Happy Birthday to Nate Schierholtz, 29. Hey, he might not be much, but he was a piece of the 2010 World Series Champs, and I suppose he was sort of a piece of the 2012 World Series Champs, too.
A bit of good stuff:
1. Wait, deregulation may not have lowered airline fares? Huh. Kevin Drum brings us all up to date. Either way, airline deregulation in 1979 remains one of the strong pieces of evidence against "Reagan changed everything."
2. The anti-sequester plans, collected and explained by Brad Plumer.
3. And your MA-SEN special update, from David S. Bernstein.
I like Kevin Drum, and I don't mean to be ad hominem, but its a pretty big leap to go from "air fares fell more rapidly pre- than post-deregulation" to the conclusion that "deregulation had no impact on air fares".
ReplyDeleteDrum relies on the assumption that whatever led to the real price decline pre-1979 was equally responsible for further, smaller declines thereafter. I know very little about the airline industry, but that seems unlikely. Just the fixed cost pickup from the huge increase in air travel from 1950 to 1980 would be a huge driver of cost declines that wouldn't be in play to the same extent post-1980. There are surely many others.