| I remember a time when taking a trip on a plane was a fun experience. A privilege to experience, even!
Flash forward to today, and it’s an entirely different story… If you’ve taken a flight lately, you know exactly what I mean.
Between a months-long onslaught of canceled flights, seemingly constant delays, a sea of lost luggage, and so-called “customer service” that’s become a parody of itself… traveling by air ain’t what it used to be.
And while it’s tempting to chalk up all these issues to the boogeymen of greedy capitalists and profiteering airline executives, you’d be misdirecting most of your blame.
To really understand, we have to rewind to March of 2020.
Picture this: America is in a state of panic as a virus — supposedly from a Chinese wet market — sweeps the globe. Billions of people are urged (and forced…) to stay inside at all costs. Before long, businesses large and small find themselves in dire straits.
Never one to let a good crisis go to waste, the United States government decides to pass the first of many “stimulus” bills in response.
This resulted in one of the most significant wealth transfers in American history. It was called the CARES Act, and it cost $2.2 trillion: for you math people, that’s enough to give every family in America over $50,000.
But because the CARES Act wasn’t about “caring” for families or small businesses at all, most of that cheddar went to some of the most powerful and bloated companies in the world: airlines, defense contractors, cruise companies, hotels, and more. |
