Future Shock

[UtahFanSir]

This fascinating article published today in the NYT about demographics, rural and urban, over the last 20 years and how that is shaping politics. Moreover, the article gets into economics and the role of technology.

Reaching Out to the Voters the Left Left Behind

From the article:

“Trump did best in regions where economic growth was the worst; where jobs are disappearing and where middle-aged white men and women are dying at younger ages.”

I hate the title of the piece, but it does make the point that what is underway is an explicit challenge for the Democratic party (and all of us really), while I see the changes underway as being much more important that just politics.

Arguably there is a large element of rich versus the poor (or class) narrative here, as someone suggested the other day in a similar link I made. To me it’s access to opportunities and that also means education and capital.But we live in a constantly changing world driven by technology.

You might remember this article by an economist I trust I linked in a month ago: Want to Restore Manufacturing Employment? Smash the Robots!

My wife and I have lived in small town America on and off (as part timers until 2007, full time since) since the early 1990s. We see the young folks, predominately of farmers, laborers and shop owners move away, most get some education–college, exposure to the big city, and not come ‘home’, in some cases because they cannot afford to return home. Case in point, Teton Valley, Idaho, where Huntsman began a massive hi-high-end development (the company is finally bailing there BTW). To the point, the wealthy were (and still are) buying up the land, building magnificent country “Private Idaho” estates, and driving land values to places the ‘displaced’ and ‘locals’ cannot afford.

The same is happening to the town I live in now (rural Central Oregon), where rising housing prices are forcing younger folks to Portland, where they can get a higher paying job and find affordable housing. Here the housing market is incredibly tight, unless you can afford a home of >$500,000.

I’m not sure who within our government and dialed in political parties is looking at these mega changes brought to us by technology, but to be a cohesive undivided country, we must. I’m not happy with the political chasm, rising social/economic class disparity, have’s and have-nots’, diminishing or highly bifurcated educational opportunities, and the internecine warfare among voting blocks those promulgate.

We are better than that.

[PlainsUte]

I work in academia and grew up in an urban/suburban area so maybe I’m not seeing it, but where is it that these rural people don’t have educational opportunity?   Its not there or there is a segment of the population that is anti-intellectuals, so they don’t bother to go to college or a trade school, or hardly study in high school, preferring “high school football star” be the pinnacle of their lifetime accomplishments.   Even if you want to work in agriculture there are opportunities at land-grant universities, and from what I have seen (wife’s family history is rural, so they still own land) you can make pretty good living at that with cash crops and/or cattle if you’re smart about managing the land and risks.

If you want to choose to grow up ignorant of technology, go ahead, your choice, but the days of making a good living at a manufacturing job with a high school C education are pretty much over due to 1) robots 2) foreign competitive wages.  No politician can “solve” that.

[Utah]

This is what we need to realize. My dad graduated law school in the early 80’s. My mother’s brothers would make fun of my dad because he was a poor attorney working his tail off for a law firm getting paid diddly squat while they were all high school graduates making $60,000 (three times as much as my dad) working for the car companies in Detriot. 

We need to realize those days are over. Why are republicans so pro-capitalism but when it comes to these type of jobs, they are all for government support to keep them alive? 

Times have changed. It’s time to take the money given to corps through tax breaks, etc and invest that money into schools. 

[UtahFanSir]

For what its worth, I don’t believe all education is equal. And that separates folks from opportunity. I know for example that in one section of our town, the most affluent, they have attracted the best teachers and that is a fact. Test scores published show it, my neighbor who are two teachers tell me so also. The other schools take what is left. And the worst teachers are by and large packed in the rural areas. If you don’t believe that, okay. All kids then get precisely the same high quality education, even in the ghettos.

As another reference point. I believe kids who went to Skyline HS or Judge Memorial in the late 1960 and early 1970s got a better education and were better prepared for college than kids who attended Magna or Milford HS. Realtors say location, location, location. Schools matter.

BTW, I said “access to opportunities” in my original note, using education as an example.

But to your point that I agree on one aspect. Parents and kids need to step up if they want to get somewhere in life. Kids need to be schooled also at home (in addition to at school) and fed enough to think properly. If the household does not value education, well you know what we get.

[PlainsUte]

There are a lot of immigrants who come to America, struggle to survive, live in poor areas, but they emphasize education to their kids (in a few cases to excess), and they do quite well.  One of wife’s best friends is Vietnamese born came to America at age 8.   Works in upper management at a large retailer.

[UtahFanSir]

I love those stories.

[Utah]

I want to read these later. I’m not sure if this is on topic or not, but I had a conversation with my brother today. We were discussing United and his first reaction was that this was all government’s fault for intervening and regulating the air industry. 

I told him I agreed. I said the fact that the government has allowed airlines to overbook didn’t help. The fact that the government then stepped in and chose to protect the big business over the consumer, by limiting the amount given to passengers who are booted off didn’t help. 

I said that it’s too bad free market principles weren’t allowed to go into force here, where United had to raise the reimbursement to a level where someone would give up their seat is a shame. Why not let free market principles reign? Let United, who purposely screwed themselves over by overbooking, negotiate with the consumer they screwed until they had seats available? 

