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FAA On Travel Delays: Get Used To It
coondoggie writes "The term sequestration has certainly become a four-letter word for many across the country — and now you can count business and regular traveling public among those hating its impact. The Federal Aviation Administration today issued a blunt statement on the impact of sequestration on the nation's air traffic control system, which this week begain furloughing about 10% of air traffic controllers for two days or so per month. It reads as follows: 'As a result of employee furloughs due to sequestration, the FAA is implementing traffic management initiatives at airports and facilities around the country. Travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues. ... Yesterday more than 1,200 delays in the system were attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough.'"
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The same number of dollars could have been cut from specific programs in a way that would have had no noticeable impact on critical and important services. Instead, they chose to impact vital services in order to send a message to the public: "If you ask us to cut budgets, we'll do it in the most painful way possible." It's nothing more than an enormous "fuck you" to the American public.
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The Republicans got what they wanted: Spending cuts. Who gives a flying fark through a rolling doughnut how badly it was implimented? Now we all have to suffer because a bunch of fat bastards in suits can't behave any better than children. A better idea would have been to pass a law saying that if they couldn't agree on a budget they'd all be fired.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's interesting that the airlines are allowing customers to make changes to their itineraries at no charge to work around the problem. On the one hand this is good customer service, but on the other hand it would probably help the airlines to some degree if they instead said "Flight's cancelled. Don't like it? Call your congressman." As long as the airlines continue to accommodate those inconvenienced, then those truly responsible for this mess don't get blamed.
If the government stopped trying to control air traffic, we wouldn't have these delays. Sure, some airplanes would crash, but other flights would go much faster. Let the free market rule!
they have been trying to 'choke the beast' at any cost since Reagan.
they've turning into bunch of hateful nothing thinking loons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If 10% of workers are furloughed for 2 days a month, that works out to a workforce reduction of about 1% (figure 20 working days a month, 2/20 * 0.10 = 0.01). Somehow I don't think that staffing at the FAA is that close to the limit; these delays are probably affected more by the elimination of overtime. A huge proportion of the hours worked at federal agencies are billed as overtime, either because of short staffing or really lenient scheduling policies that allow workers to trade shifts to maximize income.
I feel like there was probably a way to absorb the cuts with less impact, but when you have tens of thousands of voters a day at your mercy, why not try and get that budget plumped?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
A 4% cut in spending causes 40% flight delays...
Buffoons...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Before you go blame the administration for ensuring the cuts went to essential services instead of extraneous expenses, read this.
Shouldn't this just be added to your ticket price? I don't see why the Federal government should be paying anything to keep local airports open.
There are two fights here: The R and D are arguing over who's going to be correct, and they're using the usual dirt to try and make their points. The actual departments are attempting to secure the funding they want/need for the programs they run. They can always do "more" with more money. It's true of government just as it is with a business. I can always provide more, and more complete, and more personal service if you pay me more money. If you pay me less, I'm going to short you on certain items. I'll try to make them peripheral, but I guarantee if you stop paying my invoices I'm going to cut the flow to the high profile services first. Simple business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There's roughly 27% less departures than in 2011, but the budget is 40% larger. The 4% decrease in current dollars, or roughly a 36% increase in funding is causing delays from 2011 levels?
Yeah. Right. I have a bridge I'll sell you.
ha, don't take any offense... all political discourse (esp. on /. ) is trolling. That's what politics is. Achieve maximum trollage while inciting other people to waste their time responding to you when they could be doing much more positive and constructive things. Ach, now you've got me doing it! Troll!
They are just asking for another round of 'throw the bums out!' anti-incumbent voting.
Do private airports and charter planes have to put up with this bullshit?
Seems to me this creates a golden opportunity for someone with a small fleet of private planes. Imagine if you're a business traveler, and you need to fly somewhere 1000 miles away. A commercial plane could make the trip in about an hour and a half, if it could magically take off and instantly reached its cruising altitude and could land as fast as it could crash. The reality is that such a flight takes long enough, that if you also add all the bullshit you have to go through, including navigating traffic to the massive airport, finding your way through the airport, being humiliated and insulted by half-wits with metal detectors and x-ray machines, running the risk that you'll be pulled aside to have your asshole violated so they can pretend you'll be safe when you finally get on the airplane, and then you have to wait another 20 or 30 minutes after you are finally permitted to "deplane", waiting for your luggage.
