Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Monday, March 23, 2020

Bail Out the Cruise Industry?

President Donald Trump on [March 9th] said he has plans to help the cruise and airline industries that have been “hard hit” by an outbreak of the coronavirus, as his administration sent mixed signals over whether Americans should proceed with holiday cruise plans.

“We’re working with them very, very strongly,” Trump told reporters, referring to airline and cruise line executives who have met with White House officials in recent days.
I sure as hell hope that this is off the table. Most of the cruise lines are companies that are registered in other companies and their ships are foreign-flagged, crewed largely by third-world crews.

If the cruise lines want a bailout, they should go ask the Bahamians, the Filipinos, the Panamanians, the Belizeans, or the Hondurans. Not us.

Fuck those guys.

5 comments:

Joan said...

Sniffy specifically mentioned cruise lines and back to work and lie in his tour de force tonight.

B said...

I agree with you.

IMO the Airlines should not be "bailed out".

If they want a loan, then fine, they can put up stock or pledge other assets.

None of this free cash so they can buy back their own stock using tax dollars.

dinthebeast said...

I can at least see a logical reason why we would want to have functioning air travel going forward. Cruise ships? Not so much.
Perhaps if we do end up bailing the airlines out, we can attach a few strings to the deal, like prohibiting the stock buybacks that they've been engaging in (and which have failed to juice their stock prices anyway) and demanding some consumer protections in their business policies.
And a question: did the massive consolidation they did achieve the stability they promised, or was it all corporate happy talk designed to distract the regulators while they stuffed their pockets with cash?

-Doug in Sugar Pine

BadTux said...

If the cruise lines go bankrupt, someone would buy up the assets and put them back to work once things get back to normal. Too bad for the creditors and stockholders, but that's the breaks in capitalism.

If the airlines go bankrupt, they stop flying -- and because of all the consolidation that has happened, that basically shuts down *all* air travel in many destination cities. Air travel is one of those things that's necessary for our current economy to work. Without air travel, things get bad *fast*.

So yeah, I agree with the rationale for bailing out airlines. Cruise lines... eh, not so much. They've been infection vectors for way too much time. Let'em rot in port. Nobody will care except a few moldy oldy people.

B said...

I'd be up for loans, but Free Money just because they are big enough I am against.

As you point out, that's the downside of Capitalism.

If there is a market for the services, someone will step up and provide that service. If not, then it should fail anyway.

Yes, we do need airlines, doesn't mean we should prop 'em up when things get difficult.

Otherwise we just end up with an airborne Amtrack