Government Control

I absolutely applaud them for trying to stop the mayhem with the airlines. I recall the first time I flew after they started to charge for checked luggage. No warning in advance, just a give us $25 if you want your baggage to come with you. Had I known, I would have brought a carry on.

And that's exactly the reason why airlines are going to start charging for carry ons. The airlines are deceiving their passengers by these types of fees. Price the ticket based on the total service. If they want to piecemeal the cost, then they should be required to disclose it before people buy tickets.

I do think that increases in baggage charges should apply only to tickets sold from that point forward; getting slammed with charges that didn't exist at the time you contracted with the airline to provide travel doesn't really sit right.

Because having what you need when you get there is part of being transported, and because airlines barely have to do anything with carry-on items, I think they should stay free. I can also see a case for the first checked item being free, for the same reason I said first about carry-ons.

Beyond that, though...the price of oil keeps doing crazy things and airlines have to pay for their Jet A somehow. They aren't running a charitable travel foundation; they're going to get it from the customer one way or another. I'd rather they attach the charges to checked baggage instead of build it into everyone's ticketed fare so that those who have trouble affording the increases can avoid them and still be able to travel when they need to. If the baggage charges are too high, we'll vote with our cash by hitting the thrift stores when we get there.

And really, what can't you fit in a carry-on backpack, a briefcase or laptop case, and maybe a duffel bag? Packing light is not that hard...a pile of casual shirts and jeans plus the comfy pants (say whatever you want about elastic waistbands not being stylish, they are important at low pressure) and t-shirt and button-up shirt you wear onto the plane if it's a vacation, or one good suit (plus the one you wear onto the plane) and a couple outfits to relax in if it's a business trip; all the tech you plan to use plus a good book in a laptop case; money, ID, medications, makeup, etc. in jacket pockets (preferably a jacket with zip-out liner; adapts to more weather and you can zip the liner out if the plane runs short of in-flight blankets)...that's not even figuring in a checked bag if you're any good at packing, and I have a hard time imagining what else I could possibly want, unless it was an actual camping trip, and then it'd be a sleeping bag and at least a tarp-and-rope tent, and if you're outdoors all the time you can trade off changes of clothes for that stuff by re-wearing (which you'd do anyway because you wouldn't want to carry three duffel bags up a mountain).

So, really, I doubt having the government micromanage this is going to work out in our favor as compared to what we can already do for ourselves to get out of the fees.

I really don't understand the wholesale anti-government mindset when it comes business regulation. Our economic system didn't fail because of mere chance, nor did it fail because of any partisan political policy. It failed because capitalism, that great ideology we're so proud of, has its roots in exploitation and greed; and once you find you can get away with something, you'll push until you get some more, and then before you know it, you'll find that you have an entire political party behind you - because all of a sudden, it's you that makes the world go 'round - and you now have free reign to rape society at will.

And then it inevitably implodes. But no one playing the game cares, because they got theirs. That's "Big Capitalism". Us and Them.

The Government setting our salaries? Obviously, there are huge problems with that, but sadly, it seems the two biggest are:

1) Most everyone would feel they "weren't getting theirs"...which is a mindset we're indoctrinated with early on in life, and

2) The inherent distrust of government/centralized power.

Greed and distrust. With these two components at the forefront of our thinking, how can anyone be surprised that we're where we are? And why would anyone think things could get better in the long-term? The very essence of how we view our environment both socially and politically - and our place in it, has become so corrupted, that we've become a society conditioned to denounce, as opposed to solving problems and finding answers. And when answers are placed before us, we're too cynical to find any possible good in them.

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, and get real about how we got here in the first place. Maybe an economic system that has cyclical collapses shouldn't be "good enough" for this country.

Very nice post!!

There's a line between "regulation" versus "control". Regulation, IMO, involves setting policies that protect the citizens of our country from inappropriate and greedy practices. Control involves setting all of the policies for companies.

Think if there was no regulation for things like airlines. We expect regulation in regards to safety issues - planes must be maintained to a level so that they don't crash. Setting safety policies does not "control" the airlines, it protects the lives of consumers. With the financial problems in the country, why not protect the financial safety of citizens by trying to set policy on crazy airline policy?

