On the radio this morning, I heard about a recent scandal involving the FAA and Southwest Airlines1, willfully ignoring established safety regulations. Now, it might be the case that Southwest is an evil corporation exploiting customers who suffer from informational assymetry. But what about the FAA, the government agency charged with protecting the public from evil corporations like Southwest? If the agency is in bed with the evil corporations, what does this tell you about the nature of government agencies?
The presence of a government oversight agency is no real safeguard against danger, but is often believed to be just that! People are lulled into a false sense of security, believing that the government will protect them: from terrorism, from criminals, from evil corporations. But time after time, we catch the government in bed with business. Most people blame businesses, but when government controls business, the same incentives plague the business world that are readily acknowledged as pervasive in the sphere of government. When the government establishes and maintains through force a business environment which rewards scofflaws and scheisters, there can be no surprise when scofflaws and scheisters do what they’re expected to do: defraud people.
ABC News reports on some instances of the FAA flat-out ignoring airline safety regulations.
The FAA’s oversight of airlines has come under fire since it was revealed that Southwest Airlines flew planes without the required safety checks, even though FAA inspectors knew about it.
In a related story:
[Southwest] failed to do required safety checks on its older 737 planes. Southwest flew 60,000 flights without the required inspections, and once the FAA learned of the missed inspections, it failed to ground the planes as required.
Southwest was fined $10M. The FAA proceeds with business as usual. Odd, isn’t it? The overseer isn’t penalized!
I think the problem is endemic to governments, not markets and businesses. The current environment fosters the sort of business which thrives on the bureaucratic inefficiencies, loopholes, privileges, and protections afforded it by the government. “Evil” corporations poison rivers and pollute farmlands because government allows and encourages that behavior.
Of course, this sort of thing might happen even in the absence of an FAA overseeing the airlines. But who would fly on any airplane that didn’t have someone’s seal of approval and a good track record? That approval, that track record would need to be market generated, and in a free market, there isn’t much profit to be made by lying to people. On the contrary, it’s a fast-track to insolvency!
There’s no reason to believe that the government bureaucracies are at all interested in your well-being. There is a strong case to be made: if they were, they wouldn’t be government bureaucracies! Whatever Southwest did in order to avoid audits, or hide their results, was only possible because there was a corruptible government agency. Without an agent or an agency to manipulate, this sort of thing can’t really happen on a large scale. Private firms with their own resources and reputations at risk are always more concerned with their clients’ well-being than any government bureaucracy, anywhere, ever.
1. In the interest of full disclosure, I am usually a champion of Southwest airlines. Sure, their seats are uncomfortable and the flights are crowded. But their business model opened the skies to thousands of travelers who otherwise could never have afforded cross-country flights. Southwest fought the Civial Aeronautics Board and the entrenched interests of regulated airlines, on more than one occasion, and won, striking a victory for the average Joe.
Quiet Rockland
Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.
John J. Tormey III, PLLC
217 East 86th Street, PMB 221
New York, NY 10028 USA
(212) 410-2380 (fax)
e-mail: brightline@att.net
http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Quiet Rockland Urges America To REJECT Robert A. (“Bobby”) Sturgell As FAA Administrator
In the lyrics of Dewey Bunnell of the group America, from their 1971 song entitled “Sandman”:
“All the planes have been – grounded”.
It’s time to bring back America. The REAL America. The FAA is more broken than the cracked airplanes it purports to regulate. FAA Head “Bobby” Sturgell is a losing legacy case – the son of J. Edgar Hoover’s personal secretary, planted years later at the FAA, an agency that the powers-that-be assumed Sturgell could never muck up. Well, that failed legacy case named “Bobby” Sturgell DID muck it all up. Big time. The United States aviation system is now at flashpoint crisis. Enter, Sandman.
Quiet Rockland opposes Robert A. “Bobby” Sturgell’s confirmation as FAA Administrator. Moreover, Quiet Rockland calls for “Bobby” Sturgell’s SUMMARY REMOVAL as Acting FAA Administrator. “Bobby” Sturgell is an abominable public official. The current regime of the FAA is a dismal nightmare. The FAA is a guileful federal agency still dwelling in the pocket of industry. Together, Sturgell, the FAA, and the airlines derisively and contemptuously laugh at you and me, the American people – the people to whom this country belongs. But no more.
This spring started with cracked Southwest Airlines planes. The FAA allowed these planes to remain in revenue service. The FAA allowed passengers to fly in these cracked airplanes. And Southwest was more than happy to take money from passengers for flying in these cracked planes. Now but a few weeks later, at least four airlines have filed for federal bankruptcy protection, with more bankruptcy filings that may follow. The airline industry is disintegrating before our eyes just like the tired old defective planes which they pretend to maintain.
