Of airplanes, trains and politics

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A depression comes when the systems of the economy collapse. Right now, the economy is weak, inflation is raising the cost of everything (not just gas — watch corn prices carefully these next two months) and the unemployment figures will just get worse. But, when you couple that bad news with a weakened, unprepared levee system, you could get the flood of depression.

What I fear is that the systems of our country are assumed to be robust, the systems are assumed to be so untouchable under the free-trade capitalist system, that people may lose sight of the terrible weakness they are exhibiting.

Let’s take aviation for example. Wall Street is in command. They see a weakened balance sheet of one airline and they roll that company into another, fire 20 percent of the employees and declare it a financial success. The stock prices go up.

Planes, however, go down, routes are cut, services are cut back ("So you want $2 peanuts on this flight, sir?"), and fares go up.

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Here’s the problem: aviation is not a business or a retail outlet. It is unique, and there is nothing to replace it. In fact, so crucial is it to the nation’s system of the economy that aviation should, in fact, be considered a utility.

If your electricity is cut off, there are federal and state laws (and emergency funds) to protect your continuing supply. Why? Because without electricity, how would you work? The system of electricity keeps the nation working. That’s why it is a utility.

Same for gas (the vapor not the car fuel), phones, the Internet, cable companies (again business communication systems) and the nation’s highways (okay, they are not called utilities but infrastructure, but their protection for the good of the nation is the same).

We have a strategic fuel reserve. Why? To make sure the nation’s systems can run in an emergency. Fuel is, really, a utility.

If planes stopped flying, the vacation industry would take a hit. But that’s about 5 percent of what the aviation industry carries. The rest is business, cargo, packages, mail, medical supplies and personnel transport.

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If any one of these necessary system components goes down, every job, every business, every home suffers. If the whole lot grinds to a halt, or we get a domino effect spurred on by Wall Street speculating and carving up companies (and trained people), this could cause the aviation industry to wobble or, god forbid, collapse. The whole of the U.S. economy would follow, straight into a depression.

That is why I think it would be better if the administration (this one and the next) reappraise the essential nature of aviation to make sure that it is properly regulated to survive. That way Wall Street cannot gamble away our nation’s security and essential jobs.

When it takes five years to properly train a pilot, 15 years to design new aircraft systems, 10 years to build new runways and 12 years to implement new air traffic control, the more stable the systems of this essential industry, the better the planning is and more beneficial to society as a whole.

President Reagon knew this when he stepped in and made Air Force traffic controllers take over — almost overnight. It wasn’t about breaking a strike; it was about the safety of the nation’s economy, to keep the planes rolling.

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We’ve let railroads fall into disrepair. Currently railroads, especially Amtrak, are a weak sister essential utility. We now know that was a really bad decision.

You buy lettuce? Without the rail traffic from California, you would have none under $15 all winter long. The list of other rail-transported goods is too long to list. Trucks only carry them the last 260 miles on average, yet they use 200 times the amount of fuel per mile that trains do.

The demise of rail was said to be "an easy choice" in favor of aviation and truck cargo. Truck transport (via diesel fuel) is facing a major crisis. If we let aviation go the way of under-protected rail, we will have the makings of a steep decline in the nation’s economy, so steep I fear that "d" word again.