Liberty Alone

There are many who campaign against trade. US politics seems to be dominated by NAFTA, not because its a mere parody of free trade, but because it is trade at all.
Drew Carey points out that if you’re worried about people doing work for less money, you should be worrying about machines, not trade.

Don’t worry though, machines and trade actually create jobs. They increase wealth and solve our problems.

The US has a massive problem with powerful Unions who are directly harming the prospects of children in the country. The Teacher’s
Unions stand opposed to anything which may upset their power base and deny them money. From forced membership of a Union and the Union decisions being binding upon non-members to arguing that teachers should not have to prepare lesson plans they directly affect the prospects of children, especially the poorest.

Drew Carey’s latest video for Reason TV is about one of the worst performing schools in the US and how the Union tried to prevent reforms designed to improve the school for the children. Listening to the Union spokesmen you’d think that schools are for teachers, not for pupils.
Thankfully, the story has a happy ending (so far - I would like a follow up to see what happened) with the school being granted charter status and being run by a non-profit organisation which successfully runs other schools with similar demographics and runs the schools for the pupils not the teachers (the head of the organisation says he’d sooner give up on a teacher than a pupil).

Also here

Thankfully, the situation is not as bad in the UK, although I’m sure there are trades unionists who would happily take such a line. Also the Professional Association of Teachers shows that it is possible to have a Union which looks after its member’s interests whilst placing the care and education of children foremost in their actions (Disclosure: My parents were both members for that very reason).