I met up with my daughter, Laura, in Minneapolis the day after Thanksgiving. She was driving cross country from Greenville, South Carolina to Seattle. So I was on board for Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
Here are a couple impressions from the trip, starting with making airline reservations to get from Seattle to Minneapolis, and doing motel reservations for the road.
Impression 1
It’s all about “upgrades” and “dynamic pricing.” Sounds so cool! Start with the plane ticket. Before, during, and after you get a ticket you are pelted on-line with “upgrade opportunities,” meaning not just for first or business class, but for “premium seats” (in coach) with 2.5″ more room in which to “sit back and relax” as airline pilots instruct one to do. On hearing that I mutter, “Hey buddy, I’d like to see you ‘sit back and relax’ in this seat!”
Buying airline seats is now like buying seats for a baseball or football game. The closer you are to the action and the more comfortable the seat, the more you pay. I used to hope for an “exit row” seat so as not to have my knees in my chest. Back then, I’d even gladly take the middle seat of the exit row. Forget that. Exit row seats require an “upgrade.” What next? An upgrade for toilet access?
“Dynamic pricing” is not only airline tickets, but also for lodging along the way: hotels, airbnbs, etc. Prices for a room fluctuate depending on demand, date, and location — one price today, another tomorrow. No such thing anymore as the fixed price of a room or ticket. It’s dynamic! “Make your reservation now — only two rooms left at this price!”
What do “upgrades” and “dynamic pricing” have in common? They are both really terrific euphemisms! Moreover, they are in service of the big euphemism, one that now describes commerce and maybe life in America: “profit maximization.” Every business is apparently asking, “how can we extract a few more nickels and dimes — actually twenties and fifties — from every customer every time they turn around?” And they’re also asking, “How can we hire the cheapest labor and provide the fewest benefits?”
“Profit maximization?” Not too many years ago we called that “greed” or “avarice,” old good names for one of the “seven deadly sins.”
The upshot is that travel, like a lot of things in the land of the free and home of the brave is short on grace and graciousness. A big contrast, by the way, from our recent experience of travel in Japan, where there really is a genuine graciousness to the whole experience.
Impression 2
There are two kinds of towns in America today. There are those desperate-looking towns, with empty downtowns, where trailer parks and mobile homes are the main form of housing, like Forsyth, Montana, or Wallace, Idaho. And then there are places like Bozeman, Montana, and Bend, Oregon, where there are beautiful, stylish homes popping up like mushrooms. And, it turns out, many of those big, beautiful homes are only occupied two weeks of the year, if that.
A wide gap there. How have we gotten to this place where a growing number of people have four or five really gorgeous homes that they use not very often, while a huge number of people can’t afford to even get one to start on home ownership? It could have something to do with “profit maximization.” To the extent that owning a home is a defining characteristic of “The American Dream,” it appears that that dream is, for many — dead. Except, that is, for those who just keep dreaming of another home to add to their collection.
Impression 3
Gas prices are dynamic too. They ran from $2.38 to $2.89 a gallon in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana, a little higher in Idaho. And then you hit Washington. It’s all more than $4 a gallon in the Evergreen State. Well, I just hope the money from our carbon tax is actually doing some good and not just creating feel-good programs and green-washing.
Not saying it isn’t getting real stuff done, though I did look for some outcome-focused reporting on the Jay Inslee Memorial Carbon Tax when I-2117 was recently on the ballot. Didn’t find much. Beyond that, higher gas prices are a regressive tax, hitting the low income and working classes hardest (the people in trailer parks). I know, I’m sounding pretty grumpy now.
Impression 4
Still, let’s end on some positive notes. We saw buffalo roaming the range in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. That was cool. The rest stops in Montana were nice.
Visiting dear friends along the way was a blessing. First Sunday of Advent worship at Pilgrim UCC in Bozeman was wonderful. We lucked out on the weather. No blinding snowstorms or white outs.
And America is still big and beautiful.
A society based on greed eventually produces a ‘phase separation’ between the haves and the have-nots. In time the have-nots vote to Make America Great Again.
Talk about euphemisms! No one has the guts to call “”Carbon Tax” what it really is: a punitive cost on our poorest citizens, who can only afford older, less fuel-efficient cars that guzzle gasoline so they can get to work. Oil companies? Just.pass on the extra cost. The rest of us are left with the dubious satisfaction that we are saving the earth. The five-house people don’t need to worry about gasoline costs.
I’m wondering how you have missed all the understanding about how our gas prices are determined by the oil companies and taxes we voted to put on those gallons, decades ago, which other States don’t have. And the carbon cap and incentive information that came out in droves, in the pushback to I-2117, which had a massive collaboration by people and institutions from all walks of our State with a resounding final vote defeat of 62%. (if you missed the Seattle Times editorial on I-2117 and why it needed to be defeated, here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13YttCUoDUmpFeTX7EvOsY38svKUjvkbvB0w–6iPDAQ/edit – they don’t always get things right, but this time, they nailed it.)
And the State Dept of Commerce, has been awarding grants for clean energy from our carbon funds for many months now, like in mid-September they announced: “Climate Commitment Act dollars at work: $10-million investment supports new clean energy projects in tribal communities. Commerce awards second round of grant funding for community solar, EV charging and microgrid projects across Washington state.”
It really was hard to miss, if you were really looking.
Besides, with all of our taxing system being regressive in our State, let’s just start there. Picking on any one part of it, doesn’t begin to solve the problem – just points unhelpful fingers. But really, no need to be grumpy about it – let’s fix it together!
Thanks Anne, fair points. I guess I saw/ received many things that said vote against 2117 because of its sponsor.
Oh for a return to the era of JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller when “profit maximization“ was not the goal but maximizing social welfare!