You will enjoy superb food and drink and be cosseted in a private compartment with a sliding door, a lie-flat seat with mattress, a vanity, a personal minibar and flat-screen television set, and a luxury bathroom down the aisle where you can take a shower.
The cost of this one round trip flight in first class? $32,840. That’s more than half my yearly salary. And some of you are sitting there thinking Myers is awfully privileged, because it’s more than your entire yearly income. You’re right, I don’t deny it.
I don’t blame the airline, it’s a symptom of a system that is so screwed up that some people are granted such astronomical wealth that they think nothing of spending so much on a single luxurious outing while others scrabble at two jobs to try and make enough to simply live.
That is only the perfect image of privelege when you contrast it with this one: https://images.essentialtravel.co.uk/blog/lack-of-legroom.jpg
And that’s for a a ticket that is going to cost you at least a grand, if we’re flying from LAX to Dubai.
And they have intentions of trying to cram even more people in the back cattle car.
I feel weird even saying this, because if you have enough money to plonk down a grand, you’re doing pretty well for yourself. But on the other hand, planes are how we get around. You’re teaching English in Korea? If someone in your family gets sick, be prepared to spend a week’s pay on that uncomfortable seat.
It isn’t the astronomical wealth that I object to, it’s the attitude that the megawealthy got their wealth solely through their own efforts and the rest of society had absolutely nothing to do with them gaining their wealth.
That is obscene. How much food could 32,000 buy. Or medical care? Or education?
The system is broken, but I suppose that’s pretty obvious.
antigone10:
That’s a good point. If you spend 12 hours in an economy class seat, it’s not because you’re poor; it’s because you’re rich. Poor people don’t get to travel between continents.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with privilege. And there’s also nothing wrong with spending so much on a flight.
It’s the question of how this privilege was earned.
blockquote>[S]ome of you are sitting there thinking Myers is awfully privileged, because it’s more than your entire yearly income. You’re right, I don’t deny it.
Poopyhead, Could this have been better phrased ?
Whilst the point you are making is both valid and important — some people, yourself and myself included — have a yearly income in excess of the quoted price, what I am questioning is whether or not that automatically is a symptom of “privilege”.
Which is how I am currently reading your comment “You’re right, I don’t deny it.”
It is entirely possible I am reading into that comment a meaning that was not intended. Or just simply expressing myself badly. Possibly because I just did take advantage of my own privilege, and spent a considerable amount on lunch at a nice restaurant with a nice bottle of not-inexpensive vin…
Mostly attempting to ignore that caveat, as a first attempt, I would have phrased it as something like “[S]ome of you are sitting there thinking Myers is awfully privileged, because it’s more than your entire yearly income. That is not incorrect, but, in part, misses the larger picture: The massive and increasing disparity between the so-called ‘1%’ and everyone else. I may or not may earn an appropriate salary, but it must be questioned whether or not the CEO of MegaCorp ‘earns’ his — almost assuredly his — yearly salary plus bonus of so-and-so-many-tens/hundreds of millions USD [USAlienstan $] whilst even some of MegaCorp’s employees must apply for assistance just to survive…”.
I’m not entirely happy with the anger about the pricing. It’s just money, not actual quality of living. It’s not like the wealth of he peoe is going to be reduced only because 32000 bucks change the owner. In he big picture, isn’t the crucial question rather how much work/added value went into this person’s extra special trip and could this work/capital have been used otherwise. Maybe I’m competely wrong here…
This is the long term fruits of Reaganomics and Thatcherism. Run up deficits on military spending, lower taxes and regulations on the rich and corporations on the promise of creating jobs which inevitably are shifted to China, India, Mexico and other countries where cheap labor can be fully exploited, when huge deficits inevitably occur as a result, call for austerity, end to meager social programs, blame teachers, unions, divide ordinary people against each other, all in the name of more global profits. To think at one time in this country, university education was largely free, now instead we have a generation of new students with astronomical student debts and few jobs to get when they graduate, and without the ability to discharge the debts in bankruptcy as a fallback. All so a class of grotesquely rich guys can have ever bigger and better toys, live an ever more grotesquely lavish life. Time to re-energize the occupy movement!
^^that’s a pretty good summary of the last 30 years alrighty.
IIRC, a few years back Airbus was working on a “standing seat” arrangement for aircraft where you are strapped into a seat VERTICALLY, and stacked in rows like so many cheap suits.
that idea didn’t fly…
Rather amusingly, the ad I am now getting is “Join Pope Francis in Jordan”.
Orwell was wrong.
We won’t end up with a boot stamping a human face forever. It’s far more insidious than that.
The rulers of this world haven’t even blown an opiate into the eyes of those they perceive as lesser. No, they’ve managed a far greater evil: they’ve convinced those who have the least to manufacture that opiate themselves, willingly, eagerly. The rulers have been so successful that the obscene disparity between the top and bottom can be displayed with a picture like above, and most will shrug. Some will even say “I could have that, if, if, if…” never questioning deep enough to realise that they can’t.
That they are not allowed to.
That the system is more than rigged against them.
It is in fact reliant on there being people so poor that they will wear their bodies away for a compensation will only just fulfil the most basic of needs, if they’re lucky.
Some days I see the rising temperatures, that precursor to a potential runaway greenhouse death of everything not as the horrific tragedy that it is. Sometimes in the dark of night when I despair for everything, I see it as justice.
So gross.
See, I think there is. I think that there’s something fundamentally broken about a society and an economy in which one person has so much money that they can easily drop the full amount of someone else’s entire household income on one plane flight. I especially think there’s something broken when it’s a very, very few people who can afford to do that, and a vast majority of people for whom that’s an entire year’s income. Income inequality has skyrocketed in the last 40 years. It is unsound for an economy to have that much inequality. That’s the stuff revolutions are made of, or entire collapse. The median household income in the US is 50k. That means that one ticket on one of these flights is the majority of total household income for half of the country. Go up to the top 5% of income, and it starts at 190k. That means that even in the top 5% of incomes in the country, most of them could not afford this. An incredibly small number of people are taking all of the wealth, and it’s not good for anyone else but them.
We’re living in a new Gilded Age, just a century after the previous one. Wonder if this one will also take two world wars and another Great Depression to end it.
Ryannair, probably Europe’s worse airline — whose CEO is a climate-change denier; bans his employees from recharging mobile phones whilst at work; pays his France-based employees from Ireland to avoid paying both French social security and the higher French taxes; and so on… — did try to get approval for this: Ryanair plan for standing-only plane tickets foiled by regulator.
In what would seem to be an example of privilege, that CEO is quoted in the article as saying “I think ultimately it [will] happen.” In other words, he cannot conceive of it being a bad idea…
(I’ve flown Ryanair twice. In both cases, it was because there was no alternative with anything resembling an acceptable price. I must say the staff were fine, and the aircraft seemed to be Ok. It’s the chief boss, and company’s policies, that are exceptionally objectionable (ignoring other reasons for avoiding flying, such as environmental damage).)
I see the problem as the rich guy spending so much on his own COMFORT. While, incidentally, a woman dresses up to serve his comfort further.
He could have suffered through the flight in a coach seat, and had $31,000 to donate to the poor. Or to fund research or to send that woman to college. He could have made the world a better place.
But his butt and back and taste buds took priority. I mean, yeah, I envy the comforts, but when a poorer person is standing right there in the picture ….
Carlie @14
I agree, but I would add that it is not good for THEM, either. In order to be able to look in the mirror they have to tell themselves the most outrageous lies. Like they deserve it. Like other people could have this too if they would just work hard, the lazy bastards.. That people who don’t have it aren’t really people. That is incredibly damaging. I don’t believe in souls except as a metaphor, but I think that much wealth is soul-destroying.
