Such a Little Snowball

Just for the record, I’ve tried the trick where you roll the snowball down the slope, and it starts picking up more and more snow, eventually turning into a snowball the size of your house, which then also scoops up your enemies and carries them away from you in an amusingly cartoonish fashion that inexplicably fails to hurt anyone or anything despite involving the out-of-control movement of several metric tons of snow. That is, I’ve tried to do it, and after many dozens of attempts over the course of forty or so miss-spent years, I’m forced to conclude that while this works brilliantly as a metaphor for things getting out of control, it doesn’t work that way in the real world. I would like to point out, however, that allowing private companies to palm off security costs onto a Federal agency paid for by tax funds also doesn’t work in the real world…

A press release issued last week by the U.S. Travel Association details the findings of a blue-ribbon panel comprised of former DHS officials (including former Chairman Tom Ridge), congressmen and industry experts on the effect that the increases in baggage fees and similar games have had on air travel, and the industry in general. This isn’t necessarily the most impartial organization on the face of the planet; the USTA is an organization of boosters for the travel industry, and it is primarily made up of and supported by people who make money off of tourists and travelers of all types. But at the same time, this panel isn’t anybody’s choice for leftists and anti-business hippies; most of the roster is big-business Republicans and actual government officials – and they don’t have anything nice to say about the way the crackpot TSA screenings are affecting their industry…

Consider, for example, the depressing effect the TSA screenings have had on non-essential travel. We’ve all heard stories about people deciding not to fly – or to avoid travel at all – because they can’t abide the thought of being groped and probed on their way to the gate. The USTA panel’s findings suggest that the average traveler has cancelled two to three trips per year, resulting in a loss in business of $85 billion in business and 900,000 jobs. Now, granted that this does not consider jobs gained in the automobile, bus and train building companies, petroleum companies, or businesses that provide roadside assistance; nor does it acknowledge the fact that TSA behaving like buffoons appears to be the key turn-off, not anything the airlines have done. It is still a mind-boggling idea, and all the more so since all of the international experts who have been asked to comment on the TSA enhanced screenings have claimed that these business-destroying routines are also completely useless in terms of preventing actual terror attacks on airplanes…

It remains to be seen if the remedies the USTA panel is suggesting will do any good; certainly, removing the first-bag baggage fee might encourage people to carry on less baggage, shortening the search times and speeding up the checkpoints. It’s also possible that a “trusted flyer” express lane program, at least a completely voluntary one, might speed up these lines without turning our entire nation into the Orwellian nightmare its opponents like to describe. But the reason I’m calling it to your attention in a business blog – and comparing it to a cartoon snowball in the first place – is that this isn’t just a security threat imposed by foreign enemies or a profit-boosting stunt installed by the airlines to help make a fast buck. The truth is, the failure of our airline security systems on September 11, 2001 can be directly blamed to the airline industry fighting tooth and nail against anything resembling proper security laws for over fifty years, and then imposing the new baggage fees to try and recover some of the cost when the consequences of their lobbying actions finally blew up in their faces…

And whether your chosen metaphor involves snowballs, birds coming home to roost, or anthropomorphic bunnies and puppies playing basketball, nothing is going to change until we start demanding accountability from our governments (as citizens), from our business leaders (as stockholders), and from the companies themselves (as customers), and hold the people responsible for these crimes against intelligence and occasionally sanity responsible when things go horribly wrong, in the sky or in our economy…