RE: Patt Morrison for Wednesday, May 9, 2012

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

1-3 p.m.

 

CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG

 

 

1:06 – 1:30 OPEN

 

1:30 – 2:00

Is your carry-on worth $100 each way? Spirit Airlines says yes. 

The good news is you get a cheap, no frills flight on Spirit Airlines. The bad news is you might have to pay some extra fees you weren’t counting on when you arrive at the gate. And those fees can be pretty steep. Spirit Airline announced last week that it will charge customers as much as $100 each way for some carry-on bags.  The company says the a la carte pricing is the only way it can offer low rates, but some consumer groups insist that those fees should be transparent so flyers can compare apples-to-apples when shopping around based solely on price. Others make the point that it can be virtually impossible to get the low-cost fare advertised on Spirit--flyers would have to travel with no baggage, take a seat chosen by the airline and forgo meals and/or snacks.  Yet when all is said and done, the pricing model works.  Spirit Airlines made $23 million last quarter as compared to Southwest “bags fly free” Airline, which ended the quarter in the red.  Would you rather pay a higher ticket price and have all the fees included or buy the cheapest fare possible and add fees as you go?  How much is too much for a carry-on bag? 

 

Guest:
Kate Hanni, executive director, Flyersrights.org, the largest non-profit consumer group for airline passengers in the world
Ray Neidl, an airline industry analyst with Maxim Group, a boutique investment banking, securities and investment management firm

2:06 – 2:30

Burbank’s National Teacher of the Year says education requires ‘all hands on deck’

Rebecca Mieliwocki had no interest in becoming a teacher after she graduated from California Polytechnic State University, but little did she know that 20 years later she would be honored at the White House by the President of the United States as the 2012 National Teacher of the Year. Mieliwocki, 43, teaches seventh grade English at Luther Burbank Middle School, a racially and economically diverse middle school outside Los Angeles. Mieliwocki has said that social and economic pressures have made her job increasingly more challenging since she began teaching in public schools 14 years ago. After completing the current school year, Mielwocki will take a one-year sabbatical to work as a spokeswoman for the Council of Chief State School Officers. What questions do you want to ask the 2012 National Teacher of the Year?

 

Guest:

Rebecca Mieliwocki, California Teacher of the Year for 2012 and National Teacher of the Year for 2012 and 2013; she’s a seventh-grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank

 

2:30 – 3:00

In our market-driven society, is there anything that money can’t buy?

Should society allow companies to pay for the right to pollute the environment? Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? These are just a few of the ethical questions Michael Sandel attempts to answer in his new book What Money Can’t Buy The Moral Limits of Markets. In a market-driven age, the Harvard University professor warns that imposing marketplace values on non-market components of society is damaging to democracy and can corrupt healthy social values. Sandel also thinks there is not enough debate in public about “marketization” in terms of where it serves the public and where it is damaging. What elements of government and society, if any, should be considered off limits to markets?

 

Guest:

Michael J. Sandel, professor of Government at Harvard University and author of What Money Can’t Buy:The Moral Limits of Markets

IN STUDIO