incident recently in Calgary, the media goes berserk. Plus, even in that incident no one was actually physically hurt.
Avery said it also creates an unfair situation in which legitimate hoteliers and bed and breakfast owners, who pay taxes and help stimulate the economy, are up against tough competition.	“Legitimate” in this sense means cartelized. Paying taxes does not stimulate the economy. At most, it stimulates the government. Often it destroys the economy.
"A lot of these [hosts] that are renting these places don't understand the liability and risk they take by trying to make a quick dollar," Avery said.	They don’t understand the risk, so it should be illegal? You mean it’s impossible for someone to start a hotel without knowing the risk? That’s like saying “Some drivers don’t know the risk with driving, let’s make driving illegal!”   The “risk” is simply a matter of insurance. If someone doesn’t have sufficient insurance, then too bad, so sad, they lose their property if something happens. I don’t see why this would automatically make the industry illegal.
“by trying to make a quick dollar”	This statement is extremely patronizing and it’s really a pet peeve of mine. They act as though no one should be allowed to make any money except them and that if someone other than them tries to they are somehow sleazy lowlifes. “making a quick dollar” is also referred to as making a living. How dare Mr. Avery act as though there is something wrong with this!

Also, notice how CBC is acting like this incident in Calgary is the end of the world. It’s not just a one-off event, it’s the scary, demonized, terrifying “unregulated” market again! Take your children inside quick! An overpaid under-motivated government worker didn’t waltz in one day to have a quick glance around the place and another one didn’t charge a huge tax amount. So I mean obviously these places must be unimaginably horrible, practical torture chambers filled with the most disgusting and dangerous surroundings! Give me a break!

Frederick Bastiat, the famous French economist from a couple of hundred years ago once wrote a satirical essay about a fictional new law in France forcing people to never open their window shutters, especially during the day, requiring people to stay indoors during daylight hours, and other absurd measures because candle-makers couldn’t compete with the sunlight. Mr. Rex Avery and his ilk are no less absurd in what they are demanding.