UNITED AIR LINES TO LAY OFF 950 PILOTS

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:38:29 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote in :

Larry Dighera writes:

I expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing occurring as the
economy worsens:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...,0,81993.story
Today we announced initial details concerning the first wave of
pilot furloughs resulting from our plans to take 100 aircraft from
our mainline fleet due to record high oil prices and a softening
U.S. economy. The first notices to furlough approximately 100
pilots for the flying month of September will be issued in
mid-July.

By the end of 2009, when we expect to complete the full reduction
of our 94 B737 aircraft and six B747s (see June 4 NewsReal), we
anticipate the need to furlough approximately 950 active pilots.
This process is one of the difficult but necessary steps we need
to take to size our business appropriately to reflect the current
market reality....

Companies that try to reduce costs rather than increase revenue eventually
tend to fold, because you can only reduce costs to zero (and you'll go out of
business long before that), whereas you can increase revenue indefinitely.
Cost-cutting is easy for even the stupidest corporate officers to understand,
but it's a poor, short-term, emergency measure, not a competent way to manage
a company.


Reducing the number of flights to increase capital asset utilization
seems like a sound strategy to me.

Hi,

In article ,
wrote:
gatt writes:

So, really, the only thing that's actually driving the cost up today ...

The cost isn't really rising much. It's just that the dollar is falling. The
cost of oil in other currencies is far more stable, since they are not
falling.

Yeah, cos our fuel in the UK hasn't risen by about 20p a litre this year or
anything...

Andy

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:40:34 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote in :

Robert M. Gary writes:

Its wonderful to hear the opinion of people who have no idea how
economics and market financing works. Futures are key to the financial
stability of the industry. If you can't sell futures you don't know
what price you are guaranteed and you can't finance anything. Futures
contracts are somethin you can take to the bank.

Futures, like virtually all speculation based on worthless paper, are a form
of legalized gambling.


Of course, there is an element of gaming in equities, bonds, and
futures, but they do have a fundamental purpose:


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/busin...ces_06-24.html
PETER BEUTEL: Well, Stephen is absolutely correct, but I'll tell
you the genesis of all commodities. It started with a farmer going
to a banker and saying, "Look, I need money to buy seeds and to
have somebody that will water my crops." The banker says, "Fine,
how do I know what price you're going to have in September when
you actually bring this corn to harvest?" The farmer says, "Well,
I don't know."

So the farmer then went to a futures market. And the futures
markets were created.

In March, the farmer goes and says, "I need to get a price for
corn in September." The speculator was born. The speculator says,
"I will give you $3 a bushel come September for your corn." The
farmer sells it to that speculator. The speculator now takes the
risk that the price will go lower, but also takes the potential
reward that maybe it will go higher.

But the farmer is happy, because he can now go to the banker and
say, "I will sell my corn for $3 a bushel in September. Please
loan me the money." The banker gives him the money. He plants the
corn.

This simple idea has been extended to a number, a plethora of
different commodities, and it's the same concept, but without the
speculator, this poor farmer could never get his bank loan.

What has happened now that is different than, say, what had been
going on for 100 years is that now we have some traders that
really don't know what they're doing. A lot of them are union
pension funds, college foundations, people we normally think of as
good guys.

They have been buying and holding commodities, unlike most
speculators, who buy, then sell, then sell, then buy, who are
equally as comfortable selling things they don't have as they are
buying things they don't want.

These guys, the new investors, have been buying and holding. And
this has created a different signal. The market interprets it as
long-term end users. These people are really speculators, only I'd
be willing to bet many of them don't even know it.

And I'd be willing to bet that, if you went and told some of these
people, one, that they're helping to push the price higher and,
two, what incredible risks that they're taking on that they'd be
mortified that they were actually doing this.

Andy Hawkins writes:

Yeah, cos our fuel in the UK hasn't risen by about 20p a litre this year or
anything...

What is the total price per litre?

Larry Dighera writes:

Reducing the number of flights to increase capital asset utilization
seems like a sound strategy to me.

How does that work?

Mxsmanic wrote:
Robert M. Gary writes:

Its wonderful to hear the opinion of people who have no idea how
economics and market financing works. Futures are key to the financial
stability of the industry. If you can't sell futures you don't know
what price you are guaranteed and you can't finance anything. Futures
contracts are somethin you can take to the bank.

Futures, like virtually all speculation based on worthless paper, are a form
of legalized gambling.

Add futures to the list of things MX knows nothing about.

Far from being "worthless paper", a futures contract is a binding
contract to take delivery of a real product at a specified price.

A point that a few naive "investors" have overlooked when they got
the call asking where they wanted their pork bellies delivered.


--
Jim Pennino

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writes:

Far from being "worthless paper", a futures contract is a binding
contract to take delivery of a real product at a specified price.

It's the price that makes it gambling.

Nomen Nescio writes:

Do you consider the deed to my house to be "worthless paper"?

The house is worth something, the deed may or may not be.

The dollar value of my house has dropped over 10% in the last year.
But it's still able to sell for 3 times what I paid for it.
And, in the end, it's still REALLY worth EXACTLY what I bought...........
ONE HOUSE. It was worth one house when I moved in, it's worth
one house now.

That's the house, not the paper.

Anyone who considers futures contracts to be "worthless paper" is
an idiot. They're only considered "worthless" by people who are on
the wrong side of the trade.

In every single trade, there is someone on the "wrong side," so 50% of those
trading must consider it worthless. Thus, it's no more than the flip of a
coin ... gambling, in other words.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Larry Dighera writes:

Reducing the number of flights to increase capital asset utilization
seems like a sound strategy to me.

How does that work?

Pretty well, which is why it is a goal for most companies, not just
airlines.


--
Jim Pennino

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Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Far from being "worthless paper", a futures contract is a binding
contract to take delivery of a real product at a specified price.

It's the price that makes it gambling.

Nice, but failed attempt, to recover from your previous idiotic
statement.

--
Jim Pennino

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