Chris Hayes' Secret Source on Flying
In 2004, Maureen Dowd outsourced her column to her brother, a staunch Republican. It was an awesome column. Kevin Dowd is an angry man. But he’s also a colorful writer.
I had a similar feeling as I read this Chris Hayes post, which he outsourced to a friend who works in the airline business. The result is a wonderfully lucid, plausible explanation of how the airline industry has evolved.
Less flying is going to make some huge differences in air traffic control, and that slack is going to make delays drop pretty dramatically across the US system. The FAA is working on some pretty important advances in air traffic management that it will be implementing over the next several years—also good news. The whole experience is about to change. For the better? Well… that depends. It’s almost guaranteed to be more pleasant, and it is guaranteed to be more expensive. The best thing the Federal government can do to help the situation? Ease off on the crazy deficit spending and get the budget in order so that the dollar starts to climb some against foreign currencies.
Get this man a blog!
Before we get this man a blog, we might want to inform him that deficit spending strengthens the dollar. It forces up interest rates, thus making dollar-denominated bonds more attractive. Yes, reducing federal deficit spending will also reduce the trade deficit, but this is precisely because a lower budget deficit leads to a weaker dollar.
Hayes displays a serious failure of understanding, but I suppose we shouldn’t be too hard on him — a lot of people get this wrong, even those who should know what they’re talking about. Not so long ago, Paul Krugman found Robert Rubin slipping up!
— Matt Rognlie · Jul 24, 05:00 AM · #