Big Brother Air travel rant #3 fuel prices surcharges hassles argh · Friday June 6, 2008 by colin newell
If I was an aviation executive, partner, employee or investor in the year 2008, I would not be sleeping much right now.
My seemingly endless nights would be filled with a tedious and unbearable sequence of cold sweats and gut wrenching anxiety attacks.
Because air travel is now approaching a perfect storm of utter chaos.
Guess the written language above (not what it says…) and win a prize!
when you figure it out – e-mail me
Fuel prices could double within the next 12 months.
Air fares now have almost doubled in the last year. Example: I was poking around the internet for some return flights to Portland Oregon from where my wife and I live…
$1600 return for the two of us. For a 300 mile flight.
Granted I had not checked one of my personal favorites – Horizon and Alaska Air… that netted return fares of about 800$ for the 2 of us for a long weekend – not including food or a place to rest our heads.
We are flying to Hawaii this Christmas – and those prices are rising faster than an untethered weather balloon.
And get this. Domestic flights in the U.S. are down 41 million trips… over the last 2 years if I read the report right.
Travel to Canada from the U.S. is down 65% over 2 years ago.
And that was prior to many of the fare increases.
So what was that about?
Well – Americans are sick and tired of the hassle of air travel, sick and tired of the TSA, sick and tired of the presumption of guilt, sick and tired of the shake down, sick and tired of the illogic, sick and tired and frustrated and frightened of speaking up about any of the above for fear of the small room, the bare light bulb and the questioning matron snapping her glove as she/he preens for the strip search.
Americans don’t like to be pushed around – and I witnessed too much of it first hand after 2 years of travel after 9/11… before I became too anxious to travel south of the border… for fear of being one of 700,000 on the FBI’s and Homeland Securities No-Fly list
One of my more dim-witted friends actually said…
“The terrorists have won now haven’t they?”
Uhm. Hello. The terrorists have not won anything. The business of security and the U.S. administration has won the task of scaring the crap out of us and keeping us at home… with our heads semi-permanently buried in the sand.
In North America we have spent billions of dinar securing ourselves from an almost invisible and non-existent threat – remember what I said about the killer bath-tub in an earlier post?
Too many people are not traveling enough. They are not spending money. Airlines are shrinking faster than a wool vest on a hot tumble dry. And those that do travel are being treated like a beleaguered and badgered holiday camp queue for the loo – except in this line-up there are more fees than a chartered bank checking account… and after you stand in a cryptic and endless assembly named, however ironically, platinum, green, blue, or First Class... for an hour and a half, scanned with a chest x-ray’s worth of microwave radiation, berated for trying to sneak on an 8 ounce tube of Colgate tooth gel, forced to drink a sample of your own tepid breast milk, frog marched across a fungi ridden floor while your shoes pile up at the end of a conveyor belt littered with lap-top computers and strangers sweaty overcoats… you are allowed to board your 35 minute flight – packed in a aging steel tube with less breathing room than a Green Day mosh pit.
Airport security teams are now being trained to be piracy police… to poke through your i-Pods, laptops, gidgets and gadgets… without your permission… and god help you if you speak up – which supports my whole point.
Perfect storm.
F*ck. F*uck F*uck F*ckity F*uck.
Comment [4]
U.S. develops yet another tool for abusing civilians #2 · Tuesday June 3, 2008 by colin newell
Colonel Hymes of the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia U.S.A demonstrates the Active Denial System weapon by staging what CBS somewhat oddly called “a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq” — a handful of military volunteers, dressed as civilian protesters, who carried signs saying “peace not war” and threw objects at a small group of soldiers. A series of raygun blasts from half a mile away disrupted their chants and finally sent them running.
Watch the whole video and story and shake your head with me.
I am fully qualified to make this statement: This is no ray-gun. This is a microwave transmitter. Much like the mechanism that works inside a microwave oven, the Active Denial System, uses radio waves to heat peoples skin up – possible side effects include permanent damage to your eyes and changes to your DNA.
Shocked? You should be. Dismayed? I hope so.
Sure, it’s better than bullets. But why are we shooting people in phony wars anyway?
And people who carry signs that say Peace, not War!
We should not be zapping these folks – we should be electing them as leaders.
My original post
Big Brother Air travel rant #1 what`s in your pocket · Saturday May 24, 2008 by colin newell
The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws that could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers, mp3 players, iPhones, cell phones and other electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the hassle of traveling anywhere with such devices.
These new laws could also impose strict regulations on ISP’s, forcing those companies to hand over customer information without a court order.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), would see Canada join other wing-nut countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, to form an international coalition against copyright infringement.