Then, assuming you are allowed to get on the plane, after potentially being anally violated, if you're lucky enough to reach your destination, and manage to be reunited with your luggage, (and of course, provided some thief at the T"S"A hasn't stolen your property out of your luggage,) you will have spent hours of your life and risked the same repeatedly. Also, you will have exposed yourself to hundreds or thousands of other peoples' secretions, breathing a bunch of random strangers' coughs and sneezes, all the bacteria and viruses, as well as experiencing enough stress in a few hours to take several days off your life expectancy... and that's all if nothing goes WRONG.
On the flip side, imagine if the alternative existed, you drive to the airport, which is closer because it's local not regional, maybe you even drive almost right up to the plane. Then you get on the plane and after a few minutes (rather than hours) you take off. Sure the plane doesn't go as fast, being a prop-plane, taking three or four hours to make the same trip, but after you land, you have your bags right there, and can immediately leave the airport. From the moment you get in the car to go to the airport, to the moment you leave the distant airport, you might spend less time flying in a small, private or charter plane.
Makes me wish I had a small fleet of private planes.
People who own private jets. Just sayin'.
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There is little reason for current incumbents to stop sequestration, as most incumbents live in safe, gerrymandered districts and work for the ultra-rich, not the citizens.
The correct response would be to do away with the TSA, which has never been effective (speaking from my days in counter-terrorism ops and as a combat field engineer) and to allow the rural and small airports to go to more automated flight operations. But this would affect the tax-subsidized Takers in rural and suburban America who depend on the taxes from the job-creating efficient Blue cities that subsidize the Red sloth.
Another correct solution would be to replace increases in jet travel with high-speed trains on the growing West Coast that creates more than 40 percent of the US GDP.
But since the West Coast only gets 6 senate seats out of 50, even with so much population, don't count on that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
End the TSA. Used the money saved to hire back air traffic controllers to 120% of the original volume.
Fewer jerks gate-raping us, more well-rested air traffic controllers making sure we don't collide in mid-air.
Seems like a win-win to me.
put cuts on the table just like Paul Ryan wanted. They responded by tearing into him for cutting social security. You can't win with those guys, because they're actively trying to kill the American Middle class so they can pocket the money.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
sequestration didn't cut squat, it just cut the amount of increase in the budget. instead of a 6% increase in spending they only got a 4% increase.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Well, that's Congress for you. It's not like it affects them in any meaningful way. And it's not like we're going to not re-elect them, or that if we elected new representatives they'd be any better.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
ha!
look at that sinkhole called nasa
We waste a ton of money on nonsensical programs that should (and would) be done by the private sector.
For example, look at the airline security theater, don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search? Instead, we have the FAA providing asinine rules on what you can and can't take on board a plane, rather than delegating those decisions to the airlines. Because of the FAA restrictions, flying is pretty terrible, because of that fewer people are flying, because fewer people are flying airlines have to cut costs which makes flying even worse, which makes fewer people fly and so on. If airlines (or airports) could be in charge of their own security, we'd be safer (we'd be looking at actual security and not security theater) and flying would be a much more pleasant experience.
We've got a terribly bloated military focused on offense rather than defense. Because of this, we end up creating more enemies which makes us be less safe in the long run. We're spending billions of dollars on unneeded overseas military bases. Sure, it might make sense to have a base or two in a foreign country, especially in some of the "hotter" regions of the world, but do we really need over 10 bases in Japan? Do we really need bases in Spain, Italy, the UK, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Singapore, the UAE, and many, many, other countries? No.
We've got a messed up welfare system, a screwed up financial system, a mess with farm subsidies and just about everything the government touches turns into a bureaucratic hellhole.
No, we're not going to get rid of the national debt by cutting PBS, we're not going to save much money by closing the Washington Monument for tours. But there is a ton of waste, but its in the stuff that the politicians don't want to touch (welfare, the military, farm subsidies, financial sector, etc.) because the public is either ignorant about it or enjoys getting free money at the expense of everyone else.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Hi. I'm a contractor working for the FAA.
ALL controllers are having their hours reduced by 10%. This comes out to 1 day per 2 week pay period, or the approximately two days per month in the summary. It's not 10% of controllers being affected, it's all controllers being affected by 10%.