That’s three years’ income for me.
Disability. Other people I know get much less. It’d be about 5 years disability for some.
How many of you recall a phone app that cost $1000 in the app store and all it did was display an illustration of a giant jewel on the phone screen? Heck, I can’t even remember if it was even an animated jewel that spun around or if it just sat there like a stump. The whole point of the app was to show to other people that you could afford to just throw away a grand on something that you probably wouldn’t have even bothered with if it was free.
This reminds me a lot of that app: in fact, I am willing to wager that the über-rich that would pay 30k for a plane ride wouldn’t bother unless it was in plain view of other über-rich passengers. Although, it might be enough to rub it into the faces of the servants pampering them.
There is a big difference between the app and this service: when it was the app, it was someone of the lower classes getting money from the elite, whereas with this service it is the rich ripping off the rich. I’m guessing this fact had something to do with that app getting pulled from the app store. Can’t have the working class get one over on the rich. That’s a game only allowed for the elite.
When I first saw this, I thought the post was going to be about Etihad’s “The Residence” which is a 3-room “suite” at the front of the A380 which seats two and comes with a dedicatied butler. At least if you’re a party of two, the admittedly shorter London-Abu Dhabi flight breaks down to only $21K per person round trip.
It will be interesting to see if the Arab Gulf carriers will be able to sustain their premium class arms race; 10-15 years ago, Emirates’ first class wasn’t that different in service or price than that of European or Asian airlines. Now we’re at a point where Etihad’s regular first class is roomier than the Emirates’ product discussed in the NPR post and Emirates is developing its own “Residence”-like product supposedly to be rolled out across its entire A380 fleet. Granted, there’s a lot of money floating around the Gulf, but at the prices we’re talking about, you’re reaching the point where you can charter your own plane.
Link to description of “The Residence” here.
I don’t see this as an issue of privilege. The privilege comes at the airport when he doesn’t get extra scrutiny because he looks “suspicious”. Or just the fact that he can travel at all.
I saw a post today on FB showing data on CEO vs average employee salary discrepancies by country.
Japan was the least, at 11:1.
most of europe is around 20:1
guess where the US is at?
…….
ready?
475:1
no other country even comes close to HALF that discrepancy.
That look on the guy’s face in the picture reminds me of something from Hitchhiker’s Guide. Just the way he’s looking off to the side like that: all this opulence that, if he were anything less than the 1%, heck even the 5% mentioned in an above post, he would be paying through the nose to enjoy and he’s not even LOOKING at it!
He has a big screen TV, opulence all around him, a servant dressed up just for his pleasure, presenting him with beautifully prepared cuisine, and he is looking OFF TO THE SIDE with a look of what I can only describe as ‘smug disgust’ as if he is deliberately avoiding even acknowledging the very existence of all this pampering he has purchased. Heck, he isn’t even acknowledging the CAMERA!
The line that comes to mind is from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe where the group is in the parking garage of the restaurant looking at all the extremely expensive spaceships when they come across an extremely expensive ship with a horrendous paintjob. “It were as if the owner of the thing was telling whoever saw it ‘not only can I afford this, I can afford not to take it seriously'”
This guy’s face says to me “not only can I afford all this, I can afford to ignore it”
having spent time with the uberrich, I can tell you exactly what their response would be:
“Sure, I COULD do something nice for that hostess, or the kid who needs a college education, or whatever have you. But where does it stop? Do I have a line of people come to me endlessly asking for money?”
they rationalize away the good things they could do with their money, by creating a false dichotomy of “if one, then all”.
now, not ALL are like that. really. I have met some that HAVE given the vast bulk of their fortunes away (ok, only one, but still), and I have met people who really do spend a LOT of their time and money on nonprofit foundations, trying to improve things.
but that IS the main rationalization I have seen.
also, people wonder how, when you say, start making 600,000 a year, how that becomes so apparently greedy that you then have to make 1 mill, then 10, then a 100 million a year.
you’d be amazed at how fast economy scales. watched it happen with my best friend; he never could make enough money to satisfy himself he was “comfortable”, even after he owned 3 houses in Florida (nice ones) and was making nearly 7 figures a year.
he started out being happy to be working at his dad’s office supply store, doing 32 hour weeks.
he does 60 hour weeks now, makes 7 figures, and feels like he has LESS disposable income than he did when he worked at his dad’s office supply store.
it’s remarkable, but like I said, economy scales. It’s so easy to get used to the next level, and most of course can’t imagine going backwards as anything but “defeat”.
so you get comfortable disposing an income of 100k, then 200, then 500….
This is what pisses me off. In order for people to be that obscenely wealthy, many more people must starve. People have to be homeless. They have to be wage slaves, if they are lucky enough to work. That’s the only way the system that creates extreme wealth for a privileged few works. Everyone else get’s exploited until the whole corrupt economy crashes. Then who will they blame? They’ll blame they poor, especially minority women. They’ll call people living in trailers with big screen TVs or *gasp* children decadent. We’ve already seen poor people told that they aren’t poor if they have refrigerators. It’s sick. It’s wicked and it needs to change.
@25
If you look in this thread, you’ll see a bunch of people talking about how he could have saved his money and put a kid through college, or something similar. Nothing about flying in this seat precludes being an awesome person who spends most of his time and money helping people who need it. There are a lot of people who do both.
This is why I don’t travel by air. Planes aren’t that big. Every inch of space that guy takes up is an inch the rest of us don’t have. And if it’s his own private jet, unless he’s taking off/landing at a small airport that means he’s delaying other jets as well. One rich guy making life harder for hundreds of non-rich people. You could tear out that section of the plane and make room for three more people.
Or we could make it so that people don’t get rich enough to get to have that choice, because the people who need the help get his help via taxes.
As it often the case when I see such ostentatious symbols of wealth, even if I was rich enough to plausibly afford flying like this, I would not. Wasting so much money on myself would make me feel so disgusted.
You know the part that upsets me the most? Not necessarily that there are people who have this sort of weatlh – it’s a fact of the system, and I can’t begrudge somebody for accepting what the system gives them. I’m annoyed at those who actively work to manipulate the system in their favor, Koch brothers et al, but they aren’t even the worst of it.
No, the worst are those who look at such a system and declare it good. Those who deny that there is any form of coercion or oppression in play here; of course the rich earned their wealth justly, of course the poor are not deserving of even the meager scraps they receive, and how dare anyone suggest any form of wealth redistribution, however minor it may be, to help balance the system. Wealth is meant to flow from the bottom up – pyramids don’t balance on their head – and any attempt to even things out is an affront to nature’s law.
and nothing I said does either.
I merely added the rationalizations i have seen from those who don’t.
Boeing’s CEO, the airline that neglected (felt it too expensive?) to install GPS trackers on its aircraft, like the 777 flight MH370, gets a salary of >$20 million, enough for about 7000 luxury flights. But I bet Boeing picks up the bill.
…Who the heck showers on a plane? Who’d even want to shower on a plane? If the goal was to be all clean and ready to go upon arrival at the destination, why not just use the showers in the VIP lounges that airports already have? (Example) But instead someone has to design and build and install a little shower that gets hauled into the air, along with its water supply, where space and weight are at a premium, not to mention someone has to clean and service and repair the module? I realize it’s an intercontinental, 12+ hour flight, but even the staffed mini-bar makes more sense to me than that.
By the way, here’s the video for those business-class seats, via NPR in the OP. (youtube link)
@wbenson: I’m sure the CEO of Boeing doesn’t need to pay for flights. I’m sure Boeing has several aircraft set aside for executive use; they produce “VIP” models of several commercial airliners, up to and including the 747.
