The Behavior Of The Airlines Makes The Case For Letting Them Go Bankrupt And Forcing Them To Reorganize Under New, Less Predatory Management

There was some sympathy in Congress to let the airlines go bankrupt, but that never got off the ground. Last April the Washington Post noted that the airlines had received more than $12 billion in taxpayer funds as part of the $25 billion they were granted in the first pandemic relief package. Republicans-- including Susan Collins (ME), Steve Daines (MT), Cory Gardner (CO) and Martha McSally (AZ)-- are demanding we give them another $25 billion in the next package.

Pelosi and Schumer are perfectly happy to go along with this and there's probably nothing to stop it. Let's hope they at least use their acquiescence as a bargaining chip to get something working families actually need. As NY-27 congressional candidate Nate McMurray told me today, "We need Republican lawmakers to realize that the people that make our economy move aren't executives or corporate lobbies. Everyday people do and that's who we need to provide relief to. I've advocated for UBI. This is a conscious-shifting moment where the $600 pandemic unemployment gave people a taste of not only how UBI could work, but also that it's possible. People have been able to care for their families, do mutual aid and community work, be creative, and not feel the pressures of productivity that constantly harps on working people. We need to take this moment and fight for the supports we're owed. We need to stand strong against Republicans who would like to see us all in precarious positions." Chris Jacobs, his own opponent, a right-wing dog born into a family of billionaires, is one of those Republicans who has no problem seeing the rest of us falling into precarious positions. It helps drive down labor costs.

Airline have been, generally, terrible corporate citizens. Basically they don't care if their passengers (and employees) all die-- as long as they don't die on the planes. It's all about the stock price for the vultures who manage these companies. They're reducing flights and cramming people into planes again and many of them are being very lax about masks. Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporter Scott McCartney wrote how that the Airlines Are Withholding Billions in Refunds-- That's Billions With a B. "Refunds delayed and denied," he began. "Vouchers worth thousands of dollars that have already expired, or are so rule-bound they’re useless. Interminable telephone holds, unanswered emails and complaints ignored. Consumers continue to battle airlines over canceled tickets. At stake are literally billions of dollars-- and likely lasting animosity toward airlines over punitive policies." Yeah, there is definitely a lot of that going around.

The U.S. Transportation Department warned that any airline operating in the U.S., foreign or domestic, had to refund tickets for flights the airline canceled and couldn’t offer an alternative without a “substantial” schedule change. But many international carriers have offered only vouchers. Some forced consumers into accepting vouchers before the airline officially removed flights from its schedule. Some have delayed paying refunds while waiting for government bailouts or new investment.

Worse, some have tried duplicitous methods to pocket expensive tickets, offering nothing in return. Italian carrier Alitalia, for example, told Ellen Schiller that her family of five were considered no-shows for a March 8 Boston-to-Rome flight and therefore ineligible for both refund and voucher. They spent more than $3,000 on the tickets.

Ms. Schiller says she called Alitalia twice before the departure to cancel the trip, but the airline suggested not canceling in hopes the flight would be canceled-- the only way they’d be eligible for a refund. She says she made it clear they were canceling because it was obvious Italy was closing down. The March 8 flight took off. On March 9 Italy imposed a national quarantine.

The Schillers appealed to their credit card company for a refund to no avail. They appealed to Alitalia, but a customer-service representative suggested they should have rebooked to a random date in late March hoping that flight would get canceled and they could get a refund.

“The runaround we got was insane,” Mrs. Schiller says. Alitalia was “intentionally evasive, difficult, and clearly trying to avoid providing a refund or a credit. I believe they were counting on my giving up hope.”

An Alitalia spokeswoman confirmed two late February calls from the Schillers but said they didn’t officially cancel. Still, the airline said even though it had previously declined to issue vouchers, it would now do so thanks to an “updated” policy.