And for those of you saying "Why didn't they cut other, less important budgets?"
Well, it doesn't work that way. Every account was cut 10% across the entire FAA. This is incredibly stupid, by the way, since the much of the FAA's labor is paid for via levies on airline tickets, and so it shouldn't be affected by these general fund shenanigans (as an aside, this is why we got furloughed two years ago, because Congress wouldn't renew the airline ticket levies for political reasons). But, hey, Congress... You get what you pay for.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
This is known as the old "Firefighters First" trick.
You could lay off your cousin who does nothing. Or you could close the fire department. Close the fire department and ask taxes to be raised.
Also known as the "Washington Monument" ploy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Perhaps the FAA isn't the best one to be in charge of the air traffic control system.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Sure, just like it's in most companies' best interests to spend money on IT to keep the business running smoothly or R&D to keep the businesses' long term prospects healthy. Thing is, finding a business that doesn't give IT the short shrift or overlook R&D -- or redefine it as working on the next product line -- is rarer and rarer these days. Security will go the same way, because just like IT and R&D it doesn't add anything to the bottom line.
don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search?
No, in pure business terms, the threat of hijacking and the loss of 1-2 airplanes and slight dip in customers is not worth the excess costs of keeping that 1-2 hijackings from happening out of millions of flights per year. This is why doing everything via private sector will fail. There needs to be a middle ground.
We waste a ton of money on nonsensical programs that should (and would) be done by the private sector.
No, we're not going to get rid of the national debt by cutting PBS, we're not going to save much money by closing the Washington Monument for tours. But there is a ton of waste, but its in the stuff that the politicians don't want to touch (welfare, the military, farm subsidies, financial sector, etc.) because the public is either ignorant about it or enjoys getting free money at the expense of everyone else.
Also, the public is engaged in the two-party name calling as in the thread above. Almost everyone has to defend their party, and attack the other party, while ignoring the fact that everything is caving in around them.
They'd be fighting about the proper way to rearrange the deck-chairs on the Titanic until they all fall in the sea together, and blaming the other for the need of it.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
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You have to look at sequestration in terms of discretionary spending because that's where the cuts are made. The $85 billion represents 12.1% of discretionary spending (source Congressional Research Service). I am sure that we can all agree that a 12.1% cut overnight is pretty significant. Also with regard to the deficit, it is falling dramatically as % of GDP. Here are the relevant articles which shows that government spending as a % of GDP is also at all time lows. http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/22/news/economy/deficits/ http://www.businessinsider.com/show-these-charts-to-anyone-who-thinks-debt-spending-and-taxes-are-at-all-time-highs-2013-4
The sequester is not bunk - any time you mess with an agency's funding, it will cause issues. (Plans get made in advance, hiring and other spending gets committed to, etc.) However, there seems to be an aspect of a "statue of liberty" play here. In this context, this does not refer to a football play, but to a (possibly hypothetical) Park Service tendency to respond to budget cuts by closing the Statue of Liberty, instead of some remote park entrances in the back-of-beyond.
Statue of Liberty plays are used because they get people's attention, which the FAA has certainly done.
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The classic Reinhart and Rogoff paper which shows that economies slow with higher debt was shown to be falsified by a grad student recently. They excluded the period after WWII, several countries, and even had arithmetic errors in their spreadsheet. These people are frauds. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html
I don't fly anyway.
I used to be
vs losing fearful customers who percieve a competitor is more secure and hence more safe? Really all the Federal government had to do was call for minimum guidelines and allow the airports and carriers to implement, as they had done successfully for 40+ years prior to 9/11. Instead we get a new goat rodeo that makes plenty of congressional staff rich (thank you insider information re: scanners etc) while stripping the rest of the populace of their fourth amendment rights.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
It's actually a little simpler than that...
The Republican party held the country hostage, demanding as ransom from democrats and increase in poverty among the elderly and the infirm, among other demands which one would have assumed would only be made by a super-villain.
Democrats refused to pay the ransom so the republican party shot the hostage, as it had promised. Now the country is a bit poorer, and our flights are a bit more likely to be delayed.
Basically, John Boehner is the 20th Hijacker.
Let me know when you start to get socialized health care. Making people buy health insurance is not social health care.
For example, look at the airline security theater, don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search?
