American Airlines About to Go Bust? Fine With Me.

I’ve never been a fan of government bailouts, saving the

asses of investors or this warped sales-pitch we accept about too big to

fail.

My dad had a couple of sayings I’ve

never forgotten. One was that (in his view) behind every great fortune,

there’s a crime. The second, and perhaps more pertinent to this

conversation, was that if you owe the bank $10,000 they own you, but if you

owe them $10 million, you own the bank.

The lessons here are naked for all to see: great wealth is

not only immune from the laws of the land, but protected by its gods

of government from financial loss.

American Airlines is a crap carrier

that’s squeezed its passengers in seat space, baggage and other ‘special

charges,’ snotty service and tossed in arrogant public relations as an

afterthought.

Rather than investing their recent

and substantial profits from lower fuel costs in cash reserves or improving the

flying experience (a bar so low it could be stumbled across), it threw the cash

at stock buybacks, pumping the share pric…