Automaker Bailout:  I keep reading/hearing that we must “save†all these jobs. Folks, if you have to subsidize a losing company, that’s not saving a job, it’s welfare.
Obama plans to use public service jobs to revive our economy. That idea has merits. Instead of subsidizing losing companies, we might build/repair infrastructure that we all use. Remember the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) of the 1930s? It created bridges, for example, that we still use today.
I wonder, however, if our current society could/would tolerate the tough rules of the original CCC—the rules that had a lot to do with the results of the program. A young man didn’t just get a job with the CCC, he “joined†the CCC. It was somewhat like joining the Army. In the first place, he had to leave home and move to a CCC camp. Today, Obama has promised people that they won’t have to leave home to find good jobs. Adam Smith, the father of the free market, said that a requirement—repeat, requirement—of the free market is a mobile labor force. Our welfare system has been trying to prove otherwise for decades.
Airlines: I have been buying luggage to fit airline rules and practices since the 1960s. Last week on a huge Boeing, I couldn’t find an overhead bin for my small rolling bag. It fit into the size tester at the gate fine, but there was no room left on the aircraft. Part of that must be the fact that airlines now charge for “excess†checked luggage. Delta calls one checked bag excess luggage.
Recently, BTW, I bought yet another bag to fit changing airline practices. I bought the largest bag I could find that fit airline size rules for checked bags. Hey, if I’m going to pay for each checked bag, everything has to fit into one, repeat, one, bag.
Airports:Â Airports are much improved in many ways. Just their adaptation to post-9/11 security changes has been amazing.
In one area, however, the customer is losing. Terminal signage is evidently designed to suit some hippy architect or interior decorator rather than the customers. I’ve been fighting this in my own little way for decades. I am losing. In the gate area of many airports there are no signs projecting from the walls at right angles. You have to walk the line, as Johnny Cash said, to find your airline. Same thing elsewhere. It’s sad, but I give up. I have lost this war, but I’m still mad about it.
Bush:Â Say what you wish about him, the man can flat dodge a thrown shoe.
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