Should United lose business after dragging a paying customer off its plane?

United Airlines has operated since 1926 carries out the mission “to hold ourselves to the highest standards in safety and reliability. We earn trust by doing things the right way and delivering on our commitments every day.” 

On April 9, 2017 an overbooked flight on United caused the airline to randomly select a passenger to leave the flight to make room for crew members. After saying no to the airlines “re-accommodation,” the airline called police, and the 69 year old man proceeded to be yanked out of his seat while screaming. Mr. Dao continued to be dragged by his arms down the aisle and off of the plane. 

What does United have to say about this horrific scene? 

Charlie Hobart, a United spokesman justified the airlines actions by stating that they asked the man several times, politely but Mr. Dao still refused to give up his seat. 

So as long as we ask politely we can drag people out of their seat, right?

Furthermore the spokesman tries to explain that they had to do it because other customers on board needed to get to where they were going “on time and safely.”

I'm sorry, but wasn’t the very man being dragged down the aisle by his arms one of the customers on flight trying to get to where he was going- “on time and SAFELY?”

This is absolute nonsense.

If you’re trying to calm down the media that’s one thing, but claiming that you’re trying to please all your customers while one of them is unwillingly yanked out of his seat is a disgustingly false response.

The airline continued to justify their actions by explaining that Mr. Dao was offered a fair amount of compensation.

This is where United messed up. The best way to solve an overbooking problem like this is to offer the right price. Brian Doherty, Senior Editor of Reason, said it best- the airline should “offer a price to get people to voluntarily give up their seat. But it only works really well if they keep raising the price until they get the volunteer.” Since Mr. Dao and all others on board declined, it was not the right price.

Even if the customer had been offered $1 million in cash prizes or airline rewards, Mr. Dao still has the right to decline and keep his seat.

In addition, United is just one of millions of business in the United States that is expected to uphold certain customer-treatment values. If they do not, customers leave and stop doing business with them.

It’s as simple as that. 

This is no different from the food industry, clothing industry, etc.

If there is a roach in our coffee, that coffee shop will most likely be shut down. If our newly brought 100% Egyptian sheets arrive and we find they are actually made of an imitation fabric, we have the freedom to return it and leave furious comments in customer reviews to warn off future customers.

United is a business, and shouldn’t be treated in any other way. If they make a certain promise to us, we have the liberty to turn their business away, and take other people with us.

That is the beauty of a market.

This is the one thing, we as paying customers to United Airline, could have done better. If we were disgraced by poor customer treatment, then we should have all gotten up and marched off the plane. We shouldn’t stand for such shameful episodes like this for a second. 

So long as Dao is not violating another’s life, liberty, or property, government officials have no right to lay hands on a man who is without treason. 

It’s disturbing that police officers choose to be part of this in any way. Instead, police officers should have stopped security from forcibly removing the man from his seat.

It should be the concern to US citizens when these freedoms are taken away without due cause. 

To know that our government employed officers stand in support of such heinous events, leaves the rest of us in fear of the next time will be when we are unjustly dragged out the door and treated like a criminal for no reason.

Abolishing student aid could force schools to lower prices

The following is my New Voices piece in the Orlando Sentinel. Enjoy!

October 5, 2013

Abolish government financial aid for students.

My dear friend, who is a statistics major and a government-aid borrower, is fearful of this statement.

"Don't try to get rid of that," he says. "I need that money for school."

What he fails to realize, as I am sure many other student federal-aid borrowers do, is that getting rid of aid would improve the lives of American students today.

The first harsh reality that student borrowers fail to see is that any government giving begins with government taking away. Government is the only institution legally allowed to take by force.

Government does not send a letter to each American saying, "Hello, fellow American, would you like to take a fraction of your income to fund another person's education?" No. It is taken, whether I'm willing to contribute or not.

Another harsh reality of students' taking government aid is that progress, efficiency and effectiveness don't begin with someone else's money.

If students had to pay for school out of their own pockets, we would see fewer students hanging around campus on their 100th credit hour still trying to decide on their majors, fewer students accepting C's and D's as passing grades, and more students going into successful majors.

Also, we would see a portion of students concluding at a faster rate that they would benefit more in an occupation than in school.

Why is all this true? Because it is the students' own money on the line.

