Why do all these fix-the-world types never look at the logical conclusions to their ideas for world peace, or better living, or name-today's-cause? The New York Times, for instance, is whining that Wal-Mart does not pay their employees enough. Well what if they started paying everyone $2/hr more? They'd have to do one or more of the following: Raise prices on their goods, thus lowering sales, and have less money to pay these higher wages. Lower their dividend payments, or sell more stock, which would devalue the stock which is alreayd out there, much of which is held by various pension plans, thus screwing over millions of teachers, cops, etc. who are depending on Wal-Mart stock in their plans for retirement. Fire a quarter or so of their employees so that the other 3/4s can get that raise, and the quarter that is fired can live in poverty. The fact is, Wal-Mart pays their employees based on the value of their work, not their needs. If a Wal-Mart employee is living on minimum wage, good for them. If they are doing it while raising a family, well that's gotta be hard to do. Perhaps they should have gotten a better job. But they couldn't because they didn't go to college? Why not? Had kids at 17. Is that my fault, or Wal-Mart's fault? Why should Wal-Mart have to pay $8/hr to someone who does $5/hr worth of work? No reason in the world. Another thing... If you raise the wages $2/hr, the price of the good goes up, and that employee won't be able to purchase a single bit more with their new money than they did before... Unless they go shop at a competitor who still pays by value and not by 'need.' But hey, while unemployment would go up a lot, and there would be a lot more people who can't even make minimum wage, those other people would have $2/hr more to be taxed on.

The Kyoto Accords... Sounds great, sign on and reduce bad gas. But what does that reduction mean? A lot of manufacturing and power plants in the US would have to close or be upgraded. Upgrades cost a lot of money, meaning those companies would have layoffs, or hire less new people, or perhaps with the upgrade they would get a new computer system that runs the plant automatically, making them able to get rid of all but a couple of their employees. Obviously a lot of people would lose their jobs from the plants that have to close. Goods will cost more because the price of making them will go up. Suddenly goods from China will cost half as much as American made goods. More companies will outsource to find the best place to make their goods cheap. More jobs are lost. The closed power plants would cause energy prices to go up. Many refineries would have to close, and we already have a shortage of refineries, one of the reasons gas is so costly right now. So gas would go up even more. That would add even more to the cost of good manufactured here because it would cost so much to transport them. Shipping would be even more consolidated, meaning a lot of truck drivers will lose their jobs. But hey, at least the air is cleaner, and less industrialized countries will have booming economies.

There are so many plans out there to make the world a better place, but most of them I see, especially from the left, use little foresight, and would cause far more damage than help. Next time you have a bright idea for world peace, think it through before you start picketing.