Thank you to all who wished me safe travels! I made it safely home and have been trying to adjust accordingly. This process always takes a few days — and is no doubt lengthened by the fact I stay up all night before a flight so I can try to sleep on the plane. (Gotta take advantage of the fact that during a flight it’s acceptable to sleep in “public”!)
I tried to spend my airport time catching up on my own Substack subscriptions, and between reading those and traveling, I scribbled down some random thoughts.
First, the ability to travel extremely quickly across the country is very valuable. It’s so valuable that we line up like elementary school kids and endure repeated announcements over the loudspeaker about safety. (To be fair, at least there’s no more ‘put on your mask or we’ll kick you out’ messages!) Ultimately, we are “here” and we want to be “way over there”, so we endure the bag and body scans and try not to think about how everybody just ends up bunched together at security anyway.
I’m sure even people who rarely fly can see the TSA isn’t the thing stopping determined terrorists from killing Americans. When a line starts backing up, some of the shortcuts come out — making me wonder about the point of (nearly) everybody going through the scan machine in the first place. (I think it becomes a little more clear if you realize how many people are watching it.)
But ultimately it’s hard not to see it all as security theater, because it's security theater.
So on one side of things, we have extremely expensive machines manned by a whole lot of people working for the government. And for the most part, things run just fine. (Then again, I’m old enough to remember when things ran just fine and you could meet your party right at the gate. I think that, more than anything, gave the airport an aura of joy that it no longer has.) The routine has gotten so ingrained — into both travelers and TSA employees — that the waiting is just something you schedule into your travel time and (hopefully) endure quickly when it’s actually your turn to go through the process.
On the other side of things — on the actual flights — airlines are offering one-inch-square "granola bars" or a very mini bag of mini Sun Chips along with half a soda. They’re very clearly — and very publicly — trying to squeeze every single dollar in an effort to cut costs. (As an aside, where’s the $5 option for “Just give me the can of soda and maybe even another one, plus a regular snack size bag of chips?” Market failure!)
Now, I certainly don't feel sorry for the airlines, they made their bed during the covid years by becoming beholden to government cash. The contrast is just glaring, with government clearly overspending on security theater, but airlines skimping everywhere possible.
Another thought I had was how an airport is a perfect example of a distorted market. You’re forced to throw away all your water at security, but can buy the exact same water bottle 50 feet after security — for $4. Once you’re past security, you don’t have full access to the market — you’re a captive audience. (Obviously, airports aren’t the only place that we see this. Movie theaters and sporting events are two notorious examples.) In addition to being part of a captive audience, many people (LIKE ME) are hungry because they’re stuck on a layover — and that “granola bar” from the flight isn’t gonna cut it. These things combine and drive prices much higher than we see just outside the airport grounds. (I’m also sure the rent is astronomical, because there’s SO MUCH FOOT TRAFFIC!)
In the end I turned away from the place that offered the chance to order at my table via QR code (not today, Skynet!) and instead happily overpaid for a — delicious — bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich ordered from and made by a real person. (And added a tip, because anybody who gets up early to make me food is basically an angel.)
I warned you this article is a little random, but (sadly) this is how my brain works! I really like to talk about politics and ideas about government and the market and then compare those ideas to how things play out in real-life. (Some people will say that one of the great things about me writing this ‘Stack is that I no longer yammer at them non-stop about these issues.)
And it’s not just politics, I really like to talk about a lot of things. Like baseball. And if the AL East standings could affect my life as much as government does, I’d certainly be Screaming about the Yankees more often.
Mostly, I (and those like me) want to have the debates, because that’s how people come together to hammer out solutions. We want to get people thinking and talking and on board with a solution to a specific goal. In many ways, the conversation is literally the point, because the conversation creates an important human connection that can lead to collaboration.
As an example, a lady next to me waiting for our flight commented to her husband about a recent New York Times article stating “Report on Epstein’s Death Finds Errors and Mismanagement at Manhattan Jail” in her very best “No shit, Sherlock” voice. I couldn’t resist and made a comment about how — at this point — I wouldn’t even be surprised if the whole thing was faked and Epstein was alive somewhere. She was convinced that “powerful people” wanted him dead and made it happen. A million to a security guard! Done deal.
