"The End Days"

This is an emergency blog posting.  I read in the paper this morning that Learjet is laying off 1,700 employees.  Their market is the one percenters and they are buying fewer Learjets.  This development is akin to the parakeet of the American Nation dropping dead.  Learjet is a bellwether of the health of our CEOs’ wealth.  The decision goes something like this:  “Well, do I need a third Learjet or can I get along with two?”  It is very similar to the decision my wife and I are faced with.  We each have a car.  One is a Chevrolet Malibu, the other a Ford Taurus.  Both are over a decade old and were purchased used.  There is no public transportation in our little town, but the question is, how much will we save by sharing a vehicle and can we get along with only one?

The lower income one percenter, is faced with the decision of if he or she can afford one Learjet.  The unacceptable alternative to the Private Learjet is traveling by first class on commercial airlines.  To the person of extreme wealth, this would be like a trip to Quartzite, Arizona in a Greyhound Bus.  Learjet’s marketing and engineering people have tried to make the purchase much more rational.  Their new product, the “35A”, gets just over 2 miles per gallon while cruising.  This is termed “low fuel burn” by Lear and the unit is only sucking 197 gallons of fuel per hour.  Don’t try to tell me that the wealthy are not concerned about the planet.

To make matters worse for Learjet, Humvee is offering an alternative to this market, for ground transportation.  The new offering is called the FED or “Alpha” and is claimed to be70% more fuel efficient than the unit it replaces.  It averages an astounding 6.8 mpg.  This is over three times the Learjet's mileage.  With competition like this, it is little wonder that Learjet is having a hard time in the conspicuous consumption market.  What the Humvee lacks in fuel mileage, it more than makes up for in lack of seating capacity and lack of storage area.  This vehicle is normally purchased by a macho, very wealthy person, with a very small penis.  It compensates nicely.  The question is, when you drive by in your Humvee, why are people on the sidewalk always laughing?

The issue here is why is a lowering of the Learjet market a bellwether for “End of Days?”  Obviously, if the richest one percent has to cut back, given the trickledown theory, you and yours are done for.  With 99% of the market gone, the remaining one percent is doomed as well.  Who will hang their clothes?

(I apologize to the 1,700 who are losing their jobs for my making light of it.  But you have to admit that you serve a strange market in a strange economy.  By the way, do any of you folks being laid off own a Learjet?)

Cheers, Old Buz