Some Good People-the cost of Darwinian Capilalism

Just look at the price of gasoline as you slave off to work each day. If you're like me, with a long commute, you begin to wonder about your own financial breaking point. How much higher can it go before it is economically infeasible to go to work. Last night at a birthday party I spoke with a friend well placed in the Illinois tollway system. He said that as the prices have gone up there has been an epidemic of folks running out of gas. Now imagine the burdens of airlines putting tens of thousands of gallons in a plane, in which running out of gas is not an option!

I work in one of the few sectors of the airline business still operating in the black-for now. For more than a dozen years I worked for United Airlines. Now I work as a vendor out of their World Headquarters. I still count a number of long time friends and colleagues there, and have worked beside many more good hardworking people struggling to keep the airline aloft amid the worst crisis in aviation history.

Few industries have been hit as hard. On the heels of the 9-11 attacks the industry has seen oil prices rise from $24 bucks a barrel since the start of the Iraq War to better than $140. Thanks to George Bush and company thats a nearly 600% price increase. That's not capitalism, it is piracy! And even if it was capitalism, this is the point in which it becomes more than un-American it is treasonous for putting the fundamental economic and social security of this country at peril!

Of course, there is that frame of thought that says the wealthy and powerful inb this counrty have been pilphering the nation under corporate raider George Bush. Their aim is to run the country as a feudal society and to turn you and your children into their slaves and toadies. Think that is a bit too much to swallow? The negative sides of the economy have disproportionately impacted the poor and middle class. Bush's tax cuts favored the wealthiest one percent while throwing trinkets at the rest. Indeed, Bush's oil pals have enacted what has amounted to a backdoor tax on the working class. But the real imact is on the lives of hone st hardworking people.

I watched, lamented and cried with the first of thousands to be laid off from United. Unlike bankruptcy a few years ago no one had any hope they would ever be back. None of them, from secretaries to Vice Presidents saw any light at the end of this oil and blood soaked tunnel. Even with massive fair hikes, service cuts, layoffs fees and fuel surcharges domestic airlines this year will fall some $45 billion behind costs. Tensions in the gulf are rising, more so after Seymour Hirsh"s article about clandestine actions against Iran. As oil prices climb with increased tensions the airline industry worldwide is in danger of collapse.

An industry collapse would usher in a global depression and spark international tensions and alignments not seen since the years and months leading up to the First World War. We are told that oil is of terrific national importance and security. So much that American men and women are dying and being crippled to maintain our presense in the oil rich Persian Gulf. If that is the case why bthe silence, the smugness and smirks from Bush as the American public screams for relief? Then again they have all the money and believe we'll fight each other for the scraps they toss to us. When will Congress and the President act? And if they fail to act when will the American public rise up and force then to do what they pledged when they laid their hand on the bible and swaore to uphold the constitution and serve and protect the nation? When, huh?