Originally Posted by
thevagabond
I agree completely. I would never be comfortable with a pension anyway. An administration change and one stroke of a fancy pen and one can be screwed in retirement. I enjoy learning about money management and growing my own money. That in my opinion creates stability. It promotes safe and sensible investing which in turn stabilizes and secures our markets and banks. There definitely is a storm coming with so many people retiring with just the shirts on their backs and the promise of social security.
You have outlined the main problem with pensions - can be raided, disbanded, expensive to maintain, and prone to mismanagement, etc. Current 401k-mania motivated by the management fees offered by many corporate plans but still often better than the alternative.
However, these really require a bit of sense to manage, which is often in short supply.
Originally Posted by
thevagabond
The fact is there are none. And most GA pilots are very considerate of their airline brethren anyway. Every time I'm at a smaller field they voluntarily and eagerly offer to extend a downwind so we can get in first. I fly GA on the side in aerobatic planes for fun. I love GA and think it's a big reason why we have, in my opinion, the best manned flight decks in the world. We should do everything we can to nurture it and grow it. I'm absolutely opposed to taxing it out of existence.
I agree, and a skilled GA pilot will generally have zero impact on the flow of airline traffic - clever controllers can sneak us in quickly to the short runways, from downwind I can be on ground and off the runway in a literal minute if asked, or do LAHSO if available etc. Unfortunately sometimes things like that recent Hobby crash happen, which I fear will make controllers worried and treat us like airline traffic, or even our bigger aircraft cousins.
