Three Green

Dude, did you just quote World Net Daily. You aren't too bright are you.

50drvr

I can't believe anyone with an education would waste their time and money on anything produced by the subject film maker. Get with it folks. It's a sad commentary on the professional ranks when the garbage produced by this guy and his progressive friends is considered to complement the efforts of your unions. I really feel sorry for some of you out there.

newKnow

I just came back from wasting my time and money watching the subject film produced by Michalel Moore and all I can say is, "wow."

Here's my sad commentary, which is not about Mr. Moore, it's about us, as pilots....

1. Yes, Moore bashes Bush in the movie. (maybe 3 mins)
2. Moore spends 3x more time bashing Senator Chris Dood, Nanci Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank in the movie.
3. He spends 15 minutes hi-lighting the plight of the pilot. (Low pay, lost pensions, Sully, commuter pilots, BUF crash, ect.)
4. He spends a considerable amount of time making th point that we should have not spent taxpayer money to bail out the banks last fall. (Probably, about 20-30% of the movie)

Yet, some of you rather ignore the smoke and fire because of who the messenger is. Yeah, maybe it's a case of Moore crying wolf. But, as some of you have pointed out before, he is already a millionare. If we don't believe him in this fairy tale, we are the ones getting eaten. I feel sorry for us all until we are able to open our minds to see who is really calling a spade for a spade. Sad commentary over and out....

New K Now

DeadHead

It's funny how pilots talk about a "Love for Flying", almost as if it is a bad thing. It's not insane to think that people have a passion for what they do. Doctors, Lawyers, Politicians, and Engineers, I'm sure all have small amount of a passion for what they do. Personally I don't even see how this contributes to the discussion about pilot pay in anyway.

In my honest opinion, pilot pay is as bad as it is because of a few reasons:

1.) Pilots have been, are, and will continue to be their own worst enemies.

2.) We feel as though just because we enjoy the job that somehow we should be compensated less for it.

3.) We have traded promises of growth, upgrade, movement, and career progression at the expense of out QOL and pay. Management LOVES promises because it costs them nothing and has zero accountability.

4.) We have spoiled your average customer to the point where arrogance, ignorance, disrespect, and childish behavior have been rewarded. Basically we give away our product for peanuts.


Unfortunately, your right we do accept it, all the while scrapping by and complaining about it.


As far as the Michael Moore's comparison to Capitalism creating a violent downturn to pilot compensation, well I feel we have no one to blame but ourselves. If the Airline industry was never deregulated back in 1978, then the American Airline Sector, as a whole, would be a fraction of the size it is now. If you want to take a look at some of the Government-Controlled Foreign Airlines you will see that the regional network doesn't compare to the amount of flying options people in the States have. Personally I think that Deregulating the Airlines was the right move because it open the doors for legitimate growth as opposed to the Washington Kickbacks and Lobbying that dictated the direction of the Airline Industry. Pilots have, however, in the 30 years following Deregulation allowed CEO after CEO to chip away at what was once a respectable career. Anyway you look at it, you can't blame the Capitalistic Basis of our economy. Comparable careers have not seen the drastic downturn in compensation while competing in the free market, but we have for some reason.

What this all means is that without the "Free Market" opening its' doors to competition the industry would be smaller and the amount of flying jobs would be less, far less. Business is not a friendly game of tie-for-tat, it's a matter of survivability. Like it or not, we are just another cost variable that fits into the business plan, nothing more, nothing less, a business manager will try to drive down his or her production costs in anyway possible.

Until we decide that its "All or Nothing" as opposed to "Some of All for Now, until All can be Afforded" we will continue to be that dimwitted cost variable being eternally driven downward.

DeadHead

Please keep the politics out of this, guys. You know it's just gonna get the thread closed.

jungle

Fair enough, now show us how bright you are and present a few facts to demonstrate how Moore has not suckled quite heartily at the teat of Capitalism by presenting propaganda films that find favor with the naive.

Sorry, but you wil never convince anyone with a grain of sense that Moore has helped humanity in the way that Bill Gates and Fred Smith and millions of other Capitalists with vision have done.

Good propaganda always has a bit of the truth thrown in, but it always fails to reach the correct conclusion. Bad propaganda never even approaches a correct conclusion.

SkiBum112

Propaganda is a two way street. Moore is no worse than Rush Limbaugh. Their job entails stirring the ****** pot and rallying people to their cause. To believe capitalist are infallible is just as naive as beliving they're totally evil.

jungle

Nothing is infallible, but collecting the facts and coming to a correct conclusion remains important to the individual. There is a strong desire to blame our troubles on an outside source, but in most cases the fault comes from within our own actions.




"What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"
— Robert A. Heinlein

newKnow

Jungle,

What conclusion did Moore came to in his new film and how do you know it is incorrect?

jungle

You will have to come to your own conclusion, but tell us, since Moore seems to be coy with his alternate to Capitalism just exactly what you think the alternative will be?
Are we in fact experiencing Capitalism or massive intervention in a free economy?
How transparent are high level capital movements by all players?

A simple test is to ask which group desires to control your actions and your ability to choose from a number of options, when you are not allowed to choose, or forced to participate in the diminishiment of your rights or property you are being controlled. All parties are guilty, it is our job to reject that control to the greatest extent possible.

Very few ideas are perfect, the idea that any system can always provide a balance of growth and prosperity under any condition remains a fantasy.


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"In an essay in The New York Times Magazine titled "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?" Krugman argues that economists were seduced by mathematical models depicting capitalism as a perfect system. But he also offered a Stigler-like perspective, suggesting that his profession's "renewed romance" with free markets was "partly a response to shifting political winds, partly a response to financial incentives." Skidelsky also asks whether economic ideas are "society's building blocks or weapons in the struggle for power." He sides with the former view, more on faith than on evidence.

Keynes offers a compromise, a few lines after that most-favored quote. Economic ideas trump political interests, Keynes continued, but only after "a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest." Basically, if you're an economist with a big idea, you probably won't win over the politicians of your day. Just wait until you're defunct."