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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 2, 2009

 

Overhauling
Financial Regs

By year-end or so, Congress will give the nod to a major rewriting of the nation's financial regulatory system. This week’s Kiplinger Letter explores whether the package will do more harm than good and what lawmakers are likely to include.

 

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: The Economy, Business Costs, Taxes, Supreme Court, Energy, Workplace Regulations, Climate Change, Health Care Legislation and Foreign Policy

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

-- fender

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U.S. air traffic will slow markedly in coming years as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) struggles to replace retiring controllers. About 45% of the country's 14,575 air traffic controllers—some 1000 controllers a year—will head for the exit by 2011. And a new work contract is likely to make matters worse.

The FAA unilaterally imposed its last contract offer on controllers months after negotiations between the union and the agency broke down. Congress gave the FAA the authority to do so following a controller strike in 1981. The new five-year contract, which cuts salary supplements to senior controllers, will encourage many veteran employees to retire as soon as they become eligible. That's age 50 for a controller with 20 years of service—or at any age with 25 years of service. Controllers must retire from the demanding jobs at age 56.

Already, there aren't enough trainees in the pipeline to keep up with retirements. Lengthy training and tough job requirements make experienced controllers hard to replace. And the lower wage scales specified under the new contract for freshly hired controllers—up to 30% less than under the expired contract—won't make recruiting any easier.

Kevin Mitchell, president of the Business Travel Coalition, which represents mostly large companies, says the FAA, and government as a whole, has known since the late 1990s that "a day of reckoning was coming" because of the aging controller workforce. "Will it cause delays? Sure," Mitchell says of the retirements. "Over the past couple of summers, there already have been issues with staffing levels and concerns about overworked controllers." According to a study funded by the controllers' union, provisions of the new contract will end up increasing the average travel delay by 13%.

The FAA says it must cut costs to modernize the air traffic system and to keep up with ever-growing plane traffic. Moreover, according to the FAA, the agency's income, based partly on ticket taxes, has fallen in tandem with airlines' revenues in recent years. So, officials claim, the agency can't afford the old pay scales. The new contract alone will save nearly $2 billion over five years.

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