The Alitalia example shows how airlines have essentially been making up their own rules to hold on to customer cash. Some carriers, including Colombia’s Avianca, Chile’s Latam and the United Kingdom’s Virgin Atlantic, have filed for bankruptcy reorganization in the U.S. Some, like Israel’s El Al, have suspended all operations and are looking for a rescue plan. El Al’s website states: “All flight tickets for canceled flights are currently frozen, and you will be able to use them in the future.”

The DOT has been in direct communication “with the largest U.S. and foreign airlines, and other airlines that received a large number of refund complaints, to ensure compliance with the law,” a spokeswoman says. The pressure has resulted in passengers receiving refunds after first being denied them.

DOT is “first providing airlines an opportunity to come into compliance and issue refunds. However, the department will take enforcement action against noncompliant airlines if necessary,” the spokeswoman says.

The feds did pressure United into rolling back its policy that denied refunds to likely millions of customers. Before the pandemic, United’s policy was to offer the option of a refund for canceled flights if the airline couldn’t offer alternative flights within two hours. It changed that to six hours. DOT has long held that airlines couldn’t change the terms on tickets after they sold them.

In June, United changed its policy back to two hours and said customers forced to take vouchers instead of refunds for flights the airline canceled could now get a refund. But they’d have to call—the airline wouldn’t reach out to them.

That was welcome news to Gerald Brown of Pebble Beach, California, who wanted a refund on two business-class tickets between San Francisco and London that cost him $5,354. But United denied his refund request.

On Saturday, a day after receiving questions about Mr. Brown’s case, United said it was issuing him a refund. His appeal in July had been denied “because it was interpreted as a voluntary change,” a spokesman says. “Our mistake.”

Says Mr. Brown: “Cows do fly.”

Another frustration for consumers: The terms airlines have imposed on vouchers. Though many airlines have given customers a year or more to use vouchers, it still can be tough to redeem them.

Stuart Krawll of St. Louis spent more than $10,000 on American Airlines tickets for a family trip to St. Thomas for 14 people. He paid for all the tickets. Any refund would go back to his credit card. But with vouchers, each passenger gets the credit, regardless of who paid. Only the ticketed passenger can fly on that voucher.

Mr. Krawll’s seven grandchildren-- the youngest between 3 and 7-- each have a voucher. The family trip likely won’t be rescheduled anytime soon because of the complexity of getting schedules lined up. Instead, Mr. Krawll and his wife have several overseas trips planned for 2021 and 2022 for which they’d like to use the vouchers.

“Airlines should let the voucher credits flow back to whoever paid for the tickets,” Mr. Krawll says. Flexibility in this case, he notes, “costs them nothing.”

American says it will make an exception for Mr. Krawll and give him one credit to use. American is making exceptions to its policy, trying to take care of customers in the pandemic, but stressed this was a one-time exception for Mr. Krawll because so much was tied up in tickets for minors.

Frontier has a 90-day expiration on its vouchers-- a significant gotcha, since so many are uncertain when they will start traveling again.

Cynthia Blouch learned just how costly that could be in July when she went to redeem her $4,593 Frontier credit left over from a canceled spring break family trip for five from Cleveland to Cancún. Frontier’s website said, “the credit you are trying to use has no value.”

Ms. Blouch had spent several weeks unsuccessfully trying to reach a customer service representative to book new flights before the expiration. Calls went unanswered or were disconnected. She couldn’t find an email address for Frontier customer service. “It has been very frustrating,” she says.

Frontier spokesman Zach Kramer says the airline decided to reinstate Ms. Blouch’s credit for 48 hours so she could rebook for a later date, which she did right away for next April.

Mr. Kramer noted that the airline’s schedule is open for booking through September 2021. Frontier is working with customers “to accommodate their travel wishes, within our policies,” he says.

Looks like the only way to get your money back from these crooks is to get a Wall Street Journal reporter to put your story in an article. The airlines hate bad p.r.-- especially in any way it could tank their stocks, many of which are owned by the senators who are trying to bail them out with our money.

