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Pilot Shortage

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Shouldn't take investment advice from a Movie.... I wish I had bought Gold at $20. Looks like it was good advice. Its up 80,000%

But what I was trying to do was relate the old man's explanation to the value of
...Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and Stock ( Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith 1776ook 1, Chapter 10)

"...Fifthly, the wages of labour in different. employments vary according to the probability or improbability of success in them..."

The old man explains that the successful Gold Prospector must be compensated not only for his own labor ... but for the 999 others who did not succeed.
Wealth of Nations:

The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the employment to which he is educated is very different in different occupations. In the greater part of mechanic trades, success is almost certain; but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if ever he makes such proficiency as will enable him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor-at-law who, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of his own so tedious and expensive education, but that of more than twenty others who are never likely to make anything by it. How extravagant soever the fees of counsellors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this. Compute in any particular place what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors and students of law, in all the different inns of court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very small proportion to their annual expense, even though you rate the former as high, and the latter as low, as can well be done. The lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and that, as well as many other liberal and honourable professions, are, in point of pecuniary gain, evidently under-recompensed.
This is one reason why pilots need to be compensated well ... The lottery of Aviation is also far from perfectly fair and "under-recompensed".
 
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Sure. 90 to 95% of all restaurants fail. By your logic the price of our food need to cover all the costs of the successful restaurants and the failures. Maybe the true cost of food should be much less.

I see your point. I don't think it applies to Gold or much else as value is very complicated. Supply / demand is part of it obviously but you're adding difficulty of attainment and leaving out perception.
 
Holy cow you just jumped off a ledge.

Government costs X. You can argue different parties want X to be bigger or smaller...but at the end of the day it costs X to maintain a military, roads, an FAA and a TSA. A CIA and the salary of congress. NASA and Wellfare and US debt. It all has a cost and that is X.

We don't need to worry about ensuring profits to restaurant owners or airline execs. That's their job. We need to ensure we maintain a country where smart ideas succeed with effort and talent rises to the top. If, through your hard work and the system of government that enabled it you do succeed then you have a debt and that debt is a higher tax bracket.

Like it or not we have a progressive tax in this country. It's fair. Those who prosper pay more. Those who struggle for survival pay less. If we instituted a fair tax then the super rich would get a 2% tax break and the poor would get a 40% tax hike.

That's not how it works and it would be ruinous if it did work that way. Stop watching Fox. Ron Paul wants to do away with the FAA. Market forces will prevail. Do you really think that's a good idea? Ya think rest rules would stay in place if Delta, American, United and NetJets could operate any dang rest they wanted? Or maybe there should be a rule and maybe taxes should pay for an agency to enforce that rule.

You look at how many of your rules rest right up against FAA regulation and get back to me.
 
Thats why we need more tax cuts for the rich. :p
What is rich? many people in this country would consider many people posting here as rich.

Median Income, the 2008 census reported the medium income as $50,233. The PewResearch Center suggests that the middle income range is 75 percent to 150 percent of the median income. This would make the middle class income range $37,675 to $75,350. To most, this range seems small, and surveys conducted by the PewResearch Center find that many who fall outside this range still consider themselves middle class.

So is everyone making more than 75K to be considered rich?
 
Yes I am rich and I need more taxcuts. LOL. I knew that would get Glass going.

But the point I am trying to make is whether it is a Division of Labor ... or Business ownership ... there needs to be rewards commensurate with the relative Risk of failure and success.

The Pilot needs to reap the rewards of all those others who failed to make it in this industry and the Business owners needs to recoup the losses of those who failed in business.

This is what Adam Smith says... Not me. Which I bring up to justify better pilot compensation in view of the coming Pilot Shortage.

Yes I do think the old man (Walter Huston) explained it well in Sierra Madre ...
 
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Well...it's a viewpoint.
 
I just got briefed at CNATRA. The Navy (including Marines) is making only 650 pilots per year. 47% of that will be Rotor. I am told the Air Force is making a similar number ... not sure how many will be UAV pilots.

This is of concern to me personally as my son is AF ROTC and is selecting this year. We don't think he is going to get a pilot slot. Thats why I was looking into the Navy.

Flight schools are not making pilots.

Where are the pilots the Airlines and others need going to come from? With 1500 hours.
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AOPA Online: General Aviation Trends

Private Certificates Issued
A total of 14,977 private certificates were issued in 2010, a 25% decrease compared to the same period in 2009 (4,916 less issuances).

Commercial Certificates Issued
The number of new commercial pilot certificates issued in 2010 reached a total of 8,056. This number represents a 29% decrease compared to 2009 (3,327 less new commercial pilot certificates issued).
 
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Pilot Shortage May Develop as Job Loses ... - The Cutting Edge News


The traditional route to the large airlines begins at regional carriers, where the average starting salary is $24,000. Depending on interest rates, a loan payment could drain the lion’s share of a young pilot’s monthly paycheck. An $80,000 loan—at 8 percent on a 10-year amortization schedule—requires a $970.62 monthly payment, which would be nearly half the pre-tax monthly salary of a new pilot.
The Air Force expects a mere 240 pilots to separate or retire in 2010—81 percent fewer than just three years earlier.
The legislation raises the experience required to be a commercial airline pilot from 250 hours to 1,500 hours within two years. The increase is expected to particularly affect regional airlines, where most young pilots begin their careers
 
All part of the 2012 hiring boom, oh! to be 30 years old again as a 2500 hour pilot leaving the Navy. Navy trained 3600 pilot in 1968 the year I got my wings, biggest training year since Korea. Military pilots were a dime a dozen in the late 70's with all the post-Veitnam RIF's.
 
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So there's hope. Not certainty, by any means, but hope. By the way, I don't believe the value of a pilot is as simple as any of us have explained it.

Take lawyers. Now, you could argue that lawyers are less than worthless, but hey, they are highly educated, and they do have a necessary function. The problem, as explained to me by my father (a retired lawyer) is that law schools keep making them. And lawyers, as a breed, are both hard working and intelligent, so they are going to make work if they can't find work. And that work comes at the expense of you and me. But there average starting pay has fallen through the floor, and few ever make good money at all. Clearly, there is an oversupply problem. Hence all the lawyer jokes.

Now let's look at doctors. Doctors are highly trained, and the medical schools and teaching hospitals keep turning them out. There pay has fallen, some, but by and large they have not suffered the same as laywers. Why? I believe that a doctor has a higher intrinsic value than a lawyer, and therefore society is willing to pay a doctor more, even in a competitive situation.

Any way you cut it, they all make lousy pilots.

Now you come to us. We have more value to society, I submit, than a lawyer. Maybe we are somewhere around the level of an electrician, say, or a civil engineer. We are certainly not worth anywhere near what a doctor is worth. We are just not as highly educated. However, there will soon be a shortage of supply.

I guess my point is that the equation is very complicated, and cannot be solved easily. I believe there will be a pilot shortage. I believe that will help those of us who are currently in the business. I cannot see any circumstance that will make me recommend this occupation to anybody who does not love it. There is no other reason to be here.

Oh, the fairtax? Give me a break. It sounds a little bit like the patriot act. In both cases, the hypocrisy is just a little too obvious.

Waco
 
MY GOD what will the AIRLINES do without all those GODLIKE Military pilots.....




:)
They have already figured it out, the mil pilots all go to FedEx and UPS and all the other airlines have to hire civilians. :)
 

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