Delta cancels upcoming interviews

[jonjuan]

when you are furloughed though you find yourself imagining every unknown number on the caller ID might be the one...

cale

They won't call......





















They email...... Good luck in EARLY 2011 to receiving an email.

 

[cale42]

Well played jonjuan.. that made me laugh.. thanks.


cale

 

[ACL65PILOT]

We are quickly reaching some middle ground here.

You say a level playing field for everyone including labor. I'm willing to retract a majority of my statements if I can have that. The abuse of labor in this country is unconscionable. Business leaders under the guise of "capitalism" have made it difficult to organize, unbelievably difficult to negotiate a contract and borderline impossible to strike. I mean look at a couple example just out of aviation of late, Air Canada Jazz, was allowed to strike less than 10 months out of contract. Weeks later they had a great new deal. The BA cabin crew strike happened while under contract due to violations of their contract by management. Can you imagine what would happen if instead of being told fly it and grieve it we told them, if you make me fly this we strike? Can you imagine what it would be like if 2/3 of our regional carriers weren't currently operating with contracts that are more than 2 years past expiration.

I will happily allow that if labor had the power that most countries give it my call for worker protections would be a moot point.

However I suspect it would not reduce all need for protections. As soon as labor was granted that power, business would call foul and say they need to move hundreds of thousands more jobs offshore. So there would need to be some level of protectio0n against that.

Finally, we have to acknowledge while overdoing isolationism can be dangerous, some level of protection is necessary. And usually no matter how absurd it seems on paper it isn't too terrible in practice. China is the shining example on this currently. Fixing the yuan to the dollar has to be one of the most ridiculous predatory practices out there.. but it hasn't exactly hurt their trade has it?

cale

Cale;
Like I said, give labor and companies enough rope to hand themselves with. I did not hang each other. It is M.A.D. Labor needs their corporation and believe it or not, the corporation needs their labor.
What you say may happen, may happen. What you would do is as the government is offer incentives for corporations to keep the jobs here. Kind of like many states do not. (Tax breaks for corporations that choose to build a plant and or headquarter in a given state, district or country) That is called capitalize.
See the principality knows that it is in their best interest to have said corporation move in. Why? Because they will get far more revenue from the lower tax rates than by sticking to their guns with a higher tax rate. This very simple example is proof of how tax cuts will increase the revenue for a municipality. Countries can do this as well.

There are a lot of areas of a total open market that scare a lot of ppl. Me too! When you have workers that are willing to do your job for 1/5 of the cost, that is bothersome, especially if it is a skilled trade or profession. There will always be countries that do not collect the tax, do not have min EPA standards etc. Think of the past 20 years. How many different countries were the hotbed of production for those annoying happy meal toys, etc? Tons. Taiwan,India, China, Bangladesh etc. Point is that it is always a moving target.

The biggest issue here in the USA is that we have all been trained to buy the deal. That a difference in off brand quality is marginal at best. We created the market that effects us. See the consumer drives the market place. Don't you go to Wal-mart or COSTCO (China Off Shore Trading Company) because it is cheaper? Well you are forcing the competition to marginally reduce the quality of their product to compete. The consumer by making a impulsive decision to buy the off brand is marginally forcing the market forces to shift.

In regard to airlines. Places like SWA, AAI Ryan Air, East Jet etc found a consumer that was willing to do with a lot less for a lot less. The conumer drove to the "No-Frills" option and killed the margins for the higher cost airlines. Well the playing filed has been leveled both for labor and for cost structure. Now you see the corporations holding capacity down in a effort to restore their margins. It is the ebb and flow of a consumer drive market place.

I could go on for hrs, but the simple fact is that at the end of the day, both labor, and corporations should be the ones that figure out their problems. Labor can get greedy and kill a corporation, but what genius is that for the labor? Government has tried to marginally protect labor and truly protect corporations from labor. It works for joe consumer until joe consumer changes his or her buying habits because they do not have the disposition income due to the inability to reap the gains and good fortune of their labor.

America was built on disposable income. Its infrastructure was built with that fact in mind. Take that disposable income away, and the country you have grown to know and love will have to change to survive. If that change needs to happen let the consumer drive it, not government bureaucracy.


