I know. This is one of my major pet peeves, that even major publications seem to skip copy editing. I’ll forgive it in an independent journalist’s substack, but not much more.

The shareholders in question suing are a public employee retirement fund. I wouldn’t exactly consider retired sanitation workers and bureaucrats societal leeches, but to each their own I guess.

Frankly for short haul flights it makes sense. Would it be worth paying double or triple for a three hour flight just to get a full meal? Anyone who truly wants a taste of old time flying can get that with a first class ticket, both in terms of cost and quality.

I’m genuinely not certain if you are meaning to reply to my comments because your replies don’t actually reflect what I’ve said. It is possible to have a larger discussion about a topic from a smaller example, and it’s also possible for things to not be all or nothing. I hope you can sort whatever bee is in your bonnet.

I’m not quite sure how you’ve turned “we should have the option” into “we should buy everything foreign.” I think you’re having an argument you want to have rather than addressing the point I was making.

Great, and where local is the best choice they should do that. But nobody can seriously argue that reducing the ability of government to shop around for the best cost/quality balance is a good thing. It’s not like the only options are buy everything American or everything from China. I’d like qualified experts making that decision, not legislators.

You create bad incentives if you artificially reduce competition like this. Not every good or service will have tons of American choices, so you end up with a handful of companies who know the government has no other choice.

I feel like all this is going to do is raise government costs and line the pockets of selected contractors. We aren’t always going to be the relative best producers in cost/quality balance for every product and service.

If we’re going to subsidize any industry, it should be done directly and explicitly. Otherwise, it becomes another example of “inefficient” government that should be privatized.