Nofsdad
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6727
Location: Central CA
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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:51 pm Post subject: Airlines Asking You To Help Them Lobby Congress
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Not having ever had occasion to utilize the services provided by the airline industry, due largely in part to a firm belief in the old adage that says nobody has ever fallen thirty thousand feet in a Ford pickup, I haven't really paid a lot of attention to them other than when they've spawned a snake like Don Carty that has, in some small way, impacted my life.
But I am smart enough to know that this country can't function in anywhere near its present state without them. Therefore, the following caught my eye pretty readily this afternoon. Emphasis, as always, is mine.
From Consumerist:
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| In a letter signed by 12 CEOs, the US air travel industry has called upon you, their customers, to help them lobby congress. What's the problem that they need help solving? Oil speculation. |
From Recession Watch:
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An Open letter to All Airline Customers:
Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now.
For airlines, ultra-expensive fuel means thousands of lost jobs and severe reductions in air service to both large and small communities. To the broader economy, oil prices mean slower activity and widespread economic pain. This pain can be alleviated, and that is why we are taking the extraordinary step of writing this joint letter to our customers. Since high oil prices are partly a response to normal market forces, the nation needs to focus on increased energy supplies and conservation. However, there is another side to this story because normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation.
Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known.
Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs.
Over seventy years ago, Congress established regulations to control excessive, largely unchecked market speculation and manipulation. However, over the past two decades, these regulatory limits have been weakened or removed. We believe that restoring and enforcing these limits, along with several other modest measures, will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight. Together, these reforms will help cool the over-heated oil market and permit the economy to prosper.
The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem.
We need your help. Get more information and contact Congress by visiting www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com.
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Folks, when some of the biggest corporations in the country start crying for MORE government regulation, then anybody not totally brain dead knows that the system... as it has been manipulated and operated over the past 20 or so years... is fatlly flawed and needs to be fixed while we still have some semblance of a system.
To those who's one major talking point is smaller government and keeping government out of our business... how about you keeping your business out of our government? It's obvious that self regulation and market forces were never serious considerations or if they were, did NOT work the way we were told they would.
What's the alternative to the alternative, eh?
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