Trump's Republic Of Mendacity

Trump is has been spending the 4th of July holiday with his divisive hate politics and doing what he does best: lying. Biden... hides out, hoping Trump keeps destroying himself and that no one pays any attention to him or his record. This may not be a great idea, since Trump will through tens of millions of dollars at him as we get closer to November. But instead of these two clowns, imagine if Bernie were a candidate. U like either of them, he's all about problem solving and policy solutions, sometimes grand-- like eliminating poverty-- and sometimes more mundane-- like making airlines behave so we're not taking our lives into our hands by getting on one. This is the letter he sent to the head of the Department of Transportation on Friday:

Basically he wants the government-- not the greed-driven airline companies (especially not American Airlines, the greediest ofthem all and the least concerned about the health of their customers)-- to require face masks for passengers and crew, to limit the capacity of flights (reasonable social distancing) and more cleaning during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Louis Menand, over at the New Yorker had some fantastic insights into what Señor Trumpanzee has been up to. "Today," he wrote yesterday, "is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain, and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity. The falsehoods never stop. No occasion is too minor. 'Pres. Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine. Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your lobstering and fishing! Make lots of money!' So tweeted the President on June 24th. As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported, the tweet is a lobster fib. Not that President Obama needs to get credit for it-- climate change, driving the lobsters north, was probably the reason-- but, in 2016, the last year of the Obama Administration, the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history, a hundred and thirty-two million pounds. Since then, it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds, largely because of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China, which caused certain American agricultural exports, including lobsters, to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff. China is not in a trade war with Canada, however, and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market. Over all, the value of the fishing catch in Maine, all species included, has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 (also a record) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019.

If lobstering is (or may be) “back,” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the cares Act-- the pandemic bailout-- to the lobster industry, which had previously been left off the list of most-favored businesses. Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way. The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins. Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need. She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote, and then ends up voting, most of the time, with her party. The Republicans want to keep her in office. As always, the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically. How else would it operate? It has no other principles to guide it.

Lobster fishing is a niche industry. About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters. And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie, more in the braggadocio category. But why insist on lying? Why lie even when the truth-- “We looked strongly into extending the cares Act to Maine’s beautiful lobstermen!”-- does the job perfectly well?

Speculation about this began on January 21, 2017, and it has not abated. One theory that has a certain elegance and simplicity is that Trump is a nitwit. Most of the time, he has no idea what he is talking about, and so he does what he has done all his life: he says whatever makes him look best. The kindest interpretation is that this is just good salesmanship. You always hype the product, and, in this case, the product is him. He is not exaggerating the truth-- he is not even lying, technically-- because he doesn’t know what the truth is. He assumes that the biggest whopper is the safest bet. Someone else can clean up the mess.

And the thing is, there always is someone else. It’s not hard to understand Trump. It is hard to understand the people in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation, who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous implications, and who parrot it dutifully. For the first two years of Trump’s Presidency, some of these people were known as “the adults in the room.” To an admittedly remote observer, those people looked indistinguishable from opportunists willing to suppress their opinions in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters. They were dreaming. All of them have departed with their reputations scarred.

No one will die because of Trump’s lobster tweet. But the stuff he makes up about the coronavirus is killing people. Those at risk are not limited to the small band who showed up in Tulsa. They are people in nursing homes and veterans’ hospitals; people with diabetes and heart conditions; people on Native American lands; people who will lose their jobs if they do not show up for work in spite of the danger to their health; people who may not think about Donald Trump from one end of the year to the next but who live in states whose governors, for fear of White House vilification, have adopted a policy of pandemic bravado, as though by putting on a big hat you can face down a pathogen.

Now those states are being ripped apart, and that is likely to restart the spread of the virus in states that have successfully flattened their curves. If that happens, the whole spring shutdown, with its economic pain unevenly distributed-- as everything in the United States now is unevenly distributed-- will have been wasted. The United States has a higher coronavirus mortality rate than Brazil. A quarter of the world’s covid-19 deaths have already happened here, in a country that has 4.25 per cent of the world’s population. And we are not nearly finished.

