Well, this year’s Congressional machinations over the Wright Amendment are over and the outcome is about as satisfying as one of those hard-fought football games that used to end in a tie before the era of overtime. Rather than simply repeal the damn thing, Congress decided in a transportation bill to lift only the Wright Amendment restrictions on Southwest Airlines flights out of Dallas’ Love Field to Missouri. Thus, north Texans will now be able to fly direct from Love Field to St. Louis and Kansas City.
This Ft. Worth Star Telegram article notes an expert’s estimate that the result of the modification of the Wright Amendment will be that American Airlines — which controls most of the D/FW Airport — will lose up to $115 million in revenue because of new competition, Southwest Airlines will pick up about $80 million and consumers — often overlooked in the debate over the Wright Amendment — will save about 25 percent on fares. So, not a bad result overall, particularly given that an outright repeal of the Wright Amendment is not politically feasible, at least as of yet.

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General Motors’ seemingly intractable descent into chapter 11 has been a common subject here, so I took notice of this Sean Gregory/Time magazine article that explores the following question: why are the U.S. manufacturing plants of foreign automakers thriving while GM is shuttering nine of its plants?:

According to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), the number of manufacturing jobs created by foreign-based automakers in the U.S. has risen 72% since 1993, to about 60,000. (The Big Three currently account for around 240,000 manufacturing jobs in the U.S., down from 340,000 in 1993.) The Asian companies have grown the fastest. Toyota, which plans to overtake GM soon as the world’s largest automaker, has 11 U.S. plants and expects to open a truck factory in San Antonio, Texas, in 2006. European brands, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, are also growing. CAR estimates that foreign automakers operating in the U.S. add 1.8 million jobs to the American economy, including white-collar, dealership and supplier positions–from partsmakers to the bartenders at post-whistle watering holes.

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