this could be big because I read somewhere that airline ticket prices are included in “core inflation” which is much watched by the Fed
Those are flight hours, not total work hours. From the time they release the brakes to the time they pull up at the destination. Getting to the field, checking in, preflight checks aren’t paid time. Same for connections or layovers.
Good for them. Used to be, a first-year commuter pilot made so little that they were eligible for public assistance in many states.
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Are they really paid for 40-hours a week? I remember reading long ago that flight attendants weren’t paid 40-hours a week but it was more something depending on the flights they served in. Wondering whether it might be similar for pilots.
It is indeed. Paid for flight time, not total work hours. That’s why the hourly is so much more.
That’s also how they can cram a bunch of work into relatively short periods then have a week off. That’s also why the most senior staff prefers to work long-haul flights. They knock out all their hours at once. A 10 hour trip to Paris pays the same as 10 one-hour flights.
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As I said, 40 hours/week may or may not be representative of their schedule, I dont know. But even 25 flight hours results in $200k annual pay, for a brand new captain at a regional airline.
And the point was simply that this was “a massive pay increase”, not that they are overpaid. Just like a raise from minimum wage to $15/hr is pretty massive. All these people with all this new money to spend is definitely a driver of inflation, where they suddenly have excess to spend on stuff they wouldnt have before.
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Nothing like a good anti-inflation rant. On Russian sanctions hitting us at home,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut04oCpl008 (9 min mark)
[who would have thought sanctioning]
the largest net exporter of oil and gas would backfire
and lead to them sanctioning their own populations
and so we’re being sanctioned by our leadership
we are being sanctioned by the Biden administration
and there should be so much more anger out there
about what is happening right now but
but we’re being misdirected
and Biden is calling it the Putin price hike
this is the Biden price
the price of NATO
this is the price of Biden’s hostile war cold war against Russia
this is the price of eight years of low-intensity proxy war in Ukraine
this is the price of empire
you’re paying the price at the pump
you’re paying the price at the supermarket aisle
you’re paying the price on everything
on your kids clothes
on their school supplies
on basic goods
that’s the price of empire
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As I said, 40 hours/week may or may not be representative of their schedule, I dont know. But even 25 flight hours results in $200k annual pay, for a brand new captain at a regional airline.
For some benchmarks:
Airline pilots average 75 flight hours per month. (with upwards of 150 hours each month doing flight planning and pre/post-flight activities)
ATP (air transport pilots - i.e. airline pilots) are limited to 100 flight hours in any 30-day period.
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Fed watching, part 1
- Fed’s Bullard: Fed Will Raise Rates at Coming Meetings – WSJ
- Bullard: Economic Expansion Should Continue This Year
- Bullard: Fed Must Ratify Rate Rises Now Priced in Market
- Bullard: Labor Markets Remain Robust
- Fed’s Bullard: Fed Will Raise Rates at Coming Meetings – WSJ
- Bullard: Fed Must Ratify Rate Rises Now Priced in Market – WSJ
Part 2
- BULLARD: HIGH INFLATION HAS COME UP “LIKE A STORM”
- Ex-US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers Speaks in London
- Summers Supports Abandoning Forward Guidance as a Policy Tool
- Fed Needs to Make `Much More Difficult Choices’
- US Faces Elements of Secular Stagnation and Stagflation
And of course no day would be complete without another Biden trial balloon for how to get rid of inflation
- Biden Says He Is Near Decision on Backing Federal Gasoline-Tax Holiday – WSJ
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Not a chance. No way will the climate cult allow him to do it.
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From the Wall Street Journal 21 June 2022
Biden supports imposition of Woke Mandate on the Fed. This measure has passed in the House.
President Biden recently promised in these pages not to interfere with the Federal Reserve. Yet last week he endorsed a House bill that would add racial equity to the Fed’s dual mandate of price stability and full employment. How does the White House square this contradiction?
The House bill passed last week 215-207 with little media notice. But it deserves attention because it reveals how the Biden Administration and Democrats plan to politicize monetary policy and financial regulation.
Recall that Candidate Biden advocated making reducing racial disparities a third monetary mandate. You have to wonder if one reason the Fed was slow to tighten policy was because the central bankers agreed with him. Several Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members promoted the goal of “inclusive” employment even as inflation began to creep up.
Now House Democrats want to codify racial equity as part of the Fed’s mandate. Their bill would require the Board of Governors and FOMC to “exercise all duties and functions in a manner that fosters the elimination of disparities across racial and ethnic groups with respect to employment, income, wealth, and access to affordable credit.”
The bill directs the Fed to include race in monetary policy, the operation of payment systems, and the supervision of banks and non-banks deemed by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to be systemically important.
Central bankers have a hard enough time balancing full employment with stable prices. Adding a racial equity mandate could cause their models to go catawampus. How small would the black-white unemployment gap have to be, and how high would prices have to climb, before the Fed considers raising interest rates?
