Justin DeWind Regional Coordinator Location: Grand Rapids, MI Last login: 01/26/11 RSS feed
I am an alumnus of Grand Valley State University. I graduated from GVSU with a degree in Information Systems in 2006. I almost minored in Philosophy, but I ended up a few credits short before graduation. Since September of 2005 I have worked with a software development firm based in Grand Rapids, MI called Atomic Object.
I have only recently discovered that I am a Libertarian after wandering aimlessly for a few years in politicol limbo. I hold relatively staunch Libertarian economic, civil and government points of view. However, I can be known to take a gradualist approach to my views when it is necessary .
Posted by Justin DeWind on 07/29/09 Last updated 07/29/09
Ron Paul attended a small meet and greet hosted by the Kent County GOP on July 24th. Jordan Bush and Eric Larson both did a great job organizing the event. The event was small enough that it was extremely easy to meet and talk with Congressman Paul and hear his thoughts on the issues. It was also an opportunity to show the Kent County GOP that young people do care about liberty and that the Republican rebuilding process has to be around young liberty minded activists.
Get to calling all your reps on Audit the Fed and promoting more leaders like Paul like Peter Schiff, RJ Harris, Adam Kokesh, and Rand Paul. We need to get the grassroots taking action everywhere again. We have a couple hundred thousand members. Come on folks!
George Bush expanded domestic spending at a faster clip than Lyndon Johnson, set up the monetary and institutional conditions for a massive economic collapse, and then explicitly told us that it was necessary for America to abandon the market system "in order to save it".
You would think that would be enough damage for one man.
But now -- just as I predicted last year -- George Bush is set on going the Full Hoover. After laying waste to American capitalism, Bush is now set to discredit the idea of the competitive market, making speeches out of office just like Herbert Hoover which portray himself and his failed policies as the very poster boy of the the free market system:
Repeatedly in his hour long speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.
"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States," he said to huge cheers.
.. Mr. Bush returned again and again to the economy, and sought to defend his own actions after the financial meltdown in the waning days of his second term -- Mr. Obama repeatedly has said he inherited that mess.
"I am told, 'If you do not move strongly, Mr. President, you will be a president overseeing a depression that will ultimately be greater than the Great Depression,'" Mr. Bush said ..
Still, Mr. Bush was optimistic, pressing, as he did as president, free trade, open markets and the free enterprise system. "We'll come out of this better than before," he said to more applause.
This is a very accurate parallel! Except, we're here to make sure that people know what happened this time around, instead of all that garbage about FDR saving the economy, etc. We know the fallacies surrounding the Great Depression, and we must prevent that misshapen version of history from being recalled that way again.
Posted by Justin DeWind on 06/05/09 Last updated 06/05/09
There are lazy people where ever you go. However, it doesn't mean that everyone in a union is lazy by any means. Many of them are honest hard-working individuals that chose a job that appeared to lucrative.
The problem with a union is that they are a collectivist organization that dictate the demands, wages, and benefits for an entire set of individuals. This is bound to cause problems. The demands and wants of an individual are different from one to another. Perhaps a less senior individual is willing to not take a pay raise to keep their job?
Unions also act as protectorates of their jobs. Individuals that are more ambitious, productive, and intelligent are not rewarded necessarily for their competencies. In fact, they may find themselves at more risk than a tenured senior who is less productive.
Secondly, large closed door unions usually work in collusion with the government. They demand higher than market wages, which are either subsidized by the consumer, other workers, tax payers, or the company's bottom line. (This is not even taking inflation into account, unions try to keep ahead of it). These temporary artificial wage bubbles in a particular sector are bound to pop. When it pops, honest and hard working individuals who lived at a certain standard are then forced to live at a lower standard.
The existence of a free market and voluntary union is fine. Fight to keep wages at a market level. Rarely, however, do companies pay below this. The instances where they do not pay proper wages are highly publicized. The government shills and statists always seize a localized crisis.
Let us never forget that the artificial wealth of a union worker is both destructive to them and those that have to subsidize their wages. It is the mis-allocation of resources and capital. Those individuals may have pursued different careers or gone to college if they had known that the job was not going to pay $35/hr. Capital would have been allocated more efficiently to other industries or sectors rather than subsidizing wages and benefits.
The way I see Unions is like any other voluntary effort. If they want to collectively bargain the owners of the company they work for, that's fine. If the owners fire them for it, that's fine.
What is not fine is Unions crawling to the government and demanding that the government use the armed might and force of law to coerce business owners to abide by Union demands. That is economically and morally wrong, and starts us on that slippery slope of using the government to force anything out of anyone.
Why don't workers pool their money together and by shares in the company they work for? With positions on the board, they can reform pay, conditions, benefits, hours, etc. I see that as being a perfectly legitimate function for unions and "collective bargaining"
But DO NOT use the force of government and my money to force another individual or group of investors to bend to someone's will.
Unions have a "Doomsday Mechanism" built right into them... the unions get a percentage of the workers pay for dues. This means there is always a direct incentive for the union to continuously get more and more benefits and wage increases for the workers, without regard to the business. This is a bubble that will eventually inflate until price of production is too high to remain competitive. POP! - everyone loses... except a fascistic government.
Our president of the company did a small blog post in regards to the 'risk' of working for a smaller company and I thought I'd share it. Atomic Object is a service oriented company with a great business model and operates with no debt and a substantial bit of capital for its size. It has not become victim of the 'too big to fail' bailouts. But it is unfortunate that we may have to endure an unstable market because of the extraordinary measures the government has taken to bailout industry giants.
Good post and the blog post you linked is right on the mark. I'm an IT manager and I've witnessed first-hand the phenomenon of the big-company mentality. Of late, I've discovered the reason for it. Surprise! Government regulations are the culprit. Those big companies are all public, which means quarterly reports required by FTC or SEC (I've forgotten which). 90 days is not enough time to legitimately turn-around an un-profitable company, especially a large one. Therefore, the executives (usually the new boss) has to take some kind of action, ergo, he fires people, downsizes staff, heedless of the experience and talent that's walking out (there isn't time to sort the wheat from the chaff). If the company returns to profitability (usually by extraordinary effort by the survivors), new boss is a hero. Small companies aren't under the quarterly report gun and they usually know which employees are productive and which are marginal.
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