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Airline Suite
It’s not enough that the GOP Counterrevolution’s tax cuts for the wealthy have resulted in the largest gap between rich and poor since the early 1900s, but it’s how they’ve been spending those tax cuts.
A front page story in November 25 Travel section of the Sunday New York Times dares utter the forbidden words in its title, “Class Conflict.” Dominated by a massive cartoon showing rows and rows of casually-dressed, glassy-eyed cattle chewing on slivers of grass while flight attendants ask, “Do you want hay or straw,” the article details how air travel is rapidly becoming a symbol for the decline of American democracy.
Like sports stadiums with their luxury boxes, the special tables at certain restaurants, and those stores that only admit shoppers of a certain income level, airlines are increasingly catering to their richer passengers. While the rest of us have to suffer with reduced legroom, disappearing food, nonexistent pillows and blankets and restrooms that don’t work, the rich who ride first class find themselves being treated to fancy meals, increased seat space, all the pillows and blankets they want, and their own private restrooms. An ad for one airline in another section of the paper shows a luxury suite resembling one of those fancy railroad car compartments on the Orient Express.
The article tells us the airlines’ ingenuously plead they need these flying cattle cars because rich (they use the word “business”) passengers account for up to 30% of the revenue on certain flights, triggering frenzied competition among air carriers near bankruptcy by the deregulation they demanded. What the article does not tell us is that if you add perks for first class passengers you have to take them away from the rest of us. Think about those Orient Express-style sleeping compartments or another airline’s touting of its 180 degree seats. Where does the space for them come from? From you and me, of course.
Airplanes are not the only place the rich are spending their tax cut dollars on expensive suites. There are now over 8,000 luxury suites in professional sports, with some such as those rented by the Dallas Cowboys going for a million dollars. The Detroit Pistons basketball team web site describes its individually-designed luxury suites which rent from $350-450,000 per year:
Each 400-500 square foot suite, which holds 22 people, has high-end amenities including a 45-inch LCD television, espresso and cappuccino machine, wine chiller, ice-maker, mini-kitchenettes, and powder room. Each suite is assigned a suite captain whose sole purpose is to cater to every need of the suite holder.
A study by Heather Lawrence detailed just which corporations were the major renters of luxury suites. Number three was “radio, newspaper and television,” which I had always thought could get their own tickets. Number two was lawyers, who probably have figured out a way to get a tax write-off for those wine chillers, ice-makers, and mini-kitchenettes and charge $200 an hour for watching the game. Now what business possibly could beat out lawyers for number one? None other than some of the major political donors of our times: banks and holding companies. This gives new meaning to the term “bankers’ hours.” So while you worry about the balloon payment on your mortgage, the folks who hold your mortgage are watching basketball players toss up balloons.
Luxury suites have now become a requirement for college football stadiums so the same rich boosters whose under-the-table payments have a nasty habit of landing their teams on the NCAA Most Wanted list can watch the game without having to rub shoulders with us ordinary citizens or any of those unruly students. The Ohio State University (I always have liked the pretentious “the”) advertises suites at its Jerome Schottenstein Center, the home of the university’s basketball and hockey teams, as renting for $45-65,000. Amenities include:
- Color television
- Wet bar, refrigerator, and ice maker
- Closet and storage space
- Private telephone service
- Reserved parking in the private suite holder parking lot
In addition, each suite is served by a dedicated server who can attend to your every need – from food and beverage orders to assistance with the purchase of gifts from “The Official Team Shop”, to preparing your suite for a special celebration.
Not exactly the way college sports used to be when the high rollers just got seats on the 50 yard line or back of the team bench. But up there in their own little worlds they don’t have to listen to the students gripe about the latest tuition increase or their dorm rooms.
If you really want to see how this suite business (pun intended) is impacting America, then check out the burgeoning business in luxury hospital rooms. Forbes has even gone so far as to rank the top ten luxury hospitals in America. Here is what they offer:
Our survey found broad similarities in luxury units, right down to the mahogany furniture featured virtually across the board. Expect larger rooms with nicer furnishings, including convertible couches for family sleepovers; expansive marble-and-tile bathrooms; stocked refrigerators (though, sadly, no mini-bars); VCRs and satellite TV with everything but the Spice Channel; a dedicated gourmet chef (alas, wine lists are rare); elegant table service; and click-heeled concierge.
I’ll bet they don’t have a “click-heeled concierge” or “dedicated gourmet chef” in the ER. And what happens when the luxury suite patient with the “expansive marble-and-tile bathroom” needs a bedpan? Is that marble also? Did the hospital do a double blind study of the impact “mahogany furniture” versus a placebo on its impact on their patients’ recovery? Do the people who merit these accommodations get kicked out of them as fast as possible like the rest of us or can they stay as long as they want? What happens when two tycoons both need open heart surgery and the suites are booked up? Or do companies rent these suites by the year for their top executives the way they rent suites at Ohio State?
As if it weren’t enough for the rich to have such luxurious accommodations for themselves when they are sick, there are also animal hospitals that provide luxury care for their pets! The VCA Desert Animal Hospital in Palm Springs, California touts its pet luxury suites:
Our private, themed, room-like luxury suites include cable TV, especially cozy bedding, access to our outdoor, grassy, misted exercise area three times a day, a “turn down” service in the evening with a special treat provided by Bones and Scones of Palm Springs.
Maybe the next time I’m sick I should go there. Looks better than the last hospital room I had and no one gave me any scones and the only “turn down” service I got I’d rather not go through again.
The physical separation of the rich from the rest of us has become a visible symbol of the sickness of our democracy and the perverted tastes of those who would rule it on the basis of their income. The rich have always sought to separate themselves from the rest of us, but this proliferation of suites serves as a symbolic reminder of the increasing gap between the very rich and the rest of us that characterizes our country these days.
Back in the nineteenth century they built monstrous, castle-like stone mansions and then just for the heck of it built more in scenic locations for their summer (or winter) vacations. Andrew Carnegie even bought himself a castle in Europe, a fad that was quite popular at a time European aristocrats with little head for business suddenly found they needed cold cash.
Yet cartoonists and writers of the time had a field day poking fun at the audacious and expensive tastes of the rich. As much as anything they helped to provoke public outrage against the excesses of the Gilded Age. Historian Vernon Louis Parrington would later describe the period the “great barbecue:”
A huge barbecue was spread to which all presumably were invited. Not quite all, to be sure; inconspicuous persons, those who were at home on the farm or at work in the mills and offices, were overlooked; a good many indeed out of the total number of the American people. But all the important persons, leading bankers and promoters and business men, received invitations. There wasn’t room for everybody and these were presumed to represent the whole. It was a splendid feast.
Today they are feasting again and the feasting is on us.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
