Business Travel

By Kevin Drum

(Political Animal)  BUSINESS TRAVEL....In recent decades, the cost of air travel has decreased and so has the service. MattY sees dark forces at work:

But what's missing from this analysis is the executive suite. This is where folks have been able to give their employees a de facto pay cut in terms of subjecting them to cheaper, lower-quality air travel and plow the profits thereby gained into corporate jets and first class tickets. A sweet deal for them, indeed. In other words, business travelers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your missed connections!

I'm totally on board with populist CEO bashing, but I'm pretty sure this isn't right. Compared to, say, 30 years ago, travel is indeed a lot cheaper, but the result isn't increased corporate profits, it's more business travel: the white collar wage slaves of 2008 suffer through way more business trips than their fathers did in 1978. That's a bummer, but it's a slightly different bummer than Matt suggests.

NOTE: No, I don't have any figures to back this up. Life's too short. But if anyone wants to point toward some, comments are open.