"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 08:23:57 -0500, Harry Krause wrote:


Some of us realize that if the US had a decent program of national health
insurance and pension programs, as most other modern nations do, our
manufacturers would be more competitive.

You have a point. Last time I looked, health care costs were very close
to 15% GDP. The rest of the industrialized world is around 10% and under.
That is a major anti-competitive cost.

I'll try and find the article I read about a month ago, which indicated that
Ford & GM had an ancient deal with the unions which involved paying workers
to sit around and do nothing. The deal continues, and I'm not kidding.