I travel across the Pacific fairly often; at least once every two years. I would make the trip more but it is very expensive. We usually reckon on it costing about $1400-$1600 USD a person, though I noticed the current ticket prices are around the $2000 mark each. In comparison a flight to London from Washington DC is $400 USD. This is why protected markets are bad, given economic choice I would fly east, not west, and Europe, rather than Australia would be getting my tourist dollars.
Peter Martin has an article on the issue,
The Qantas protection racket gets set in stone
:
The Treasurer had pulled off a deal that he said would ensure Qantas remained "Australian owned, Australian controlled and in Australia". ... What's not to like about a political fix designed to deliver the airline's shareholders $11 billion and to ensure that it remains one of Australia's biggest employers?
When the dust settles, I fear that there will be a lot not to like...
Indeed: for airline customers, for the Australian economy, for the Australian taxation system and for the Australian government itself the outcome looks to be about the worst possible.
The
government blocked Singapore Airlines from competing
on the lucrative Los Angeles to Sydney route which is a case of government protectionism. Apparently Qantas makes about 10-20% of its profit from the LAX-SYD route, so has a financial incentive to lobby the government to stop any competition. Peter Martin writes that it inflates tickets by 38%.
Gary Sauer-Thompson asks rhetorically,
"How can they [Howard Government] call themselves economic liberals?"
He is right, they cannot, QANTAS is a good example of protectionism and government backed price gouging overriding market liberalism and producing inferior outcomes.
The irony is that QANTAS started as an entrepreneurial venture. Two
Australian Flying Corps
aces, McGuinness and Fysh, returning from the first world war decided they wanted to start a business where they got to fly. The result was the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service. It was not until immediately after World War II that QANTAS was nationalised by Ben Chifley.
QANTAS is a strong company, with a well known brand, there is no reason for the government protection of its pacific route between Australia and the United States.
cam
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
