Corporate Baggage

Airlines will make around $3B more this year charging for bags. This is a revenue stream that did not exist before deregulation of the industry and another example of a ‘BWC’ fee. That stands for my ‘Because We Can’ invention that covers every raise or surcharge or rate increase the public is forced to endure while the raisers of those costs reap ever increasing profits for ever decreasing services merely, well because they can.  Who's going to stop them?

Gold Mine for Airlines

I don’t have the exact figure on how much the airlines pay baggage handlers whose numbers have dwindled due to corporate cost analyses but I am willing to bet they don’t share in the windfall.
The airlines will say that the increase in fuel costs caused their increase in fees but the numbers don’t completely add up and even if they did why hide the fare increase?

Telling a traveler that he has to pay extra to carry some luggage is like selling a car and then asking the buyer if he’d like a steering wheel with his purchase.

But airlines are not the only culprit in this corporate scheme to milk humans out of every remaining penny they have.

Anyone alive on Long Island is well aware of the inept Long Island Rail Road and it's ever increasing fares to complement their ever decreasing level of service or competence.

Note that the railroad considers its trains to be on time if they are only 5.9 minutes late!
Most riders would not 5.9 minutes late as on-time but rather a miracle!

But I digress.

A quick check into the business world reveals that most corporations have amassed unprecedented and record profits; cash cushions of nearly unimaginable amounts all while claiming that the current administration in DC has left them with a terrible feeling of uncertainty that is causing them to NOT hire new workers.

Does not knowing if you will triple your profits rather than merely doubling them next year constitute an uncertainty?

This absurd rationalization pervades every corner of every industry and threatens to eradicate the middle class completely.

But while I and many others write about the path we’re on nobody seems to have a solution.

One reason is that a major political party doesn't see the above AS a problem to be fixed.

The Republicans feel that the business world and the banks in particular should not be regulated at all, or if so we should allow them to self regulate.

Millions of potholes nationwide

Sounds like Mr. Romney’s call for illegal aliens to self-deport and equally as naive.

One possible solution to the job loss in America is right under our noses or rather under our feet.

Suddenly not an uncommon thing

Our nation’s infrastructure (a word former President Bush had trouble even saying) is crumbling. A no-brainer (The fix, not him although...) would be to start hiring workers nation-wide to save our streets, and highways, and bridges, and on and on.

Disaster on the clock!

The amount of architects and planners alone would take a chunk out of the unemployment numbers and therein is the problem.

Allowing anything to help the economy while the right wing controls the purse strings of the House and President Obama is still in office is anathema.

To paraphrase Senator McJowls, aka Mitch McConnell, an elected official sworn to help America in return for a huge undeserved salary; free health care; retirement funds for himself and family and exceptional perks far beyond his worth, “We simply cannot give this pretender a win.”

So there goes infrastructure repair!

And with it any hope of fixing America.

But I am not just talking about the roads anymore.  Now I speak of the entire experiment that is America.

One political party gets their marching orders only from the wealthiest of the country. They have now brazenly taken to fixing elections so even when the masses rise up against their terroristic-like tactics it will not be enough since their votes will not be counted.

And many on the right feel that is as it should be.  "The poor made their own beds and chose to be poor so their votes should not count!"

Never happen till Congress
finds out how to give
Exxon the profits

It is the ruling class that will decide when and where workers will be hired and what those workers should do.

There are many public works programs and ideas such as alternative energy as a way to ensure that the world as we know it will still exist in 50 years that are being blocked by the ruling class and their puppets in Congress.

They will not give in unless and until we bow to their superior intellect and allow them to reap any profits from any new industry.
We are now used to paying for luggage when we fly but until we divest ourselves of the evil and brain-dead, dead weight baggage in Congress we will never get anywhere!

I hope this is not just a
Pie in the Sky.

Ads Don't Always Add Up

Is anyone naive enough to believe that there is or ever was "Truth in Advertising?"

Alice in Wonderland
was fiction you know.

I mean seriously, if ads told the truth about their products the companies that produce the stuff would go the way of the dodo.