What is appalling is that this was predictable. A man who is incapable of not making things up about the crowd size at his Inauguration is not going to start suddenly caring about the science when he is confronted with a disease that he knows nothing about. He’s going to do what he has always done.

When Trump said, on March 6th, that he did not want sick passengers on a cruise ship brought ashore because it would raise the number of cases in the U.S., making him look bad, it was clear where this was headed. Republican senators knew it; Republican governors knew it; Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar knew it. But they let Trump dominate the Administration’s airtime on the pandemic and, when they finally talked him off the stage, they allowed him to put on a display of petulance that continues to suck up most of the coverage, and to undercut any governor who tried to shoulder a responsibility he has washed his hands of.

The federal government is not supposed to work this way. Its officials are not supposed to punt because the head of state is not up to the job. They are supposed to put aside political interests to attend to the public welfare. It is not as though there has been much leadership on the Democratic side, either. Congress gave the Administration a trillion dollars, with virtually no strings attached, to hand out as it saw fit, and it sent nearly $1.4 billion of it to dead people.

It is to the credit of the press that, even with silly tweets like the lobster fib, it holds Trump to account-- not that this has the slightest effect on him or the sanitation crew that cleans up after him. But the press cannot set guidelines, or distribute face masks, or perform testing, or do contact tracing. The public looks to government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, to insure its “Safety and Happiness.” We can guess what he would make of the current one.

What The Pandemic Lays Bare: We Have Become, In Saagar Enjeti's Words, "A Sclerotic, Rotten Society"

After midnight. congressional negotiators and the White House reached an agreement on the $2 trillion relief/stimulus package. There will be a vote on it later today. What did the Democrats achieve by stopping the Trump-McConnell first iteration of the bill? It now includes more funding for hospitals and health care workers; expanded and enhanced unemployment benefits (by 13 weeks) covering individuals who are not currently covered by traditional unemployment assistance and with full salaries for workers; and some semblance of oversight-- I'll believe it when someone catches Trump trying to steal some of it-- over the $400 billion slush fund for corporate America. Under the terms of the deal an "independent" inspector general and a congressional oversight board would be in charge of scrutinizing the lending decisions out of that pot of money. There is also a proviso that companies accepting aid from taxpayers cannot reward shareholders and top executives through stock buybacks.

Earlier that day, the Washington Post reported that Trump has finally "agreed to allow enhanced scrutiny over a massive loan program that is a centerpiece of the Senate’s $2 trillion coronavirus economic package, taking steps to address a major Democratic concern and potentially pave the way for a vote." They had hope it would have been yesterday, but are happy enough that it will come today both in the Senate and the House.

Señor Trumpanzee had "already said where he wants some of the money to go, promising assistance to cruise ship companies, for example, that have operations in Miami. And when he was asked Monday evening who would perform oversight of the program, Trump responded, 'I’ll be the oversight.' But during closed-door negotiations on Capitol Hill, White House officials have agreed to allow an independent inspector general and an oversight board to scrutinize the lending decisions."

McConnell's package was stuffed full of Republican Party agenda items-- bailouts for corporations primarily-- and Pelosi's wasn't nearly as terrible but was still bullshit. Who can resist including their own priorities when a must-pass-package around 2 trillion dollars is on the line? An honest broker, perhaps? That leaves out McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer, McCarthy and, obviously Trump and Mnuchin. The Democrats accuse McConnell of putting together a corporate slush fund. The Republicans accuse Pelosi of trying to pass the Green New Deal (part of a "Democratic wish list"). If only!

McConnell's bill was 247 pages long. Pelosi's is 1,432 pages. Let's compare:

McConnell wanted to give direct payments of $1,200 to individual Americans making less than $75,000 annually, and $2,400 for eligible married couples making less than $150,000 combined, with an additional $500 for every child. The amount of money is reduced by $5 for every $100 that a person earns over $75,000, so Americans earning more than $99,000 will get nothing. Pelosi's bill is pretty much the same in that way except that it increases the figure per individual to $1,500. Her bill also waives $10,000 in federal student loan payments. McConnell addresses education by allowing Betsy DeVos to defer student loan payments and by allowing students who were forced to drop out of school due to coronavirus to keep their Pell grants.