That’s the really disgusting part of this whole thing: That suite pictured in the post? The absolute wealthiest are laughing at the people flying in that. Flying first class, even these ultra first class transoceanic cabins, is just a sign that you can’t afford a big enough plane for long-haul flights.
Speaking of privilege, do you make cephalopod pancakes for your family?
http://animals.io9.com/coolest-dad-ever-cooks-pancakes-that-look-like-cephalop-1577564907/+charliejane
Here’s a video taken by a passenger who had one of those seats, for $550 (for a shorter flight) in 2012. The luxury bathroom and shower come in at 3:58. It also shows the lower deck, economy class seats at 5:40.
Youtube link, 8 minute video
@23: …and 475:1 is an average!
And with all of the current clamoring for a $15/hr minimum wage (which, in the long run, will do nothing but fan the flame of inflation), no one seems to be considering the effect of pegging the top US wages to the lowest ones. If we could establish a 3% rule, then every worker would receive $30,000 for every $1 million “earned” by their top executives. Conversely … no, that would be too much to hope for;; how could anyone in a corner office hope to get by on a mere $3 or $4 million a year?
Paul,
Paying people a wage they can survive on just makes inflation worse for whom?
Fan the flames? Really? That sound a bit like:
“Silly poor people, wanting to be fairly compensated for your labor, you’re just burning down the economy with your greed. You’re sooo much better off the way things are now. Trust us, we, the wealthy, know what’s best for you.”
But you see, one of the reasons these people don’t consider themselves privileged is because they are rich, but not rich enough to have a Gulfstream jet. The sheer expense of this ticket means they can save a bit of face around their Gulfstream owning friends, but there is still a bit of a sting.
You could make the “why are you spending money on luxuries when you could be spending it on the poor?” argument for most discretionary spending by the inhabitants of rich countries. “Why are you spending $50 on jeans, when you could get them for $10 at a discount store and donate the remaining $40 to a Food Bank?” “Why are you buying a house with three bedrooms, one for the parents and one for each kid? You could live in a two-bedroom house with the kids sharing a bedroom and donate the difference to charity every year?”
That’s why I don’t really get worked up over the expensive Emirate Airlines First-Class seat. It’s just the same thing as that, and it’s not really taking away anything from less wealthy fliers – there’s no lack of seats available either on EA flights or other airlines.
blf
Being middle class gives you privilege, even when it’s not due to privilege.
The privilege you get is the same whether you’re working hard to earn that money, got a cushy job because daddy knew the boss or are married to either person.
Like the privilege that a bad noise in the washing machine makes you wonder whether you need to take half a day off for the mechanic to repair it or whether it might be better to get a new one anyway. You won’t lose any sleep over it and you won’t have to live on Ramen for the rest of the month.
How is it that higher pay for the working poor fuels inflation but higher salaries for the corporate rich don’t?
The fact that rich people are pissing away money like this in and of itself isn’t as troubling to me as to whom is getting to collect that money. Wanna spend $3000 bucks on an old pepper shaker only worth a $1 some poor lady had in her attic? At least she ends up with the cash. Wanna stay after hours in your favorite bar, so you tip the staff a grand each to stay open another hour for you and your friends? Okay, at least the staff who are inconvenienced for your enjoyment get the dough. I’m fine with something like that.
But here you wanna blow $33K (yeah, I updated the figure from my last post) on a flight that even with the same amenities (flat screen tv, bar, wide seats are really all you are getting extra) wouldn’t cost the airline more than a grand to provide? Well, who’s getting that tossed away cash? Not the pilot, not the flight attendants, not the meal cooks, not anyone that actually did any real WORK to provide those extras. It goes to the other rich guy who is CEO of the airline.
Only their fellow rich are allowed to rake in their casually strewn cash at that level.
Wanna bilk the rich out of extra cash that they’d never even notice? That’s fine, but only if you are a fellow rich guy/corporation. If the less-than-rich ever figure out a way to do it, they either get out-competed by a corporation that can do it better (and maybe sue the original guy for patent infringement for good measure) or it is made illegal or taken away by some other means.
Because the dirty little secret of the economy is that for all the talk of the wealthy being job creators, the ultra-rich don’t really contribute to the economy in any meaningful way. It runs on the engine of all of the poorer folk doing all of their everyday purchasing. There’s literally only so much that a single ultra-rich person can consume, and even if they buy the most expensive of that thing possible, it’s still only so much of that thing. So they can buy a million dollar iphone, but that’s still only one phone. Maybe a few hundred people would buy that phone. That contributes to very few people making iphones, very few jobs, very few movement in the economy. It’s everyone else in the middle class buying the 48 million iphones per quarter who make the economy happen. So if they all get paid more, then that affects the economy. The wealthy? They don’t do shit for the economy.
@robnyny
I’m not sure whether you’re being literal, or making a comment about how the political elite and officialdom are unwilling to push for stronger monetary stimulus and wage growth if it meant risking higher inflation. But if it’s the former, then it’s just because the absolute dollar amounts are often less in aggregate. If you raised the wages of 50,000 people earning $40,000/year by 20%, then it’s an additional $320 million a year in spending. But if you double the salary of a CEO earning $5 million a year, it’s only an additional $5 million/year in spending.
No one is saying that exorbitant executive salaries don’t contribute to inflation. But at the bottom, the lowest paid workers are those in the fast food, restaurant and retail industries (including groceries). If you double the cost of producing a Big Mac, that increase will be reflected in the price of the product. It’s a vicious spiral: higher wages = higher costs = higher prices = diminishing value of those temporarily more livable minimum wages. Unless the “privileged” can be convinced to forsake some of their opulence, the working poor will never rise above current levels — except for the occasional fleeting bubble created at each increase in the minimum wage.
Yes, anyone who applies a minimal skill set to doing a job should be entitled to a living wage, but it will require more than an occasional bump in the minimum wage scale.
And that’s the problem right there. When the shareholders are raking in literally billions of dollars a year in profit, there is no reason to pass that cost on to the customer. They could absorb that cost and pass on less to the shareholders, who would still be making huge amounts of profit. All it would take is legislation that limits the overall proportion of profit that can be made to force them to reinvest in their business rather than pass every cent to the shareholders.
EDIT: Sorry, I multiplied the wrong amounts. It should be $400 million a year, not $320 million.
@Carlie
It runs on consumption, but the rich and upper middle class are disproportionately responsible for consumption spending. The Top 5% of earners are responsible for 38% of US consumption spending, and the Top 20% are responsible for 61% of US consumption spending.
Granted, that’s the spending numbers. A billionaire spending $1 million on a painting is technically engaging in as much consumption as 100,000 poor people each buying a $10 t-shirt, so it’s not quite the same. But it does mean that the consumption of the rich and upper-middle-class is driving the economy to a high degree.
But if you quadruple the pay of the CEO, that doesn’t show up in the price of the product, now does it? Why is worker pay a “cost of production” but executive pay isn’t?
@Pteryxx
Because as I pointed out up-thread, the actual dollar cost in additional spending required by giving a CEO a big raise is usually pretty small in comparison to giving a whole ton of line workers a raise. With my example above, an additional $5 billion isn’t going to be a huge cost to a company that’s turning billions in revenue. But an additional $400 million a year might be.
hyperdeath@4
They do. Just not for pleasure or business that requires a suit.
Except for the fact that all of those people who are making more money then turn around and spend it buying more of the product, increasing the revenue. The economy did just fine when the minimum wage equivalent was a lot higher than it is today; the only change is in how much profit the shareholders expect.
When poor people get more money, they create a much bigger effect in the economy than when you give it to corporations/the wealthy.
Of course, the decline in unions is seriously contributing to the problem, too.
