Reaganomics 2010

For those travelers who would rather avoid being herded like cattle through check-in lines and being "patted down" by some lecherous Security Screener, there is an alternative. For a mere $1,500 to $6,000 per hour, elite travelers can charter a private jet. Everybody is doing it. Charter and corporate jet flights numbered 2.8 million over the twelve months ending in September, 2010.

Of course, that is nothing compared to 2007 when jet-setters took 4.8 million private flights. Ah, the good old days of 2007, when GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives could charter a jet to fly to Washington to beg Congress for a bailout and not get hasseled about it.

Economists use various metrics to determine the nation's financial well-being. Gross National Product, employee productivity, durable goods sales, and unemployment rate are commonly used. Perhaps a better indicator is Corporate and Private Flight Usage. When your CEO feels comfortable enough with your company's prospects to cough up tens of thousands of dollars to jet privately to St Andrew's for that golfing boondoggle, it's time to buy stock.

So far in 2010, Corporate and Private Flights are up 7%. Reaganomics tells us that wealth "trickles down" to the common folk if they are trained in growth segments of the economy. Clearly, we should cut taxes for the rich so they can afford more private flights and we should train the currently unemployed as pilots. Everybody wins.