After that the two bills go off in different directions. McConnell is unreasonably generous to corporate America, no strings attached:

• $50 billion in loan guarantees for passenger air carriers.
• $8 billion for cargo air carriers.
• $150 billion for other large businesses.
• $300 billion for small businesses. (Pelosi wants $500 billion here.)

Pelosi's plan is far more ambitious, dedicating $4 billion in grant funding to help states with upcoming elections and nationally mandates 15 days of early voting and no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail, including mailing a ballot to all registered voters in an emergency, something violently opposed by Republicans, who always oppose expanding the franchise. Things that will never stay in the final bill include canceling several of Trump's executive orders that labor complains have weakened public sector unions' ability to engage in collective bargaining; requiring companies receiving federal assistance during the pandemic to institute a $15 minimum wage; and creating new carbon offset guidelines for airlines, with a long-term goal of reducing jet fuel emissions by 50% by 2050.

Pelosi's bill also allocates $150 billion to support hospitals, local health centers and government-funded medical programs, with an additional $80 billion in low-interest loans to hospitals; provides child care assistance to health care workers and emergency personnel; temporarily provides $600 per week to unemployed workers affected by the pandemic. Self-employed workers, Americans whose contracts were canceled, and new entrants to the job market would also be eligible; expands paid sick leave and family medical leave, as well as gives more money to food-safety benefits; dedicates $20 billion to reimbursing the U.S. Postal Service for lost revenue, and forgives USPS debt; and one that McConnell is likely to approve of: creating a $200 billion stabilization fund for states and $15 billion for local governments through the Community Development Block Grant program. The legislation also authorizes the Federal Reserve to purchase state and local government bonds.

In an OpEd for Newsweek yesterday, Robert Reich wrote that Republicans are helping corporations to exploit the crisis. "Airlines," he wrote, "are big enough to get their own loans from banks at rock-bottom interest rates. Their planes and landing slots are more than adequate collateral. Why do airlines deserve to be bailed out? Over the last decade, they spent 96 percent of their free cash flow, including billions in tax savings from the Trump tax cut, to buy back shares of their own stock. This boosted executive bonuses and pleased wealthy investors but did nothing to strengthen the airlines for the long term. Meanwhile, the four biggest carriers gained so much market power they jacked up prices on popular routes and slashed services (remember legroom and free bag checks?)." He continued, echoing what many frequent fliers feel about the airline companies that McConnell is so eager to bail out at taxpayer expense:

United CEO Oscar Munoz warned that if Congress doesn't bailout the airline by the end of March, United will start firing its employees. But even if bailed out, what are the odds United would keep paying all its workers if the pandemic forced it to stop flying? The bailout would be for shareholders and executives, not employees.

While generous toward airlines and other industries, the Republican bill is absurdly stingy toward people, stipulating a one-time payment of up to $1,200 for every adult and $500 per child. Some 64 million households with incomes below $50,000 would get as little as $600. This will do almost nothing to help job-losers pay their mortgages, rents and other bills for the duration of the crisis, expected to be at least the next three months.

The Republican coronavirus bill is about as Burring as legislation can be-- exposing the underlying structure of power in America as clearly as Burr's stock trades. In this national crisis, it's just as morally repulsive.

Take a look at how big corporations are treating their hourly workers in this pandemic and you see more Burring.

Walmart, the largest employer in America, doesn't give its employees paid sick leave, and limits its 500,000 part-time workers to 48 hours paid time off per year. This Burring policy is now threatening countless lives. (On one survey, 88 percent of Walmart employees report sometimes coming to work when sick.)

None of the giants of the fast-food industry-- McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Duncan Donuts, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway-- gives their workers paid sick leave, either.

Amazon, one of the richest corporations in the world, which paid almost no taxes last year, is offering unpaid time off for workers who are sick and just 2 weeks paid leave for workers who test positive for the virus. Meanwhile, it demands that its employees put in mandatory overtime.

