- Joined
- Apr 14, 2008
- Messages
- 13,012
- Reaction score
- 5,741
- Location
- Huntsville, AL (USA)
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
No, they're not the only reason but they are a major contributing factor and they were, without question, the straw that broke the camel's back. That's the insidious nature of these massive union benefit packages, they get larger and larger and larger every year as more and more people qualify and modern medical technology keeps the retirees alive for longer.
But even your above argument attempts to place the blame squarely on unions although you cleverly add life span and health care into the mix. All this tells me is you're fixated on blaming the other guy's political values on the problem when truth be told it wasn't just social engineering alone that caused the mess. Ask yourself why did auto companies leave Detroit even after auto unions were effectively destroyed, pension plans were effectively done away with and the state (I presume) shifted to a right-to-work state? Why did Detroit continue to have problems?
I can agree with you that unions played a significant role here, but you're being dishonest if you can't admit that there were other factors that were involved, i.e., a static tax code that never changed as industries left and local government did nothing to create incentives to lure new industry to the area, i.e., shipping. Or better yet, shift your business model to produce something other than cars.
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