This is, once again, not a question of government "taking control". It's a question on where you draw the line in consumer protection.

It seems to me that the better alternative is for the airlines to assume everyone is going to have one checked bag, and add that to the ticket price. I don't want to be hit with extra fees at check-in. Just figure the cost in the ticket price, along with the cost of snacks and bottled water. And if it is a long flight, either allow passengers to bring their own food, or include it in the ticket price too, if bringing it on board isn't allowed.

One airline practice that really ticks me off is on board delays. It is legal kidnapping to board a plane and then park it on the tarmac for hours before take-off, or after landing without allowing the passengers in the terminal. This has happened to me. They knew darned well that the plane wasn't taking off as scheduled, but without a word, they boarded the plane, THEN made the announcement as the plane sat on the ground for 2 hours. If I had known before I boarded, I could have made the decision to find another flight. But instead I missed my connection and arrived 9 hours late to my destination. Grrrrrrrrrr.

The more government controls the free market, the worse things will get. Eventually you will be told what to eat, how much, all your health care, what clothes you can wear, where you can work, how much your salary can be......socialism bordering on communism. This is where our country is headed little by little.

You no longer will have your "freedoms" because the government will control everything. Right now adding up what they have taken over so far - you are looking at close to 50% of the private sector businesses. You honestly think that the government will hand back the car companies????? Think again - they have control and don't expect them to hand it back.

I dread to think what this country will be like in the remaining 3 yrs that Obama is sitting in the White House!

I'll bet that the way this will be enforced is through the allocation of landing/takeoff slots, which the FAA controls at even the smallest commercial airports.

Most of the larger airlines are not going along with the charge for carry-ons. My guess is that they understand that if they charge you $25 for your carry-on, you will make sure it's as large as possible.

And the exponential growth in carry-ons is the natural result of the charge for checked bags. One of the quickest ways to control something is to tax it or charge for it. Most of the congressman in office under Reagan learned this with the much-vaunted luxury tax on yachts. Ultimately, they collected almost nothing and drove yacht production and registration overseas.

I'm willing to bet that those that have lost their homes, their jobs, and their savings to the "free market", would gladly take those conditions.

It's all relative, isn't it.

Funny, but I just heard that the GOP is trying to block the financial reform bill because it doesn't have enough regulation in it.

I'll ask my question again - where is the line drawn on this type of regulation? If you stop this, do you stop safety regulations? Do you stop airport security requirements? Do we allow flamable liquids, guns, knives, etc on planes? Maybe we should allow any carry on luggage and let people leave it in the aisles when it doesn't fit in the overhead bins. And let's allow babies to sit in the exit rows. And who needs the flotation devices and oxygen masks anyway? And don't you find those safety reviews prior to take off annoying? Darn those regulations!!

I was in a local airport in Panama one time. Our guide had a machete tucked in a holster across his back under his jacket. With no security, he boarded our plane with that machete. Then I saw an airplane on the tarmac with a flat tire that was hastily fixed before they put people on that plane. They told us that we couldn't carry more than 25 pounds of luggage per person on the plane or it would be too heavy to fly and didn't have a scale to weigh it. Then they looked at us and guessed our weight. I got on the plane hoping that everyone got their weight guesses right. They had virtually no regulations and it scared the h*ll out of me.

I would love to carry a bottle of shampoo on an airplane again, but oh my, the previous administration sure put a regulation on that one. We survived Bush and we'll survive Obama.

Just as a minor point, that regulation change was from the FAA and other regulators, and not from the administration. Although I'm sure they acquiesced.

The subject of regulation and deregulation is a constant discussion. In theory, any capitalist would support responsible behavior by the corporations they own. In practice, everyone, including small businesses, takes shortcuts that they should know will bite them eventually.

For example, Toyota is learning that lesson the expensive way right now. And just in case you wonder, Toyota's researchers still believe that the vast majority of the cases are driver error. But, had they been truly wise, they would have done a voluntary "campaign," which is not uncommon in the automotive world.

Oh, don't be sorry. I appreciate the "lesson".

