It was an odd thing today, to see the DoJ step in and oppose the merger of US Airways and American Airlines; after all, many airlines have come and gone in the US, and it's got to be at least a little amusing that the regional airliners are now gobbling up the international ones.
But a closer look revealed that it was reddish states attorney generals -- Texas, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and Pennsylvania -- who joined the DoJ lawsuit.
It turns out, reddish states are only interested in free markets creatively destroying economies of bluish states, but not their own. Hence, the protectionism of Arizona and Texas, the homes of US Airways and American, respectively, knowing that any merger will result in huge cutbacks in employment, and termination of overlapping routes.
That the push for a lawsuit to block the merger isn't exactly news, either. Members of Congress have been upset since the announcement of the merger, that their closest airport -- Reagan National -- would be adversely affected, with the new entity controlling 2/3rds of all flights from Reagan National. So naturally, Congress pushed for the DoJ to step in.
And there you have it: Republicans are supporters of free markets when they're not the ones negatively affected by it, but are supporters of regulated markets when they're the ones negatively affected by free markets.
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