> >> This EU I'm beginning to think is the devil himself. First it wants to >> meddle in the affairs of the United States (e.g. the UAL/USAir merger) now >> it wants to regulate foreign airline fares. > <snip> > > I think both UAL and USAir fly to a number of EU destinations. The U.S.A. > has made very loud complaints about subsidies to EU Airlines and plane > makers on occasion. There's a lot of talk about consolidation of the industry in Europe. I think when this starts to happen, the FTC should return the favour with all mergers regarding carriers who fly to the U.S. (i.e., all the carriers). We'll see whether the EU bureaucrats really think the jobs of Sabena employees in Belgium are worth more than US Airways employees in Pittsburgh. >> Pardon me if I offend anybody but what the hell were the European > countries >> that make up the EU thinking of when they decided to basically merge all > of >> their counties into one? >> > Some of the thinking was similar to that which occurred between 1774 and > 1787 among thirteen of the entities now part of the United States of > America. A cynic might suggest the main difference is that the Americans tried to annihilate each other after forming a country, whereas the Europeans got that out of the way first. Seriously, though, there are obviously abundant differences between the two scenarios, not least of which is that the U.S. was founded to escape crippling bureaucracy, where as the EU seems dedicated to spreading Richelieuism as wide and deep as possible. Evan McElravy emcelr@po-box.mcgill.ca http://users.penn.com/~cpa1/