Except that the TSA's job isn't to remove the threat of hijackings, it is to stop the "terror suspects"
Of course it also isn't TSA's job to make sure you have a proper ticket. Of course life would be better, and cheaper if there was no TSA. And personally I'd feel safer
End the TSA. thu tuc thanh lap cong tyUtilized the funds saved to employ rear end air traffic controllers to 120% of the initial volume. Less jerks gate-raping us, more well-rested air traffic controllers making sure you don't collide in mid-air. Appears like a win-win giay phep thanh lap trung tam ngoai ngu to myself.
khác dá¥u
This is called the Washington Monument Syndrome.
Liberty in your lifetime
Security was done by the private sector, it was shoddy as hell and 9/11 was a direct result.
Wrong.
9/11 had nothing to do with airport security. It's this sort of thinking that perpetuates the TSA gong show.
9/11 succeeded for two reasons -
1) Prior to 9/11, airline crews were trained to cooperate with hijackers - So the suicidal hijackers were able to easily take over the planes. Confiscating water bottles and groping grannies wouldn't have made a lick of difference here.
2) Intelligence failures. The intelligence services failed to cooperate and failed to detect and prevent the terrorist hijackings.
Neither had anything to do with nude-o-scopes and confiscating nail clippers.
I hardly ever fly! Add the cost of air traffic controllers to the airline tickets and let the people who use the service pay for it. Stop all federal money going to it. We need more spending cuts, not less!
Bi-partisian (or anti-partisian?) comment:
Why is Congress not getting paycuts as a result of the sequester?
Their base salary is $174K for less than 180 work days per year. (That annualized to $252K for 260.7 work days per year. And they get better benefits than most people.) For reference, the median US income is $50.5K. The leaders of the House and Senate make around $200K.
That seems like a lot of cash for people who are barely able to complete the basic functions of their job, like passing a budget every year and keeping the country functioning smoothly.
Specifically. I always here this, but the cost of duck penis studies don't even begin to pay for this. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, our gov't isn't wasting nearly as much money as people think it is?
No. Politicians aren't accountable in any real way for how they spend money. If the officers of any business tried to use the accounting practices that our government uses, they be fired at the least, and most would probably be criminally charged for fraud. Depending on the mood of the country politicians may get "sanctioned" for what you and I will get jail time for. For most, the worst that will happen is they will have to resign and no further charges will be pressed. And they get to walk away with a "war chest" of left over campaign funds. Only in very egregious cases, and when the political winds are blowing just right does a politician actually do any jail time. Frankly I feel all of congress should be removed for failure to do their job by not passing a budget for several years now. If I had my way they'd all be tried for treason at this point.
The scenario of airlines handling security is scary. Government regulation makes it more convenient for the travelers actually. You now know what not to bring to the airport. Imagine having to know the rules for each individual airport or carrier. More delays, more frustration. I think airlines would rather not have that. One problem with any commercialization or privatization is the communication asymmetry problem. How do you know how well each airline is handling security? How can you trust that they are honestly reporting the measures they are doing (or not doing)? It is in the airline's best interest to spend the least amount possible while appearing to do the most. That alone scares me. What about the intelligence each airline will have invariably collected? Should they share that with other airlines? It is not in their best interest to do so (hey this guy is kind of suspicious, but let's not warn other airlines. If he blows another carrier's plane up, we get more business, win!) Those republicans that want to privatize everything never progress beyond econ 101 (if at all) and learned about market distortions and externalities.
No, in pure business terms, the threat of hijacking and the loss of 1-2 airplanes and slight dip in customers is not worth the excess costs of keeping that 1-2 hijackings from happening out of millions of flights per year. This is why doing everything via private sector will fail.
Ok, you'll have to explain that logic. Why does that reasoning show that private sector will fail? I'm pretty sure the TSA does that reasoning as well. But they don't have to care, if they make flying so unpleasant that it hurts business.
On 1), prior to 9/11, passengers would have been more cooperative as well.
And 3) it was legal to bring on the airplane the sort of weapons (eg, boxcutter knives) which the 9/11 hijackers used.
The scenario of airlines handling security is scary. Government regulation makes it more convenient for the travelers actually.
