The Right Coast |
|
|
Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
Right Coasters
Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Email Us Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Links Andrew Sullivan Atlantic Blog The Buck Stops Here Corporate Law Blog Crescat Sententia Crooked Timber Curmudgeonly Clerk Daniel Drezner En Banc EveTushnet.Com FreeSpace How Appealing Instapundit Law and Econ Blog Little Green Footballs Legal Theory Blog The Leiter Reports Marginal Revolution Overlawyered Pejmanesque ProfBainbridge.Com Punishment Theory Rasmusen Weblog SFA Politics & Relig Southern Appeal SpoonsExperience USS Clueless The Volokh Conspiracy The Yin Blog Archives The Bear Flag League Aaron's Rantblog (LA) Absinthe & Cookies Accidental Jedi (Fres) Angry Clam (LA) Baldilocks BlogoSFERICS (Expat) BoifromTroy (LA) CalBlog (Los Angeles) California Republic Citizen Smash(SD) Cobb (Los Angeles) Daily Pundit (SF) Dale Franks e-Claire(Northern CA) Fresh Potatoes(Orang) Infinite Monkeys The Interocitor (LA) The Irish Lass (Sacra) Left Coast Conserv. Lex Communis (Fres) Master of None (LA) Miller's Time (Sac) Molly's Musings (SD) Mulatto Boy (LA) Howard Owens (Vent) Pathetic Earthlings) Patio Pundit Patterico's Pontifications(LA) PrestoPundit (Orange) QandO Right on the Left Beach Shark Blog (Expat) Slings and Arrows (SD) So. Cal Law Blog (LA) Tone Cluster Window Manager Xrlq (Orange) 
|
August 03, 2004
Get your SUV and feel fine By Tom Smith I still want my SUV: In the new Atlantic Monthly, Eric Alterman notes that Laurie David, wife of Larry David--among Hollywood's wealth elite owing to "Seinfeld" royalties--has become an influential environmental crusader, but herself travels in chartered Gulfstream jets. Laurie David has organized numerous celebrity save-the-environment events and "reviles the owners of SUVs as terrorist enablers, yet gives herself a pass when it comes to chartering one of the most wasteful uses of fossil-based fuels imaginable," a private jet, Alterman writes. I did a few quick calculations. The mid-sized Gulfstream G200 model can carry about 2,100 gallons of jet fuel, which is made from petroleum, and would burn around 1,200 to 1,500 gallons flying from New York to Los Angeles, depending on wind speed and how many passengers were aboard. A Hummer driven 15,000 miles, the average put on a car per year, would burn around 1,250 gallons of gasoline. So for Laurie David to take one cross-country flight in a Gulfstream is the same, in terms of Persian-Gulf dependence and greenhouse-gas emissions, as if she drove a Hummer for an entire year. But then, conservation is what other people should do. Politicians and celebrities use private jets a lot. And not just left wing hypocrites either. Scalia and Cheney flew down to kill geese or whatever bird it was in the swamplands in Air Force 2. It's mainly ego, and it's expensive. Also steward persons would treat us better if they couldn't be sure anybody who was anybody would be on private wings. (via instapundit.) Update: Interesting response from a reader: I do not think I will win any friends, but I grew up with private air travel. My father ran a large private company with several planes, including a small jet. I have to tell you that it is not just mainly ego that drives people to have private planes, but I do agree that it is incredibly expensive. As for the first point, if you have never travelled privately, you do not know what you are missing. No lines, no inane questions, the plane always has what you want to eat or drink because you made sure it was stocked before you left. You leave when you want and the departure is when you need it to be. If there is a delay (mechanical/weather), you just go to a restaurant or somewhere else and they call you when they can leave, then it is up to you when you actually leave. That is not ego, it is convenience. If you travel quite a bit on business (I am a lawyer and not I don't get to travel privately anymore) then the description I posted above sounds like heaven. Air travel, even before Sept. 11, was worse than being on a cross-town bus, much worse. Even first class isn't really that much different. For that reason alone, if you travel quite a bit, the convenience factor becomes more and more important. So, while it may seem like an ego thing it really isn't. To paraphrase, people who get an ego trip out of flying in a private jet don't travel in circles where it is common (i.e., their friends won't look up to them because they have access to a jet). Everyone I know who has access to a jet (friends of my parents) certainly don't think about private air travel as something that makes them better than everybody else (I know I never thought about it that way growing up). Private air travel just meant that you were lucky enough to go where you needed to go while avoiding a whole lot of misery. I know I don't speak for everybody, but the whole ego thing I think is a bit of transference on the part of the author of the original article. The second point is more important. Executives have many, many time constraints. No matter what they do, there is still only so much time that they have. Many executives have to be in several places in a single day. If so, commercial air travel is out of the question. The delays, lack of privacy on the flight (for work, conferences, etc.), and the ability to delay departures, etc. just make it impossible to travel by regular airlines. Also, if a company values an executive's time (every hour he works is worth on average $X for the company), then, even if it costs thousands of dollars extra to fly, it can still be cheaper if it allows the executive to put in more actual work time as opposed to getting to the airport, waiting in lines, check-in, boarding, delays, etc. I am an American lawyer based in London, at today's exchange rate my hourly rate is around $900 an hour. If you start counting my travel time to the airport, waiting in line, checking baggage, departure delays, etc., it can quickly add up. I usually travel business class to the continent if I am staying overnight even if a client frowns on it because the difference in check-in and the ability to carry everything with me and not have to wait on baggage actually makes it cheaper for the client if I fly business class. The third point is security. I am actually pretty happy that the Vice-President of the United States doesn't fly commercial. Think of all of the security risks for him and for the other passengers. Maybe celebrities have some of the same problems, but just with people bugging them while they can't go anywhere on the plane. For the average wealthy person or executive, that isn't a concern, but definitely for high value targets such as the Vice-President, I think it would be stupid for them to put themselves, and others, at risk so that some people can feel happy that everyone has to endure the same misery. On the other hand, I am highly in favour of Norm Mineta and others (especially Congress) flying commercial because I want them to go through the same problems we do when we fly. Unfortunately, they get around most of the hassle factor. I want that to end so that they have to endure what we endure. I also want Norm Mineta to have to fly the riskiest flights as much as possible because I want him to think long and hard about his profiling rules, etc. and how that stupidity endangers people. Finally, after September 11, if you were flying with your family wouldn't you want to be on a flight where you know for certain that no jihadi will be trying to kill you? If I had access to a private jet now I would never let my family fly commercial. I don't want to be like Ted Olsen and receive a phone call from my wife minutes before the plane crashes into the pentagon. I do agree that it is good to point out the hypocrisy of the anti-SUV celebrity crowd. However, other than that, the arguments are just classist silliness. Just because everybody can't afford the benefits of private air travel doesn't mean it should be demonised as an expensive ego trip. |