Right. And who is behind this nonsense? That’s right – formerly unstoppable and now foundering record company multi-nationals like Sony Music. It seems that American Idol is simply not producing enough revenue to buoy their titanic-bound fortunes of old.
This deal would create a international regulator that could turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police. These byte police would be in charge of checking your laptop, iPod and even your cellular phone for content that “infringes” on copyright laws; like the video of your son or daughters performance in their school’s production of Oklahoma.
Is it just me, or are you sick and tired of the Canadian government wanting to peep into your bedroom, your kitchen, your financial records and now your personal electronic entertainment devices? Enough already! Enough!
The ACTA document divulges… officials should be given the “authority to take action against law breakers (authority to act without complaint by rights holders).”
Anyone found with infringing content in their possession would be open to a fine or have their devices confiscated or destroyed.
The trade agreement includes “civil enforcement” measures that give security personnel the “authority to order ex parte searches” (without a lawyer present) “and other preliminary measures.”
Have you seen some of the security personnel that work at our airports and border crossings? They are power mad wieners that will go crazy with this new authority.
Currently in Canada, border guards already perform random searches of laptops at airports to check for illegal content. ACTA would expand the role of those guards.
Gas Price Rant #12 The Chug-a-lug bug in your rug · Monday April 28, 2008 by colin newell
As gasoline prices continue to bottle-rocket in the Canadian (and American) marketplace, a torrent of theories attempting to explain the pricing behavior in gasoline markets have emerged. Internet pundits from the CoffeeCrew blog and beyond have their own pet theory about the rising price of motion juice.
So – who is right? And how off the mark am I?
Some sound economic analysis is in order and it seems only appropriate to play a bit of “gasoline price fact or fiction” with stalwarts: supply and demand.
(Theory #1) Gas prices are controlled entirely by wholesalers and refinery oligopolists who collude, cooperate and profiteer at your expense.
Fact or Fiction?
One of the most widespread theories about gasoline markets is that prices are controlled entirely by monopolists in the oil industry – That suppliers may charge whatever high price they prefer with impunity due to collusion and cooperation between cogs in the chain of process. From appearances alone (Prima facie): prices between gas stations tend to move up (and down) in a synchronized pattern, with the suggestion that collusion must be occurring between suppliers.
If one uses the Victoria, B.C. Canada market as an example, one would note that prices move lock step – often shifting city-wide to the exact same point within minutes of any rumor of increase (or decrease)
And while gasoline wholesalers and refiners certainly possess modest “market power,” suppliers do not “control” prices. On the contrary, prices are controlled by the interplay between supply and demand; the collusion whimsy tends to dismiss the demand side of the market. Gasoline refiners and wholesalers have market power because demand for gasoline tends to be insensitive to price changes. “Price in-elasticity” – means that when prices change, consumers’ spending habits change proportionately less than the accompanying variation in price.
Price in-elasticity occurs for several reasons. First, gasoline, has no close substitutes. Without choice, consumers tend to be less price conscious.
Gasoline is also viewed as a “necessity” by most people. There is no option to stop buying fuel as protest. Most people will sacrifice other goods in order to spend more of their income on gasoline – or forgo recreational travel.
Consumers do not have time to alter their buying behavior in response to price spikes. They do not typically adjust to higher gas prices by purchasing hybrid vehicles, riding their bicycles or walking to destinations. Any adjustments in buying patterns take time. In the long term consumers could adjust by finding alternatives, making the gasoline more price elastic. Hasn’t happened yet, has it?
Finally, studies indicate that gasoline expenditures are still a small slice of most household budgets. In 2003, the average Canadian household probably spent less than 5% of annual income on gasoline. At this juncture, Canadian households tend to be insensitive to price changes. We are currently feeling the pinch in the food marketplace as the real impact of fuel costs versus costs of delivery impact the very mechanisms that bring goods and consumables to our communities.
Gasoline is a price-inelastic product. Here is another reason why:
Whether prices fall or rise, people generally buy the same amount. I mean, you can only fill up one gas tank at a time.
Look at it this way: If the demand for gasoline is perfectly price inelastic, and if refineries and wholesale have firm control over prices, why do prices ever stop rising?
They do actually. They ebb and flow. The current price of 1.29/liter is scarcely higher than it was a year ago – It goes up and down. Obviously the trend is upwards
and although we will not stop buying gasoline any time soon, we are certainly going to feel the pain of skyrocketing fuel prices in other ways – some of which we have yet to imagine.
update: Note blog entry from almost a year ago – yup, 129.9
How have prices impacted your life? [3]