The pandemic has been an informal experiment in this triple mandate. It hasn’t worked out for minorities. The Fed’s accommodative policies have driven up asset prices, mainly benefiting relatively well-to-do people who own homes and stock. Now a recession may be in the offing, which would compound the harm inflation has done to minorities.
Requiring the Fed to incorporate race into bank (and potentially non-bank) supervision would likewise contradict its duty to protect financial stability. Would the Fed reduce the capital that banks must hold against loans to minorities? Would banks be graded based on the number of loans they make to minority businesses?
Easing underwriting standards to boost minority credit and homeownership could cause defaults and foreclosures to spike in a recession, as happened during the last financial crisis. Democrats would then accuse banks of predatory lending.
Most banks are trying to increase lending to minority communities, yet the bill would require financial regulators to rate banks on diversity and inclusion. Minority-owned banks would be exempt from these exams and automatically get the highest rating. The bill also instructs federal agencies to move deposits to minority-owned banks.
Such racial favoritism almost certainly violates the Constitution. So potentially does the bill’s requirement that public companies disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission the racial, gender identity and sexual orientation of directors and executives.
Administrations don’t have to take a position on every bill, so the Biden team’s decision to support this one is revealing. Yet the White House statement glossed over almost all of the bill’s substance. The bill would ensure that all Americans “benefit fully from our Nation’s economic success,” the White House says.
The bill would instead politicize monetary policy and financial regulation when the Fed’s focus should be slaying inflation while avoiding a recession. House Democrats who voted for the bill deserve to be called out for supporting racial favoritism and undermining Fed independence. As for the President, the progressive agenda is apparently a higher priority than controlling inflation.
The above outlined interference with the Fed, as they attempt to adjust monetary policy to fight inflation, has gone virtually unreported in the American mainstream media. The measure has already passed in the House by a vote of 215 for, 207 against.
Also nota bene:
Biden’s appointments to the FOMC are, across the board, doves who support this third Fed mandate.
All this is going on right under our noses while the mainstream media does its best to focus America’s attention elsewhere.
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UK inflation going strong
Canada too
*CANADA ANNUAL INFLATION RISES TO 7.7% IN MAY, VS 7.3% ESTIMATE
*CANADA INFLATION RISES TO FASTEST PACE SINCE JANUARY 1983
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Fed watch
- FED’S HARKER: WE NEED TO GET TO NEUTRAL, 2.5%, QUICKLY–YAHOO FINANCE
- FED’S HARKER: WE SHOULD BE ABOVE 3% BY END OF YEAR
- FED’S HARKER: 75 BPS RATE HIKE HELPS US GET TO NEUTRAL STA
- FED’S HARKER: NOT READY TO MAKE A DECISION ON WHETHER JULY SHOULD BE 75 BPS OR 50 BPS
- FED’S HARKER: IF DEMAND SOFTENS QUICKER THAN I EXPECT, 50 BPS HIKE FOR JULY MAY BE GOOD
- FED’S HARKER: STARTING TO SEE SIGNS OF DEMAND SOFTENING, WHICH IS WHAT WE WANT
- FED’S HARKER: INFLATION COULD STILL BE NORTH OF 5% NEXT YEAR, THEN DOWN TO 2.5% FOLLOW
- FED’S HARKER: COULD HAVE A COUPLE NEGATIVE GDP QUARTERS
- FED’S HARKER: WE NEED TO GET TO NEUTRAL, 2.5%, QUICKLY–YAHOO FINANCEFED’S HARKER: WE SHOULD BE ABOVE 3% BY END OF YEAR
- FED’S HARKER: WORRIED ABOUT FRAGILITY OF SUPPLY CHAINS
- FED’S HARKER: NO CONCERNS AT THIS POINT ON FINANCIAL STABILITY, BUT NEED TO BE CAUTIOUS AND WATCH
and JPowell
- Powell: ‘It Is Essential’ for Fed to Bring Inflation Down
- Powell: ‘Ongoing Rate Increases Will Be Appropriate’
- Powell: Pace of Rate Rises Will Depend on Economic Outlook
- Powell: Financial Conditions Have Tightened Significantly
- Powell: American Economy Is Very Strong
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A party line vote. Do not vote for any Democrat for any office.
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Rely on President Biden, and his Democrats, to do everything they can . . almost
Biden is green
Biden is woke
Meanwhile America
Goes up in smoke
Burma Shave 
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The American Energy Independence Reserve Strategic Midterm Election Reserve is, like our energy independence, going down the drain under Biden’s priorities and policies.
So Biden proposes to reduce inflation by reducing taxes, the gas tax, but not reducing spending. Is this more of that magic modern monetary theory?
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That isnt reducing inflation. That’s hiding inflation.
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