This past week saw record numbers, in the thousands, of planes grounded. The groundings are “Bobby” Sturgell’s fault. The groundings are the direct result of a previously-illusory safety inspection regime and the astounding and unlawful regulatory ineptitude of the FAA, now under FBI investigation and Congressional investigation. The results of the groundings to the everyday American, were and are intolerable. Many thousands of travelers were stranded, and we are told by some that the problem may continue through the summer and beyond. This is what “Bobby” Sturgell would have all Americans endure for FIVE more years if he is confirmed as FAA Administrator? He MUST be joking.
Moreover, “Bobby” Sturgell now threatens our national stability and security. As John Dean observed almost two generations ago at the outset of the long national nightmare known as Watergate, there is a cancer growing on the Presidency. There is a cancer growing on the Administration, and on this country. That very cancer is failed FAA Acting Administrator “Bobby” Sturgell himself, and the rogue dysfunctional federal agency known as the FAA. “Bobby” Sturgell must be ejected. The FAA must be repopulated with competent and honest federal officials. As Senators Lautenberg and Menendez observed in an April 10, 2008 letter to “Bobby” Sturgell:
“The FAA’s hands-off approach to airline oversight has allowed …deliberate violations…, shoddy maintenance, incomplete record-keeping, and complacent oversight practices to fester”… “Why were… potentially unsafe planes allowed to fly…?”
Instead of protecting our safety like they are supposed to do, the FAA, in continuing complicity with the airlines, threatens hero aviation inspector whistleblowers. The House Transportation Committee hearing on Thursday April 3, 2008 exposed all of that in a 9-hour webcast, for all the world to see. As Congressman James Oberstar the Head of the House Transportation Committee observed, if last Thursday’s hearing “had been a grand jury proceeding, it would have resulted in indictments”.
While we find it unbelievable, a few Senators, and even possibly the President, continue to this day to support “Bobby” Sturgell as FAA Head. Quiet Rockland disagrees. We are proud Americans who believe in the integrity of the American system of government. We want national stability, national security, aviation safety, environmental justice, and aviation justice. We’re sick of our country’s aviation system being laughed at by other countries. We want to foster continued public pride in our government, and a continued belief that the system works – in the eyes of U.S. citizens, and in the eyes of the rest of the world. “Bobby” Sturgell’s removal as Acting FAA Head is integral to these goals.
Even if you assume arguendo that Mr. Sturgell did not himself personally make or sanction threats against aviation safety whistleblowers, the offensive activity occurred at a failed federal agency under his watch – as did all the other offensive FAA activity recently unearthed. The April 3 House hearing chronicled many other of “Bobby” Sturgell’s FAA failures. During that hearing we also learned that circa 2003 the FAA launched a “Partnership Program” wherein individuals spent months hand-delivering packets to airlines, happily announcing that airlines had become the “customers” and “clients” of the FAA. That’s flat wrong. WE THE PEOPLE are the customers of the FAA. The FAA is supposed to regulate the airlines. The FAA is not supposed to kiss the backsides of the airlines. As for “Bobby” Sturgell’s role and involvement in all of this perversion of justice and dereliction of federal duty, one only need note that “Bobby” Sturgell started work at the FAA in the very same year as the “Partnership Program” was launched – 2003. “Bobby” Sturgell is a private dancer for the very airline industry that callously and inhumanly threatens our safety. Never mind fox and henhouse. Just throw the bums out.
Quiet Rockland urges each Honorable U.S. Senator to further forestall any vote on “Bobby” Sturgell’s confirmation. Additionally, Quiet Rockland urges all Senators, and all Americans, to carefully consider the manifold reasons why any vote in support of “Bobby” Sturgell would be antithetical to the interests of this country and its citizens. What we want, is what is in the best interests of the American people – removal of “Bobby” Sturgell from office, NOW. The talent pool is deeper than this. There is more to leadership than rhapsodizing through one’s old aviator goggles. We have an ugly aviation safety crisis and scandal on our hands. Let’s wash our hands of it. Let’s wash our hands of “Bobby” Sturgell and his [f]ailed [a]viation [a]dministration. Quiet Rockland urges all Americans to Just Say No to “Bobby” Sturgell. Quiet Rockland urges all Americans to let all of our elected officials hear that, loud and clear. Enter, Sandman. The further case against Bobby Sturgell is posted at the following website:
http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com
Respectfully submitted,
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland
http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com