Robnyny #43:
If I have to guess: Higher pay on the low end of the economy will increase demand for a lot of consumer goods. Because, you know, the lower classes tend to actually spend what money they have instead of just play around with it. More money in the consumer market will in turn lead to price level increase = inflation. Which is not really so dramatic as some want us to believe, as long as it does not run out of control.
Because by spending more those consumers will also stimulate real economic activity. Give the working poor a decent raise and a lot of them will probably FINALLY be able to have their house repaierd & painted, their broken appliances and their ten year old clothes replaced, perhaps make a modest vacation trip. All the stuff that the megarich are already doing more often than they need (and they are too few to make a noticeable difference by consuming even more).
More economic activity leads to more jobs leads to less poverty leads to more economic activity, etc.
In other words: less poverty = good for business and mild inflation only hurts the hoarders of money and capital.
On topic. Personally, as a person with some “issues”, if I had to sit on a long flight I would not mind the quiet and privacy that those cubicle-like mini cabins appear to provide. Beats having to interact with (and being coughed on by…) hellish strangers for hours on end in cramped quarters inside one of those terrible death machines. But yes, even if it were ten times cheaper I would still not be able to afford it.
I understand that stereotypes are being used here, but I have little doubt that the guy enjoying his time beong served and posing at the camera is a conservative Republican who favors massive tax cuts on the rich. Probably also thanks God for giving him all the wealth, and not millions of families in Africa who could have had a thousandth of what he did and have a happy, successful life.
Paul @47
You’re an idiot. Please stop this bullshit right wing talking point. Even quadrupling the minimum wage wouldn’t come close to doubling the cost of a Big Mac, even if the entirety of the increased overhead was passed on to the customer, because there’s also the costs of things like raw materials, the storfront, the electricity to cook them, shipping, etc, etc. Labor is not the only or even the largest overhead cost for Big Macs.
carlie #48
Also this. The increased wages for the front-line workers could be taken out of executive salaries and perks and payments to shareholders.
I have problems with income inequality, but what’s the problem spending money on this (aside from climate change aspects)? He’s not “wasting money” on this. The money still exists, but is now in different hands. Otherwise we’d have to give every cent to the starving.
brett @ 49,
You destroy your own argument there.
If a multi-millionaire buys a painting for, say, $20,000,000 then the auction house will take a juicy cut and maybe a conservator or an academic who verifies the provenance will get a one-off fee but essentially the bulk of the money is going from one very rich person to another and not touching the real economy. It will end up in a bank in the Cayman Islands whichever one has the cash. The painting may well end up in secure storage in another bank. Who knows?
But if 20,000 people in ordinary jobs get a $1,000 bonus this coming 4th of July you can be damn sure they will spend it – perhaps on clothes, or repainting the house or on a weekend at a resort. Every $1,000 spent that way will support several other jobs and the people in those jobs will also spend every penny they earn. So even more jobs are created or secured. And on it goes.
The propagandists want us to believe that because the same total sum pops up in the country’s GDP these two transactions are of equal worth. They are not. The GDP is a notional figure and it would make people’s hair stand on end if they realised just what does go into it as a plus – the several millions it would cost to clear up and repair after a multi-fatality road accident goes in as a plus while action which saves money often does not appear at all or is a minus.
So, one of these scenarios benefits at most a dozen people and has all the impact of moving small change from one pocket to the other. The other is what makes capitalism a viable system – potentially. It’s an imperfect system but to work at all it needs most of the money to be circulating most of the time. So, tell me, which one actually grows the economy and why are all these bastards lying to us?
I favor wealth redistribution in the form of wages/compensation rather the taxes and payments myself.
I often wonder what the effects would be if at least here in the U.S. the difference in income levels between the CEO’s and other top management was reduced to something similar to Europe or Japan the the balance distributed to the other employees in the form of higher wages. The effect on profits and any dividends would be unchanged.
I have not had the time nor do I have the expertise to say for sure but the results of the outsourcing have had but it does seem to have gone disproportionately to the upper management and thus the 1%
I would think that such changes would have a very positive effect on the size and health of the consumer market which would be a good thing since that is what our economy seems to be based on. Weather that is a good thing or not and if there are not some serious negative possible outcomes to consumerism is another question.
uncle frogy
unless a public company pays dividends to share holders the only profit the share holders see will be is in the form of share price appreciating. If the company shows profit it may develop a large cash reserve but nothing will go to the owners of the company holders of the publicly traded shares and not all companies pay dividends.
some highly profitable companies don’t. nor are they in any way required to.
uncle frogy
Regarding the labor cost of a Big Mac: Go into a McRonald’s and order one. Record the minutes it takes you to get it. Multiply those minutes by 15 cents, and there’s the wages of the worker right then. Double that for the prep work, and double that for the employer’s taxes, and you still aren’t up to a dollar.
Now, you could assume that multiple people are working on the burger, and that prepping it took lots of hand labor, but dang, folks, it’s called fast food for a reason, and the process is streamlined as fuck. Slip, slop, slap, and hurry the hell up.
Paying most minimum-wage workers more money isn’t going to raise costs to the customer.
I took the 14 flight from Dubai to Toronto on Emirates…in coach. It was smelly and awful. The obese tuberculin woman next to me coughed on me the entire flight.
Aw, poor IncredulousMark had to deal with common ordinary people. Let’s all play a small violin for him.
Did someone suggest that, before the multi-millionaires and billionaires start sacrificing their income from their profits which do not even get reinvested for the most part in the economy, that it’s up to regular people to lead by example and buy $10 pants instead of $50 to send $40 to another country? That’s some straight up bulllllshit. That $40 was saved on the backs of the third worlders in the first fucking place. Cheap goods come with too high of a price.
Speaking of rich people and planes, I once rode a JetBlue flight from San Francisco to NY and one of the other passengers was Danny Glover.
Sure, he’s no billionaire, but he can afford more than JetBlue. But there he was, squeezing into his seat, one of the last in line to board, looking for a place in the overstuffed overheads for his small carry-on.
Not everyone with money throws it away on ostentatious bullshit.
IncredulousMark
I have a reasonable excuse to call my friend in the CDPC and have you quarantined now. Thanks.
All this boring talk of privilege has distracted me from very important, essential news coverage of Charles and Camilla visiting Canada. Oh my goodness, I must brush up my British and go stand somewhere they just might visit! Imagine. My goodness, you know, if I stand somewhere and they visit, they might see me…. they might see me. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?
Hi Paul, I’m going to disregard your inflation bullshit, and jsut answer to this.
You mist lead a very sheltered life because that’s an idea that already exists for a long time.
And it will not work. ‘McDo’ corporation will be split up in two companies, ‘McDo Corp’ consisting of the top bras, and ‘McDo International’, a wholly owned subsidiary of the first in which al the low wage workers (including the managers of the restaurants, which are low wage compared to the top bras) are working for. Voila, the CEO owns less then 33 times more than the lowest paid employee of ‘his’ company, which is by the way the CFO.
@17 Menyambal
What makes you think that the flight attendant did not go to college?
I am not terribly worried about high-paying passengers on an airplane. Suppose you did rip out that seat and added four more coach seats. Those would, combined, be significantly less revenue for the airline than the ridiculously luxurious seat. In a way, this one person, that absolute rube, the spendthrift, the idiot spending $30,000 for his seat is subsidizing the rest of the seats, allowing us to have our $500 tickets.
When I see someone spending ridiculous quantities of money on something that is probably costing the organization very little, I don’t necessarily see someone wasting resources, but someone making up a much larger portion of the organization’s profit margin than I am. Their hotel on the penthouse suite is making it possible for my basic bed-and-food to be cheaper than it would otherwise be.
I’ve made my peace with it in that way.
