Finally somebody with brains. Thank you sir. I got tired of answering all those yahoos who think that this whole crisis is the fault of UAW. However, I bet you in 5 years that is going to be the official history.... it was UAW that brought the crisis of 2008. Watch my words.
I agree. I'm using the colloquial definition relative to bailout Socialism and "wage controls" that are championed by many at Elite. Free(er) Markets are possible with a true Anti-Trust/Anti-Monopoly Act that enforce based on Market Share. Of course, we'd have to get rid of the FED, the income tax, corporate welfare, etc etc. But you get the idea.
Mercor, there is a key point (my italics) in your post that I believe is not entirely supported by history. If you look at the statistics for VW bug sales starting in the 50's, i think you will find that VW gained market share steadily without building a larger bug. Slowly at first and then more rapidly they took sales away from Detroit. All the while Detroit was "saying Americans did not want small cars." Then of course the Japan cars arrived on the seen and it was the same story all over again. While the Japanese manufacturers continued to take market share by selling good, reliable, small cars, Detroit repeated year after year the same mantra that "Americans want big cars." I remember this very well. When Japanese markets were opened to US cars, the first cars the US makers sent to Japan were too large and had steering wheels on the wrong side. Is it any wonder they did not sell like hotcakes. Then the US makers complained about unfair competition.
If Obama manages to match the current Republican administration in its lust for socialist bailouts of businesses which should be allowed to fail, he'll have to do nothing but write cheques for about the first 6 months of his Presidency.
So what exactly do you see wrong with my message of unions then? It's much easier to allow unions to express their power than to trust government agencies to prosecute monopoly abuses and to get rid of all the things you talked about. The end result is about the same, it prevents the monopolies or oligopolies from exploiting their position of power.