Matt Yglesias is not, I argue, a serious human being. His is, rather, an ideological Jack-in-the- box who spouts the usual Glibertarian nonsense at the drop of a regulation. Today he celebrates the beginning of the end of the regulatory regime painstakingly put in place between 1906 and 1976 with a post lauding Alfred Kahn for deregulating airlines. This deregulation, he argues, did, in fact, lead to air transportation being "sucky" but only because that's what people wanted. He offers no evidence for people wanting sucky air transportation but, one assumes, his certainty arises from some Glibbertarian bedrock, like the wisdom of markets.
Airlines have the third lowest customer satisfaction rating on the University of Michigan's survey and, according to the same source, passenger volume was down 6% in 2009. On average 66% of customers are satisfied with airlines. It's difficult to spin those numbers into evidence of giving people what they want.
But, he might reply -- as he does in the post, that the cost is lower and besides all that luxury of yesteryore was an inefficient use of scarce resources, no really. Costs, it's true, declined but since 2001 have risen kind of dramatically, to say nothing of the nearly 5 billion in 2001 tax payers gave the airlines for free. From June 2003 until October 2010, the most recent data available, just over 20 percent of all flights arrived late. Airline passengers don't like paying for baggage and miss the "inefficient" luxuries of the past. There is also problems with maintenance and such like.
So, has deregulation been a success? No. Is there any evidence that consumers are getting what they want? No. Is this one more example of Yglesias talking out of his hat because he is a neo-Liberal? Yes.
Why on earth does Think Progress pay someone to make zombie Reaganite, Thatcherite, neo-Liberal and Glibbertarian arguments?
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