I think you'll find that the Russian economy is on an upswing. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit on vacation.

 

Your retort references modern day Russia. He was referencing the Soviets. It's been 17 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Apples and oranges. Whatever limited success Russia is experiencing is a result of the rejection of communism and wealth of natural resource, namely oil.

 

Two major problems in this industry have been directly caused by this so called "conservative administration" (ignoring the fact that they have been the bigest spenders in history) First, the tax rate on the airlines in the last seven years have gone from 15 to 43 percent (per ATA lobby group) second both John Snow and Henry Paulson have been open about their week dollar policy. (for the good of multi-national corporations that export US goods) Printing US dollars in mass to pay for.... whatever.. has caused the dollar to fall from 88 cents to one Euro to 1.56 to one Euro. Oil is tied to value of the dollar thus the European carriers are paying almost half for gas as what we are with the buying power of the Euro. Finally, with all the tax money the airlines have brought in the amount that is being reinvested into the airline infrastructure is insultingly low. For the airlines to become more operationally efficient the ATC system must improve and expand.

Our founding fathers knew of the value of check and balances and this concept should be applied not just at the governmental level but in the market place as well. Specifically, from a macroeconomic standpoint it does not behoove society or the economy to have anarchy in prices as we do in the airline industry. The closing of Aloha will not only hurt the 1800 employees and family but the Hawiian economy as well. Why do think there are laws preventing gas stations from lowering their gas prices below a certain level. Ergo, you will never have a fuel price war at any of the competing gas stations.

I think all would agree that transportation is necessary facet in our economy and as Richard Anderson blasted both congress and this administration two weeks ago that we need an energy policy in this country besides just strong arming middle east nations. (Side note. There are many economists that believe opec is no longer in control of oil prices.)

 

I regret to inform you, but there's no "free lunch." If we were to go back to regulation, some pilots *may* get raises, but those who didn't get raises would lose their job altogether. Seeing how the supply of pilots already exceeds the demand by mainline carriers to hire them, I personally doubt there would be industry-wide raises at all. The decrease in the number of jobs under regulation would result in an even greater over-supply of pilots, leading to even more downward pressure on wages.

 

Well said!

Those of us who have an interest in economics realize just that. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

The fact is that world trade far exceeds world output, globalisation is the future, and deregulation is good for the consumer.

Regulation would only be considered in the case of market failure.

Unfortunately, there's no surprize here. The US energy commision knew this was coming and estimate oil supply to dry up in 2037.

Go figure.

AL