That said, there are obviously cases where this doesn’t apply!
Okay, going to gird my loins and play devil’s advocate here for a minute, but I throw shade at comments like this.
I’m well aware a lot of rich people are sociopathic assholes who give a fuck for anyone else. But it’s not an inevitable condition of wealth. On what basis do you assume someone rich enough to blow a crazy load of money on a plane ticket does nothing in the way of charitable giving? Simply put, you don’t know what this man does or doesn’t do that’s philanthropic. And even if he only does it for the tax deductions, he’d still be doing it.
Also, for all the entitlement the rich have, there’s a bit of entitlement here: “He could have suffered through the flight in a coach seat, and had $31,000 to donate to the poor.” While it’s certainly commendable for the wealthy to use their wealth for the benefit of the less fortunate, to take the position “Hey, you make more money than you absolutely need to live on, so you owe me all of the extra” is exactly the kind of attitude that feeds Fox News-style derision of the poor as lazy slobs who want to mooch of the earnings of others instead of earning wealth of their own.
Marc Abian @58
To answer your question, I’d just be repeating myself @44
This is definitely my post of the day. I strongly disagree with the class warfare going on, whether it’s the rich stereotyping the poor as lazy moochers, or by the poor stereotyping the rich as greedy, powerhungry oligarcs out to persecute the poor.
Martin@72:
Oh boy, it’s like you just laid a bunch of sugar on the floor for libertarian ants.
carlie wrote:
It’s also important to note that not everyone involved in the production of a Big Mac is paid minimum wage (i.e. you have to take in effect all costs, not just the staff in the restaurant). Even if you doubled minimum wage, and even if the company insisted on making the same amount of money per burger sold, you still wouldn’t find the menu doubling in price. It seems very common that people forget that all the raw materials have to come from somewhere, and there’s labour on that, too, but that this labour may not be making minimum wage.
There’s also the fact that no one is seriously endorsing the idea of doubling the minimum wage overnight. Most proposals say something like “by 2020” or some other semi-long term goal. Everyone realizes that doing it overnight would cause chaos, so the idea is to gradually increase it over a number of years.
brett wrote:
Except the top 5% of earners hold 72% of the wealth. If they’re only responsible for 38% of the spending, then they’re not doing their part.
found the app I was talking about, it was called I am Rich.
I must admit, after looking at the page, I fail to see how one could consider this a scam worthy of getting the app pulled by apple. It says right in the description what it is and what it does (nothing), and the price tag isn’t a lie.
My guess is that the maximum amount for any item in the app store being $999.99 was too low for it to be considered taking money from the rich. Now, had the price limit on apps been $9,999.99 or $99,999.99…
Martin Wagner @72: Nobody has said, or even suggested, “you owe me”. Do you really not understand the difference between discussing economic inequality vs. demanding a handout?
A quick look at the actual data spells a very different picture from what is being discussed here.
Profit margins for airlines are dismally low compared with other industries — 2.82% in 2013 for the air transport industry. That’s as close to “losing your shirt” as you can get without actually losing your shirt. And that’s a big improvement from 2008 when the industry as a whole lost money. Arterial spurts of money. Negative 11.8%. That’s right — it would take 4 years of 2013 profit margins to make up for 2008 losses. That’s why you’re seeing bankruptcies and mergers, including the merger of my favorite airline with my least-favorite.
Would you expect the airline industry to continue to carry passengers and lose money every year? Of course not. It’s Econ 101. They have to generate revenue somewhere — in part by doing things like this.
That’s because consumer demand for air travel is — other than for business travelers — extremely price sensitive. Airlines would rather charge you $5 for a 50-cent bag of pretzels than add the cost of those pretzels to the “ticket”. Does anyone remember when airlines actually served meals in coach? I do. Not anymore, though. And if fares like this can allow the airlines to — in effect — keep other fares and fees down, then I don’t see how this is anything other than a net benefit.
And let’s be really clear — it’s not a choice between first class and coach with the difference going to the poor. That’s just fucking inane. The flyer (CEO or not) isn’t paying for that ticket — his company is. The next time a CEO pays for his own first class ticket on a business trip will be the first time. So it’s his shareholders who would have a reason to complain (or not).
The guy sitting in coach — well, he should be thanking that guy in first class for subsidizing his super-saver fare.
Plus — I’ll bet a buck those $38,000 tickets are heavily discounted. Right now, first class fares from La Guardia to Abu Dhabi range from $6,800 to $12,300. Which is still a shit-ton of money for 8 hours of flying time — on-plane shower or not.
Kevin Kehres #79
Most of the heavy subsidies that airlines, and airline travelers, benefit from, directly and indirectly are government subsidies (many airlines are directly owned by governments, in fact). You want a hint about why? It’s because transportation, of people as well as goods, is one of those things that markets handle really, really poorly. It is a part of what is called infrastructure, where the benefits, economic and non-economic, are spread widely and difficult or impossible for the providers to capture as profit (this is not a bad thing). The U.S. should be spending more on other forms of transportation infrastructure (high-speed rail is much more efficient over most overland routes, for instance), but it will always be something that’s better paid largely out of the public purse.
Addendum: In fact, this is as much a “soak the rich” ploy as you’ll see anywhere. That money’s paying for the pilots, flight attendants, gate check people, baggage folks and everyone else. Real jobs for real people doing real work.
It’s wealth redistribution — and they don’t even realize it.
@80. If there were no $38,000 tickets, there would be a need for GREATER government subsidies. I do not see how the fact that there are extremely high-priced fares bolsters any argument with regard to infrastructure.
Airlines need to make money to survive. $38,000 fares help them do that. I’m fine with soaking the rich to pay for my jet travel.
Next question.
You could pay less than half of that for a week long first class transatlantic crossing…
^Round trip, I night add.
for Paul and others needing a basic education on why raising the minimum wage standard helps EVERYONE, I suggest you spend some time here:
http://www.nelp.org/index.php/content/content_issues/category/living_wage_and_minimum_wage/
because frankly, you don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
@Kevin Kehres: Which low-cost consumer airlines are offering $38,000 seats? Because those are the ones fighting for consumer fares with ever-lower prices. Emirates isn’t competing with Southwest or JetBlue or Spirit. The idea that a showpiece fare of $38,000 on Emirates is making it possible for you to get a cheaper flight on a domestic consumer airline is, frankly, a fantasy.
I don’t wish no one had such an opportunity. I wish everyone had such an opportunity.
Below is one of numerous interesting informed you tube videos on how the rich rule America. Part of it has to do with the destruction of labor as is discussed in the video.
Zaphod @#24:
Erm, that’s Thierry Antinori, Emirates’ Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer.
http://www.theemiratesgroup.com/english/our-company/leadership/thierry_antinori.aspx
He’s not paying for anything.
—
hoku @27:
This isn’t even it. As various people downthread said, this is really a Keynsian redistribution policy: rich people pay money to less-rich people who spend it on things. (I guess, since it’s an airline, they might be things outside the US, but then, who said the US should be the repository of the world’s wealth?)
—
inquiringlaurance @#56:
He’s French. Of course he’s a Republican. ;-)
The rest, I don’t know … Google him!
cm
I wonder, did they pay him to participate in this ad?
If so, did they pay him the same as the other person in the ad?
—
not targeting you, cm
JAQing
what about a 38000 dollar seat on a transatlantic airline?
because I rather thought the point was supposed to be a general one, not a specific one.
Or I could just go look for myself…
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/12/everything-else/in-air-travel-everyone-subsidizes-everyone/
chigau, having been around corporate promo video shoots, the general rule was that everybody involved got paid for what they would have been doing otherwise. No extra payments, no penalties.
