Has there ever been a bigger boondoggle than the current government ownership of the air? Why in heaven’s name should the FAA (Fraudulent Air Authority) have sole proprietorship of all the breathables? The inefficiency and waste created by government is nowhere more apparent than right over our heads.
Airlines pay overflight fees to foreign governments to use airspace. However, under current law, a landowner owns as much of the air above the surface of his property as he can reasonably use. Here we see the inherent contradiction that results in usurpation of the individual’s property. For how can the landowner use his air if the government is using it?
The air’s rightful owners should do with it as they see fit. The U.S. government blows millions in taxpayer money, donating it to the NFL so the Air Force can send angels of blue over its stadiums. The NFL, in turn, supplies the U.S. government with a spectacle for the masses, which keeps them from tuning in to PBS and becoming informed about what their government is doing. Isn’t it time the little guy was allowed to get in on this?
Consider the farmer. This poor plowman has nothing to his name but an increasingly valueless thousand acres of subsidized soil, irretrievably contaminated by pesticides, from which he can barely pry a potato, let alone a living. Salt of the earth, this fellow. With salt-and-pepper hair. Let’s call him Bud. Everyone else does.
Let’s say Bud is even more entrepreneurial than the average clodhopper. He recognizes that he has a valuable commodity – the thousands of cubic acres of air that extend upward from his kingdom of dirt. Why can’t he join the NFL?
For one thing, Bud is about a hundred pounds overweight and hasn’t played football since high school thirty years ago. However, he can metaphorically join the NFL by following in the footsteps of large corporations, which (for purely communistic reasons) private citizens have been barred from doing: charging to use his airspace.
It is common knowledge that competition in the marketplace is the driver of efficient capitalism. Enron is just one example of this. Why should competition be restricted to brain-damaged beefies fighting over a pigskin? Every landowner should be able to charge for his airspace.
Of course, it would create too much confusion for airlines and private plane operators to pay thousands of individuals. Instead, groups of landowners could form corporate entities to sell their airspace in aggregate. These corporations could please their shareholders by charging airlines and hang gliders alike, on a sliding or floating scale.
But the monetizing opportunities do not end there. Our enterprising friend Bud could begin again a practice of his forbears – canning. Bud’s job would be much easier than handling messy vegetables, though; he could simply can his own air, design a froufrou label, perhaps one with flowers and bumblebees, and ship it to big-city boutiques. He could call it “Bud’s Unbelievably Breathable Oklahoma Air.”
Now that all terrestrial concerns have been privatized, with fantastic results for all, it is time we take a moment to adjust our focus. While things are looking up, it is time that we look up.
Is the sky falling? No, it’s snowing money.