And here's the most Burring thing of all: These corporations have made sure they and other companies with more than 500 employees are exempt from the requirement in the House coronavirus bill that employers provide paid sick leave.

At a time when almost everyone feels burdened and fearful, the use of power and privilege to exploit the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of others is morally intolerable.

We are all in this together, or should be. Whatever form it takes, Burring must be stopped.

Welcome To The COVID Economy

Sure, there's a Trump tweet for occasion; but there's also a George Carlin video for every occasion as well. You may prefer how Carlin explains what we're going through as a society now but economist James Galbraith is slightly less pessimistic. In fact, he wrote a piece for The Nation this week about how to confront the side-effects of the pandemic, namely the economic one. He looks at it square in the eyes and wants you to accept it: "a house of cards has fallen. An entire world of illusions, self-deceptions, and sophistries has died. We’ve come to the end of a very long string. The string has been unspooling since the triumphs of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, conventionally thought of as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, but rooted equally in Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and in the Bushes and Obama and many lesser figures. A binational, bipartisan coalition of catastrophe in the Anglo-Saxon realm of ideas. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are consequences, not causes, of this mental failure. The delusion is economics as we’ve known it. Here, two concepts have ruled: self-organization and the veil of money. The first argued for markets, for all of society to be mediated by the forces of supply and demand. Its supposed virtues were competition, flexibility, incentives, efficiency; the reality is a fragile web, woven in strands of glass. The second submerged the financial system-- the banks, traders, speculators-- rendering those people and institutions as mere messengers, unimportant and invisible."

He wrote that "our leaders now plan to send out cash, as 'stimulus'-- as though a market response will organize itself. It is another delusion. In Europe "border controls are back" and America "is breaking apart." I agree with him that "federal officials, with few exceptions, are predatory, indifferent, or merely stupid [and that] congressional leaders appear stymied. The few steady hands are those of some governors-- in both parties-- many mayors, county judges, and other local officers." I don't know what he means by governors of both parties. The only governor who appears to be doing a genuinely good job at confronting the pandemic-- not a cosmetic job-- is DeWine, an Ohio Republican.

For the population, it is a test of character. Ordinary Americans are for the most part community-minded, prepared to follow instructions and do right, if others will do likewise. Around me in Austin, people are curtailing activities while going about their day jobs in the face of increasing risk. Pools and playgrounds and libraries are closed—we’re told, for several weeks. Everyone knows it could be months and months.

As everyone also knows, there has been far too little testing. There is no reserve of hospital beds or equipment. Global supply chains are broken, and medicines of many types will run short. The only possible advantage to being in America right now is that it is a large country; many people live in more space and can self-isolate more easily, for a time. This is not a consolation for the poor, nor for New Yorkers, nor for those reliant on assistance that they may not be able to get.





It is hard to look past the imminent swamping of the health system, but there are deeper disasters afoot. In California, nearly 6 million elderly have been told to stay home. Many of them live alone or in pairs. Who will feed them? To this, the governor replied, “Good question.” The reality is, we’ve done a good job in this country of keeping many frail and elderly people alive, a very poor job of keeping them healthy, and we have no system for keeping them fed. We may not even know where they are.

We are told there is plenty of food in the country. Can it get to the stores? Yes, for now; but for how long? How long will people be there to stock and sell and run the checkout counters and maintain security? Distribution and security are the weak links in the food chain. The market has given us efficiency and a high living standard. It has by the very same token not given us resilience, spare capacity, coordination, or leadership. It has, instead, given us fragility. A web of glass. Panic is both the rational response and the enemy. If panic takes control, it will destroy whatever is left.

The American economy must convert, in full and at once, to fight the pandemic. A public corporation-- the Health Finance Corporation, based on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the Depression and World War II, with power to borrow and allocate and meet problems as they arise-- is needed now. The National Guard and the Army and all their resources must be deployed. And every civilian resource, including all available human beings, must be enlisted.