(That's an extinct bird that was driven out of existence due to forces beyond the comprehension of any true Republican out there called evolution.)

But since advertisements do still exist we must therefore conclude that they mostly lie!

How many of you have bought cars expecting to get a nice fuel efficient high MPG only to find out the only way to get it would be to have your car towed everywhere!

I could probably have my longest post of all time if I decided to list every product whose attributes are shall we say exaggerated but for the sake of forced brevity I hereby list only a few for your edification and amusement.

Let's start wit an annoying product that you almost have to know will not be as easy to put together as you are told in the ads.

I am speaking of those Easy Closets.  Their ads show average everyday families, some old some young talking about how great and easy the closet installation was.

Why not show what
really happens?

What they don’t show is the part between the designing and the implementation.

On the internet you let your fingers do the walking.  Then you complete the 'easy' project in your home.

Of course you should make sure your health care premiums have been paid and your loved ones know where the nearest ER is located.

Your first few task are getting the HEAVY materials up the stairs, opening the crates, running down to the basement to get the necessary tools to complete the EZ installation and then going back down to get the ones you will REALLY need to complete the installation. Face it the closets are generally for bedrooms which are generally on the second floor of homes.

And once you’ve removed all the items from the boxes you take out the instructions praying they are in English. And I mean understandable English, not the slightly racist rendition known as Chinglish.

Because face it folks America hardly produces anything anymore except billionaires who ship what jobs they can overseas and get paid to do so.  Isn't that right Willard Mitt?  (OR will he admit?)

Oh and by the way, don’t forget the extension cord for your electric drill or screw driver since not too many closets have outlets.

Let’s face it, the product may be the best thing since chocolate but it is certainly not as easy as rolling off a log. They should at least be forced to have a disclaimer as to that fact just like the one drug companies are forced to add.

Uh oh, anyone seen
the toilet paper?

And speaking of drug companies I equate what they leave out of the easy closet promo in their television ads with what is left out of Ex-Lax commercials. You have stomach cramps and take the product and then don’t have stomach cramps. So what transpired in between?

Please no turbulence!

Then there’s that unbelievably annoying moron who floats down the aisle of an airplane touting some fiber concoction specially formulated to help you relieve your insides of nasty bloating stuff? Yeah lady, just what I want to do on an enclosed speeding bullet in the clouds, run and use the coffin-sized vertical tomb known politely as the lavatory, which is invariably occupied when I need it most!

I feel lust-less, anyone
have some testosterone?

And that brings me to the next new ad that can drive you nuts, a drug that can help men who have that brand new made up disease or ailment known, by the marketers and now everyone, as Low T. I first assumed it was the opposite of that delightful afternoon snack so popular in England.

Low T, as the fake concerned voice-over tells us can cause a guy to feel listless or lust less or whatever and make him drag his butt around not wanting to do anything. I always thought a cheap over the counter cure for that was a cup of coffee but I guess I was wrong.

One side thought, if we were to have a program dedicated just to the disclaimers at the end of all drug commercials it would probably have to be a mini-series. Some of the ad contents are 20% talking about the drug and 80% disclaimer warning of its use. And these disclaimers include such inconsequential side effects such as loss of vision; abdominal pain; and death! Yeah, I sure want to take a drug to cure my Low T and put me in a Low 6’ hole!

British P - The gift that
keeps on giving!

And speaking of a deep hole we come to my last, for now favorite ad series on television, the one touting how wonderful BP is for cleaning up the God damned mess they created when their poorly regulated and negligently run oil rig exploded killing many humans, animals and futures.

And he wants HIS life back?
Justice? No jail time but a
bonus and a cushy job.

It’s nice that we have wonderful music and sun filled views of the idyllic gulf coast gracing the screen while a voice over tells of BPs commitment to making the area safe for all.

Has even one corporate person been sent to jail over the murders? Has BP truly paid their debt to society? Does anyone really think they ever will?

Okay I get it, we the people do not have the clout to come after you in court and you will escape scot free to continue raping and pillaging the Earth but do you really have to rub our noses in your glory?

