Posted on 07/09/2008 10:56:02 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Jeez Louise.
You know, any discussion about the airline industry has become fly paper for malcontents who feel entitled to luxurious flying experiences without paying over $179 per round trip ticket. We have become such a me-focused society.
Do we shut down FR because of one poster who becomes inappropriate? Do we write off the Marine Corps or the Army because one or two freaks make it through basic training? Is it then appropriate to disparage entire airlines because some employees are having a really bad day?
Let me tell you — airline employees have been living each and every day in financial limbo since 9-11. Salaries in the months following that awful day were cut 20, 30, 40, 50% if you were among those who didn’t lose their jobs. Those who remained made sacrifices to save their company. Costs of insurance increased. Perks like $10 flights disappeared due to most flights departing at capacity. Rewards like free tickets for good service were abolished.
Add on top of this loss, consider the notion that airline executives have been rewarding themselves millions in quarterly bonuses for profitable periods while in essence thumbing their noses at those sacrificing below them.
For crying out loud, please give these people a break. Some of these employees have worked 10, 20, 30 years in the airline industry and many have no where else to go. And please realize that storms happen. Toilets will at some point overflow. Cockpit lights will illuminate indicating extra attention is needed. No one is purposely trying to make you (or the employees) uncomfortable, late, sick or contaminated. Maybe consider the thousands of flights that take place daily without incident that are not discussed on the boards or evening news; maybe just even once in a while.
well, I highly recommend that you and others read some of www.thetruthbehindhighfuelprices.com and then get back to this thread. Richard Clough has been in the gasoline business and has well documneted evidence of massive closing of refineries and buyouts of smaller oil companies all to help keep the supply from getting large and thereby keeping the prices artifically high. He is like the Howard Jarvis of the oil business. The problem with some conservatives is that they turn a blind eye towards price manipulations and gouging because Rush says the oil companies have no fault and many of them have investments that are doing great in oil company stocks. Theere is plenty of corruption in the oil industry because they have not had to compete with electric cars, sugar alcohol and others much. That is coming to an end, thank God! Drill more yes, and FULL speed ahead with good alternatives for free market competetion just as we have in other industries.
Well, O.K., but in a service industry heavily dependent upon people choosing to spend their discretionary income with you, "avoiding malicious intent" is insufficient as a philosophy of doing business.
And you are correct that it's as much (if not more) the fault of management as of the front line employee, but (just a hint here) that does not make a rotten experience one bit more palatable.
Got it.
Status quo it is!
Bye bye, airlines.
I've been on Wall Street for nearly 20 years, most of that in the oil business. I've been making a living at it for 2 decades so I'd say I know a little about it too.
There is no manipulation going on.
If congress implemented a rational energy plan which encouraged US drilling the price of oil would do nothing but drop, and it would be those speculators that would make it drop. They are hanging on to the market, not pushing it. Congress is the one pushing up the price of oil with their ridiculous chant "Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, (No nukes), Wind & Solar...
If we're risking a socialist takeover, do you know what socialists will say when they want to take over? "Desperate times call for desperate measures."
You seem well intentioned but you should learn something about economics and markets before you try to pass yourself off as an expert. You don't know what you're talking about.
I don't purport to be an economics “expert.”
But I do listen to enough economic “experts” to know that a great many of them said what I repeated here about speculators driving up the price of crude oil beyond its real value. I'm sure that Lou Dobbs, who HAS a degree in economics knows what he is talking about, and he one of very many “experts” who have made the same statement. Every time some lunatic in the Middle East sneezes, they drive prices up even more. Look at what happened just recently with escalating tensions with the Ayatollahs.
I realize this is just ONE approach to a problem which requires a multifaceted solution. Permitting drilling on ANWAR, off shore and in the western shale oil deposits is another, as well as expanding refinery capacity here in the US, using more nuclear power plants, and exploiting our vast coal reserves. So is providing more money for research into energy efficient vehicles and other alternative energy sources.
However, this President and this Congress have done absolutely NOTHING to address a dangerous problem which growing exponentially worse by the day and hour. And they have been merely the latest in a succession of parasitic, nonproductive Congressional and Executive leaches sitting in Washington, D.C.
While many older, less efficient refineries have closed, the expansions and upgrades at the remaining refineries have resulted in increased production of fuels similar to building a new refinery every year.
Many small independent refineries remain in business and have for decades. It is still quite the competitive market.
Paul Krugman has an economics degree but he's a socialist. Lou Dobbs has an economics degree but talks for a living. What I do is I derive the cause and effect of markets. I know it better than Lou Dobbs. And again, I'm sorry for being rude, but I feel like a modern doctor who got in a time machine and went back to the 16th century. I know what causes illnesses and it's not a matter of opinion for me... but I keep meeting people who are telling me that they're sure to it's the humors, or bad air, or that it can be fixed with leeches. They all talked to "experts" too, but none of them knew what they were talking about because they didn't understand medicine.
I'm in the same boat. I know what's causing the problem. It's not a matter of opinion... there is evidence for what I'm claiming backed up by 18 years of experience, and the sum total of what an entire industry knows about markets. In the meantime there is no evidence for blaming speculators, and still everyone keeps telling me that they know better than me and keep recommending leeches.
I'm sure you're an expert in something that I know nothing about. And if we were having a discussion about it, I'd defer to your knowledge and experience. This is what I do, and if you want to be "right" then you should do the same.
Unfortunately, everyone seems to think they know about markets even when they don't. Well I do. And this is congresses fault, not the fault of speculation. If congress would just do something rational then those speculators would push the price of oil into the basement. They add to volatility, not to price.
“If congress would just do something rational then those speculators would push the price of oil into the basement. “
What SHOULD they do?
But right now all they have to say is: "Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar, (no Nukes), Wind & Solar, Wind & Solar..."
And so long as that's all they have to say, oil will go up.
Hopefully fusion will come along and improve the oil price situation, but we'll need petroleum based products for air travel long after every other application moves to another energy source.
There is a dense but interesting historic price analysis on oil here.
Google travel slippers or airline slippers. They don’t look classy, but I’ve heard TSA almost never makes you take them off.
I think you are confusing ‘monopoly’ with ‘inelastic good’. Although, oil demand fluctuates in response to price, so it is actually somewhat elastic. As for alternative fuels, oil got where it is because it’s a superior product for most applications where it is used. Ethanol fuel has been around for a long long time, and the barriers to adoption have been partly technical, but mainly the protectionist tariffs on Brazilian sugarcane put in place to protect US sugar production.
I don't blame him for trying to make a buck, but he's misrepresenting the state of things.
As opposed to what other industry?
No disagreement; just pointing out that every sector of the economy is in the tank, and the only proposals being made by business and government are more poop and more flushing.
Anytime someone’s plan requires everyone to “march in the same direction”, I get real suspicious about the likelihood of success.
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