The immediate medical need is supplies, beds, personnel. Hospitals can be built in days, we have learned. Space can be requisitioned; hotels and dormitories are empty. The military is said to know how to deal with mass casualty events. The Defense Production Act gives authority to command companies to make masks, oxygen tanks, respirators. Unlimited jobs are available for people to clean and perform other basic functions. It’s risky work, and it must be decently paid. Guarantee the jobs, and people will do them. China managed that much, and many people volunteered.

The next need is to stabilize priority civilian supply: food, drugs, cleaners, paper goods. The existing system may hold up for a while. The essential is to lock it in place, supporting the people doing their jobs so that they can continue: drivers, stockers, checkout clerks, cooks and kitchen help, and scrubbers. If the necessary goods keep coming in, people will stay calm and get along without the rest. As in Korea, ride-share and taxi drivers can be trained to disinfect and mobilized to drop off meals and medicines. Suddenly, all these workers are essential and must now be treated that way.

All the information services should now be drafted and basic customer bills should suspended for the duration: cable, cellular, landlines, Internet. Let the federal government compensate the companies for basic costs. Having secure communications and entertainment will help keep people at home. The boost in disposable incomes will help in exact inverse proportion to wealth; those losing work income will benefit most.

Among the most necessary big corporations right now are those who run mass distribution networks: Amazon, Walmart, FedEx, UPS, and the drugstores and major fast-food chains. They should be run as public utilities for the duration. That means giving delivery at cost on essential goods and stop-orders on frills. Top executives should contribute their time. The workers should get raises and medical care and protective equipment and unions. In return for staying on the job in the emergency, those workers too should emerge in an entirely different position after this ends.

Many large, medium, and small employers are down for the count and may be bankrupt soon: airlines, hotel chains, shopping malls, convention centers-- more than anyone can list. The equity will be gone; there must be financing to maintain essential operations and to hold the physical and engineering assets in place, and a debt moratorium to stave off the creditors and the vultures. Needless to say, evictions and foreclosures and utility stoppages must be stopped immediately; if necessary, it is better to ration the supplies. As businesses go down, so will the bankers. After the wave passes, we’ll see what can be rebuilt.

Through it all, the people must be reassured. Those at home must be cared for. And those who remain healthy must be given useful work. Solidarity, organization, determination: These are the words for us now.

Changing times... very changing times requires agile, competent leadership which is in short supply in our ruling class. Take the idea of bailouts. The airlines near our money to stay in business? OK, our tax dollars should go towards buying their stock. As Aaron Gordon wrote at Vice yesterday, "U.S. airlines have spent the last decade shoveling billions in profits to stockholders. Now they want your tax dollars with no strings attached. Fuck that."

The last decade has been very good to U.S. airlines. Industry consolidation, stuffing more people into smaller spaces on planes, and stacking fees upon fees have resulted in unprecedented prosperity for the country’s Big Four (American, Delta, United, and Southwest). From 2012 to 2016, these four airlines were the most profitable in the world, walking away with a combined $42.3 billion, according to an analysis by L.E.K. Consulting. In the two subsequent years, 2017 and 2018, the US airline industry raked in an additional $27.3 billion in profits. They then used nearly all of that money, a whopping 96 percent, to buy back shares from stockholders-- a move that enriches investors while doing nothing for the company itself-- and handsomely compensating executives.

Now, the airline industry, like nearly every other industry, is suffering due to the unprecedented coronavirus travel restrictions. The airlines are asking the federal government or a bailout of almost $60 billion, to be paid for with our tax dollars.

To which I say: Fuck that. The airlines shouldn’t get a dime from American taxpayers unless there are so many strings attached it can support a 787.

If a working class person had handled their finances in the same way the airlines have, it would be a caricature of a Republican talking point about individual responsibility. During the good times, airlines spent all of their money on financial chicanery and self-enrichment while saving virtually nothing for a rainy day. Now that the good times have stopped, they’re rapidly running out of cash, which is what tends to happen when you don’t have much sitting around. It’s like a meme about millennials and avocado toast except it’s about the boomers who run airlines.

