I’ve always wondered how long an outfit like UPS or FedEx would last if they “lost” packages with the regularity of the airlines. Nobody seems to care that airline luggage seems to go missing, least off all the US government agencies in charge of looking into such things. I wonder why that is. Could be the TSAs fixation on shoes, but who knows for sure? The thing is, if nobody cares about missing baggage, can that fact be exploited in an effort to kick-start the economy?
If recent news of the TSA’s insistence that an new hire with a conviction for stealing get full access to your baggage is any indication, I’m suspecting that the Feds have determined that not enough baggage has gone missing in recent times and they have a clever fix in mind. (see: TSA Tells Richmond Airport to Give Convict Full Airport Access)
Before you call me an my idiotic ramblings ridiculous, let’s do something different. Sure, the media is picking up the TSA story and clucking their tongues over it with the fervor of jolly religious dingbats convinced of their own moral superiority while running off with a random selection of foreign children. But, I’m always trying to think along the lines of my anthropology mentor Marvin Harris. Marv wrote a bunch of books analyzing apparent cultural oddities. He could explain, for example why Indians don’t eat cows and why it was good for Indian society as a whole that they didn’t—even when protein was scarce (Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches; you should read it). Let’s put on our Marvin Harris Thinking Caps ($29.95 at geeks-r-us).
The economy is in a slump. New products aren’t moving. American jails are bulging at the seams, threatening to explode. The unemployment rate is high.
So, it is entirely logical and good that we hire convicts, especially if we can get them at bargain-basement salaries. It relieves the pressure on the US crack prison system (few countries can come even remotely close to the participation level of US prisons) and employs the unemployable.
Now, if you can travel today, especially to a foreign country like Italy, you are, by definition, flush with cash—mainly because so few people outside of Goldman Sachs execs have any. What if we hired convicts, pay them little, but allow them authorized access to all the cool stuff we’re smuggling into the country from Europe, like our Salame Toscana?
So, despite the fact that the pay is so low that the newly hired folks can’t afford food, we can rely on the fact that the resourcefull among them can get boundless energy from the prime preserved pork that nobody could reasonably expect to get into the country anyway.
As we know and many have experienced, every once in a while a whole bag is stolen for its cash value. You can’t get around that.
But that’s good for the economy, too. You lose your bags. You need new luggage. You buy it. The economy jerks spasmodically into action. People in China start stitching for a nickel an hour, making $400 bags by the boatload. Travelers buy bags they lack. Corporate baggage barons buy yachts. Middlemen head back to their “offices” and start stuffing countless dollars into pole dancers’ bras again! Money flows, especially to crack pushers. Good times are here la-di-da!
So, to summarize: low TSA pay to convicts with cost-free benefits is a cheap way to move the bowels of a stuttering economy while at the same time giving travelers the warm and cozy feeling of increased security. Relieving the economy of excess baggage creates demand for same and renewed economic strength.
You’ll think my analysis is pretty amazing when the good times start rolling. Soon.