He never knew what hit him!

They say what goes around comes around. Well I’d like to lock the entire board of BP into a newly finished ‘Easy Closet’ then feed them a year’s supply of that Low T drug and some ex-lax while spilling in barrels of refinery oil to see how they enjoy themselves. I have a feeling they might react the same way the former fish and wildlife did.

Don't Miss the Connection!

Like many industries the airlines have a lot of baggage.  And like all industries the airlines want the public to pay for that.  The difference is that the airlines are double dipping their grubby fingers in your luggage!

In 1978 the government signed the ticket that deregulated the industry and allowed them to control their own path.  The industry had complained about too much traffic in governmental control towers.  The government told them that if they allow them to take off on their own they had better wake up and fly straight.

For a while there were clear skies but then a touch of turbulence crept into the situation.  The airlines started to raise fares and impose seemingly strange restrictions on passengers.  For example the fare to fly round trip without staying over a weekend day was much higher than if a Saturday or Sunday was passed between the two legs.  One could argue that the passenger was taking up only one seat no matter what day he or she returned to their originating destination but one would lose the argument nevertheless.

Airlines also closed the loopholes clever passengers found to save money such as the ‘hidden city’ trick.

This one went as follows:

Say you had to fly from NYC to Milwaukee Wisconsin and you noticed that your ticket would cost $1,000 without a weekend stay over.  Now suppose you see that a flight from NYC to Madison Wisconsin which stopped in Milwaukee was only $600.  You would have to be an idiot not to purchase the Madison ticket and merely get off the plane in Milwaukee thus saving $400!  The airlines squelched that bit of enterprise by insisting that you board your return flight to NYC from Madison or your entire ticket would be voided!

Why, you might ask would the non-stop shorter flight cost more than the longer one-stop flight?  The party line was that Madison didn’t have much traffic and the airline was trying to promote travel to the airport.  The silent answer was, because we can and if you don’t like it drive!

One of our political parties advocates total deregulation of all businesses.  Their view is the free market is the best way to run an economy.

I agree, if you wish to run the economy INTO THE GROUND!

Businesses are by definition in business to make money.  And the only way they can do so is by selling their product at an ever increasing premium over their costs.  Without regulations businesses will find a way to get together on pricing.  And whether or not they act in a collusive way or their actions are merely coincidental prices will rise across the entire industry.  They will continue to spiral upwards until something breaks or crashes.

Little by little the airlines have all started to add fees to their base ticket prices.  But rather than adding to the prices they have taken a page out of the insurance industry getting the extra cash by subtraction.

Insurance companies kept homeowner rates the same but suddenly told residents that they were never covered for flood insurance.  If the customer wished to have the peace of mind that only full coverage could ensure they must insure against flood damage.  Suddenly the old policy, which used to cover flood damage merely by not being singled out was summarily subtracted from the base and turned into an expensive option.

An airline ticket used to include a meal, I use the term loosely and naturally luggage.  Subtracting the food and adding menus to the flight brought in a little more revenue, and a lot less need for antacids.  Next subtraction was your luggage.  Tickets were on their way to a logical conclusion of merely allowing you onto a plane.  Oh, you want a seat too???

Allowing businesses to fly free from all regulations has been shown to be imprudent.  Fortunately the government has woken up and is noticing the trend of fee for this and the fee for that cafeteria style of air travel that is making the hidden costs more expensive than the known ones.

The airlines counter by saying that the flying public is benefitting from the extra fees by being afforded lower ticket prices!

Seriously?

And they figure to get away with this ridiculous argument?

The extra and excessive fees must be placed in a holding pattern.

The Republican mantra of Business business uber alles is as wrong now as it ever was.  Some regulation is unfortunately necessary since human beings and corporations by extension are naturally greedy.

Right or wrong we measure our individual wealth by comparison.  But how much is enough or for that matter too much.  To use the phrase, ‘what the traffic will allow’ is naïve when no system of red lights is in place.

The scales must be kept in a fair range lest they tip over and spill one side out onto the ground.   And that will be a landing nobody walks away from!