The solution then is to have non-scary, government regulated security handled by the airlines. Not the TSA power grab. That's scary in ways that should matter more to us (namely, growing TSA power is a more credible threat to our lives and freedoms than the vague threat of terrorism).
they're just using this as a tool to get back the full budget.
think of it as a strike 10% of the time. that's what it is. the proper, non nutjob solution would be of course to push the costs to airlines(and private flyers).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Socialized healthcare = Obamacare.
Dentition: Similar to a loud foul smelling fart on a long elevator trip in your office building, you actually know who's to blame but don't say anything, and your completely powerless to do anything about it.
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
CanadianMacFan... Your answer really bothers me... because my Mother works in a private non-profit nursing home, and she has told me the rusult of Medicare in her work... You know, I'm _certain_ you know of the insanity in your Canadian system. I've lived in China as an Expat... I know how the socialized system is there... Are you TRULY arguing for a socialist system as being superior.... or are you saying that "you aint seen nothin' yet???"
"Give us more money or something bad might happen on your flight."
The government is increasingly giving up the pretense of being anything other than a shake down racket.
In the last twenty years there has been a massive realignment of military bases from overseas to stateside. Some 350 installations overseas have been closed since the end of the Cold War, including some major base closures in the Philippines and across Germany. In that time with all that relocation, not a penny was saved. While all these bases have been moved back to the states, the military budget has increased from around 400 billion dollars a year in 1992 to 600 billion dollars a year right now. That does not count additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While it seems to make sense that repositioning the military back in the states would save money, there is no evidence that it does. For one, the cost of stationing soldiers overseas isn't significantly higher then stationing them overseas. In fact some nations have historically PAID us to be in their country, including Japan, which you mention has quite a few bases. Secondly positioning more soldiers in the states makes doing their job more difficult and more expensive by forcing soldiers to travel further and be in less optimal position to respond when called upon. Strategically there's a reason why we need bases spread out in other places outside the US if we want to maintain the ability to respond to crisis around the world. The first is resupply and refueling. Ships need ports of harbor, planes need refueling. One of the reason the US maintains a presence in Spain, for instance, is because it provides a harbor at the entrance of the Mediterranean and additionally a place for planes to resupply and refuel. Spain allows the US to fly its planes through it's airspace without first getting permission. So if we need to get all of our troops massed in the states (as they are more and more) out of the states to some hotspot, then that flight from South Carolina to northern Africa is going to need a place to stop and refuel and a country willing to let them through. Having existing arrangements with governments and existing facilities to handle that is important. Also troops stationed in Italy or Germany can more quickly be deployed to the Middle East then troops stationed in Kansas. Finally many more bases are located in more prosperous nations like Germany or Japan because it is easier on the families and the servicemembers who have to relocate there. While the morale of our troops might not seem all that important from a fiscal standpoint, it encourages skilled servicemembers to stay in the military and increases the overall effectiveness of those servicemembers. For instance when Reagan took office he actually cut military spending from the level it was at under Carter, but put more emphasis on quality of living, increasing the effectiveness of our military that was suffering at the end of Vietnam.
I'm not arguing for a socialist government system. Why are so many people scared of having everyone given health care provided, or at least funded, from the government? After all you have public education and you aren't screaming about being socialists. I know that it's in society's interest to have a well educated work force but isn't a healthy work force also good for society?
There are problems with the Canadian system just like there are problems with any system but it's far from insanity. Last fall I picked up an infection in my foot and it was swollen up almost 50% and turned beet red within 24 hours. I went to the ER, got diagnosed with cellulitis, and given a dose of IV antibiotics all within six hours. That day I had supplies delivered to my door for another four treatments of the antibiotics and a nurse came by to administer them starting the next day. If it hadn't been my foot I would have had to go a clinic but I was barely able to walk at the time so the home support was provided. I was told to go back to the ER for a follow-up and was put on an oral antibiotic to clear the rest of the infection. My total cost for all of that was approximately $30 for the oral antibiotics and a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. If that's the insanity of the Canadian system I will gladly take it.
I will admit that for non-emergency cases things can take longer here than in the US. And we do have problems in certain fields such as mental health care.
It's not just the war spending, it's how the money is spent on war spending. An already expensive situation is made even more expensive through no-bid contracts and private contractors in general. You have Halliburton and Xe (formerly Blackwater) and many other private contractors gouging the government for services that would have been much more inexpensive and efficient if still done by the military. Yes that includes all those growing numbers of no-bid contracts that this administration is continuing to hand out, just like the previous one did.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
2) Intelligence failures.
