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"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
hlink.net...

"Dude" wrote in message
news


Is the "fair share" argument what this is really about? The majors
think
they are paying too much because their planes use more fuel?


Well, the majors are not a business, they're a political interest group. I
used to think that Southwest was able to profit by cherrypicking, but now
that they're the #2 carrier it's pretty hard to deny that the majors are
simply businesses with a failed model. For airline travel to evolve we need
to let Darwin play his cards and thin the herd.

Then there's the fact that the airlines write off fuel costs. And it's not
as though the only cost of an airliner is ATC. Those major metropolitan
airports cost a pretty penny to run, and then there's that little thing
called the TSA.

This unwillingness to accept simple math is not unique to
pilots, medicare recipients don't achknowlege it either. As a point of
interest, almost everyone in our society (close to 90%) is paying less
that
thier equal share of the cost of government.

Yes, which makes the left's chant that the rich "aren't paying their fair
share" deliciously ironic.

There has never been a sustained constituency for smaller government. You
can always rile up an angry mob to prevent cutting program A and another mob
for program B, but only in rare moments of crisis will people rally around a
general tightening, as with Thatcher or Reagan. Even in those cases, I would
argue it was really more of a moral issue than accounting, as with the
welfare debate. Aid to Families with Dependent Children cost in the
neighborhood of 20-30bn a year, not a major item in the federal budget.
People wanted it cut not because it cost too much, but because it corrupted
people and in turn society. Of course, no one is really talking now about
how taxing the pants off young people trying to buy their first car, house,
have a kid to buy drugs for elderly people who are as a group much sounder
financially. They paid 1980s taxes on 1980s income but will get 2010
benefits that cost 2010 money. But hey, it's only fair, right?

-cwk.