(erielack) 1962 Eastern Airlines Subsidy Request

[Blue Moon Network Administrator <root_@_net.bluemoon.net>]

What's this have to do with the EL? It's in the E-L Aug/Sep 1962 company
magazine!

Came across this while doing the issue with the guy who looks like Smiley,
it's the lead item in the "T E-L L-A-GRAM" section on page 4:



A SUBSIDY OF $23,869,051 has been requested by Eastern Air Lines from the
Federal government to cover "indicated needs for the balance of the fiscal
year." Eastern said its calculations showed that amount would be needed to
produce "the 9 per cent return allowed by the Civil Aeronautics Board in other
subsidy cases." (Erie-Lackawanna needed $26,488,759 just to break even last
year but did not ask the taxpayers for a subsidy to make up its losses.
Reason: no such subsidy provisions are made for railroads.) 



The more I find out about the governments' subsidizing of the railroads'
competitors with railroad tax dollars while regulating the railroads to
death, the more disgusted I become.

Has anyone ever sued the federal government on behalf of railroad
stockholders?

If you look at what the feds did to the railroads from 1900 to 1983 it looks
like a fairly (unfairly!) clear-cut case of confiscation of wealth. It
obviously cast aside the "Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness" which was
guaranteed by our forefathers when applied to railroad stockholders.

Reading the company mags for the last 8 years of its life can be depressing
when you see how unbelievably oppressive our goverments (Federal, State and
Municipal) were to the railroads. Until a year or so ago I hadn't thought of
pre-1970 government as being so much the bleeding heart liberal sort, but
studying railroad regulation and taxation since then has really opened my
eyes. I used to think of myself as far too biased to be objective in the
railroads vs. government debate, but I realize now that what the government
did to the railroads was far worse than I had ever imagined.

The criminal inequities perpetrated upon the railroads by the goverment is
just mind-boggling. We are left with but a shadow of that which we love
because our "protectors" destroyed it with malice aforethought. We are a
country of fools and deserve the cesspool in which we live today, for we
built it ourselves.

"I love my country, I'm terrified of my government."

We'd have a high speed, double tracked EL from Hoboken to Chicago today if it
weren't for them.

Our goverments have harmed our country far worse than any terrorists ever
could.

Sorry for the rant, 

Henry

J. Henry Priebe Jr.       Blue Moon President & Network Administrator
root_@_bluemoon.net         www.bluemoon.net - Blue Moon Internet Corp
V.90, X2 & K56flex        www.railfan.net  - The Railfan Network

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