Go fuck yourself. The indicators were all there before, but only made sense in retrospect. There is a constant massive stream of message traffic every day pointing to terrorist attacks (some of which are thwarted, BTW, for which we get no credit). And the FBI and CIA were forbidden to talk to each other due to Intelligence Oversight restrictions put in place after the debacle in the 60s where Johnson was using intelligence assests to track US citizens.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It's not going to change, we're to far down the rabbit hole at this to see the situation getting any better. The FAA has a created a model system or inefficiency and laziness that the world never thought possible. To make it from the terminal entrance to waiting for your plane, you'll need in the best case 45 minutes, and that is at a fly through pace. Now add in all the other travellers who are dumb as nails and can't figure out how to move and you can add another 5 minutes on for each one of them.
Personally I don't care how long it takes me to travel, it's not going to get any better so I may as well not complain but for the love of god can people hurry the hell up? Most of the delay is caused by moronic passengers who move slow, take extra time, can't figure out how to walk through the scanners or use baggage tickets and etc.... If we take the FAA out of the picture, most of the delays you experience at an airport are caused by friggen people who can't walk and talk at the same time and it's sad to say that is most of the people! My personal biggest Pev is when I'm waiting to get to the scanner only to see the ( usually woman ) person infront of me take 10 minutes to carefully set out everything in the bins, then get undressed and have a nice slow pace at that. By the time your at the scanner you should have your pants and shirt on, everything in the bin ready to go and your ready to walk. It would speed everything up so much that people would stop complaining almost entirely about the slow service.
In fact I would create time limits where you have less then 1 minute from the moment you step up to the bin to have everything off and ready to walk, you don't need any longer, after all you've been standing in line at this point for ever.
No, I've been here over a decade, and by and large it's the same as it ever was - there's just more people and a broader range of topics and views. And there's way less in the way of outright crap than there was ten years ago.
Privatize airport security, privatize air traffic control, problem solved.
Canada has had great success taking air traffic control out of the bureaucrats' hands.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Figure out what it takes at today's interest rates to generate $50k a year and it isn't $500k.
If you are 70 and the amount of money that you take out of an IRA is $30k per year, it takes nearly $1m to fund that and then you pay taxes on the $30k. So you better have more than $1.5m in investment assets to retire at 65 and take out $50k because you project to live another 30 or so years. And that doesn't account for much inflation beyond the norm over your 30 years and historically you'll see a stretch that will seriously affect your nest-egg.
So criteria #1 is invalid, not in concept but because the numbers are way too low.
How much do you have in your savings accounts for retirement. Go to one of the calculators and do the math. Scary for most when the average savings is less than $100k.
Congress gave them some extra money to put it off for a while, but they still are planning furloughs for civilian employees. So, yeah, GP was full of shit...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
... After all you have public education and you aren't screaming about being socialists....
You are not paying close enough attention. After dumbing-down curriculum as much as possible, adding useless standardized high-stakes tests, vilifying and demoralizing teachers and choking the school systems for funding (unless FOOTBALL might get cut) many twits are whining about the failure of our socialized, public education systems. Some like to go on about how the charter schools do a better job of educating children - despite the fact the the kids end up doing worse on those standardized tests, teachers are paid less, but the owners get to pocket the money as profit that should be paying for education - oh, and they get to share it with some elected representatives.
I do love how they bring up the boogeyman of rationing health care, what the hell do you think we have now? Clearly some have never gone without some kind of health insurance in their lifetime or they'd already know about rationing.
You either need to read-up on "Obamacare" or socialized healthcare.
Here is a hint to get you started - "single payer" ( which is not part of "Obamacare.")
OK, well, have fun at ArsTechnica. But someday you'll be back... and you'll be browsing at -1 like the other diehards :-P
And who knows, maybe even someday you'll figure out how to appease our moderator overlords.
Actually, glancing at http://slashdot.org/~girlintraining/comments/ , you have a pretty decent record for getting upmodded.