And it will not work. ‘McDo’ corporation will be split up in two companies, ‘McDo Corp’ consisting of the top bras, and ‘McDo International’, a wholly owned subsidiary of the first in which al the low wage workers (including the managers of the restaurants, which are low wage compared to the top bras) are working for. Voila, the CEO owns less then 33 times more than the lowest paid employee of ‘his’ company, which is by the way the CFO.
Do you known what a “corporation” is?
It is an artificial construct created by GOVERNMENT. The rules of which are determined by government. Certificates of Incorporation ISSUED BY GOVERNMENT.
Limited liability artificially granted BY GOVERNMENT.
Government sets the rules. They can set the rules that the above is not possible.
So lets actually go truly “libertarian.”
NO government-conceived, government-created, government-issued and government-regulated corporations. No government-created limited liability.
I go to McDonald’s (which is now a private tontine or something, with outside arbitration deciding how the individual stockholders get to fight amongst themselves.)
I break a tooth.
You own $1000 worth of McDonald’s stock.
I sue your ass and take your fucking house.
Whoops, borked the blockquote. The first paragraph of the above is NOT ME.
#78:
Indeed I do, and well enough to know that when someone states or even suggests that a wealthy person has an obligation to pay for a cheap airline ticket and give the remaining $30K he didn’t spend on a sexy personal cubicle to the poor, they’re doing the latter.
Sure as hell not cows.
Calling someone a greedy immoral asshole exploiter is not the same as demanding a handout.
By the dog!
I never said that the guy had any obligation to give anyone the money, I just said that he COULD. Nor did I state that the woman had never been to college, I just said that money could be used to pay for college (frak, I have been to college three times, and could use a refresher round).
Nor is it impossible that the guy in the picture is Jesus Fucking Gandhi, exhausted from non-stop doing of good, needing a night’s sleep, a shower and an update on his next needy people before he descends from the heavens to spread sweetness and light.
Why the fuck are these people popping in here to pretend we are stupid?
My alternative interpretation of that sentence: they’re not the same because the first is a vilification which everyone aspires to and the latter is the reason these people cannot become the former.
That’s what Fox News and a Facebook full of conservatives taught me.
cm #93
jebus
So he was paid eleventythousand dollars per minute and she was paid union scale?
wow
Even if I made five times what I do, there’s just no way in heckfire I could justify paying $6,000 roundtrip (I checked) on Air Canada between Vancouver and Toronto just to fly executive class. I mean…that’s a year of tuition and books for one of my kids when they go to uni! Or four months of rent/mortgage. Or enough money for groceries for 8-9 months. Or or or…
Martin Wagner @96: You believe that only poor people “demand” that the wealthy give discretionary income to the poor? Because devil’s advocate or no, you’re making this weird argument that “give to the poor” means “give to ME”. Unless you genuinely believe no non-poor person would say such a thing, your argument makes no sense.
Of course, as you started off by insisting that you’re merely playing devil’s advocate, perhaps making sense wasn’t your intent in the first place.
Ichthyic @91: Is Emirates receiving subsidies from the US government? Is it running on the thin profit margins which were discussed in the comments to which I replied? That aside, your link doesn’t really say that the $38,000 meaningfully subsidizes coach-seat prices on Emirates; it conflates first class and business class with some hand-waving to suggest that ‘everyone subsidizes everyone’, a theory not proven either by that link or by the NY Times article on which it relies.
I think this is daft conversation.
Okay? My entire earning is a Rs. 800 a week stipend (£8) and the blog. If I write ferociously and churn out roughly 2 to 3 posts a day this is around $2 a day (£1.5).
My flight tickets home are £630 (I just checked Skyscanner).
To me that may as well be £4000 because they are just as unattainable. If not for me begging for cash from sponsors and indeed Hera I would be stuck here for a month in August. The cost of the same first class ticket is around £4000.
As it is, I may have to run a fundraiser in June to make ends meet for travel costs and UK money. But here is the thing? If you wish to occupy enough space to fit 4 economy class seats and be pampered on your flight then I don’t really care. It is your money and it is how I see people buy fancy cars and that includes cars like the Tesla.
It is easy to denigrate consumption of wealth when you cannot afford it but it is also easy to see how wealth is nice. You know what?
Most of you earn more than me. I could frankly flip burgers in the UK for a day and make more money than my two jobs combined (£18 a week?) and have more free time, less stress and be frankly a lot more relaxed and pleasant.
I am told that I am a temporarily poor person. That’s fine. But if I told you that you would live on Ramen and be effectively homeless (for those who have seen what I work in, you would know I effectively live in my own clinic. Every night I pull off the rubber sheets from my beds and sleep on them. If I am too tired? I sleep on the floor. I have my own pillow (luxury!).
But that is what I have to endure for a career. One day I will be upper Middle Class. But on that promise I cannot sit around and starve either. And consider this effort. I effectively blog when I don’t have a patient in my room.
I don’t see this man’s luxury as any different from any little luxury you guys have. Do you want to know my big luxury? My parents brought me cheese from the UK. Cheese Sandwiches.
I travel once a week for 2 hours there and back to bring a subway sandwich for that absolute bliss. What our luxuries are is entirely different.
I don’t begrudge your luxuries, nor do I begrudge his unless they are products of abuse. The majority of us never sit in first class unless we have air miles. They exist for corporate travel mostly. I have flown first class once. It was as an apology for double booking a flight forcing me to live in Emirates airport for a day (15 hours). The handful of people who buy those pricey tickets tend to be people who have huge amounts of disposable income. If they wish to spend it on a plane ticket then fine by me!
The last time I saw this argument?
Was when the Slymepit were suggesting me spending 500 pounds on a laptop was an affront against nature because there were 300 pound laptops out there.
We may associate less with the super rich, but I don’t think them actually spending money is bad. What I am averse to is the Super Rich KEEPING all their money in Santa Sacks.
I also doubt the price tag… A first class seat isn’t that expensive.
But… but … the people in coach are allowed to bid for the right to suck any crumbs or spilled campaign out of the carpet after the first class passengers have deplaned. So it’s all good … right?
yeah.
Because it’s there’s such little chance that someone who could piss away $30,000 on an airplane ticket is only able to do that because he has so much more money, none of it coming from exploitation (a form of abuse).
It’s entirely possible he’s spending his entire life savings on that ticket.
Also, it’s solar-powered plane, and he’s never driven a day in his life, so he’s not adding extra tons of CO2 to the atmosphere compared to the average person, just to pamper his entitled ass.
Well, you’d better call NPR and the author of the article then, and tell them that your crack research has exposed an error.
Because no corporation ever, and I mean EVER, charges exorbitant prices for things that are much cheaper to actually produce in order to capitalize on ego.
Next they’ll try telling us that diamonds are actually quite common and it’s just marketing and monopoly that makes them cost more.
As if.
cm @89
Wow, I didn’t think I hit it that close to the mark! :)
Seriously, I could tell that it wasn’t an actor: an actor hired to play the part of a customer in a product shot would’ve shown interest in the product. He would’ve maybe been noticing the TV, admiring the wait staff, eyeing the food being delivered to him, or at the very least, break the fourth wall with a smile at the camera.
So they got a corporate executive to play the part of a corporate executive? To act as if he is taking amenities overpriced by 30K for granted? To act as if he isn’t actually enjoying any of the luxuries he has paid an order of magnitude too much for, but instead enjoying the status that he gets from his peers by having his company buy it for him? Then I’d say he nailed it.
And please, he didn’t pay for anything? He’s the CCO. I’d say that means he signed the checks for everything you see in the shot.
I dunno which is funnier… that you think the checks came from the CCO’s personal wealth, or that you think that the CCO actually sits at his desk and signs checks.
