I'd like to believe that business plans are (maybe) on hold for the election. I just don't see the REAL economy rocketting out of the doldrums. The market may bump or tank, but it will rationalize.

IMO a prime mover of the REAL economy is housing starts. There is still a ton of overcapacity of empty houses on the market. Businesses and households are leverage driven. There is no leverage because there is no lending. I am not saying this is right, but it is true.

When the economy tanked, the people and small businesses that were hurt were the ones that paid their debts and owned their equipment. The (irresponsible) businesses and individuals that did not operate that way were given many outs and were sometimes bailed out.

IMO, the reality is no matter which way this elecction goes, it doesn't end real well.

Question: Who has higher compensation, a drug addict who is considered by the government as disabled or a factory worker who worked his/her whole life and has social security?

Question#2: Which of the above two individuals has more to fear about their compensation drying up and why?

To quote an article about businesses storing up cash:

"It's a chicken and egg problem," said Christopher Dvorak, president of Dvorak Technical Research, a Minneapolis-based equity research firm. "If there was a demand for products, companies would hire employees to fill that demand. And because they're not hiring, there's not enough demand."

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I guess it's more a question of consumer confidence.

And demographics. Baby boomers are retiring and there is a shrinking worker base.

Its Clemson halftime. Great for my homelife, momma's happy, but not a real "great" game.

editing..........

Well make sure you slam it on, catch the 3 wire and make them feel at home!

:eek::D

Remember;

Flare to land?

Squat to pee!

I know that was a messy statement on my part but I took what EB was saying as the increase in pilot costs puts pressure on our costs especially if nothing changes.

But if revenue increases due to the reasons RA and GH gave (re-fleeting, productivity, profit sharing reduction) then the costs are offset by increasing revenue.

You mentioned if the revenue doesn't materialize as forecast, the cost increase still remains. Or no matter what, the cost in comparison to our peers remains whether or not the revenue happens. Sure. I agree with that.
I actually don't think I'm disagreeing with you. Just looking at it differently. I think.

And no, I wouldn't run my household budget on percentages because no cost at my house increases income to the house. If however my job was 100% sales commission and a new computer, car, etc, increased income then I'd deal in %s.

OK, I'll slam it on for Navy and roll it on for UK. ;)

Too funny!

But PERFECT!:D:D

sorry erase that sentence.

How many times has someone said on a forum "If they just raise ticket prices by $XX they can give us a YY% raise." Well that is a profit neutral proposition for the company. Would that be bad?

No matter how you try to spin it with selective quoting, it was clear that in the conference call the analysts were worried about cost growth at Delta. A lot of that cost growth is because we are getting a 12.8% raise in a matter of 6 months. The analysts know what the pilot pay structure is and they know how much 12.8% will raise costs, it's about $260 million per year all in. They also know that in order to offset a 12.8% raise, you would have to get rid of 12.8% of your workforce to be cost neutral. So unless Delta furloughs 1,500 pilots in the next 3 months they know that costs are going way up. At the maximum, the profit sharing decrease saves them $40 million and they can tell that $40 million is less than $260 million, they have big fancy calculating machines that do it automatically. They also know that there are numerous other contract improvements that are far more than even the $40 million maximum savings from profit sharing.

The benefits of the fleet restructuring will not be felt full force for at least 18 months. Delta has been kicking the rest of the industry's butts for the last 2 years by stealing alot of their competitors' best customers. At some point, UAL and AMR will get their act together and that theft will stop. The analysts are worried that Delta will get stuck with the higher costs but lose the revenue edge.

So when you get away from the forum spin you have the real world analyzing the contract and they are worried because in the real world when you raise pay, increase reserve guarantee, increase vacation, increase sick leave, increase retirement, and all the rest it is not going to be offset by a 1.5% productivity gain and $40 million in profit sharing. All of the promised offsets are going to happen "real soon now" and they are skeptical.

I am sorry that some people felt it necessary to mislead the pilots to try to accomplish whatever goals they had set in their minds. I would really like them to delineate what those goals are other than "doing the opposite of what the rest do." But those misleading statements, deliberately misleading statements, are all crap. The real world is intruding on that reality and the people that own this company want to make sure that all their profits don't go to us. I don't agree with their perspective, I am just reading you the news, so don't shoot the messenger. They want stock buy back, they want dividends, they want the stock price to go up and they don't want all the money to go to pilots. That is what that exchange was about.