Financial Crisis
"I have always believed that were we all to switch our televisions off and stop reading the rubbish that passes for "news" in the papers, the world would be a far better place." Rob Neil
For example, if no one had told us about the "global economic downturn", would it be happening? I very much doubt it. The mere fact that people are told that banks are in trouble -irrespective of the truth- makes them rush off and pull all their money out... with the result that the banks fall over.
The TV tells us there is an oil crisis and the oil companies (who probably fuel the rumours), go into a frenzy to grab as much of our cash from us as possible while we gullible lemmings all still believe the hype.
In the past few months, the boring bearded ones with thick glasses and glum looks have paraded across our televisions mumbling about exchange rates, credit ratings, commercial paper, bankers' acceptances, bonds and equity, and told us that people would lose their jobs, businesses would fail and prices would rise.
Now, we all sit resigned to our media-determined fates and accept the "inevitable" consequences -and await the next news report to tell us what to expect next.
Unfortunately, aviation has been an early victim of the Chicken Littles. Without any opportunity to recover from the (equally unnecessary) oil price horror of 2008, airlines, flying schools, aviation manufacturers and pilots around the world have been hammered once more by the relentless "sky is falling" nonsense about the global financial crisis. Because so many panic merchants have blathered so long and so hard about the sky falling they have made it a reality in the minds of enough people for it to become so.
The tragic result is that real people are losing real jobs, real businesses are closing and prices really are rising everywhere -regardless of whether any of these things needed to happen in the first place. Unfortunately, these are the real consequences of the unreal wailing by Chicken Littles in the media that "the sky is falling".
In the past few months, this self-directed global disaster movie has claimed casualties in every aircraft manufacturing plant in the world: Boeing, Airbus, Cessna, Piper, Cirrus, Mooney -all are cutting staff and production.
Only four months ago, the same manufacturers -particularly the big two- were sitting pretty with massive order backlogs as airlines around the world fought each other for delivery slots and wondered how they would ever find enough pilots to crew the massive fleets required to meet demand. The demand for business jets was unprecedented, with manufacturers swamped by orders they couldn't fill for years and second-hand jets selling for more than their new prices in a global clamour for aircraft.
Today the Chicken Little commentators are predicting that Airbus and Boeing's backlogs will evaporate after 2009. Dozens of airlines around the world have either failed or are teetering on the brink; dozens more are cancelling or deferring orders, and "bizjet" has become a dirty word, as we all sit watching our TV's and reading our newspapers, waiting for the news that all will soon be well again.
Everyone once believed that the world was flat; it would still be so, had there been the same mass global media we endure today. The world isn't flat -nor is its end nigh.
Rob Neil
Pacific Wings Editor
This article has been reproduced by kind permission of Mr. Rob Neil and Pacific Wings Magazine. It is further reproduced in our Community Forum for discussion.
All errors of transcription or spelling are mine. RakiuraSkies, DH82.com