Yes, how silly of me to assume that a corporate executive could afford the service he is pictured receiving to advertise it to other corporate executives.
And truth be told, I thought of rephrasing my last statement to mention that he more than likely doesn’t sign the checks himself and probably has someone below him do all that pesky business; in short, that he pays someone else to spend the company’s money.
As Aladdin might say, “I have servants to go to the marketplace for me, in fact I even have servants to go to the marketplace for my servants!”
But I thought that might’ve been a bit on the nose, as it were.
But I guess I am missing your point, which is yes: the corporate execs are not actually buying this service, their companies are. So no CEO’s were bilked during the making of this episode. It is merely companies getting money from other companies, no people involved.
I guess that makes it better…
avicenna @104
Yes. It would be nice to have more wealth. A large part of the reason why you and I havnen’t got more wealth than we do is because these assholes have broken the system grabbing all the cash and assets they can get their hands on, and then spend on $32000 flights. It’s not the direct correlation that people are noting, where he could have spent $2000 on the flight and then other people could have benfitted from the other $30,000, but that if he hadn’t got the kind of wealth that allowed him to blow $32,000 on this kind of crap, but instead that wealth had been more evenly distributed to begin with, more than 16 people would be able to afford international travel who can’t now (the number of people that $32,000 could have flown internationally.
Not really. This type of statement betrays some fundamental misconceptions of what money is; there is a valid case that all money belongs to the issuing agency (usually a government), and that the provision of money is an element of infrastructure which allows complex economies to happen. In this view, money, per se isn’t yours, it’s a representation of the wealth that you own (and that, too came from society, and if it’s for the greater good that it be redistributed, then sobeit.), and the money itself can and should be reallocated where needed.
Really? You couldn’t have gotten a residency in the UK instead? Somehow I doubt it. Now, I admire what you’re doing, but you didn’t have to do it, I don’t think (correct me if I’m wrong on this one).
They are. That’s the point of this thread; no one gets that rich without abusing others. It is not possible; it can’t happen.
Well we’re not talking about a seat in first fucking class, are we? We’re talking about a miniature suite with a bed, minibar, shower, etc. That’s a lot more than you get in a first class seat.
because you say so, with absolutely nothing at all to support your opinion, media article or otherwise.
uh huh.
107/108 – Not everyone who makes money does so via exploitation. And bear in mind I recognised the flight because I fly Emirates to go back home. Want to know something funny?
It is CHEAPER for me to fly Emirates than British Airways. If I had to fly BA I would have to spend an extra hundred quid. Emirates is a 15 hour flight vs. BA’s 17 hour one too. Better service too. So to rehash? Better, Faster, Cheaper service.
Again? I checked Skyscanner. From Chennai to Manchester it’s £3000 quid. Maybe this is some super special airline ticket that’s super pricey.
And put it this way? If that were the case the entire mobile phone industry would collapse in a heart beat as everyone began to demand iPhones at their “actual” value.
I don’t think cost and price and value are not the same thing, not from every point of view at least.. the price of a thing has to do with what value it is judged to have by those who want to have it. the cost of a thing say in time and materials and other more intangible things may not be reflected in the price. like a $30k plane flight ticket.
the big real problem is the growing disparity between what I would at this stage have to call classes. sounds funny writing that in the U.S. when the hoopla is we are a meritocracy
A big difference is not new nor is the difficulty of moving from one class to another at least in the upward direction any way. It has not been a sign of good things to come and unless we figure away to change the way things are going in a controlled and positive way by our willing cooperation the change will come in a very uncontrolled way.
uncle frogy
In all likelihood such expenses could be tax deductible.
Of course a little understood method of limiting cost, and creating deductions, is that one corporation can allow another to overcharge for a service. This is usually agreed to beforehand. Corporation A gets a deduction while corporation B gets to establish the exorbitant cost as being the ‘going’ rate and show a profit. Typically corporation B will turn around and overcharge corporation A for some service. The charges cancel each other out while the deduction go straight to the bottom line.
Such collusion is illegal but, given that most neo-liberal economists, and their regulatory minions, believe the markets are self-regulating and self-cleaning, that any crime not not punished by the market cannot be a crime, nobody bothers to look or actively enforces those rules … it wouldn’t be pro-business.
Simple two-party deals arranged under the table, all nods and handshakes, are seldom even looked for. If the lap dog regulators seem more attentive than normal you simply add more players and form loops too complex to follow, or prosecute. Only the little people, people too poor to avoid taxes, lose out.
Conspicuous consumption of this kind is basically a status symbol for those who partake of it. It is doubtful that by itself it does anything to the economy overall one way or another, since its very nature as a status symbol only remains if it is rare, and thus its net impact will never be all that significant.
It is really more just an indicator. The real economic harm is inflicted by the OTHER activities of those who partake of this.
And of course it remains as a status symbol only so long as the masses agree to continue to accept it as such. Should those same masses ever get pushed to the point where they decide that such will now STOP being a status symbol, it rapidly converts to an albatross around the neck, marking who gets to have the privilege of being the first target of the angry mob.
@x [whoever shall state thusly]
@x+y [whoever shall earnestly reply]
@(x+y)+z [whoever shall vomit from endless hearing]
Thus.
@119 Amphiox
And verily, into the cake that they shall be let to eat shall enter the unfortunate albatross, and all the additional protein thereof. Amen.
Scientists/Professors should be paid more. Tradesmen working in Alberta easily make 200K/year.
I used to fly business class for work – not my idea the companies – but at 6’5″ even that was uncomfortable as seats seem to be profiled for smaller people. I did have fun with the air hostess as I like my bloody marys without ice. After 7 hours in the air she would come over at my call and say ‘bloody mary without ice’ and still return from the galley with tomato juice dripping from her finger from digging out the ice – after 14 of them!
I never actually needed to travel though – I could have done most of the work just as easily at the office with a couple of phone calls and nowadays a skype call would make life even easier.
There does seem to be a bizarre meeting culture that exists – it seems to extend into conferences a large number of which could be replaced with a simple web site and chat rooms – they’re fun I grant you but…
Some Googling has revealed that’s almost exactly my yearly wage ($1 = £0.59, apparently; the dollar is weaker than I thought). Day-um.
I don’t begrudge him it. I think there’s far better things to spend that much on (you can get a new, decent car for that much!), and who needs all that on a flight anyway? But it’s his money, he can spend it on what he likes; and to be quite frank I’d love to able to afford it myself.
What annoys me about people like this is when they pretend they got everything they have entirely through their own hard work and merit and that the playing field is entirely level; and try and influence politics to throw ordinary people under the bus so they can increase their already massive profits. If he’s not doing that, crack.
*crack on.
It’s one thing to say “people ought to be able to have enough money to blow 32k on a plane trip.” I don’t really see anybody arguing against that. What’s being criticized is an economic system that only allows people to have that kind of money by actively denying a living wage to a huge percentage of the population. The people who can afford this do so because they successfully argue that the country “can’t afford” to give people a living wage, and “can’t afford” welfare programs, and “can’t afford” to offer everyone healthcare, when the only reason we “can’t afford” it is because they have rigged all of the taxes and regulations in their own favor. They are not just making money due to their own success, and they aren’t even just inheriting money that their families made. They are actively taking it from the people who need it.
And yes, I do mean taking it from people rather than giving it to them. People who work for what society has legally deemed to be a full-time workweek should be getting enough from that job to survive, at least on their own. That is not happening, because successful lobbying has resulted in not adjusting the minimum wage to keep up with inflation. People making minimum wage are literally making less now than they did 30 years ago, because people with a lot of money said “we don’t want you to have that any more”.
carlie @ 127
It’s funny how the people who decide what labour is worth always decide that their labour is the most valuable at all, and that other peoples’ labour is worth so much less.