Unfortunately your post is full of a lot of points in which you are horribly mistaken. First of all, you make the old Republican/Libertarian/US Military (yes them) argument that everything is better when done by the private sector. I agree that DHS isn't perfect, but I think it's illogical to assume that the US airline companies would do better. You are probably aware of how most if not all of the airlines have had baggage handlers caught red handed stealing stuff from passenger's checked luggage or running drug smuggling operations using the airlines as unwitting carriers. All it would take is one compromised low ranking employee in the right spot and suddenly there's a plane that blows up this time because a guy got compromised and let a terrorist sneak on a bomb. Yes, I do feel that having DHS run security makes this less likely. Arguing that it's not in the best interests of the airlines to have bad security hasn't stopped them from hiring dishonest luggage handlers and that's certainly not in their best interests either.
I'd argue that yes, the US does need military bases overseas to respond to threats. China grows more menacing every day with their patently absurd claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea. And just yesterday it was reported (bet you didn't hear it though) that China has advanced further than ever into Indian territory that they claim and have their soldiers camping under tents in Indian territory. India protested and the official Chinese response was something like "I don't know what you're talking about". Every year the US and Taiwan report that China puts more advanced weaponry directly aimed at Taiwan. You might ask yourself why they are so obsessive on putting a small island of under 24 million people under direct control, but it's because the CCP is obsessed with controlling every Chinese person there is. Did you know that ethnic Chinese people who are born in foreign countries and are not citizens of the PRC are under special rules should they ever wish to apply for visas to go to China? They have to fill out special forms that only apply to them. I know of no other nation that has such a requirement. There may be some redundancy in the bases in Europe, but they are also there to quickly respond to problems in Europe or the Middle East. It's pretty easy to just go "Sucks to be YOU" to every country in the world as China becomes increasingly aggressive and is now in the early stages of talking by force what they think is theirs, but at some point if you don't stand up to the bully (and yes, I get that to Chinese military eyes the US is the bully) it sets a bad precedent. And we're the only guy able to stand up to the bully. Taiwan just wants to be left alone. That's all they want. Yet all it has gotten them is a China that obsesses about taking them over at any cost, preferably sooner rather than later. You either stand with your friends or you don't and I guess you are one of those "don't" people. By the way, that kind of thinking got us into WWI and arguably into WWII as well.
So when two planes slam into each other on the runway because there weren't enough traffic controllers, can we FINALLY charge the entire Congress, both democrat and republican with TERRORISM???
Because their inability to work together killed those people as surely as if there had been someone on board with a bomb.
Why do I have to take my shoes off at an airport, but, some congressional wanker with an axe to grind because the president is black cripples safety protocols for all Americans, yet, they won't cut a dime from that white elephant costing trillions, the F-35 joint strike fighter. Oy.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
For example, look at the airline security theater, don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search? Instead, we have the FAA providing asinine rules on what you can and can't take on board a plane, rather than delegating those decisions to the airlines.
True.
Of course, as competitors, the Airlines are(rightly) prohibited by anti-trust law from colluding with each other. So they'd have to form some kind of demi-independent organization to do this. Perhaps it could be entirely funded by skimming a bit of money off of airline tickets. Also, I think the public has a safety interest in what the rules are too, so there should be at least some kind of government input too. Otherwise they are liable to just come up with a bunch of rules that put all the onus on passengers rather than themselves.
I say we call this government agency the Transportation Safety Administration.
Or perhaps it would be simpler to just pressure our politicans to force the existing TSA to behave more sensibly? Voting on that basis, rather than just blindly voting for the guy who promises to "keep America safe", might be much more effective in the long run.
Step 1 - Stop all money going to foreign aid. Problems here mean we need the money more.
Step 2 - Petition the UN for enormous amounts of aid. Let's see how the rest of the world likes it when we don't open the tap and demand they pony up.
Step 3 - Eliminate the TSA and go back to private firms providing airport security. Let the airports hire local people as they see fit.
Step 4 - Reduce welfare to child-only benefits after 6 months. That was the original intention. Let's go back to it.
I wonder how much money would go back into vital services if even a couple of these were done. I didn't touch the issue of pork projects because of the cost involved with deciding which ones were 'pork' and that all of them would be kept in place while more were introduced with the resolution.
I mostly agree, but you've forgotten about the inadequately secured door to the cockpit.
#1 meant you didn't need adequately secured doors. Prior to 9/11 the pilots cooperated with hijackers, so the hijackers needed access to the cockpit.
Side A: We can only reach our weight loss goals by only cutting calories from meat.