He said he didn’t believe that the government would place limits on what was paid out and that it was the other regulations that caused these problems. 

 

My point: 

We have a REAL problem with misinformation. People believe stuff that is not even remotely true. Until we can establish a baseline of truth, we won’t get much done. 

As long as we scream about “Fake News” while believing news that is ACTUALLY false…

It’s crazy that in our day and age, we can have so much misinformation used as truth. It’s shocking. From vacinations, to climate change, to what laws are real and who got them passed (see, Miller, Larry and his anti-capitalistic empire he has built in Utah)…it’s amazing what some people believe. 

We should be smarter than this. 

[Stone]

I did not realize that there is a government imposed cap on the amount the airline could pay out. I have not seen that in any of the articles I read. If that is true (I have no idea one way or the other), then United deserves less blame than it got (blame is still deserved). Again, if that is true, I also fault the media for not making that clear–most of the commentary I have read suggested the same thing as you “why didn’t United keep raising the compensation?” But I have not seen any commentator state that United was not allowed to raise the compensation; a fairly material piece of information.

[Utah]

There is no cap on volunteers. So, the media is right. United should have paid more until there was a volunteer. 

There is a cap on involuntary removal. Another example of government protecting corporations over consumers. They love to whine about regulations, but just as many protect them as hurt them. 

[Daedalus]

the ridiculous thing is they didn’t even try to approach the cap before resorting to forcible means.

[Stone]

I am confused. What is the cap on involuntary removal? Only a certain number of people can be involuntarily removed? And then what is @daedalus saying about approaching the cap before resorting to forcible means? That makes it sound like there is a cap on compensation.

[Daedalus]

I mistakenly kept up the terminology “cap.”  The fine print is… finer.

 

• If you are bumped involuntarily and the airline arranges substitute transportation that is scheduled to get you to your final destination (including later connections) within one hour of your original scheduled arrival time, there is no compensation.
• If the airline arranges substitute transportation that is scheduled to arrive at your destination between one and two hours after your original arrival time (between one and four hours on international flights), the airline must pay you an amount equal to 200% of your one-way fare to your final destination that day, with a $675 maximum.
• If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles (400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum).
• If your ticket does not show a fare (for example, a frequent-flyer award ticket or a ticket issued by a consolidator), your denied boarding compensation is based on the lowest cash, check or credit card payment charged for a ticket in the same class of service (e.g., coach, first class) on that flight.

In the “good” doctor’s case, he probably spent enough on the ticket to get 400% capped at $1350 since it was nearly 24 hours’ delay, but not necessarily because they may have targeted him as having the cheapest seat.  I meant that they could have upped their $800 voucher compensation offer to $1000 or $1200 to drum up more volunteers before going the involuntary route.

If I’m ever booted from a flight involuntarily, I’m demanding cash not voucher as per these legally mandated rights.

[Guba]

Cap is not the best term. The $1350 is the maximum compensation the airline is required to give a passenger who is involuntarily bumped. The airline is obviously free to give more but why would they when they have no obligation to?

[Stone]

Ah, okay, thank you. That makes sense.

[UtahFanSir]

From HRB on the subject…

Excerpts in this brief for those interested in an informative and in-depth discussion of this topic. I believe this incident will induce changes to regulations for the better.

“…the DOT has adopted a rule that encourages involuntary bumping — which is undoubtedly less popular with flyers than voluntary bumping. The regulation specifies that if a passenger is involuntarily bumped, airlines have to pay a penalty amounting to 200%–400% (depending on the delay length) of the one-way fare that they paid with a maximum cap of $1,350. This provides an incentive for airlines to bump passengers who paid the least amount for their ticket, often the poorest travelers on the plane. So while United was offering $1,000, the unlucky four who were told to deplane could end up receiving less than half of that amount if they were flying on discounted $200 roundtrip tickets. By setting such a low liability, the DOT is inviting airlines to excessively bump passengers.”

“In 2015, 505,000 passengers were voluntarily bumped in this manner and another 46,000 were bumped against their will.”

“Passengers’ rights are limited due to the fine print of airlines’ contracts of carriage, which specifically state that they can be involuntarily bumped. If the DOT is intent on getting involved with involuntary bumping, it should either give passengers more rights — perhaps by banning the practice, though not banning overbooking as Governor Christie has suggested — or take steps to ensure that airlines are fully liable for their actions. This will yield a more market-based result. If involuntary bumping is banned, airlines will have no choice but to offer market-based compensation to voluntarily get people off planes. Similarly, if their liabilities are not capped, airlines will be more generous to avoid the costs of handling a slew of small claims lawsuits.”

I’m not sure it address involuntary or voluntary bumping. But it would seem to me that the airline is incentivized to keep the fee low, and then use force to involuntary remove passengers, as stated in the article.

[Tony (admin)]

From what I’ve heard that flight was not overbooked. There were four employees who needed to be transported on that flight to get to a destination from which to work.

[Author]

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