What do Union's want? Amazon recently fired about 1,300 jobs. As part of their labor agreement, they asked some employees to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent them from badmouthing the company, and in return, offered those that signed more money.

Unions agitated against this, and got it rescinded.

My question is -- how did the Union action serve the employees? Although it might be nice to vent against someone who fired you, if push came to shove I would rather have an extra couple of thousand dollars in my pocket. So now, no one has to sign an NDA, and no one is getting the extra bonus. But I don't see how benefits from this. Read the whole story here.

NB. Amazon is also interesting because it set up a trust fund of stock, whereby laid off employees may benefit from some of the stock market bounce they helped create by getting fired.

More evil from Microsoft MS' antitrust backup plan: Net monopoly Or the next Microsoft Bob, depending....Good article talking about how Microsoft plans to extend its monopolistic gateway and continue forcing us to use their bad software.

Economics of Scarcity What's Wrong With Copy Protection? Copy protection pretends that the law and some fancy footwork with industrial cartels can maintain our current economic structures, in the face of a hurricane of positive technological change that is picking them up and sending them whirling like so many autumn leaves -- John Gilmore. A good piece of work about how the digital age is at odds with the atomic capitalism of scarcity.