(You may make assumptions about my political agenda, but this is not a political based argument for me. It is about simple economic forces and who get to drive the market)

 

[ACL65PILOT]

I'll take that back.. even as I typed it I thought it sounded a little dumb, but after a long day I let it stand.

I'm not trusting in the government to fix my problems, but I'm not trusting that giving business carte blanche will do it either. We need middle ground.

better?

cale

Bingo.

This country has and was founded on a centrist populous that may lean slightly right. Go too far either way and you upset the dynamics. Remember the Boston Tea Party? People were irked at the tariffs imposed by the Mother Country.

 

[cale42]

Cale;

The biggest issue here in the USA is that we have all been trained to buy the deal. That a difference in off brand quality is marginal at best. We created the market that effects us. See the consumer drives the market place. Don't you go to Wal-mart or COSTCO (China Off Shore Trading Company) because it is cheaper? Well you are forcing the competition to marginally reduce the quality of their product to compete. The consumer by making a impulsive decision to buy the off brand is marginally forcing the market forces to shift.

Now here is where I differ with you. I find it interesting that you chose Wal-Mart and Costco because in fact in my way of thinking they represent polar opposites.

Wal-Mart gains it's margins with some of the most legally questionable business practices I have ever seen. They pay their workers so little that they count on them being on government assistance. The wide majority of Wal-mart employees qualify for some sort of food, housing or medical assistance. They put enormous pressures on their suppliers to provide product at the price they demand regardless if it destroys the supplier in the long run, and they force any competing business out of a community by undercutting prices until they have a monopoly.

In doing this they create a self sustaining cycle. They drive many good paying jobs into non-existence. Then these people are out of work and their only option is to work at Wal-Mart. At that point all they can ever afford to do is continue to shop at Wal-Mart and rely on government aid even though they are supposedly gainfully employed.

On the flip side, Costco has built it's empire on massive bulk ordering. They pay their labor extraordinarily well.(more than a regional FO I might add). They give them great benefits. They do have some effect on local businesses, but because there business model is based on bulk sales to the consumer they don't destroy other stores and they don't destroy their suppliers. They provide workers with jobs that allow them to have discretionary income that they can then spend in other areas.

So I ask you.. in this case was this truly consumer driven, or did Wal-Mart drive consumers to only one choice?

America was built on disposable income. Its infrastructure was built with that fact in mind. Take that disposable income away, and the country you have grown to know and love will have to change to survive. If that change needs to happen let the consumer drive it, not government bureaucracy.

I maintain that disposable income is gone.. driven out by things the Wal-Mart effect and the similar Skybus effect in the airlines. The continual drive for cheaper items has reached the peak and is sliding uncontrollably downhill because wage power for labor has been destroyed. In many ways the only thing that has kept things where they are for years has been cheap credit and people's willingness to overextend themselves. So where do we go now? Will my kids be the first generation whose quality of life is worse than their parents? This is where I see the consumer driving it if left unchecked.

And for the record.. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because I believe they are much of what is destroying America.

So... please, paint me a rosier picture of where this consumer driven change is going to take us. Because left unchecked I don't think it is good.

cale

 

[bizicmo]

disposable income is not gone. Its just more concentrated on the top of the wealth pyramid now.

 

[Going2Baja]

Yep. A lot of good stuff coming. Again, it is a great place to be and be back to. Welcome back. So did you take the 9?

Nope...only one 9 slot and that was MEM. I needed an electric jet, being that I'm currently used to the NG - so I took the A320MSP. Going to bid anything LAX in Sept and considering ER in NYC then swap to LAX when available. Don't want to move to small 320 base in SLC. Off to find dinner...Thanks!

Baja.

 

[asadonkey]

Bingo.

This country has and was founded on a centrist populous that may lean slightly right. Go too far either way and you upset the dynamics. Remember the Boston Tea Party? People were irked at the tariffs imposed by the Mother Country.

If that tea party was held today all involved would be called redneck racists. If only the King of England had a mass media propoganda machine back then........

But.......... we would all be speaking german now anyway.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

Cale;
To save ourselves 20 more pages. My point was to add something to the discussion, not to take it over.

My point is trust the consumer and the response of business. We are slowly seeing that now as our margins return in this industry. It has been a bad 10 years.

 

[michael707767]

disposable income is not gone. Its just more concentrated on the top of the wealth pyramid now.

Obama is too far the other way, but you just summed up the economy under George Bush.