This issue comes up a lot at work and his been a topic long before Trump brought this up. Conservatives are correct in pointing out that the ATC system used in the US is dated. It certainly works well but it has high overhead, training costs, and arguably doesn't scale quite as well as it should. Overall, we're behind many countries in terms of modernization. There have been successful attempts at privatizing ATC. The Conservatives in Canada privatized their ATC when they were in power and arguably it paid off. Canada actually has an incredibly innovative and modern ATC system. So if your goal is modernization, you absolutely can make a case that privatization can work. However, the Trump administration also claims that this would lower cost of travel since we'd see reduced fees. That part is simply not true. Canada didn't see a decline in overall costs associated with ATC. What they got was a better system but with no real financial impact as far as ticket fees. One other thing is that Canada's ATC was in a far worse state than the US ATC. So its not quite apples to apples. But the most important thing isn't the question of whether privatization is good or bad. Honestly, a privatized ATC could do just fine. Even the unions are supporting privatization because Congressional brinksmanship around FAA budgets (and the threat of Republicans doing something to flat out wipe them out) are problems that go away if the ATC is spun off as a non-profit. Our problem is that its hard to trust the government to privatize correctly and regulate that entity properly. Government regulation doesn't go away with privatization. You still have to ensure that airports operate safely and you have to make sure that this new entity truly operates as a non-profit that doesn't make dumb decisions around technology. We've seen time and time again where bidding on technology projects has elements of corruption and ineptitude that completely ruin the stated benefits. The ATC system we have now works and I'm always fearful that a poorly run private entity will just make a series of bad decisions that will end up costing us in the form of higher user fees for travel. If we could run our private ATC the way Canada does then I might support this. But with this White House leading the helm, hell no. Lastly, we should all realize that there's a very finite window for Congress to pull this off. The FAA's funding expires in September and the Trump administration's only chance is to tack this onto the spending bill. But given how inept Congress and the White House are, the odds of that happening are quite low. We might end up with another short term spending bill and any chance for reform like this will probably get lost.
This is my most major question. I have no issue with an update but . . .what is the tangible positive result for me. . Joe Consumer? Planes have not been falling out the sky I just wonder why this is a priority over .. . say getting clean water in Flint, Mi and St Joe, Louisiana, etc This does no bother me overly, if at all . . . I will have to read more on it. Rocket River
Privatization does often give me pause Generally it will be short term lower prices then arbitrary increases slowly over a period of time I see that word and think MONEY GRAB Like Private Prisons etc . . . . open to so much corruption and graff Rocket River
Do you believe that privatization is required to update the system What is holding up the federal government from updating the system
Part of it is just the slow nature of government IT procurement. That's not necessarily a bad thing as you generally have slow processes with a littany of approvals because hardware like this has to be failure proof. But there's no doubt that the government could improve its processes for IT procurement. But part of it is the never ending stop gap funding process in Congress. Congress is currently incapable of funding anything beyond 6 months. That means that comprehensive funding and strategies towards modernization are impossible. The FAA has been given millions for ATC upgrades but its been in pieces and without an overarching strategy around it. No company can operate like this. Government agencies as a whole are struggling to complete any major project because there's never any guarantee for multi-year funding. The FAA is no exception to this. How can anyone embark on a landmark transformation of ATC if Congress is on the verge of shutting down the government or defaulting on debt obligations every 6 months? And frankly if Congress keeps failing at its job, we're almost better off spinning off ATC into a non-profit with the ability to raise its own money via user fees because at least in that case, the ATC gets a stable source of funding independent of Congress. But as I said earlier, I wouldn't trust the Trump administration to ever pull something off like this successfully.
You post a lot of stuff that makes no sense whatsoever. How do global economics cause competition in fire departments? Public safety should never be a for profit industry.
I'm not talking about competition I'm talking about wages That was clearly the point. Wages in everything are coming down
That's exactly what you said. Global economics forces decreases everywhere. Everyone is competing for firefighter jobs. How do global economics cause competition in fire departments and lower wages?
