Plane Goes Down/ Welcome to Capitalism..,.

[Detroitej72]

Wonderful capitalism, even though 2nd mate hand't a clue:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090514/...lane_into_home

[Mikeg]

First off, let's put flight safety into perspective. Here is a chart indicating the annual US aviation fatality rates since 1950. Notice any trend?
Attachment 1187

Here is a link to a table that uses a slightly different - but consistent - aviation fatality rate to compare airlines around the world and which presents the data by world regions. Each region seems to have at least one airline that has a safety record as good as those in the North America region.

Finally, here is a graphic that shows the hull accident rates by world region. Note that China's rate is slightly better than the US/Canada rate.
Attachment 1188

My conclusion - capitalism has nothing to do with airline safety.

[ccbatson]

How is this the fault of Capitalism?

[firstandten]

One could make a point that capitalism via de-regulation does have something to do with airline safety per this article by Mark Shields.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/mark...olumnsName=msh

Can't blame the republicans on this one. The airline deregulation act was a Jimmy Carter production. Even though aviation fatalies have been trending downward since the fifties I maintain that much of that is due to the knowledge the industry has gained over the years from prior accidents and the fixes they put into place as a result rather than an argument for regulation or de-regulation. I would suggest however that the rate could be even lower if training, pay and work schedules especially for the puddle-jumper airlines were better.

[mjs]

Oceania can't be 0.0. We all know Oceanic Flight 815 crashed.

Just kidding. Suprising data. Learn something new everyday.

[ccbatson]

One could try to make that point...and fail miserably.

[Detroitej72]

I was referring to the fact that the co-pilot had limited training in my initial post, a product of deregulation.

[ccbatson]

Do you think, under capitalism, that the owner of the airline wants to take chances and forfeit to competitors by putting untrained pilots on their very expensive planes covered by very expensive insurance? Do you think that, under capitalism, an untrained person would be able to get a job flying planes when other trained pilots are vying for the job?

The point? Capitalism is self correcting.

[MikeM]

Do you think, under capitalism, that the owner of the airline wants to take chances and forfeit to competitors by putting untrained pilots on their very expensive planes covered by very expensive insurance? Do you think that, under capitalism, an untrained person would be able to get a job flying planes when other trained pilots are vying for the job?

The point? Capitalism is self correcting.

Well, when it comes to the regional airlines, I don't think that crosses their [[the owners) minds, especially if the owers are anonymous stockholders. [I'll never forget the VP of operations telling me to tell a mechaninc to stuff a handfull of "nuts and bolts" into the bleed air valve on a PT-6 engine, forcing the valve to stay open to keep the bleed air leak warning light from illuminating during flight. I'll also never forget the sound of him cussing and throwing the phone to the ground when I refused, causing several flights to cancel while a replacement part was flown in.] Also, most are self-insured, so I can't say how the cost of insurance plays into it.

No, an "untrained person" could not get the job because the airline has to hire appropriately licensed pilots for the position and besides, the airline does the training itself or contracts it out. But, an "unexperienced" pilot could get the job. Federal code sets the minimum standards for the license required in quantatative terms but the experience acquired during that time can vary widely. You need 250 hours in the air to earn a commercial pilot's certificate and that can be lowered if you get your training from an approved flight training school. To be a captain you need 1500 hours of flying time. Too bad all 1500 hours can be accrued flying in the sunny skies of Arizona. If the airline needs a warm body to fill the seat and isn't concerned that you've never been blinded by ice, then the airline has an ample supply of pilots to choose from and supply and demand will drive the wages down below poverty level. [[Yes, we had pilots on food stamps - ahh, the character building a four-figure salary will do!) Rebecca Shaw couldn't afford to live in or near Newark so she lived with her parents. She rode with the boxes on FedEx all night from Seattle to Memphis to Newark, then slept in a Lazy-Boy for a few hours before her fateful trip. She had never "seen ice like this" and I know well the feeling of being "freaked out" by it. However, capitalism provided the means for Colgan Airlines to exist and for Rebecca Shaw to work there. A socialist state-owned and operated airline might provide the same service with more qualified personnel, but probably at such a higher cost that few could afford to travel on it. [[So then it wouldn't exist, would it?)

