75,000 people going out of jobs is a very high figure and this is what airline companies are threatening to do if they do not get a bail out the second time. Interesting enough, the airline industry has been an industry of concern with the pandemic and the lockdown.
Billionaire Warren Buffett sold all his airline shares as well as he sold all the airline shares Berkshire Hathaway owned and he further commented that it was a mistake to buy airline shares during this period as airline companies will be running at a loss for about a year or more, if you would remember, the President of the United State, Donald Trump said he made a very big mistake and in a few days the government rolled out bailouts of $25 Billion to airline companies so as not to lay off workers until September 30 but as we know, September 30th is around the corner and airline companies aren’t making profit yet and now they are demanding for another bailout else they will lay off workers in October. This would not have been a big concern for the government but there is a problem as the presidential election of the United States is in November. What would happen to Donald Trump’s vote if 75,000 people who are connected to at least 5 other people lose their jobs a month to the election?
Is this a threat, or are the airline companies holding their workers hostage to cough out money from the government? Let’s not forget that 75,000 workers is a large portion of the total 620,000 full time Americans not including casual workers that the airline industry employ. Are we saying that airline companies did not have any money saved up in the past? Prior to this pandemic, the airline industry made a lot of profit but instead of having a little savings in cases of rainy days like the Covid-19 pandemic, the airline companies as well as a lot of other companies used the money for stock buyback and this made their owners richer as the value of their stocks determined the net worth of their shareholders and owners but when the pandemic came, it brought down the entire market and airline stocks suffered as well.
I will like to be a little skeptical here, do you think Donald will ask the congressmen to sign this stimulus check as the election is getting close or will he just let the strong companies survive while the weak ones die?