I think it is likely that the nonprofit would make better decisions than the federal government. With independence, secure funding, and clarity on their mandate, they can make and execute on a good long-term strategy. Without the federal compensation framework, they can go and hire a very seasoned and competent CEO from industry and pay a market salary instead of counting on people's patriotism to supplement their compensation. They can have an arm's length relationship with the regulator. Airlines would be paying them for ATC service and won't tolerate waste driving up prices. Corporations tend to be pretty savvy consumers. I think there are a lot of ingredients for building a less dysfunctional market structure. I doubt the benefits will be obvious at the retail level. If prices or wait times are impacted, it'll probably be so incremental you won't know, and you won't have a counter-factual to compare to. Airlines will probably see the difference. But, just because you don't see a quantifiable benefit doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. We want these infrastructures to be as efficient as possible, and we know good things will result when you can build a system that works. I find the objection to the profit motive the strangest thing in this thread. Do we not believe in capitalism anymore? (I heard a headline recently of a study of millenials that says just that -- lower confidence in capitalism and the power of free markets.) But, this privatization is not creating a for-profit business. Leadership would probably get paid better, probably they'll want to spend a lot on upgrade investments, but it's not going to be a money grab. Airlines have to pay for it, and airlines are not the guys selling fancy GPS systems. So they will want this money spent as judiciously as possible. A lot of industries run with these nonprofits. I told you about the ISOs for the electric grid. Port authorities and transit authorities are often structured this way. This is not like the privatization of imprisonment where the state has allowed for-profit companies to turn a buck on the prison system -- an arrangement that has its arguments, but one I find much more ethically murky. ATC doesn't have all of that baggage.
The government can't continue to overpay people when it's revenue comes from taxes on people whose wages are decreasing They have to decrease their wages also I apologise o didn't state this clearly earlier
On pensions That's a thing of the past in private business At some point the government is gonna have to follow
Don't worry, in a few decades, most of the jobs will be replaced by AI, that should help the government right?
Yeah, I think that's true. When a worker in, say, manufacturing, loses a job to offshoring, he can go take the training program and become a firefighter instead. Guatemala didn't steal the firefighter job, but it did take a job that displaced its former worker into that firefighter job slot and competition for that job increases, driving down the wages needed to staff it. Globalization puts downward pressure on American wages in every blue collar job and most white collar jobs as well.
There's actually little to no evidence that Canadian privatization was the reason for their modernization. The two events coincided but Europe has also made major strides in modernization (and impressively they do it across national governments through the European Union and affiliate nations to Eurocontrol). In Europe, ATC is generally managed via government owned companies rather than truly private non-profits. Canada actually has incredibly expensive user fees. The combination of ATC user fees and airport taxes makes Canada one of the most expensive developed countries to fly in today. Their air fares also reflect this problem. The common denominator is appropriate funding and good management. The American ATC system is very well run and is the most complex national system in the world. We're failing at the former. To me capitalism is irrelevant to the discussion. Privatization only starts to make sense to me because of our inept Congressional appropriations process. Also for quasi private entities like Amtrak and USPS, Congress tends to make a habit of interfering in very silly and damaging ways. The prefunding requirement for health care spending on USPS is probably the biggest example.
I worked with a guy that was on the firm that designed the US software for air traffic control back in the early 70s. The IT systems are really archaic. Two reasons: 1. the one they have works and 2. the coding is simple so it is easy to maintain and won't break. So you have a 40 year old system that does the job for the traffic numbers from 40 years ago. Now with increased traffic, the system becomes more difficult to use. Additionally, the IT systems are so ingrained into the infrastructure, to overhaul would cost billions of dollars and take years. You can't "slowly roll out the new apps in waves". You have to do a "big bang" because the entire system has to work together. Very interesting topic. There have been suggestions for retrofitting and upgrading the system over the years, but we've never really explored it yet.
American wages have been flat for 50 years, far before any globalization. What really pisses me off about his posts is that rather than building up wages and benefits in the private sector through unionizing he wants to attack government positions that have unions that have fought for their wages and benefits. His mindset is complicit in why wages have been flat for 50 years. It's just another corporate give away.
Bro if wages could rise they would Wages took offafter wwii cause of the car industry and everything that comes along with it ie steel fuel etc etc In that sense the only thing happening in the world is more workers producing the same products we have been producing fifth years It's a natural economic phenomenon Don't be pissed off cause I'm being real about the issue
In terms of wages Americans were spoiled by having a headstart in everything after wwii Everything was built here other countries recoverd
I think that's overly dismissive. Wages have been stagnant for over 30 years. That's not a short term thing. We've had plenty of GDP growth over that same 30 years but the distribution of wealth has been incredibly uneven. The 60s had wage growth because overall growth was distributed far more evenly than it is today. This is a question of wage and income inequality, not a question of overall growth. Yes the industries where that growth is happening has changed and communities that were reliant on old world industries like manufacturing have suffered as a result but even in areas where the economy still has plenty of jobs, wage growth has suffered. I work in software development which is doing just fine but if you actually compare wages today in software development to wages from the 80s, we're still behind the curve. Our economy has fundamental imbalances in wage growth across most industries. And that just can't be explained away by pointing at the collapse of manufacturing.
I don't dismiss greed at the top However the technology, for not necessarily just highly skilled workers in the nineties is an exception to the rule So what I'm saying is even eliminating overly paid CEO's there still has to be an economic reason for wages to risen Tech was new industry changing the world and tech wages followed Wages are almost completely derived from fundamental economic principles More than commodity prices I would argue
