Economics for Paid Pilots

[Stifler's Mom]

My apologies. I will request of your medical examiner that you be allowed to skip the eye chart on your next physical.

Don't bother, my doctor allows me to pass the eye exam if I correctly write my check out to him.

 

[Halo_RJdriver]

Fade away old stain.

It'll Fly: Making improper decisions as to where in the company to direct the budgeted salary dollars is a potentially fatal mistake management can make. The results cause loss of good employees, energy absorbing digruntlement among remaining employees and detraction from company performance. The board of directors, particulary outside directors, that must oversee this process to the company's financial health. Do you think Delta's employees, customers, and investors would now concur that their board failed in this responsibility?

Wow all your management views point to one direction. Either you are management now or you desire a management position in the future. The companys performance depends on a number of factors not just greedy directors that think because they have $$$ they are automatically entitled to point the company in their direction. The board of directors have on thing on their minds that is $$$ and their EGO's. SkyWest for example grossed over 80 million last year. How many more EGO's do we have to please before they return some $$$ to the Laborers. Don't spill your Kool_aid here with your old azz ideas old stain. Fade into the sunset where you belong...oh and nice join date of OCT 5th.

 

[old mentor]

Halo: Don't give up your present job for one guessing peoples' background from their brief writings. Killing or berating the messenger never solved a problem, but it remains the action of choice for those who do not learn and deal with the facts. In a discussion of salary and financial issues, issuing a command "to fade" is indicative of a propensity toward meaningless and vain responses to stress. A point of my post was to encourage employees to learn the facts about their company's finances. For publically traded companies, information can be found in SEC filings (available on the web) and at stock research web sites. Pick up a financial management text book. You can obviously comprehend FAR's, so you can master this stuff. Prepare as if you were going after the Chief Financial Officer's job. You are then prepared to conduct technically valid and effective salary negotiations or to advise your representatives on doing so. That approach results in your opinions influencing others. Opinions expressed only by name calling and hostility towards others are common and not influential. Best wishes.

 

[old mentor]

Organized labor is against econ 101 too but in the United States it's legal to be organized (some countries of the world it's illegal). Because government leaders of the past realized that some fields of labor you can't just quit and get another job (airline pilots). The free market is great and all in theory but when you have a family that relies on your skilled profession that doesn't transfer to any other job, organized labor is there to help protect that job and set the rate for labor contrary to market conditions. The main reason labor rates are being forced down right now is one thing: the price of oil.

SkyWestCRJPilot:On a sustained basis, compliance with economic laws is no more optional than is compliance with the law of gravity.Many professions require high skill levels and high entry costs. Many people in these professions are nice, dedicated, and they have families. Some of these are your competitors, working every day to figure out how to get your investors and customers (and their money) away from you. Being in such a profession does not exempt one from being subject to economic facts. When anyone promises you they can set labor rates contrary to market conditions, they are promising to exempt you from economic laws. (The term "laws" used here does not refer to rules of conduct derived from legislation, but rather to the rules of behavior that began when a caveman traded some clubs to another for some dinosaur hides.) The salary you receive and all other company expenses come from investors and customers. Until these people exempt you from compliance with economic law, you ain't exempt.

 

[SkyWestCRJPilot]

Then perhaps we should do away with the NMB, OSHA, subsidies, tariffs, social security, and all social programs. According to you nothing can overcome the "laws" of economics. Adam Smith was an advocate of the pure market economy with the "invisible hand" of economics. Our present day economy isn't anywhere close the pure market economy he envisioned. We are somewhat more enlightened, realizing that as humans there are social programs, government controls, and other entities (unions) that are important to making peoples lives better than would a pure and ruthless market economy.

P.S. "old mentor", Why do you hide behind a brand new user name? You show only 7 posts. Are you afraid of something?

 

[old mentor]

Then perhaps we should do away with the NMB, OSHA, subsidies, tariffs, social security, and all social programs. According to you nothing can overcome the "laws" of economics. Adam Smith was an advocate of the pure market economy with the "invisible hand" of economics. Our present day economy isn't anywhere close the pure market economy he envisioned. We are somewhat more enlightened, realizing that as humans there are social programs, government controls, and other entities (unions) that are important to making peoples lives better than would a pure and ruthless market economy.

P.S. "old mentor", Why do you hide behind a brand new user name? You show only 7 posts. Are you afraid of something?

You misinterpret my point. Government programs, including those you mention, are paid for by tax dollars from companies and individuals. They also generate compliance cost for companies. Corporate taxes and compliance costs, along with the other company expenses, factor into the amount available for salaries. My comments do not address the worthiness or unworthiness of these. Taxes and government programs are certainly reality and essential to degrees that are subject to continuing debate by more folks than you and I. However, they are not at the core of the point I've been trying to make. An airline, like all the other for-profit companies, has to make more money than it spends; at least, until there is a government program that takes money from other professions to pay yours. Next, we could have a program to take money from airline employees to pay accountants.
PS Were you hiding and afraid when you had 7 posts? You and Halo have a similar talent for guessing peoples' background from what you see here. Don't let paranoia set in; it's contagious!