Capitalism may be self-correcting; hopefully not at the expense of innocent people's lives. Somehow I doubt this episode will change passengers' travel habits nor Colgan's hiring practices.

[MikeM]

My conclusion - capitalism has nothing to do with airline safety.

And a quasi-socialist country just lost a vessel over the high seas.

[Lowell]

The problem with capitalism is that capital must grow at all cost or it dies. The fact overrules humanity, quality and sanity. Production must be pushed off the end of the line, ready or not. It is not that humanity, quality and sanity aren't desirable, it just that when one or the other has to be chosen, it is always money growth.

In my first years in Detroit, working in the Rouge engine plant, I learned that lesson quickly. My first summer was spent inspecting engine block main oil seals. When I started writing up main seal walls that were as thin as razors due to bad milling, such that you could snap them off with your fingers, my foreman ordered to stop doing it. "We ran the for 24 hours in hot test and they're fine," he lied -- and knew I knew he was lying.

[ccbatson]

Let me guess....a union shop?

In a successful company shoddy work would have a negative impact and be reversed, or, a competitor would displace the company producing inferior products. Sometimes small failures must be allowed to "hit the streets" before they get corrected.

[firstandten]

Let me guess....a union shop?

In a successful company shoddy work would have a negative impact and be reversed, or, a competitor would displace the company producing inferior products. Sometimes small failures must be allowed to "hit the streets" before they get corrected.

So ... Cc, if ABC airlines had shoddy maintainance and because of that a plane crashed and killed hundreds of people. The free market would wave its hand and people would stop taking ABC airlines as a result, but I would think that its a little late and of small relief to the people who lost loved ones as a result of having a failure "hit the streets"

[Omaha]

For liberals it’s always a fine line deciding how much regulation is needed when greed-driven profit maximizing corporations put goods and services for sale in the market. For Colbert Conservatives and Social Darwinists it is an easy decision. Gordon Gekko is coming back and once again Americans can relearn the adage that “Greed is good.�

To compete in the market, Americans need to do what is legally permitted…but they must not be tied down by what it ethical. Following the law [[thank Goodness there are loopholes) is required. Behaving according to a set of professional or religious ethics should be optional if they get in the way of market competition.

But I digress. I stand firmly with Cc on this thread. Let the market decide. The market [[not government) is the ONLY entity that can fairly limit a person’s freedom. [[You have to understand I could have included corporate behavior as I did in the opening paragraph in that last sentence, but that would have been redundant. Corporations were determined to be citizens by the SCOTUS in 1886.) If a company puts a bad airplane out, and it crashes and 228 people are killed, word gets out and the market responds. That is as it should be.

The same is true when it comes to regulating food, drugs, or the importation of toys from China that may contain dangerous substances. The market is KING. Individuals putting out bad or dangerous products or services must respond by changing/improving what they offer for sale or go out of business. Social Darwinism works in the free market as well.

Heck, that logic tells me that government regulation of individuals who may be plumbers, electricians, doctors, or anything else is also wrong. If a person wants to exercise his or her liberty to call herself anything, government should not get in the way. Let them compete with one another in the market. The strongest will survive.

BTW Lowell, Cc’s insight about the union workplace makes perfect sense. Union wages and contracts unfairly stop management from adequately engaging in quality control. If wages were lower, the employer could pay more attention to quality control and put better products on the market. But with high wages, the desire to be competitive, forces corporations to cut corners elsewhere...like identifying and reworking poorly constructed products. In essence, unions put such unfair burdens on employers who are then forced to put out shoddy products thereby endangering their market share.

Wait a minute, it goes deeper. High wages for line workers cause an employer to have to pay more to other professional employees as well. So high wages across the board cause employers to force its engineers to make dangerous design decisions as well. The Pinto designers could have chosen to redesign the gas tank problem if Ford’s labor costs were only lower.

It all makes sense now. High wages and restrictive work rules forced down the throats of employers by the UAW is at fault for everything that happened to the [[formerly) Big Three.

Boy it is fun being a Colbert Conservative and having the awesome responsibility of explaining to others how things work in the REAL world.