From: Kamchatka Charlie
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: more info on Perot: 1st article of 2
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:21:34 GMT
Organization: Psychosis Unlimited International

Ron Dippold writes:
>SML108@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>Well, I'm sure that money has been saved, but one questions how it has been
>>saved.  All following figures & quotes are from America: What Went Wrong?
>>by Barlett and Steele.  In 1978, before deregulation, the price of a round
>>trip ticket from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was $86.  Today, it is $260.
>>A round trip ticket from NYC to Washington DC cost $38.  Today, it costs
>>$142.  If gasoline prices had risen at the same rate, a gallon of gas
>>would now cost $2.33.  This is savings? 
>
>You can't just show two legs and claim that's representative.  For all
>we know those could be the worst examples of increases, and given the
>name of the book that's probably very likely.  It could very well be
>that those legs were being excessively subsidized by other legs
>previously.  How about the other legs that used to cost hundreds of
>dollars and that SouthWest airlines now flies at $47?
     People have been moving down to the Southwest in droves in recent years. 
Texas, California and Arizona are three of the fastest growing states.  Maybe
the market wasn't there before.

>>In 1990, the worst financial year in American aviation history,
>>airline losses mounted to 3.9 billion dollars.  Since deregulation,
>>Trans-World, Pan-American, Eastern, Midway, Continental, America West
>>and Braniff airlines have declared bankruptcy.  Braniff has done so 3
>>times now.
>Excellent.  This is what happens when we no longer subsidize their
>shoddy business practices.  Someone else is doing it when they declare
>bankruptcy, but that's another issue...
     I like this comment, "but that's another issue..."  It's alright for
INNOCENT people to pay for other's mistakes, but HELL IF I'M GOING TO PAY IN
ORDER FOR A COMPANY TO HAVE THAT EXTRA MINUTE SO THAT IT CAN GET OVER ITS
TROUBLES.
     But seriously, folks; let's look at the list...Pan-Am and TWA had indeed
grown overseas at the expense of home routes; and I'm not sure about Midway,
America West and Braniff.  Eastern could have survived had it merged with the
right airline, but it ended up in the wrong company.
     Which leads up to the Original Darling of Airline Deregulation:
Continental.  This once proud company was eaten up by Texas Air and was made
the flagship of the Frank Lorenzo Empire--the largest airline conglomerate in
the world outside of Aeroflot.  Well...after busting unions, inventing new ways
of profiting off bankrupcy and using Eastern as its feeding grounds, it turns
out that Continental is going bankrupt.
     And to think--with regulation we would have had to worry about five or six
possibly nonprofitable companies; now we don't have to worry about any of them.
 Thousands of jobs lost; few of which will come back to those who had them (and
none of them at near the wages they were earning before)--and for some strange
reason I see you smiling like a chershire cat.  Why???

>>In 1978, the average age for our airlines planes was 7.56 years.  Today, it
>>is 13.5 years. In comparison, the average age of European and Asian planes
>>is 10.4 and 8.7 years respectively.
>If the planes are still safe after 13.5 years I don't see a problem
>with this.
     It has nothing to do with the planes; it has to do with the companies
being unable to replace the planes.  One thing I learned from my accounting and
business classes--a company is truely healthy only if it can give all necessary
and preferable upkeep to its assets.  (I'll follow this post up later with a
lesson in depreciation and upkeep)

--
kamchatka charlie     kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu
>As soon as everybody chooses the wrong side, it then, by some miracle,
>becomes the right side.
--correction:  As soon as the powerful and rich choose the wrong side; it then,
by some miracle, becomes the right side.