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Let's Buy Spirit Air

letsbuyspiritair.com

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#391

Post by freedomben »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #112
striking wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.

If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .

> people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years.

Indeed! We don't need air travel when we have perfectly good teams of oxen and covered wagons. We could even hunt and forage for our food along the way to save some money!

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#392

Post by roxolotl »

card_zero wrote: post #348
achierius wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies. Is this how you see roads? Are we entitled for wanting those to be paid for by the state? What about the police? Should we have to pay whenever a police officer stops a mugging -- or is the wage of that officer, too, supplied by pixies?

These have remained unresolved questions, for me, for decades. When an internet pal was trying to found a libertarian (what noun should I use) locale, in Awdal in Somaliland (that detail of whether it was really in Somaliland or not was more debatable at the time), he first founded the Awdal Roads Company. https://web.archive.org/web/20040603010444/http://awdal.com/... So obviously there are theories about how these…

You’re missing the vital framing. You’re welcome to strawman the strawman but the respond with yet a third: “I’m not able to pay for it and will die as a result”. I’d prefer to live in a society where we avoid as many situations like that as possible. It’s the primary purpose of a government and a nation. Solving the problems of aggregating the required parts? Again it’s why we work together and it’s the point of government to solve that problem.

Good regulation doesn’t completely avoid market mechanisms it tries to tame the more brutal ones in order to maximize return to society. The roads argument is important because without roads we do not have any trade. So by collectively and somewhat proportionally, to use and income, managing the cost of road it makes everything else the market does possible.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#393

Post by hakunin »

rendaw wrote: post #316
hakunin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When something is that drastically different, it becomes different in kind. For example, if you have high network latency, you cannot jam (play live music) with friends remotely. If you have low latency, you can. Just because the difference is in a single value (I.e. net speed) doesn’t mean it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s possible. Air travel makes the kind of business, shipping, and attendance pos…

I think you're saying that there are businesses that rely on cheap air transportation that are very valuable, but at the same time couldn't afford higher air fees. But that's a contradiction. If they are valuable, their customers would pay more for their services - that's the definition of valuable. And if their customers would pay more, they could afford higher air fees.

No, all I’m saying is that air travel is so different than any other kind of travel, that it is very special, and borderline magical. Saying something like “nothing magical about air travel, things and people would still travel around the globe” is very reductive. I’m not giving my opinion on subsidies.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#394

Post by thekoma »

ab_testing wrote: post #92

I am not sure what the site intends to do, but doesn’t spirit have eight billion in debt with about one billion in payments due immediately. The planes and other assets belong to the debt holders. Unless this site plans to raise a couple of billion, I don’t think they are buying any airline .

What do you think the debt holders will do with the planes and the other assets?

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#395

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #102
gizmo686 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!" Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

[deleted]

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#396

Post by throw0101c »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #179
throw0101c wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops. Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine Before that the general thinking was along the lines of: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory Somehow companies managed to survive and grow bef…

> Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s It's been in vogue, in circles, since the 17th century. We're not talking about for-profit structures here.

One needs to ask which "shareholder" are we talking about? The pension fund that wants steady cash flow for decades? The retirement-saver, who wants to grow a big bucket for retirement? The already-retired, who wants less growth and more wealth preservation? The hedge fund who wants a couple of quarters good numbers to raise their take of the 2-and-20? The options or day trader?

"Investor heterogeneity" is a thing.

There is no Platonic "shareholder" with one set of needs.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#397

Post by threethirtytwo »

gruez wrote: post #102
gizmo686 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!" Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

Changing it to a utility? Like Bart in sf? We should have Bart authority run the airline!

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#400

Post by komali2 »

freedomben wrote: post #390
kelnos wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's fair. But often enough I see people (not accusing you of this) doing the opposite: seeing bad regulation, and drawing the conclusion that the only solution is to remove all regulation and "let the market decide".

Have you ever tried to get rid of bad regulation? I have, and it is essentially impossible. De-regulation is usually the only path once the initial regulation is in place. It also only ever seems to grow in complexity and onerousness, rarely ever goes the other directin. It's like dealing with a massive legacy codebase that also has the power to throw you in jail. I'm not against regulation, I think there are areas w…

Have you ever tried to regulate an unregulated industry preying upon a population?

Look what it took to wrangle the cigarette industry. Look how unfettered gambling is ripping through the USA.

Or look at industries pre-regulation. Meat, building construction, medicine...

At minimum we have as much evidence that "the market" is capable of being as bad as "bad regulation."

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