That may be your opinion, but it is a hypothesis contrary to fact. Whether man is inherently good or evil is neither here nor there, but when a system is predicated on exploitation (i.e., getting something for nothing (or as little as possible), bad things are going to happen. You'll find that there are many economic systems constructed within the socialist/anarchist sphere that do not operate this way.

You know the disconnect here? I have absolutely no idea how you can make that leap. If you think this is a "liberal" thing, then you really don't understand liberals at all.

Actually, I think I see her point. If Airlines are completely, totally regulated, then that regulation is going to directly affect what they can pay their employees, and they employ a lot of people. And if it can happen there, why not elsewhere. It seems like a valid question to me.

Capitalism is not predicated on exploitation, OR on getting something for nothing. It is predicated on profit from investment and risk.

Ask me. I've had several of my stocks go to worthless, when a company went bankrupt. And if your IRA went down like everyone elses, then you, too, know about the risk that comes with capitalism.

You need to put down your college history textbook and slowly take a step back from it. The books that praised Marx and Mao were written by professor like Robert Reich, who hate capitalism and espouse the "tyranny of the proletariat."

Airlines are already pretty regulated, I thought? In some markets they already cannot employ their employees what the competition will. For instance in the market information technology an airline offered $40k a year for a senior position in 2007. They were looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience for their senior team lead position. Someone with that kind of experience could easily make 120k+ in the financial sector in 2007... so they were paying 1/3rd for the same job. The regulation is probably already effecting who they can employ. By the way, these two numbers are based off two actual job offers my mother got in the same city. I wouldn't know what they would pay for the job now 3 years later the point was she couldn't afford to work for them.

Now it sucks that they charge for this that and the other on the airlines. When you think about it though... isn't is kind of a luxury form of transportation? I can be thousands of miles away and it only take a few hours. When driving the same distance will take days.

We obviously need regulation on our financial sector but this just seems anti-business. I think the real problem is the micro-transactions being done by the banks still ... but this is completely off topic. If the airlines charge for carry ons 1) people will make it as large as possible and 2) they might lose business to an airline that doesn't charge for carry ons. In fact the competition would probably boast in their advertising that they don't charge for carry ons. It's a business decision and I'm sure they would change if they started losing money to it.

Should the fees be government regulated? I don't think so. But Amy is absolutely right about making airlines disclose all the fees before people buy their tickets. Otherwise we're dealing with yet another form of bait and switch.

IMO the economic principles of capitalism, such as the profit from investment and risk, is just putting definitions to what was already happening, capitalism started before it was put into economic terms and theories, and it did start as exploitation, looking at industrial revolution England, and even pre industrial revolution when the "christian paternalist ethic" started to wane in England and puritans who thought god was telling them they've been chosen if they were wealthy, wanted to profit at all costs. And even before then, during 15th century when Spain expanded to the Americas and began exploiting the native Americans there. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations after capitalism had already long been set in motion, though not as we know it.

I think in that sense, it's why capitalism works so well as opposed to communism, because it happened so spontaneously. Unlike with communism which was defined and described first before it was put into practice without any real world example, just someone's visions of a hypothetical future. Of course according to Marx communism will happen spontaneously just like capitalism started, but it was just his made up extrapolations that were just a stretch of the imagination, IMO at least.
I am saying capitalism is successful in terms of economic growth only, and of course I think there are lots of problems that arise, but for me the perfect example of regulated capitalism is that in the UK.

And as far as greed, I agree there will always be greed and it's just a human quality, but I think the government can do things to ensure there is justice, because if it didn't than our country would be like Haiti or Ethiopia.

I am going against the grain here, being fiscally conservative and for less governement regulation/interference overall.

These airline fees are out of control! The baggage fees started when gasoline was creeping up toward $4/gallon. Guess what? Oil and gas prices aren't close to that level but they are still charging those fees to pay for the extra cost of fuel. Does anyone else see this not adding up? Don't remember which airline, but I recently heard that one of them was going to start charging to use the restroom on the plane. As if the $4 pack of crackers that costs them less than 10 cents isn't robbing us enough!