That theory makes sense to me, as well. (If I had been in a clearer frame of mind, I would have brought up how Epstein’s list is still mostly a mystery! I would have liked to hear her theories!)
Even something that small provides a connection. I don’t know this lady’s politics — she was reading the New York Times after all — but I bet we could have cheerfully and politely chatted about politics the whole layover if I hadn’t been dozing off. We might have found that we had a lot of things in common, and therefore been more able to ‘agree to disagree’ on things we didn’t!
Instead, now it feels like media and much of the “Twitterverse” uses words designed to shut the debate down or instead turn it into a feces-flinging-fest. Perhaps a little (or more than a little) of that is because outrage=clicks and clicks=ad serves and ad serves=money. So now it’s “better” to say something controversial and let the insults fly back and forth rather than say something “boring” that everybody agrees upon but doesn’t drive the outrage clicks. (Once again, this is why I love the incentive structure at Substack!)
It wasn’t long ago, those on the left were the ones who wanted the debates. They wanted to have the conversations about helping the poor or getting Americans into homes or how we shouldn’t be shoveling money into endless overseas wars. I was one of them! I even loved The West Wing! (And wasn’t threatened by any of the powerful women on the show, they all kicked ass at what they did!)
Now there’s a very concerning push for some people to not only shout over their political opponents, but to also shut out their political opponents — and to use taxpayer money directed to “public/private partnerships” to do it.
It seems to me like they don’t want us having the conversations because that might actually lead to that human connection I talked about earlier. We might start talking about OTHER things we agree on. And we might realize that we’re getting screwed by the same people — because what we’re dealing with is much more a class struggle than a racial struggle or sexual struggle or whatever other intersectional-term-you-want-to-use struggle.
(Side note: I believe removing human support systems — and their connections — was at the heart of many of the covid rules. They stopped people from gathering anywhere that they would start a conversation. They severed human connections — forcing life to be all about the virus. It’s not a surprise that many people were desperate to “get through” the ordeal and re-establish those connections — and listened to the “experts” about how to do so.)
If we have those conversations, we can find our agreements and work from there to build solutions.
Here’s an example: It’s probably not a big surprise that I’m a proponent of trying to inject more free market principles into the healthcare system. Many people that I talk to want some sort of universal healthcare coverage. To them, I talk about the country’s artificial cap on new doctors and certificate of need laws. After all, if you’re going to introduce tons of new demand to the system, you need to drastically increase supply. (Interestingly enough, we didn’t end up expanding capacity AT ALL during covid! Many states actually LOST capacity!) Here we can find the areas where we agree! Reforming these two issues — although ALSO pro-free market moves — are essential to making the goal of universal health coverage more than a pipe dream based on pixie dust.
A pipe dream like “100% of new vehicle sales in California will be zero-emission by 2035” (long after executive-order-writing Gavin Newsom will be gone, you’ll note):
So they’re going to massively increase electricity demand by powering electric cars with the power grid! But also:
I think we can agree this is nuts, right?
Ultimately, I hope that if we hold the conversations, maybe we can find agreements and work together to solve problems (though probably not California’s Gavin Newsom problem). I think that’s what The West Wing types think the state is - government is the things we do together! It’s a great slogan, but did you get any kickbacks for sending your money to Ukraine, or did you ultimately end up paying for the kickbacks too?
Many of you are hopeful we can use the ballot box to improve things, many others think the ballot box is already compromised. But either way, conversation and persuasion will be an important part of the way forward. We can’t just call our political adversaries names, we have to stay positive and engage them on the merits of our arguments. If they won’t come to the discussion, well, that says a lot as well.
Wow, I’ve been babbling far too long. Looking forward to getting back in control of the simulation!!
Something I noticed on my most recent flight to Kuala Lumpur was that, for the first time in what feels like decades, people waiting in the very long immigration line were TALKING to each other as opposed to staring at a smartphone screen. There was an interesting an energetic conversation among four friends who were apparently writers of some television series which I had of course never heard of. They were young and enthusiastic and if I had to guess their politics were very different from mine. But it was nice to hear them talk about creative processes openly. Can we start speaking to real people in the room again?
Now if we could just shut down those coal fired pizza ovens, the world will be perfect. We can expect a tropical paradise on the entire planet...