Side B: We can only reach our weight loss goals by increasing exercise. Also cutting carbs would help.
Side A: You'll never get us to exercise more than is absolutely necessary! Give up the meat!
Side B: OK, how about this. We cut some carbs, eat a little more lean meat, and exercise a little more to stay healthy?
Side A: We won't discuss anything involving exercise.
Side B: Fine, for now lets agree to cut all food intake by 10% across all food groups until we reach an agreement.
Body: Umm... guys? I need more iron and vitamin C....
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Instead, we have the TSA providing asinine rules
Fixed that for you. DHS and TSA are the ones running security.
If you must keep groaning, please try to do it in a rhythm I can dance to
Which single item will prevent 911 from ever happening again. Cost quite a bit less than TSA, and is significantly more effective. Further, as proven by the "underwear" and the "show" bombers, passengers will certainly be less than cooperative for future threats onboard. So what does TSA do for us again?
Which single item will prevent 911 from ever happening again
Well, more than one -
1) New training for aircraft crews, so they no longer cooperate with hijackers. Just get the plane on the ground, period. This has already happened
2) Screen for guns and bombs. Means that hijackers can't say "Open the cockpit door or I'll shoot the passengers." No need to screen for sharps - There's nothing a hijacker can do onboard with a sharp.
So what does TSA do for us again?
Makes Ma and Pa Kettle feel 'safe' so they continue to fly. Gives Ma and Pa Kettle the illusion of security so it appears the govt. is protecting them
Dubious value at best.
Obama could easily lessen the impact of the sequester, and Americans would notice that the government works just fine at growth levels that are slightly lower than what he wants. Obama is basically just blackmailing the American people into trying to support his political agenda.
Naked scanners, tickets costing hundreds of dollars, smaller seats, all the rules for what you can and can't carry, long lines. No thanks I'll drive whenever possible.
People are no longer allowed to buy healthcare insurance, under Obamacare all plans sold under the name "insurance" are merely cost distribution schemes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The US doesn't hardly have mental health care; at least you have problems in it- that is better than nothing. Our congress does not even get it and they NEED it!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
And that response is the same thing as a 4 year old plugging their ears and saying "nanannananannana I can't hear you." Even if the math & ideology point to a reduction in future spending, which they do and you point out, out here in the Real World where I live, jobs are being cut. I know. I got laid off because of this. So just because you wanna scream that it's just less money than you were gonna spend doesn't make the effects any less significant. This is affecting real people with real families to feed and those people at the top who pushed this down on us conveniently made themselves immune. Stop cheerleading this bullshit. You're part of the problem and by the looks of how 'Insightful' fellow Slashdotters have modded you, we got a lot of assholes in here.
I'm just gonna leave this here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/top-20-airports-tsa-theft/story?id=17537887#.UXhog4KUuHk
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and see that the higher income groups do, in fact, pay more in income taxes.
Except they don't. The problem here is that politicians are very sneaky, and it appears you've fallen for the trick: There is the Income Tax, and then there are taxes on income. They are not the same, but people (especially republican politicians) like to use them interchangeably. Most of the time, when a politician says "income tax", they are excluding the payroll tax, which is a big federal tax on all income... from wages, i.e. actually working.
To get an idea of the net effect of federal taxes, below are marginal tax rates for different types of income:
Income from wages: 25.6 to 43.6% (income tax plus payroll tax)
Interest: 10% to 35%
Short term capital gains: Same as interest.
Dividends and Long Term Capital Gains: 15%
Carried Interest: 15%
Tax-exempt municipal bonds: 0%
So while SOME of the "rich" (like doctors) pay a pretty high tax rate, most of the filthy rich ("investors") pay a very low 15% rate on their income. That's why Romney's rate is so low.
Again, many of the rich pay a much, much lower federal tax rate on their income than most of the middle class.
paintball
Inflation factor 1992 to now, about 1.74X. 600e6/400e6/1.74 = 0.86. Military spending, not counting war expenses, has decreased by 14% in constant dollars.
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The TSA has also been caught assisting drug smugglers.
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Private security firms would have substantially less power to abuse you, and much greater liability, both personally and on a corporate basis, if they did.
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Those numbers are already adjusted for inflation, although they are rounded.
And what is wrong with socialised health care?
The rest of the modern world uses it.
46137
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