I was there, same as Amy, when they started charging for baggage without notice. Pay now or leave it at the terminal, and that was on the return leg of the round trip ticket. That pretty well scrubbed the price shopping I did months in advance of my flight. The airline I took charged for bags now, the one I didn't take because they were a little higher cost for the ticket still weren't. Oh well, made no difference to them.

Does anyone else remember when you were served a meal or a good, hearty snack on every flight? Even if you were in coach! I also remember the big flurry that was caused when one of the airlines said that if they cut just one grape tomato from each salad they served, they would save some ridiculous amount. Something like $4 billion/year. One little tomato.

With the airlines charging an outrageous amount for baggage to fly (and sometimes you really do need to pack all that stuff), people are already pushing the limits of what can be called a "carry-on bag." Apparently to many people that means that as long as they can still carry it without a forklift it should be able to go in the cabin of the airplane. I've seen people's carry-on bags that were larger than my suitcase that I checked - and paid for. So then I can't get my reasonably sized laptop bag in an overhead compartment because they are full of backpacks you could use to trek up Kilimanjaro and full size suitcases.

To be fair, though, if the airlines would actually use those boxes they have that indicate the largest size that is supposed to be allowed in the cabin, they wouldn't have this issue. Kinda like most issues with gun control - if you'd enforce the rules/laws you already have, you won't have to make more.

If the airlines would just put the cost they want to get from you up front in the ticket price like they used to instead of nickelling and diming us to death (meaning $50 - $100 in charges) I don't think people would be so upset. It's like they're lying to us with the price, and then Cousin Vinny meets you at the terminal for the rest of the price to fly.

I have to agree with you on this. Though perhaps for different reasons.

If you look at Haiti or Ethiopia or Cuba or Venzuela, greed is still there. In spades. The difference is that in those examples the greed is at the top of the government. The ones who control the military, the police, everything of force. The ones at the bottom stay at the bottom, and our homeless are still better off than most of the population in those countries. There is no way up the ladder. In a capitalist system, hard work and good ideas can bring a person up from the gutter. That's not true in (most all) socialistic/anarchist regimes because the power remains solely at the top. The government ensures that wealth is accrued for themselves, not to ensure justice, safety, or fairness. That may not be the theory, but that is generally how it works in reality.

Well, I agree that part of the government's job is to make sure those who work hard get to keep what they make and have the opportunity to progress. Though I don't think the government regulating businesses means that businesses don't get to keep everything they make- to me, regulations are simply rules they have to follow, and there shouldn't be any question about what they would make if it wasn't for these rules...for example pollution- i am sure all of us can agree the government must regulate how much pollution (and I am not talking in regards to global warming, I mean something like polluting a river with mercury) a company can release into the environment, even if that means loss of profits-and I'm sure there are very few people who will disagree, by this exact same logic, the government should protect people from all kinds of unreasonable business practices that are just unavoidable as a result of the nature of capitalism.

And I think it's also the job of the government to make sure that this reward of hard work and incentives to get ahead is still possible, even for people of the lowest class. If we let big corporations unregulated, then it will get harder and harder for people at the bottom to succeed, even with hard work and at one point there will no longer be a middle class, like we are seeing is already starting to happen. JMHO

For what it's worth, "investment" style economics that utilize securities for financial growth - as well as the stock market itself - are the very essence of "getting something for nothing". A high-end economy based an assumptions and intangibles, as with any sort of gambling, will work...until it doesn't. And like the gambler that lost everything, we hear that that his system was perfect, he just had a stretch of "bad luck".

We're told by those within the system that this or that investment is "safe" or "low risk". Why do you suppose that is? The fact that there are cyclical collapses like we're experiencing now should surprise no one.

I'd like the government (at least in Canada) to regulate the "false advertising" the airlines excel in. They say you can get a ticket for say $100 and by the time they add all the taxes and other charges, the ticket can be almost double what is advertised. If small businesses did that they would probably be accused of fraud.

In the US, Cellphone carriers are notorious for the same thing.

They can have any kind of party they want but I'd still like to know exactly how much I'm paying for services or items. They can break it down to what is taxes and what is the price of the service if they want, but I want to know what I am paying up front rather than be surprised when I go to pick up the item.