(And because they have the highest-paying jobs, obviously they should be deciding what labour is worth.)
I told my rich mother (though not 1%-level rich) about this. She hates flying and actually shells out for normal first class tickets. She thought the shower was a great idea, but that ultimately nothing could justify that price. “I’d rather give that money to a land trust,” she said.
The cost of this flight buys over 150k doses of praziquantel, each of which can cure a school age child of schistosomiasis. When millions of humans have their potential diminished because they’re infected with worms that cost 20¢ to cure and other humans are spending this much for luxury that makes zero difference to their quality of life, then shit’s fucked up. This isn’t Avicenna eating cheese, this is a child burning the cat with a magnifying glass because he’s got two minutes to waste before his show comes back on.
@130 Nepenthe
(Can’t quote because, damn…)
The heaviest verbal dose of reality I’ve had recently. Weapons grade ethics.
I’ve worked on VIP (privately owned, really really rich people’s) private aircraft. The pic in the OP is pittance in comparison, sadly.
SC (Salty Current), OM wrote:
<annoyed>Then imagine I said veggie wrap or garden salad. My point does not change depending on if there’s animal products in the product or not.</annoyed>
The carbon footprint of slinging a full sized plane around with as few people who could be fit in with that arrangement makes me wince. I’m probably one of the few people in the world that actually wouldn’t mind an even more squished plane–more people on the plane=fewer planes in the air=less carbon used. Of course, I’m also short, so don’t suffer as much as many people from cramped seats.
Jafafa Hots, I have no fucking idea how your #94 is in any way a rebuttal of my comment. I’m willing to engage you in a conversation on this, but then please explain to me what was wrong with my comment.
This came in yesterday: “the 1,000 richest people in Britain saw their wealth rise 15% last year”. 15% increase. In one lousy year. How much increase did the average household get? But inequality has already been on the rise long before, from last year: “inequality has grown sharply over the past 15 years, according to Resolution’s analysis: the top 1% of earners have seen their slice of the pie increase from 7% in the mid-1990s to 10% today”
Not much better in the USA: “the richest 10 percent of Americans take a larger slice of the economic pie than they did in 1913, at the peak of the Gilded Age.” In the latest recovery of the economy, between 2009-2011, the recovery was mostly done by the richest 7%, they saw their wealth rise with 28%. The lower 97% actually had a decrease in wealth of 4%. Last year, wealth also increased enormously, but half of this increase can be attributed to stocks, 80% of which are owned by the wealthiest 10%.
But hey! Stock = lots of risks = lot of volatility. So it is normal that in good times the owners of capital gain a lot more than the ‘steady’ labourers, right? In bad times it just means the former lose more, while the steady risk-averse labourers stay a a steady income. Wrong. Form pfft: “The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%”.
There is already a class warfare going on for half a century, but it is waged in one direction by the richest 0.01% on the rest of us. And somehow they have convinced the general populace, including libertarian useful idiots like caesar above, that no such thing exists, indeed, that it is a taboo word, not to be used.
Oh noes. OP finds out that there are differently priced products on the market.
Please write more about how there are really really expensive cars and houses for sale too. An expensive suits and shoes. Please do enlighten us about how unfair the world is.
Seriously, PZ. Think of the childrens.
I know a bit about the airline industry, and it *is* accurate to say that the expensive seats up front serve to subsidize the cheap seats in back; without first-class travelers, coach would be more expensive.
But most of that effect comes from the more traditional ‘first class’ seats- seats the size of a a comfy chair with a greater recline than a coach seat, better TV/entertainment system, and better food. These generally cost 2X to 5X the cost of a coach seat on the same aircraft. On many airlines that is as good as the seats get, and they are called ‘first class’. On airlines that have super-seats with down-payment-on-a-house prices, they are often called ‘business class’.
Seriously, wyobio. Think of the punctuation.
@137 wyobio
“Oo looks. Finally I wins the neener contest. Maybe I goes back to tell kindergartens.”
Seriously, little one. People with cranial masses in ranges exceeding that suggesting solely gaseous content tend to simply avoid conversations they don’t like. Or, perhaps have a point. Still, we do understand the effects of a lifetime of needing to break in with fart noises and such out of desperation. Please do feel tolerated.
Evil Twin @138: I think it’s the other way around, isn’t it? “Business Class” is what airlines with three grades on a flight call the comfy, roomy seats with better food. “First Class” is what they call the front of the plane, where the lie-flat seats and uber service reside. On airlines with only two grades, like Air Canada’s international routes, they blend the two and call it (among other monikers) “Executive First.”
Zenlike, it wasn’t exactly meant as a rebuttal.
I don’t know if your intent was to say something along the lines of “oh, they’ll find a way to get around it, they always do…” (which I agree with) or if you were saying that people wanting government regulation of corporations are wrong to think that (which I would disagree with).
I’m just pointing out that corporations, being a creation of government, are subject to the laws that government places on them… and if we actually HAD government regulation of corporations (something we seem to have given up on) then we can set the rules and disallow such shenanigans.
Corporations are a government construct – and we can place any limits we want on them, just as soon as we get a sane Supreme Court which doesn’t claim that McDonald’s is a person.
The Evil Twin @138: I don’t have a problem with the idea that First and Business Class (as jrfdeaux says, it’s the other way around, isn’t it?) help subsidize cheap seats on certain airlines as a general rule; but, as you note, the idea that a $38,000 seat is meaningfully alleviating the financial burden on less-wealth travelers stuck in coach seems little more than wishful thinking, given the frequency and numbers of those pricey-seat travelers is going to be very low. As many others have noted, the really rich aren’t using commercial planes like the rest of us peons.
142 Jafafa Hots
Sorry, I misinterpreted your comment.
The first one.
I think we are mostly in agreement. Yes, government can put restrictions on corporations. But since congress seems to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big corporations, I don’t see anything happening on that front any-time soon, at least not large changes in the current legislation.
Also, for the record, I don’t actually have a problem with 32000 dollar airline seats. It’s just a symptom and a symbol of what is currently going on. And indeed, private jets already exist for a long time. Also one larger space on an airliner which also contains a lot of other seats/people does seem to be more efficient than an entire smaller plane flying around for one person.
@137 wyobio
When the glorious day arrives that you wake up and manage to understand that the point of the OP and the topic of this thread is NOT the mere fact that this “differently priced product” exists, but, far more importantly and far more interestingly, what the fact of the existence of this “differently priced product”, its nature and its cost, actually SAYS about the economic system that brought about the fact of the existence of this “differently priced product”, then, and only then, will you have earned the privilege of calling yourself a mature, adult human being.
It will be a day to be anticipated, a day of great celebration.
One hopes that you will not have to wait TOO long for that day to come.
Yeah, I think I did flip it, although naming conventions are all over the place with some of them.
The main reason airlines have ‘super luxury’ seats like those is that they are trying to compete with private jets.
Now, I have seem some analysis that note that private jets for very high-end exec’s are cost-effective: If you figure their “salary” in terms of dollars-per-hour, it’s cheaper to buy a Gulfstream V and hire a crew than to fly them commercially, because of the inherent delays in commercial flights (mostly in either timing or routing- a private jet will take off when the passenger(s) board and fly directly to the destination every time, which a commercial jet can never do). Especially when you have to bracket commercial tickets (i.e., if they want to leave at a certain time, you buy extra tickets before and after in case they are either early or late to the airport).
Which is really more of a comment on the astronomical salaries of high-end execs than anything to do with planes, really.
Some oddball exceptions for execs who use Cessna Citation bizjets (those are about the only kind rated for single-pilot operation and are thus popular with execs who have a pilot’s license and genuinely like flying the plane themselves).