Hacks and Douchebags

Well, well, well. It gets more interesting all the time.

Here we have a hack writing an opinion article who's real purpose is to blame unions for the ills facing our economy in terms of the Caterpillar situation.

Nasty As Caterpiller May Be
Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, vowed to mobilize workers from across the province to help the CAW stop “scabs” from crossing their picket lines. There was the usual handwringing in the press that the dispute could become “volatile,” journalistic code for violence. All of this was discussed as if it were the most normal thing in the world, in the 21st century, to be resolving disputes by the use of hundreds of big heavy men to prevent or intimidate others from going about their lawful business: physical force, in other words.

Now, I don't call him a hack because I'm necessarily pro-union. I think there are other issues at work that are very worthy of discussion if you wish to pretend to offer an economic analysis:

• A strong Canadian currency hurts us.
• Desperate levels of incentives from US quarters hurts us.
• And yes, higher wages do certainly hurt us.

Blaming the unions for all our problems, or government efforts to compete with US subsidization, is the problem I have with all this.

As if this isn't bad enough we have douchebag economists making appearances for some back patting on this trite little article.

I think I see something here. We are having partisan viewpoints being spun, or at least positively commented on, from both the educational and media arenas.

We're being invaded by hacks and douchebags. Lucky us.