You could be excused for doing this once, but not twice. The airlines should have learned their lesson after the September 11 bailouts that they are not normal companies. The industry, already in financial trouble, saw demand collapse all at once after which the feds gave them $18.6 billion in direct assistance and loan guarantees. The lesson here ought to have been that airlines are uniquely vulnerable to huge shocks and need to plan accordingly. These do not happen often-- oh, once every 20 years, thereabouts-- but often enough. That was not the lesson the airlines learned.

I suppose the airlines did have a plan. The plan was to get bailed out by us.

Fair play to the airlines, because they almost certainly will. Congress, which is comprised of some of the most frequent fliers and loyal airline customers in the country, will oblige them. Our political leaders will almost certainly meet the airlines on the industry’s terms because Congress overvalues the airlines themselves relative to the average American. A 2018 survey by an air travel industry group found 52 percent of Americans didn’t fly at all in 2017, and nearly three quarters of all trips were personal, not business. And airline flyers are disproportionately higher income, with the majority of airline trips coming from Americans with an annual household income of at least $75,000, well above the median household income (the most frequent fliers by income group, according to the airline industry survey, make more than $150,000 a year).

Airlines and other pro-business groups will argue a bailout is necessary in order to prevent massive job losses, an argument that made sense in 2001 when airlines were bearing the brunt of the recession following September 11 and mandatory flight groundings. But that argument doesn’t make sense today, because everyone is hurting just as much. The airlines, while experiencing massive revenue losses, can get in line with every other industry experiencing massive revenue losses, including but not limited to the entire hospitality and travel industry.

Even within the transportation industry, airlines don’t have a special case for bailouts. Public transportation is experiencing a similar shock, with ridership and revenue drops in line with what airlines are experiencing. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, they employ the same number of people. Public transit agencies-- which, it’s worth bearing in mind, are publicly owned and operated, not private corporations-- are also asking for federal funds so they can keep running service for critical workers like hospital and grocery store staff, but they’re asking for about $13 billion, or about one-fifth of what the airline industry wants.

Fake Magic by Nancy Ohanian

Some, like Florida Senator Rick Scott, have argued against bailouts of any kind for anyone, including the airline industry. At the very least, industries like airlines that quite clearly have embedded federal bailouts as part of their long-term plans need to have their courses corrected.

The exact details are up for debate, but fundamentally, the government must set a precedent for corporations that spend the boom years enriching themselves and their shareholders only to crawl to Capitol Hill hat in hand. Rather than filling up the hat, they ought to get a kick in the butt.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren laid out a plan (of course she did) of what this might look like for companies that get federal funds including: a mandatory $15 an hour minimum wage for all employees, a permanent ban on stock buybacks, no dividends or executive bonuses for three years, and criminal penalties for CEOs who violate any of these rules. It’s a start.

We must also stop the cycle of corporations privatizing profits while socializing costs. Why should we, the taxpayers of the United States, spend $50 billion or $60 billion or whatever it may be when we see nothing in return? As of this writing, the total market cap of the Big Four US airlines is $54 billion, almost exactly the value of the bailout being proposed. What if, instead of bailing out the airlines, the US government became the majority shareholder of each so it could profit from its investment?

This is not some pie-in-the-sky proposal. It’s exactly what happened with Conrail, a government-created railroad entity formed in the 1970s out of the bankruptcy of a bunch of private railroads including Penn Central. The government bought the bankrupt railroads for dirt cheap then privatized Conrail in the late 1980s once it started turning a profit, netting some $3.7 billion in 2020 dollars for taxpayers.

Whether or not that specific model is right for the airline bailout is up for debate. But the general idea, that the public needs to stop subsidizing the irresponsible financial behavior of large corporations while the average taxpayer suffers, needs to be the focus of Congress going forward. Maybe, just maybe, we can come out of this mess with a fairer and more equitable relationship between corporations and the American public. And, while I’m dreaming, with some minimum leg room requirements, too.