Home > Messages from the Ether > A seat in hell

Humorous I agree. But it got me to thinking. Are we Westerners being a little bit spoiled to complain about "cramped quarters" that would inevitably lead to the all too constant barrage of personal space (which I remember from JROTC in high school to officially be 18 inches). I would have to imagine that this note being passed around derives its life in the internet/email space from those that have felt similarly imposed upon and who also found its cynicism to be worthwhile too.

Here's an image to consider as we iterate through lists of complaints and hassles in our daily lives.

All aboard?

OR

Freedom Train?

Now I don't mean to invoke the old adage "The children in Africa are starving so eat your food" (perhaps this is why we have an obesity problem) but I think sometimes perspective is good when deciding to give something a little serious thought or chuckling and moving on to the next trivial pursuit.

How much did those rail passengers pay for their tickets?

I've no clue.

Are you suggesting the more you pay, the more you are entitled to personal space? If so, do you have a scale that would detail a personal space to pay ratio? I'd like to see that. Make sure you add to that proportional income.

If personal space is valuable to the consumer, then companies will include that and raise prices accordingly. As for a "scale": I don't think anything in a market economy comes down to a fixed scale. What do you mean by "proportional income," and what would that have to do with this issue?

The passenger says he "paid over $400" for his seat on the flight. Those people on the train more than likely did not pay anything near that. They could, I suspect, have paid somewhat more than their train ticket and gotten a private taxi. Similarly, the airline passenger could have either (1) bought a first-class ticket, or (2) taken a Greyhound instead. Each comes with a different expectation of comfort level--and their pricess vary accordingly

"proportional income" - as a means to compare economic choices between the passenger who wrote the complaint and the folks pictured riding on the train. (i.e. what does dollar in the Far East get compared to what a dollar in the U.S. gets?)

I was describing, ad-hoc, severe economic disparities that came to my mind as I came across your blog entry. Does that mean this person shouldn't complain? No...complain away...entertain us. But I'm not a fool to believe that the the choices in the U.S. economy can find some sort of similar parallell with economies in the Far East, Africa, Latin America, etc.

Furthermore this letter demanded more luxury for the cost incurred. There are consequences to forcing standards of luxury ever higher. Many books, studies and articles have been written about it so I shant repeat their postulates here. If you are truly interested, I can suggest some offline.

I guess if you're labeling the desire not to pay $400 to smell human waste for a few hours to be a rampant demand for luxury, then yes, I'd like to see these magical books on economics. And considering that the norm is to *not* smell human waste, I'd love to see their photographs of men riding donkeys up the Himalayas or perhaps even Humphry Bogart dragging the African Queen down a mosquito-infested river as examples of the best we could hope for for our $400.

Yes, and the next time a restaurant serves me bad food, no matter how off the norm it is, I'll choke it down rather than succumb to a fussy, over-indulgent desire to get what I paid for. Dirty, spoiled American that I am.