Now some people may have concluded that students' providing the funds for their own education allows them to reach a better long-term result, but it is still difficult for students to pay out of their own pockets because tuition is too high.

However, the final harsh reality is that when we participate in taking away from another to pursue our own dream of a college education, we engage in the same act that raises the cost of education. Colleges see that more students than ever before are attending their institutions because the students are able to pay for it with someone else's money.

The CollegeBoard Advocacy & Policy Center in its "Trends in Student Aid 2012" report, found that during the 2011-12 academic year, $236.7 billion in financial aid was distributed to undergraduate and graduate students in the form of grants from all sources. Also, students borrowed $8.1 billion from private, state and institutional sources to help finance their education.

The report also states that in 2011-12, undergraduate students received 98 percent of federal grant aid, 99 percent of state grant aid and 67 percent of federal loans.

As long as these statistics remain so, colleges will continue to raise their prices. What do students with financial aid care? They are not the ones paying those fees.

If we were to abolish financial aid for students, at first we would see fewer students going to college because of lack of funding.

However, colleges and universities observing a lower student population on their campuses, and observing that students who pay out of their own pockets would attend their school when tuition cost is low, would now compete with other schools to offer the lowest possible price.

Ultimately, even the poorest of families would attend school at their own expense because getting rid of government financial aid gives universities the incentive to compete, and just as with any product or service, when competition breaks out, suppliers lower their prices.

If a 21-year-old student can understand the harsh realities of federal financial assistance, why can't the rest of American students?

Want to make a lot of money? Consider supply and demand

The following is my first op-ed piece from May 26, 2012 published in the Orlando Sentinel.

As a part-time worker at a minimum-wage job in retail, I have countless days where co-workers declare they're underpaid. I can't keep track of the number of times a fellow worker has murmured the words "unfair" and "minimum wage" in the same sentence.

Minimum-wage workers, often young adults, receive a low income but have high costs of living.

Even new managers are shocked when they discover how much their employees are being paid, and they believe we should get a higher wage.

These comments beg the question: Are we correct in claiming we are underpaid?

What if I told you that I, like most other minimum-wage workers, am overpaid at Florida's minimum wage, and that this is not opinion but basic economic fact?

Simply, it's a matter of supply and demand.

Unlike my minimum-wage job, there are occupations in which people can legitimately claim they are underpaid. One of these occupations is the pharmaceutical industry.

There are more than 8,000 job openings for pharmacists, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for pharmacist jobs is exploding nationwide with 25 percent more jobs expected by 2020. But the rate at which people are filling up vacant positions is a different story.

It may be hard to believe that any American employer struggles to fill vacant jobs given this economy, but according to HealthAffairs.org, unexpected growth in medication use has escalated demand for pharmacists that has outpaced supply.

In economic terms, there's a higher demand for workers in this market than there are people available to work. This justifies the label of a "shortage" in the pharmacist profession. Pharmacists are correct in stating they are underpaid because of the shortage.

In contrast, consider my job. Like the majority of minimum-wage jobs, for every one worker my workplace is trying to hire, about eight people are applying. Minimum-wage jobs don't require high qualifications, which results in a great number of available workers. Each week, my managers conduct group interviews to deal with the vast volume of people able and willing to work.

In economics, this means there is a surplus of workers; there are far more people available to the company at the price of minimum wage than there are jobs available. My co-workers and I are economically correct in saying we are overpaid at minimum wage because there is a surplus of us.

Surpluses in markets mean the price is too high. At a minimum-wage price of $7.67, eight people come to my company ready to supply their services when my company is demanding only one.

If managers at my job were to lower the price to, let's say, $7.40 an hour, only one person might apply for the job, which equals the one employee my job demands. Lowering the price cools off the surplus of people.

At this lower price, my workplace has found market equilibrium, or a more perfect market.

A Gallup poll has found that 43 percent of American workers think they are underpaid. To them I would say: The next time you are asked if you are underpaid, put aside opinion and answer according to the laws of supply and demand.

What you have to do in order to make a lot of money is simple: Focus on supply and demand. Pick a job where the demand for people is high, and the supply of people who can do this job is low.

And if you hear someone say that people can't live on minimum-wage jobs, just ask: Isn't $7.67 an hour better than zero?